What's Wrong With American Conservatism Today?

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 4:48 pm

David Brooks has an interesting opinion piece in today's NY Times.

The republican focus on jobs and the economy seems to be backfiring - exactly as Rick Santorum warned it would.

This paragraph is particularly interesting, IMV:

It’s not so much that today’s Republican politicians reject traditional, one-nation conservatism. They don’t even know it exists. There are few people on the conservative side who’d be willing to raise taxes on the affluent to fund mobility programs for the working class. There are very few willing to use government to actively intervene in chaotic neighborhoods, even when 40 percent of American kids are born out of wedlock. There are very few Republicans who protest against a House Republican budget proposal that cuts domestic discretionary spending to absurdly low levels.

Brooks appears to argue that the forsaking of social values by the republican party is not deliberate but rather that conservatism has lost its way. I disagree with Brooks there. I think republicans are coming to understand that their moral constructs which are based on the tenets of religious intolerance and racist nationalism are eroding to a significant enough degree that they can no longer sell their bigotry to anyone outside their base.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/opini ... .html?_r=0

Wandrin · Post by **Wandrin** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 5:41 pm

I agree with you that the focus of this election is on the economy while other aspects of the republican platform are downplayed. I think that the focus is based on the polls and what the experts tell them they need in order to win the election. I disagree that they are realizing how repugnant the racism and general intolerance is to the general population. I think that they are just waiting to gain political control before unleashing it all.

It is sad, in a way. I was chatting with a guy in Oregon a week or so ago, who was telling me about Obama the socialist who was destroying the country. In the course of the conversation I asked him what he would call someone who favored equality for everyone and a fiscally sound economic policy. He told me that he would call that person a #$#@#$%$#$% liberal. No matter how I asked the question, it was clear that the intolerance and rigid religious thinking was absolutely necessary for someone to be called a conservative.

I'm old enough to remember when it didn't have to be that way.

Scrat · Post by **Scrat** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:01 pm

All I know about these people is the message they send has nothing in common with my concerns even remotely. They don't have a solution to Americas problems, I believe most of them have a hand in those very problems.

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:05 pm

IMO, the repubs' claim to moral values, or any values at all, are as farcical as dems' claim to give a damn about the poor. They will say whatever it takes to get the votes, then do whatever it takes to keep getting the campaign contributions. Our government has been stolen from us, and the overwhelming majority of the citizens either buy into the rhetoric designed to breed distrust in one another, or are so busy trying to live life that they don't notice that their every liberty is being eroded away.

The USA is a gilded cage.

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:08 pm

Scrat;1405649 wrote: All I know about these people is the message they send has nothing in common with my concerns even remotely. They don't have a solution to Americas problems, I believe most of them have a hand in those very problems.

I agree.

Eris · Post by **Eris** » Wed Sep 26, 2012 5:18 am

Evangelical Christians and the Ayn Rand libertarians.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Wed Sep 26, 2012 12:57 pm

Most europeans would view the ayn rand institute as fascist in it's economics.