What is Conservatism? What is a Conservative? Where does the GOP / Republican Party sit in this mess?

I can tell you what Conservatism is not. It is not a trait of the GOP or Republican Party, that’s for sure. Well, not now anyway.

When George W Bush was elected President in 2000, he was elected because the core members of the Republican Party thought he would be conservative fiscally and socially. They figured he would keep our country safe. Then 9/11 happened.

President Bush has demonstrated, and his party has followed him, what happens once someone has complete power. The Republicans had a majority in the House and in the Senate, along with the White House, giving them the ability to do what they needed to turn our country around after 8 years of Clinton being distracted by young girls in blue dresses and towel heads with Cuban cigars.

Actually, I think the Republicans came by their slide to the far Left of the political spectrum honestly - well, as honestly as a politician can be. What I think has happened over the past 10 years or so is that the Fringe Left Hollywierdoes ( like Susan Sarandon / Tim Robbins, Barbra Streisand / James Brolin, Steven Spielberg, Rosie O’Donnell ), the Far Left business tycoons ( like George Soros of MoveOn.org, Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance ), and the EnviroNuts ( Sierra Club, Green Peace, the Audubon Society ) started throwing money at the Democrats and they just could not resist the temptation of those campaign contributions. The mainstream Democrat party is now considerably further left of center than they ever were.

Being that the Republicans couldn’t stand to see those former conservative Democrats left without a party and without representation, the Republicans also moved their philosophy to the left, abandoning those that made up the core of the party - the Conservatives.

The Conservatives, the core constituency of the GOP, are those folks that believe in the very basic tenets of a small government that only steps in for banking and transportation infrastructures, and national defense. They believe the taxpayer’s money that they are entrusted with, is to be used sparingly, and for good purpose, not to be pissed away on lobster web cams or funding local programs with federal dollars.

The Conservatives believe that a person needs to be responsible for themselves. They believe that once in a while, some kind of disaster happens, but they also believe the average person should be responsible enough to dig themselves out of the problem, or at least, sustain themselves until government help does arrive. What this means is if you lose your job, you go find a lower paying job to get you by until you can get another higher paying job. You don’t file for welfare and food stamps. You save your money for those things you want, like the new TV, or a new(er) car. You pay your bills on time, and you don’t max out your credit facilities.

Not only do the Conservatives believe in fiscal prudence, they also believe in being socially conservative. Social conservatives believe in keeping your own life under control. If you decide to imbibe once in while, it is done at home, and you don’t beat your wife while you are drinking responsibly. You are a good parent, you teach your kids to respect others as well as you and themselves. I differ a little from the true Conservatives on the subject of abortion, for the primary reason that the decision to abort a fetus is the woman’s, not the government’s. She is the one who will have to deal with the psychological issues of that abortion long after the physical pain has gone away. I agree that abortion should not be used as a method of birth control, but there are times where it is called for. And if people haven’t learned it already, it’s a whole lot harder to get a law rescinded than to get one passed. Now, with that said, I have to also say I do not agree with any of the late term / third trimester abortions, and certainly none of the partial-birth abortions are acceptable.

The Conservatives are also not afraid to embrace their religion and also have tolerance for those who believe differently than they do. Our great country was founded upon the basic concept of “freedom of and from religion”. When most of the original immigrants came to America, it was to escape religious persecution. They either didn’t want to believe in the nationalized religion, or they were not religious at all. When they came to America, a state-sponsored religion was not forced down their throat.

Conservatives believe that the law should tell you what you can’t do, not the other way around. The US Constitution guarantees us certain rights that were never intended to be taken away or modified by the legislative branch of the government. It seems that the true Conservatives believe those concepts should never be changed, while the liberals have no compunction about restricting those rights whenever they see fit, and for whoever donates the most to their campaign coffers.

A very good example of how the liberals believe the freedom of speech should be restricted is demonstrated in the concept of the ‘Fairness Doctrine‘. The basic idea of the Fairness Doctrine is sound in that it requires a radio or TV station to provide equal time to differing viewpoints on various topics. What the Fairness Doctrine has become is more of a way for the far left to force those radio and TV stations to provide air time for liberal viewpoints in markets where the liberal viewpoints are not wanted. If the station cannot break even on that air time given to the liberal point of view, then the fear is that the stations may take the conservative talk show hosts off the air altogether, and therefore, in effect, stifling freedom of speech that does not agree with those demanding the unpopular view; ie liberalism or socialism. In order to prove that the liberalism or socialistic point of view is not wanted, one only has to compare the financial records or the audience share of Air America and Rush Limbaugh.

In short, the true Conservatives believe in a smaller, more responsible government, while the Liberals believe, as President-elect Obama told Joe the Plumber, the liberals want to ’spread the wealth’, which is more akin to Robin (Robbing the ) Hood, or socialism (steal from the rich, give to the poor).

Gardie