Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
The main reason, which I feel is obvious, is that the Republican party has been co-opted by far right conservatives. So what is wrong with that, I here you ask? Well it's because time and again right wing conservatives have proven both incapable and incompetent at governing.
The last few years it has actually been quite funny listening to the talking right wing heads, on right wing media, trying to salvage the disaster that was conservative rule under the Bush administration and Republican lead congress during his administration, by blaming right wing politicians from not adhering to right wing convictions. You hear the libertarian wing of the conservative coalition piss and moan that under Republican control that government has not shrunk, as conservatives proscribe, but that it has grown. You hear conservatives bemoan that Republican outsiders, in DC, have become... well... insiders. You hear the ideologues complain about the Republican caring and feeding of the K Street Beast. Teabaggers complaining about increased government involvement in our lives and the Paleocons who blame the Neocons for the debacle that is Iraq.
My question for them is "What the hell did you expect?"
These complaints from the modern conservative movement are indicative of how truely desperate the conservative movement has become. That is, in order to save the movement a conservative President, whose administration was a failure, and the even more conservative Republican members of congress whom enabled him, must be repudiated by the right in order for "Genuine Conservatism" to survive. The point of these conservative talking heads is that the failures of Bush and his Republican congressional allies is that they borrowed the big government and foreign policy idealism from the left. That by the standards of the modern conservative movement the ideals of Woodrow Wilson and John Maynard Keynes have always been flawed and that George W. Bush and Tom DeLay only proved it once again (Irony intended). It is this irrational rational which also explains the rise of the Teabagger conservative movement and their darling Sarah Palin.
Conservatives now have done a pretty good job of bullshitting themselves as to the truth of these claims but a time comes when one has to come to the conclusion that if the political leaders of a political party consistently depart in disastrous ways with that party's underlying political ideology there comes a point where one must stop blaming the political leaders but must start questioning the political ideology. That time has certainly come with the modern conservative movement.
The modern conservative movement is first and foremost about shrinking the size and reach of the federal government. This mission, to be clear, is an ideological one. It does not emerge out of any attempt to resolve any real world problems, such as, managing deficits, defending our nation, finding revenue to pay for entitlement programs, repairing our crumbling infrastructure, providing adequate access to health care, etc,.
The problem with that ideology, that is, the flawed premise it is based upon, is that once in office, like all politicians, conservatives find themselves under constant pressure by constituents to use government to improve their lives. This puts modern conservatives into the awkward position of managing government agencies whose missions, indeed their very existence, they believe to be illegitimate. In other words, the modern conservative movement is a walking contradiction (if not a glaring hypocrisy). Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference, expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government.
The last few years it has actually been quite funny listening to the talking right wing heads, on right wing media, trying to salvage the disaster that was conservative rule under the Bush administration and Republican lead congress during his administration, by blaming right wing politicians from not adhering to right wing convictions. You hear the libertarian wing of the conservative coalition piss and moan that under Republican control that government has not shrunk, as conservatives proscribe, but that it has grown. You hear conservatives bemoan that Republican outsiders, in DC, have become... well... insiders. You hear the ideologues complain about the Republican caring and feeding of the K Street Beast. Teabaggers complaining about increased government involvement in our lives and the Paleocons who blame the Neocons for the debacle that is Iraq.
My question for them is "What the hell did you expect?"
These complaints from the modern conservative movement are indicative of how truely desperate the conservative movement has become. That is, in order to save the movement a conservative President, whose administration was a failure, and the even more conservative Republican members of congress whom enabled him, must be repudiated by the right in order for "Genuine Conservatism" to survive. The point of these conservative talking heads is that the failures of Bush and his Republican congressional allies is that they borrowed the big government and foreign policy idealism from the left. That by the standards of the modern conservative movement the ideals of Woodrow Wilson and John Maynard Keynes have always been flawed and that George W. Bush and Tom DeLay only proved it once again (Irony intended). It is this irrational rational which also explains the rise of the Teabagger conservative movement and their darling Sarah Palin.
Conservatives now have done a pretty good job of bullshitting themselves as to the truth of these claims but a time comes when one has to come to the conclusion that if the political leaders of a political party consistently depart in disastrous ways with that party's underlying political ideology there comes a point where one must stop blaming the political leaders but must start questioning the political ideology. That time has certainly come with the modern conservative movement.
The modern conservative movement is first and foremost about shrinking the size and reach of the federal government. This mission, to be clear, is an ideological one. It does not emerge out of any attempt to resolve any real world problems, such as, managing deficits, defending our nation, finding revenue to pay for entitlement programs, repairing our crumbling infrastructure, providing adequate access to health care, etc,.
The problem with that ideology, that is, the flawed premise it is based upon, is that once in office, like all politicians, conservatives find themselves under constant pressure by constituents to use government to improve their lives. This puts modern conservatives into the awkward position of managing government agencies whose missions, indeed their very existence, they believe to be illegitimate. In other words, the modern conservative movement is a walking contradiction (if not a glaring hypocrisy). Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference, expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government.
