Why is Conservatism failing?

[Bogie]

Because conservatives tend to turn a LOT of folks off...
 
For instance, I don't care what someone does about birth control, I don't care what they do in the privacy of their own bedroom as long as it doesn't hurt children or animals, I'm not for the death penalty (but I am for Really Really Hellish Desert Prisons), I'm not concerned about the damage to the desert habitat, I think they should legalize any recreational substance anyone wants, as long as they do no harm to other people (in which case there's that desert thing...), etc., etc... I think that some social financial programs do have a place, but I think those places oughta get looked at occasionally, and if the pantry's full of junk food and there's a big screen, bye-bye check... Do it twice, well, there's a chance to get real friendly with Mr. Gila Monster, who is real pissed about that habitat thing...
 
Pretty much the ONLY thing holding me toward the "conservative" side is gun control.
 
I don't want to go to a gun show, and have some genius telling me at the door that the only way I can be "saved" (using several syllables to do so...) is via his own particular brand of twaddle, and no other. I shoot snakes - I don't dance around with 'em.
 
There are LOTS of right-leaning folks... Problem is, we lean to far, and we get completely disgusted.
 
If the Republicans up and said "Hey, we're gonna leave this abortion thing alone - people can work it out in their own consciences" and "who you wanna have for a life partner is between you and them, not you and the state," they'd likely gain a good 20-25% right there. And the anti-abortion activists, etc., would go vote for someone with the same chances as Ron Paul, who would have about the same numbers.
 

[thebaldguy]

Thanks for the intelligent observation Fistful.

The term "Conservative" used to mean conserving government. It has been twisted over the years to mean someone in the Moral Majority or religious right, someone who wants more laws made controlling our behavior, choices, and freedoms. I once heard a self proclaimed "Conservative" state we have too many freedoms in the US. He didn't know how wrong he was.

People are looking to the government for help instead of helping themselves. I work in the financial industry, and I have many co-workers who are spending themselves into debt and not taking advantage of the company's 401k plan. When I asked them about how they are saving for retirement, they respond with something along the lines of "The government can't let us all starve". These are the same people who want the government to help people keep their homes from forclosure that they couldn't afford in the first place.

This is exactly why convervatism is failing; because people are getting used to the idea that government can solve all problems, and will always be there to take care of us.

Like Homer Simpson once said, "Can't someone else do it?"

[Gewehr98]

Exactly.  My definition of Conservative coincides with the Reagan era, with a push for less government, not more.  Dunno where the authoritarian description clamoring for bigger government materialized from.  Maybe it germinated with the quaint "NeoCon" description?

[Bogie]

Took 'em a few years to get it together, but the folks who jumped ship during Carter probably figured they'd start pushing their stuff...
 
Okay... Musta offended -someone- just got an "unavailable" call playing some sort of disco... Twice.
 

 

[charby]

My thinking has gone from Reagan conservative, to a Goldwater conservative to a libertarian. I'm a registered Republican, only because it allows me to vote in caucus and be part of a central committee to get planks added for the party's platform.

I agree in almost everything Bogie wrote, except there has to be rattlesnakes included with gila monsters as prison pets.

[Paddy]

Ronald Reagan was an excellent example of Conservative values, was he not? 

No. Not horrible like Bush or McCain, but he was no Paine.

Interesting you would say that.  Thos Paine was an advocate of free public education and a guaranteed minimum wage among other socially progressive ideas.

[Bogie]

Well, education generally PAYS off as time goes by... As long as it is real and useful education, and not four years spent studying politically correct crap.
 

[MechAg94]

I tend to agree with you in part Bogie.  I do think the Repubs get way too bogged down in their social agenda and fail to sell any sort of good economic and regulatory agenda.  There are lots of those people out there who agree with you on that I think. I think the failure to sell their ideas really hurt them.  Newt was the last one who did a good job with that.  No one else stepped up.

[Perd Hapley]

The term "Conservative" used to mean conserving government.  It has been twisted over the years to mean someone in the Moral Majority or religious right.

No, not really.  The term "conservative" has a much broader meaning today than just the Religious Right.  Think of all the figures that most people think of as conservatives, and you'll find plenty of them that don't fit the Religious Right template.  Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Bush I and II, the late Buckley, a whole host of columnists and pundits.  And Reagan was no altar boy.  Look at the vitriol that Goldwater had for the Religious Right, and he's still held up as a model by secular and religious conservatives.

If you don't think religious conservatives are interested in small government, then you don't understand them at all.  An interest in "social issues" doesn't stop a person from being very interested in gun rights, or low taxes, or any of the other planks in the conservative platform.  Many of them are.  Just as Libertarians have differences of opinion on abortion or gun laws, conservatives can have differences of opinion on issues, and still have most of the platform in common. 

Has the Republican Party been influenced by conservative religious groups?  Definitely.  But I suspect those religious groups have come around to small-government conservatism, to the same degree they've influenced the secular conservatives. 

someone who wants more laws made controlling our behavior, choices, and freedoms.

That's what laws do. 

[Paddy]

Sorry, fistful, but religion has no business in political activism.

[Archie]

Conservatism works very well for those willing to get off their duff and do something.

As mentioned, most people want their back scratched in some fashion without any cost to them.  One of the hidden costs of 'fewer laws and regulations' is the need for serious moral fiber.  John Adams said,

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

and

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

The problem is, as a nation we have confused liberty with license.

[LAK]

Simple; because the communist coup d'etat in this country was never suppressed. Individuals with communist, socialist views and links should have been prohibited from holding any government position, at any level, and in any industry regulated by government, and the similarly aligned parties banned like the nazi party is banned in europe - for the same reasons.

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[MechAg94]

Sorry, fistful, but religion has no business in political activism.

These days, if you go that route, then the same goes for atheistic views, agnostic views and any other anti-religious views. 

Sort of hard to separate all that out isn't it.  Might be better to just let other voters make their own choices as long as they are not trying to make you follow their religion. 

[Bruce H]

Seventy six years ago the seeds of today were sown. FDR was elected. He started the ball rolling. Lyndon Johnson expanded it greatly. Nixon was no help either. Reagan wasn't a true conservative. Goldwater was the last one close. The public had already had a taste of FDR's largeness and went for Johnson in droves. It will take a real nasty time in the USA to ever change it.

[MechAg94]

I thought Reagan got it in the main key areas at least in the first term.  I believe he was considered a more moderate or liberal governor.
Which piece of your definition of conservatism did he fall short? 

[Bruce H]

The government expanded under Reagan just like every president. He didn't cut back anything.

[Perd Hapley]

Sorry, fistful, but religion has no business in political activism.

Where did I say that religion has a place in political activism?  What would that even mean?  Or is that just your knee-jerk, meaningless response to anything I say about the RR? 

[LAK]

I think to be fair to Reagan he did try in the beginning. He withdrew the U.S. from UNESCO (although it should have been the UN). After he was shot, I think G H W Bush had more to do with WH direction; Reagan, already an older man, took a long time to, and perhaps never did really fully recover from, his injury.

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[gaston_45]

Ronald Reagan was an excellent example of Conservative values, was he not? 

You mean the Ronald Reagan that instituted gun control in California?

[Matthew Carberry]

To be fair, or at least contextual, Reagan, and the other mayors and governors of the time, was faced with the actual existence of several armed revolutionary organizations who were both promulgating and acting on the violent overthrow of the US system of government.

There were also a series of more anarchic riots that took the intervention of NG troops to put down.

20/20 hindsight reveals the perceived threat to be overblown, but objectively and limited to the knowledge those leaders had at the time it wasn't too out of bounds to consider the situation as almost requiring "martial law"-type restrictions.

He wasn't just throwing up gun restrictions in a vacuum.  You can disagree with the reasoning or the decision, but it is overly simplistic to simply state "Gov. Reagan was for gun control" with the implicit "to disarm the law-abiding" attached.

Context, as always, is key.

[The Annoyed Man]

I think Conservatism has failed because it has been abandoned.  There simply are no practitioners.  Instead the word has come to mean a sanctuary for a bunch of misfits and malcontents.  These people would not otherwise have a platform from which to express their abject disapproval of just about everything.  Their entire lives revolve around being against.  Very seldom do you hear them speak of anything in positive terms.  Everything is negative, apparently in reflection of who they are.  They come across as selfish and bitter.

These people gravitate toward the Republican party.  They spend so much time and energy being against, that they haven't developed a group vision of what they're for.  This is evidenced by their increasing disdain with their political candidates.  They seem to love Reagan, but like his VP, GHW Bush less.  They largely dislike GWB, yet voted him into office twice.  They really dislike McCain, but will vote for him only because they hate somebody else worse.   They are motivated only by the negative; whatever they dislike.

And the more they dislike it (IOW, the more different it is) the more contempt it deserves, expressed in the most demeaning and disparaging terms possible.  They even look around for people and situations that have absolutely no relevance to them or their lives in order to ridicule.  Maybe then think they build themselves up by tearing everything/everybody else down.  Who knows?

Their national leaders are Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage, Beck, and host of others who spit daily venom at whatever they determine is not 'conservative'.   This gives the whole group a cohesiveness and a sense of belonging they would not otherwise have.

How successful are this group's tactics?  It depends on what the definition of 'success' is.  Each day seems to bring something new for them to oppose, which seems to be their primary goal.  I don't know how the group derision helps the constituency, but it makes millions for the fomenters.  In the end, I think they're just a bunch of suckers who, for the time being, have found a home.

[MechAg94]

You need to go listen to some liberals for a little while.  There are plenty of people on both sides who are "against" stuff.  It isn't everyone and it isn't just "Conservatives."

I do agree that many of the original "conservative" principals of recent times have been left behind by the people in D.C.

[grampster]

I actually see more positiveness by those that are conservative.  They propose ideas and believe in freedom and the marketplace as well as individual responsibility and hard work.  That statement does not include John McCain, however.  The only true conservative leader with a menu of ideas is Newt Gingrich.

It's easy to be a bit cynical when the liberals only keep proposing the same old statist, big government, tax and spend garbage.  Progressives haven't had an actual progressive original idea that didn't try and stultify individual effort and many of the freedoms we enjoy through government control and redistribution of wealth.  They don't even have the courtesy to call themselves what they really are:Socialists at the best and Marxists at the worst.

[MechAg94]

Their national leaders are Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage, Beck, and host of others who spit daily venom at whatever they determine is not 'conservative'.   This gives the whole group a cohesiveness and a sense of belonging they would not otherwise have.

Interesting that Limbaugh is the only one of that group I listen to occasionally.  Medved you didn't list.  Medved is more thought than most, but he is not real critical.

You need to listen to Walton and Johnson in the morning at 950 AM in Houston.  Look up the web page. 

[The Annoyed Man]

Michael Medved is head and shoulders above Limbaugh, Hannity, et. al.  If you have never read any of his books, or listened to any of his recordings, especially on the history of our country and the legacy and stewardship thereof,  I strongly urge you to do so.   Medved understands democracy and the founding principles, whereas Limbaugh and Hannity are just self serving bigmouths.