The Five Fatal Mistakes of American Conservatism

Rush Limbaugh by Ian Marsden

Is this the end of American Conservatism?

At a time when American conservatives should be regrouping and re-recruiting, they've circled their wagons; embracing a siege mentality that suggests their period of political relevancy is at an end.

What contributed to the collapse of this once-powerful political movement?

The Five Fatal Mistakes of American Conservatism:

Country Club Conservatism: During the movement's birth, in the lead up to the 1980 Presidential Election, conservatism triumphed because of its accessibility. Evangelical leaders like Robert Grant and Jerry Falwell gave America's disenfranchised conservatives a unity of purpose - allowing conservatives the opportunity to overlook their differences and work together to achieve a common goal.

Today, the opposite situation exists. The title of 'conservative' is no longer one that voters can adopt for themselves - instead of a unity of purpose, there's a doctrine of dogma; and failure to live up to the standards set by so-called 'leaders' like Rush Limbaugh leave many more moderate conservatives out in the cold.

As long as conservatives pick and choose their supporters, like members of a country club committee, their ranks will dwindle.

Failure to Evolve: Many conservatives don't believe in Evolution, which explains why their movement is still stuck in the seventies.

The success of the 'moral majority' during the election of Ronald Reagan came down to conservative Christians uniting together to support timely, relevant and effective political positions. Times have changed dramatically since then - but, in most cases, those political positions haven't.

Unless the conservative movement is willing to address the issues of our time - environmentalism, war and economic uncertainty - they will continue to represent an era and an outlook whose time has passed.

A Dying Breed: It's a documented fact that each new generation is progressively more liberal than the last. Nowhere is this more apparent than America, where the grandchildren of segregationists just elected the nation's first African American president.

However, in its failure to address the changing beliefs and values of young Americans, the conservative movement excludes those who could offer conservatism its future.

The Democrats have successfully courted the under-30 vote in every presidential election for the past fifteen years. This trend shows no sign of changing. Until the aging core demographic of the conservative movement grows up and accepts that young Americans aren't so militant about issues like homosexuality and explicit sex education, they will always be marketing an agenda that alienates the very people it's essential they win over.

The Lowest Common Denominator: Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin may have bemoaned the 'liberal elite media,' but in the arena of Talk Radio, conservatism is king. Political pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin rule the airwaves with their angry rants about the state of the country.

But it's that anger which is so damaging to the conservative movement. While it does resonate strongly with the conservative core, it was proven in the last election that America is looking for a message of hope and change, not anger and frustration.

As long as the public face of conservatism continues to be bitter, angry little men like Levin and Limbaugh, that's going to be the only demographic it appeals to.

Eating Themselves Alive: The final mistake of the conservative movement is the one that will hasten their ignominious demise - a self-destructive urge to tear their party asunder from the inside out.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the public arena - where the GOP leader, Michael Steele, was recently eviscerated by Rush Limbaugh for 'daring' to imply that abortion is a woman's choice, not merely cold-blood fetal murder. When we see the de jure head of the Republican party skewered by the de facto head of the conservative movement, we witness a party and a movement that's in no position to govern itself - let alone the country.

What it would take to make me vote Republican...

(Citizenship, for a start...)

If you'd asked me a week ago, I'd have said Senator John McCain would come off better in the McCain/Obama November showdown.

But as former Prime Minister Harold Wilson admitted, 'a week is a long time in politics.'

A week later, I think I've got it figured out - and believe the election will go to Barack Obama.

That being said, I'd consider voting for McCain if he could just keep that damn party of his in check. I like McCain. I think he's an honorable and independent politician who represents, in his own stuffy Republican way, real change.

But to make me support McCain, he'd have to make some alterations:

Dump the Social Conservatives: The Republican party is supposed to be the party of liberty and constitution. When it was founded by Thomas Jefferson, his political philosophy was one of personal freedom. These days, the Republican party seems dominated by faithful fascists who want to control every aspect of the American way of life.

Limiting civil rights for gay people. Forcing religious doctrine into the classroom. Censoring freedom of speech in the interests of 'family values.' There is not a single constitutional amendment [Except the 2nd one - Editorial Bear] the social conservatives are unwilling to trample on - all in order to turn America into neat, twee, homogenized Christian Disneyland.

Politically, the social conservatives are dynamite. Evangelicals represent upwards of 80 million Americans and their vote can win or lose elections (just ask John Kerry.) That doesn't change the facts, however. The social conservatives are hypocritical, fascist and unAmerican. Until the Republicans return to their roots and shed these political parasites, they remain unsupportable.

Fix the Damn Budget! Hypocrisy again. The Republicans rant that Democrats will raise taxes - yet our last three Republican presidents have nobbled the economy and crippled the working and middle classes with higher taxes (or rampant inflation.)

The philosophy of the Republican party - and this dates back to Thomas Jefferson as well - is a small federal government. The smallest possible, existing only to organize the operations vital to a country's survival. Things like an effective army, a postal service, federal highways (although even those Jefferson was against.) By keeping federal government to a minimum, the tax burden on American citizens would also be kept to a minimum.

Yet essential to this idea was a government that operated effectively. Instead, we have a bloated federal government that spends far beyond it's means (the taxpayer will feel the burden of the Iraq war for decades to come) and the operations it takes responsibility for are mired in bureaucracy and inefficiency.

If John McCain wants my support, he has to fix Bush's mistakes. The federal government needs to do it's job cost-effectively. No more loans. No more deficits. No more bankrupting and mortgaging off of American assets. If the Republicans honestly want us to trust them with the responsibility of running our nation, prove that they can balance a cheque-book first.

End the Fiscal Dogma - If another Republican raves about Ronald Reagan, I will slap them. Reaganomics was a farce. Ronald Reagan's idea of tax cuts for the rich 'trickling down' to the working and middle classes has been proven not to work. Back when Reagan was slashing his rich friend's tax burden, payroll taxes for the average American actually went up.

Low taxes will stimulate the economy - but not if you give them to the rich. The rich save their extra money, so it doesn't stimulate the economy at all. Only by giving tax cuts to the working and middle class will more money actually be pumped into the economy. Middle class Americans actually have to spend the money they get - on gas, clothes, food and utilities. Giving 100 working class Americans $1,000 will see more money put back into the American economy than giving 1 rich American $100,000. Yet the Republican party is too stupid (or too politicised by rich people) to see this. As a result, the poor make less (the bottom 90% of Americans saw a dismal 3% increase in income) while the rich make more (the richest 10% saw their income raised by 31%.)

I'm not suggesting any socialist rubbish. I'm not advocating taxing the rich any more. I don't want to redistribute wealth. I want tax cuts, that's all. I want an efficiently run government to reduce the tax burden it places on it's citizens - specifically it's middle and working class citizens.

When it comes down to it, there's no more Republican philosophy than that.

In the Mean Time...

Pipe dreams.

When it comes down to it, that's all my ranting comes down to. The fact is, the Republican party isn't going to change. They're not going to realise overnight what a farce they've become and how removed they are from the party of Jefferson and later Lincoln.

Like the oil industry it's so entrenched with, the Republican party has a (generally) successful strategy for success and they're not interested in changing it - even if they are vaguely aware that the resources they've relied on for so long are drying up.

Until reality bites, I'm going to have to support Obama. Not that he isn't without his faults - and not that the Democratic Party isn't almost as stupid as the Republican party. For many people, Barack Obama and the Democrats offer the possibility of change. As far as I'm concerned, they just offer the lesser of two evils.

I'll leave you with some wise words from the great American himself - highlighting a problem that has plagued American politics since the day it was conceived.

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Thomas Jefferson

Economics even I can understand...

I've got vague memories of the Reagan (and in England, Thatcher) years.


I don't remember much - but I do remember England being swept up in the after effects of 87's Black Tuesday and millions of homeowners ending up in the dodgy financial situation of having negative equity.

They'd borrowed thousands to purchase their homes - and the sudden plummet of the housing market left them owing far more then they could ever recover even if they sold their house.

It was a pretty sticky situation and should have taught us all an important lesson.... But instead, America's teetering on the brink of a similar recession right now.

The culprit? The sub-prime mortgage industry.

In order to 'clean up' a potentially lucrative corner of the market, greedy banks like Merill Lynch and Citibank have been offering fantastic mortgage packages to slightly shaky customers. Huge loans that left the borrower struggling to make the monthly repayments.

The gamble could have paid off - but throw in plummeting house prices and sky-rocketing inflation and the 'on paper' profitability of the sub-prime market has suddenly turned into a slew of foreclosures and bankruptcies.

So instead of cleaning up on the sub-prime sector, the mortgage gambles have cleaned the banks out. Merill Lynch posted 14.1 billion dollar loses this quarter just a few days after Citibank wrote down almost $10 billion.

And the result?

Thousands of layoffs - some people speculate the after-effect of Citibank's disastrous losses could see as many as 29,000 people unemployed.

More foreign bail-outs - leaving more of America's industry in the hands of shadowy middle-eastern investors.

It's a very unhappy picture and the skyrocketing inflation and miserable financial outlook has left America on the brink of a recession - which will likely drag the entire world economy down with it.

What have we learnt?

Apparently, nothing.

I'm no economist, but I can't ignore the fact that Black Tuesday and this recent scenario came on the coattails of two terms of Republican presidency.

President Reagan was occasionally blamed (either rightly or wrongly) for contributing to 87's stock market crash through 'Reaganomics.' He turned America from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation, increasing the deficit to a whopping 3 trillion dollars.

President Bush turned a surplus of $86 million into a deficit of $434 million and increased America's national debt to just under $9 trillion dollars.

Wouldn't it nice to have a presidency that ran the US Government more like a responsible housewife than a sailor on shore leave? To spend only what they could afford to?

If somebody hold told the sub-prime borrowers to think seriously about their financial situation - or not been dumb enough to lend them the money in the first place - perhaps this inevitable disaster could have been avoided.

I saw it coming - and I'm not even an economist. You have to wonder what those well-paid pundits on Wall Street were thinking when they gave the thumbs up to a clearly ill-considered project like plundering the sub-prime sector.

The ripples made by the sub-prime splash are likely to effect every American - and for some time to come.

Every time a Republican candidate goes on TV and extols the wonders of 'Reaganomics,' I have to wince. The Republican party is meant to represent 'small government' and fiscal conservatism. Instead, every Republican presidency in the last 28 years has represented the complete opposite.

Lies our pundits tell us...

Mark Levin - Thought talk is cheap? See his advertising rates!

Last night, as I drove home, I inexplicably tuned into SIRIUS Patriot - the right wing talk channel. I ended up listening to conservative New York chat-show host Mark Levin for as long as I could stand him.

His 'radio persona' is a vile, nasal little man with a short fuse and an enormous chip on his shoulder. It makes for compelling listening, due to the disgusting way he handles people who stupidly call into his show:

"It's says here you're a Liberal, Caller. Answer me this... Why do you hate America?"

It's also a bit like listening to fingernails down a blackboard, since Levin's a remarkably inept radio host.

He lines up 'cuts' from various speeches (last night it was Fred Thompson during the Republican debate in Iowa) and when he wants them played, he yells furiously as his producer: 'Cut four! Now!'

It's clear from his tone of voice that he expects the entire radio station to come crumbling down around his ears unless he yells instructions like a German U-Boat commander.

Listening to Mark Levin - whose show is inexplicably highest-rated for the time slot in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Dallas - prompted me to write about my views on the American political spectrum.

Tight Spectrum

When I was young, there was a real political spectrum to enjoy in Britain. On the left, there was the Labour Party - who believed in socialism. On the right, there were the Conservatives, who believed in capitalism. It was as simple as that.

Then Tony Blair came along and convinced the Labour Party to abandon socialism, so we ended up with two political parties trying to occupy the same space on the political spectrum. Even now, over a decade later, the Conservatives are still struggling to work out what their party is and what it stands for these days.

I considered myself a stuffy old Tory, on the right wing of British politics. So I was astounded to arrive in America and have it determined that I was actually a moderate (with a slightly liberal bias.)

While pundits like Mark Levin might accuse the Democratic Party of being 'Marxist' and 'Stalinist,' he's laughably unaware of what it's like to live in a country in which those views actually exist. It seems the entire American political spectrum exists on the right wing of what we're used to in England.

And - speaking as a stuffy old Tory again - that's no bad thing.

Lies our Pundits tell us

Despite the spectrum being tight, people get very passionate about politics in America. The country's divided into two halves, the Liberals and the Conservatives. And in my dispassionate study of these two sides (I'm a moderate, remember) I've decided that I don't really like either of them that much.

It seems a hard-core Liberal or Conservative is fueled by their belief that they are better than the other side. Liberals believe they are more intelligent than Conservatives. Conservatives believe that they are 'morally better' than the Liberals.

And then there are the pundits, like Mark Levin, who make careers out of attacking the other side and spoon feeding their own audience exactly what they want to hear.

Which is, in all essence, a pack of lies.

What astounds me about both the Liberals and the Conservatives are the lies the pundits tell - and how the lies have been repeated so many times, people have started to believe they're actually true.

In explaining this, it's worth pointing out that the term 'Conservative' is pretty synonymous with 'Republican' and Liberals support the Democrats.

Lies Conservatives Tell:

Conservatives represent the working man: This is one Mark Levin likes to spout time and again. Despite the fact that he's a nationally syndicated talk-show host and best-selling author, he still describes himself as a regular 'working man' to his listeners.

But the Conservatives and Republicans are not the party of the blue collar, working man. They may claim to be - and their core support comes from millions of 'red state' Americans who buy into the lies. But it is a lie.

Conservative governments have always supported the big business model, the tax-cuts for the super-rich and the reduction of social programming that leaves the job of 'keeping America truckin'' firmly on the shoulders of the middle and working class.

Take Ronald Reagan - he cut the top tax rate (for the super rich) from 70% to just 28% - but the tax rate on the average man's paycheck actually increased.

Conservatives are fiscally responsible: This is a whopper. Although the likes of political pundit Ann Coulter might claim: "Taxes are like abortion - both are grotesque procedures supported by Democrats" the truth is the absolute opposite.

The governments of famous Republicans, like Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr. and his son, George Dubya, have all been times of enormous economic upheaval. Reagan increased the American deficit from $700 billion to a whopping $3 trillion. It was Bill Clinton - a Democrat - who demanded: 'it's about the economy, stupid,' and put the American checkbook back into the black.

Right now, George Bush Jnr is trying to leave a legacy as a 'fiscally conservative' President by vetoing endless programs like the Child Health Care bills.

However, after running America into massive global debt, tipping the country into a recession and bleating for hundreds of billions of dollars in expensive foreign loans to support an unpopular conflict aboard, he is very far from a conservative spender of tax payer's money.

Look at the facts: George Bush Jnr. turned an $86 billion surplus left by Clinton into a $434 billion deficit.

Liberals Hate America: Mark Levin loves this one. Somebody calls up and claims to be a Liberal? Mark yells down the phone line: 'Why do you hate America?'

But Liberals don't hate America. That's just a lie. Sadly, it's been yelled so many times, it's no almost become a truth.

It's like a playground cry. It's just utterly retarded and pathetic. The next time Mark Levin accuses somebody of 'hating America' merely for disagreeing with his right-wing opinions, he deserves a firm slap around the chops.

Liberals Hate the Troops: This is the other half of the Conservative war cry. If Liberals call for an end to the war in Iraq, or question any Republican foreign policy, they're hit with 'you hate the troops!'

In fact, it's the absolute opposite. It's the Conservatives who hate the troops. Or, rather, they don't give two hoots about them. Oh, sure, they might buy 'Support the Troops' ribbons for the back of their cars, but at the end of the day, you've got to be pretty callous to put American troops into harm's way in the first place.

Rightly or wrongly, Conservatives support the war in Iraq and aggressive foreign policy. That policy gets American soldiers killed. Liberals don't support the war in Iraq and want to troops brought home. That saves troop's lives. So at the end of the day, it's pretty clear who’s really on the side of the soldiers.

Now to defend America against the threat of global terrorism, it’s necessary to send American soldiers abroad, into harm's way. But doing that out of anything other that real, vital necessity sends American soldiers to their deaths for no good reason.

And that's the work of people who really 'hate the troops.'

All the 'Support the Troops' bumper stickers in the world won't replace the life of one American soldier killed without a bloody good reason.

Conservatives are 'morally superior' to Liberals: Conservative America enjoys core support in the Christian heartland. Christianity and conservatism are so intertwined, it's often impossible to see the two as anything other than a single entity.

Essential Conservative beliefs, like being against abortion and the rights of gay people, stem from Christian doctrine. The idea of 'family values' and 'decency' and 'morality' are all shields hoisted high by the Conservatives.

Liberals believe in gay rights. Abortion. Sex before marriage. Pornography. All 'evil' and 'immoral' things.

But morality goes beyond Christianity. A system of 'right' and 'wrong' based purely on Christian doctrine is no better than the Sharia law of the Islamic Middle East. In the 21st century, humanity must decide what's right and wrong based on more than the teachings found in a two thousand year old book. After all, millions of Americans aren't Christians.

And, hypocritically, core Conservative beliefs - like supporting capital punishment - seem utterly at odds with what's considered morally 'right' in any case - whether by human terms or from what's found in the bible.

When you hear Conservative Pat Robertson demanding political assassinations in other countries, or Ann Coulter gleefully admit 'I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment' it's difficult not to start worrying that a slice of the political movement that claims 'morally superiority' is actually just morally bankrupt.

The Lie Liberals Tell:

But it's not just the Conservatives who lie. The Liberal agenda plugged by the pundits is also full of half-truths and political porkies. The biggest one is clearly:

Liberals support Free Speech: This isn't always the case. Time and time again, the Liberals have proven that they support free speech up to, but not including, anything deemed 'politically incorrect.'

There's a deep seated and almost fascist agenda for 'thought control' amongst polite Liberal society. Part of the reason it's always the Conservatives spouting the offensive stuff is that the Liberals have a clearly marked scale of what's acceptable and what's not.

And most of it's stuff that's not appropriate in polite company anyway. Attempts to ban use of the 'N-word' (that's the highly offensive racial slur 'nigger') seem kind of redundant since nobody uses that word anymore for the risk of becoming a social pariah.

What's slightly more worrying - and stands up in the face of free speech - is when certain ideas get stifled or censored under Liberal pressure - like city officials trying to stifle San Francisco talk show host Michael Savage when he attacked their scheme to get tax payers to sponsor green card applications for illegal immigrants.

Discussion about the conduct of Muslims, or criticism leveled against the millions of illegal immigrants - both very serious issues concerning American security - is quickly slapped down with the cry of 'racist!'

'Racist!' is the Liberal equivalent of 'You hate America!' It's a discussion ender - a firm indication that the opposing party isn't interested in acknowledging differing opinions.

Gun Control Prevents Gun Crime: It seems an entirely logical proposition - ban the private ownership of handguns and gun crime will fall. The Liberals have been bleating this as long as the Conservatives have been bleating: 'Guns don't kill people... People kill people."

But the sad, documented fact is that it's not true.

Now, I'm no fan of private gun ownership and certainly don't understand why anybody who believes in the Second Amendment needs to keep more than one rifle over the fireplace (which is surely what the founding fathers envisaged when they wrote it.)

However, the facts have shown that gun crime actually increases in places with stringent gun control. Like in New Jersey, in 1966, some of the most stringent handgun ownership laws were put in place and the murder rate shot up overnight by 46%.

In 1976, Washington D.C. adopted an incredibly strict handgun ban (pretty much banning them in the city.) Yet this led to a 136% rise in the murder rate, while nationally, the number of murders actually dropped by 2%.

There are two facts responsible for this truth.

Firstly, that 15% of all handguns in America are unlicensed and unregistered - banning handguns does not take these weapons out of circulation. Given that almost all gun crime is committed with illegally owned weapons, it's clear to see that banning private gun ownership does nothing to address the root cause of the gun crime problem.

Secondly, private gun ownership is a deterrent. Compared to the United Kingdom, the burglary rate in the United States is a drop in the ocean. People don't rob houses here the same way they do in countries with strict gun control. Why? Because residents own guns and the law is on their side if they shoot dead a trespasser on their property.

In a country with a 'wild west' mentality, private gun ownership actually protects people. Yet the Liberals do everything they can to distort the facts and bleat the same anti-gun mantra over and over again.

Illegal Immigrants are not a problem: This is a subject I feel very strongly about. Having worked and sacrificed for the chance to 'make my fortune' in America, I resent the millions of people who come here illegally.

I chose to come to America. I chose to abide by America's laws and live within the bounds of it's incredibly diverse culture. I chose to contribute to the workforce and the tax-pile. I chose to live as an American because I deeply respect the history and mentality of this great nation.

And illegal immigrants don't.

They don't abide by immigration laws - and therefore criminal and civil laws are equally meaningless to them. They can't get driving licenses, insurance or inspections - so they go without and leave the costs of injuries and accidents to the tax-paying American people.

In one county upstate, a whopping 25% of all criminals arrested turned out to be illegal immigrants. Across America, the entire nation is forced to become bilingual. Essential costs the average American has to shoulder - like healthcare, local taxes and schooling fees - creep ever upwards as undocumented workers use civil services without contributing to them.

Illegal immigration from 'south of the border' is the greatest threat to the cultural, financial and institutional stability of the United States of America. But just like an alcoholic's 'elephant in the living room,' no Liberal will dare address the issue.

Because calling it out is akin to racism. And racism - just like the Conservative cry of 'You Hate America' - is that blanket protest that stifles all free expression.

Liberals are more intelligent than Conservatives: Like it or not, there is bias in the Liberal media to pigeonhole Conservatives. They're either the big, greedy, corporate 'fat cats' or, more likely, they're the poor working-class folk who 'foolishly' vote for Conservative politicians.

And this bias is easy to see. Turn on a sitcom or political satire show and any footage of President Bush doing something dumb (of which there are countless clips) is usually followed by a Liberal rolling his eyes, considering which 'chumps' voted for the man.

A common Liberal cry is: 'We didn't vote for him!' which neatly opens up the fact that, in the 2004 election, 51% of the American population DID vote for George W. Bush.

Cue the map of the United States which shows the guilty party - the 'red' states.

Yes, Liberals consider themselves smarter than 'red staters.' And on the whole, just like Conservatives generally consider themselves the 'moral superiors' to Liberals, Liberals generally consider themselves the intellectual superiors to their Conservative cohorts - and not without some reason. 49% of self-confessed Liberals are college educated.

However, the average Conservative-voting 'red stater' isn't dumb. Not by any means. They're voters who care about having low taxes, a secure country, a job to go to and a politician who goes to church and seems to represent the same values as they do.

That's not dumb by any means. In fact, that's kind of smart.

Liberals can claim to be more intellectual that Conservatives - but it's just arrogant to pretend they're smarter.

In Conclusion

Remarkably, the people who decide elections and control the electoral process in the United States are neither the Liberals or the Conservatives.

It's actually the people like me - the 'undecided' moderates who support a side depending on circumstance, rather than ideology.

And the problem with the hard-line positions Liberals and Conservatives take is that they alienate more and more of the people they should be reaching out for.

If I visit a right-wing website and comment on the issue of gay rights, so something equally innocuous, I'm derided as a 'Libtard.' When I go to a Liberal site and point out the flaws in the gun-control issue, I'm labelled a 'neocon Repuke.'

Personally, I think 'bugger the both of them.'


Ann Coulter, that gorgeous but utterly hateful pundit, sums up the opinions of right and left best:

"The swing voters---I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don't have set philosophical principles. You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster. "---Beyond the News, Fox News Channel, 6/4/00

Whereas, in reality, the swing voters are really the only ones who are capable of making their minds up for themselves. The Liberals and Conservatives are so blinded by their dreary dogma that they'd support ideas they oppose just to prevent an 'opposition' member getting the edge.

The next presidential election will be won by the man (or woman) who wins over the most swing voters. The likes of Ann Coulter have already disenfranchised themselves by refusing to be more open minded to other people's opinions.

And based on the lies spouted by pundits from both sides of the political spectrum, I know one of the most important values I'll need to see in a potential president will be honesty.