The conservative movement is dying, if it isn\u2019t already dead.\u00a0 But neither \u201cthe left\u201d nor some rightist doctrine is the culprit.\u00a0 Rather, the movement is reaching the point of extinction because those of whom it is comprised, and its spokespersons particularly, have all but killed it.<\/p>\n
And they\u2019ve killed it by abandoning conservatism in favor of the ideology of their opponents. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The self-described conservative who listens routinely to talk radio and watches Fox News will no doubt have trouble making heads or tails of my diagnosis.\u00a0 Yet it is high time that he grasp that he has been had.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s \u201cconservative\u201d spokespersons are faux <\/em>conservatives.\u00a0 What amounts to the same thing, they are leftists <\/em>of varying degrees.<\/p>\n The political clashes that we witness today are actually internecine conflicts between leftist factions. In other words, the not so grand stage of Broadway on the Potomac serves as the venue in which leftist Democrats and leftist Republicans enact their co-authored script\u2014a script from which the bane-<\/em>stream media in both of its conventional leftist and faux conservative guises then faithfully reads.<\/p>\n As for those actors who dare to deviate from the Script, who dare to defy the role into which they\u2019ve been cast, the treatment they can expect is merciless. \u00a0One of two things is guaranteed to happen.\u00a0 Upon having the full power of the bane-stream media brought down upon their heads, they either will be forced to grovel for forgiveness, or else they will be banished from the theatre all together.\u00a0 Sometimes, in fact, both <\/em>fates await the person who dares to question the narrative.<\/p>\n Anyone in doubt about the existence of the Script need only consider the following facts.<\/p>\n The members of America\u2019s conservative party, the GOP, claim to oppose abortion.\u00a0 Yet while they talk the talk, when have they ever<\/em> walked the walk?\u00a0 Abortion remains as available today as it has ever been, and roughly the same number of people this year as every other year for the last several decades will avail themselves of it.\u00a0 Abortion became a constitutional right under a Republican president, Richard Nixon, and one of the conservative movement\u2019s gods, Ronald Reagan, legalized it in California while governor there.<\/p>\n It is even worse than this, though, for when election time comes around and angry members of the base of the conservative movement threaten to abstain from voting because of a candidate\u2019s checkered record on abortion, they are castigated by the movement\u2019s (self-appointed) spokespersons for being \u201cone issue\u201d voters.<\/p>\n \u201cAffirmative action\u201d is a race and gender-based policy of discrimination aimed at privileging non-whites and women over white men.\u00a0 Conservatives claim to oppose all discrimination, regardless of who it is directed against.\u00a0 However, as in the case of abortion, while they pay lip service to equality under the law, they have done nothing to fight for it on this front.<\/p>\n In fact, they don\u2019t even talk all that much about \u201caffirmative action\u201d anymore.\u00a0 If anything, faux conservatives have reinforced the politically correct Script by accusing their <\/em>opponents of the very same sins\u2014\u201cracism,\u201d \u201csexism,\u201d etc.\u2014of which they are routinely accused: Sarah Palin\u2019s and Michele Bachmann\u2019s critics, say, are \u201csexist,\u201d while Herman Cain\u2019s and Michael Steele\u2019s are \u201cracist.\u201d<\/p>\n Immigration is but another case in point.\u00a0 The overwhelming majority of contemporary immigrants are under-skilled Third World Hispanics who, as Jay Leno recently quipped, are nothing more or less than \u201cundocumented Democrats\u201d\u2014lovers of, not Big <\/em>Government, but Gargantuan <\/em>Government. \u00a0But rather than fight like hell to reverse course here, faux conservative Republicans urge for their \u201cpathway to citizenship\u201d\u2014translation: amnesty.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, there is always insistence that \u201cthe border be controlled first.\u201d\u00a0 But, mind you, this is coming from the very same faux conservatives who are otherwise constantly sounding the alarm against either the inability or the unwillingness of government to fulfill its constitutional duties.<\/p>\n There is no issue that puts the lie to the faux conservative\u2019s commitment to smaller government than that of foreign policy.\u00a0 There is no war that he isn\u2019t willing to wage in order to promote \u201chuman rights\u201d and \u201cDemocracy\u201d (traditionally, leftist buzzwords). Any proposed cut to defense spending, however infinitesimal, he treats as a move to \u201cdecimate\u201d our military.\u00a0 Anyone who proposes these cuts he regards as \u201cweak\u201d on national defense.\u00a0 But Big Military is <\/em>Big Government.\u00a0 You can\u2019t have one without the other.<\/p>\n The federal government has continued to grow, continued to divest itself of its federal character, regardless of whether the Democratic left or the Republican left has presided over it.\u00a0 To repeat, whether it is Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Barack Obama, \u201cliberal\u2019 and \u201cconservative\u201d presidents alike have relegated whatever was left of the Founders\u2019 America to the dustbin of history.\u00a0 From the perspective of, say, Thomas Jefferson, Reagan no less than Obama would appear as a partisan of the fundamental transformation<\/em> of the country. \u00a0<\/p>\n It is high time for the devotees of talk radio, Fox News, and other bane-stream media outlets of the faux conservative variety to realize that their movement, if it ever existed, was killed a long time ago by poseurs and opportunists who prefer the fame and the fortunes that \u201crespectability\u201d brings over an intellectual and moral tradition that the Script excludes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The conservative movement is dying, if it isn\u2019t already dead.\u00a0 But neither \u201cthe left\u201d nor some rightist doctrine is the culprit.\u00a0 Rather, the movement is reaching the point of extinction because those of whom it is comprised, and its spokespersons particularly, have all but killed it. And they\u2019ve killed it by abandoning conservatism in favor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n