Classic Liberal Blog

With all the talk about Republicans taking a few seats back in Congress this fall, including a handful of Tea Party-backed candidates, it's all too easy to believe everything is OK. But the truth is that we've got a long road ahead.

Sorry, but the economy will continue to decline, and the government will continue to expand, no matter who gets elected this coming November. Face it, other than a handful of new candidates and Ron Paul, Republicans believe in Big Government just as much as Democrats do. Sure, you could argue a degree of difference, but Big Government is still Big Government, so what's the point?

My friend Irish Cicero (who sometimes thinks I'm crazy) wrote a terrific essay that got me thinking, so I'd like to add a little bit more. Please take the time to read it yourself here: What to Do?

Americans have indeed lost their character in many ways as Cicero details. I'd like to add that we changed our belief systems, because starting in the 1960's, even conservatives began to adopt the left's point of view.

For the first 125 years or so of our republic, it didn't matter much who the president was. Why? He didn't have the power or authority to do much. Presidential candidates didn't have agendas. Andrew Jackson campaigning to shut down the central bank was more than enough agenda, because it was all he'd have the power to do. No foreign policy, economic policy, family policy, etc. None of the nonsense we have today.

Our Founder's took great pains to avoid having a "leader," thus providing the executive with little power. "Leaders" and/or a powerful executive were for despots, not freemen. Man, being a sinner, was not to be trusted with power. America prospered in peace.

Today, we no longer enjoy the republican form of government our Founders gave us. Our independent states are no longer represented in Washington via the Senate, the People's representation in the House has been greatly diminished, and the executive is more powerful than ever. And contrary to popular opinion, this isn't progress, it's failure. It's a regression back to the stone age. Don't kid yourselves either, we're half as wise as our American forefathers, the pioneers who revolutionized the modern world.

It was progressives who started pushing for a powerful executive early in the 20th century, but by the late 1960's, conservatives started demanding a ruler, er, "leader" too. Based on Cold War fears both real and imagined, conservatives became ever more convinced that the only way to defeat the U.S.S.R.'s Leviathan, was with a Leviathan and "strong leader" of their own. So the fight for liberty was dropped, and replaced with a collective battle cry for war.

It is conservatives whose heritage is antiwar, not the left, but you wouldn't know that judging by today. War was championed by heathens who had no respect for life, the same scoundrels who championed abortion. Man was made in the image of God, therefore no government had a right to their life. The only higher calling a conservative had was God.

War eventually became the battle cry for everything. Culture war, drug war, you name it, conservatives were at war! Once jealously guarded as realms of church and community, marriage and family were turned into issues of state. Moral issues like drug use and gambling were taken from God and given to the state too. Power and control is how to bring Heaven on Earth!

War now rules all. Nothing else matters. Today, the "family values" movement supports the state unquestioningly, as it sends the mothers and fathers of children into the battlefield, thousands who will never make it home. Broken families and the mass slaughter of our brothers and sisters is the new patriotism. Hey, it's all for "the greater good," right? Adding yet another communist belief to the new found need for a strong leader, power, and war.

If you're a conservative, you're probably pissed of by now. Good. That was my point. You've replaced God with the state and yet still don't understand, why everything has gone so wrong. The Democrats didn't beat you. There's no oppressor to blame. The left didn't change. It was you!

It was you who defended the American Creed, but now defend the state instead. It was you who was boldly antistate, but now condemn critics of war, the CIA, or heaven forbid George W. Bush, as traitors and your mortal enemy. Once defenders of liberty, you champion the police state instead.

Are you ready for genuine conservatism? Cicero answers:

Here is what I am trying to tell you: the country is not ready for conservatism. It flirts with it, as it did with the Bush’es and Reagan, but doesn’t fight for it. It sits in a stupor while some goofball from Chicago openly and consciously kills the constitution. No, ladies and gentlemen, you are not the men and women your grandparents hoped you would be. Your old man “didn’t get his seed back”, as my Dad used to say.

You've given up the republicanism of Madison, the libertarianism of Jefferson, the old school liberalism of Edmund Burke, the faith of Patrick Henry, the philosophy of John Locke, the thoughts of Russell Kirk, John C. Calhoun, John Randolph of Roanoke, and even those of that mixed bag John Adams. In their place, you've adopted the left's Hobbesian view of societal conflict, their need for a leader, lust for power, as well as the idea that the "nation" represents man's highest cause.

Politician can't "save" you. Government can't wash away man's sin. Laws can't heal the family. War is the complete breakdown of civil society. You can't change other people. You can only change yourself. So it's time for a long look in the mirror.