Bullypulpit
Senior Member
I just finished reading an article in <a href=http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1599374,00.html>TIME</a> and have a few thoughts on the matter.
While Karen Tumulty's article points out the apparent confusion and soul-searching amongst conservatives, she misses the real reason for the disarray in the conservative movement. That being that the modern conservative movement has abandoned its core values...Small government...fiscal restraint...individual liberties. The only exception being an obsession with religious, as in Christian, values which borders on the pathological. And even then, that focus is on the retributive aspects rather than the redemptive aspects of Christianity. Today's conservative movement bears only a passing resemblance to that of Ronald Reagan, and none at all to the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley Jr., two of American conservatism's giants. Barry Goldwater would have been appalled at today's so-called conservatives, as much for their lack of vision as for their mean spiritedness, expressing a growing concern for the movement even when Reagan's star was in ascendance. Ad William F. Buckley Jr. declared that Bush is not a "true conservative".
If conservatives want to regain their intellectual and moral footing, they need to return to their core values, all of them. Smaller government, fiscal restraint, individual liberties, and religious values tempered with the understanding that America is a nation of more than one religion, and that all can lead us to the same goal.
While Karen Tumulty's article points out the apparent confusion and soul-searching amongst conservatives, she misses the real reason for the disarray in the conservative movement. That being that the modern conservative movement has abandoned its core values...Small government...fiscal restraint...individual liberties. The only exception being an obsession with religious, as in Christian, values which borders on the pathological. And even then, that focus is on the retributive aspects rather than the redemptive aspects of Christianity. Today's conservative movement bears only a passing resemblance to that of Ronald Reagan, and none at all to the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley Jr., two of American conservatism's giants. Barry Goldwater would have been appalled at today's so-called conservatives, as much for their lack of vision as for their mean spiritedness, expressing a growing concern for the movement even when Reagan's star was in ascendance. Ad William F. Buckley Jr. declared that Bush is not a "true conservative".
If conservatives want to regain their intellectual and moral footing, they need to return to their core values, all of them. Smaller government, fiscal restraint, individual liberties, and religious values tempered with the understanding that America is a nation of more than one religion, and that all can lead us to the same goal.
