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CONSERVATISM AS EXORCISM

by Joe Sobran Monday, May. 26, 2003 at 1:46 AM

Conservatives have lost their mind. Not their minds, but their mind. What the late Russell Kirk called “the conservative mind” seems to have disappeared from our political landscape.







 Conservatism as Exorcism 

May 8, 2003

Conservatives have lost their mind. Not their minds, but their mind. What the late Russell Kirk called “the conservative mind” seems to have disappeared from our political landscape.

When I got acquainted with the conservative movement in 1965, it was still a serious thing. It had principles, and it knew what it wanted: limited government. It had a dual agenda: to resist and defeat world Communism, and to repeal unconstitutional government programs at home.

There were problems with these difficult goals, but the movement made some kind of sense. It was very much a minority movement, even within the Republican Party, the minority party in a country that had been voting Democratic since 1932. Conservatives considered even Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon too liberal. William Buckley had founded National Review in 1955 to oppose Eisenhower Republicanism — to “stand athwart History yelling ‘Stop!’”

By 1968, though, Buckley was ready to endorse Nixon for president. But he suspended his support as Nixon moved leftward; as late as 1976 his colleague William Rusher was calling for a “new majority party” to replace the Republicans.

The conservative movement spread as liberalism became entrenched. Not only did the Federal Government keep growing under both parties; the sexual revolution transformed the country socially, morally, and culturally.

With the election of Ronald Reagan, a Buckley fan and friend, in 1980, “movement” conservatives felt that they had triumphed. And they had, in a narrow sense: they had won the presidency, something almost inconceivable a few years earlier.

But the country they had hoped to conserve was ceasing to exist. Even Reagan, popular as he was, didn’t dare challenge the programs left from the New Deal and the Great Society. He couldn’t begin to reverse the sexual revolution, and he hardly tried to oppose legal abortion. He couldn’t even slow the constant expansion of the Federal Government, which had taken on a life of its own.

Unable to face the facts and unwilling to criticize Reagan, the conservatives took refuge in a fantasy: “the Reagan Revolution.” Never mind the incongruity of conservatives hyping revolution; to mistake Reagan’s superficial personal popularity for the triumph of conservative principles was a delusion bordering on psychosis.

Fortunately, the Communist problem took care of itself by collapsing. Though conservatives had always rightly argued that Communism couldn’t work, they credited Reagan with its failure when it fell of its own mammoth weight.

At this point, you might think (as I did, at the time), conservatives would return to the second part of their old agenda: restoring limited, constitutional government. But they didn’t. Instead, they adopted a habit of finding themselves distractions.

First they threw their enthusiasm into new wars to replace the Cold War: their villains were Panama’s Manuel Noriega (remember him?) and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. War is Big Government par excellence, but that didn’t seem to matter as long as it was waged by a Republican president (the first George Bush).

Then, for eight years, conservatives rallied against a new enemy: Bill Clinton. In their personal animosity toward Clinton, they forgot everything else. Destroying this archvillain became their whole agenda. Unfortunately, Clinton proved indestructible — a cheerfully elusive Bugs Bunny to the conservatives’ obsessive Elmer Fudd. By now the Federal Government was spending trillion dollars a year, or about twenty times what it was spending when the conservative movement had started rolling. But of course conservatives no longer noticed. All that mattered was replacing Clinton with a Republican.

Now a new Republican has won the conservatives’ hearts with a new war, toppling Saddam Hussein. The America they had once hoped to save has disappeared. Have they noticed? Of course not. Like Reagan’s election, the latest military victory has made them feel good and allowed them to pretend the country has gained something.

Instead of fighting for great principles, the conservatives now settle for exorcising little demons. Buckley and Rusher are happily reconciled to George W. Bush’s Republican Party. The conservative movement itself has been taken over by unprincipled “neoconservatives.”

The conservative movement once stood for American traditions; now it stands for amnesia. It shows energy only when given a new distraction, a new demon to exorcise, a new short-term obsession. That way it can pretend to have won when, in fact, it has totally abandoned any semblance of a conservative philosophy.

Yesterday’s conservatives would have known what to call today’s right-wingers: liberals.

Joseph Sobran

Copyright © 2003 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate,

a division of Griffin Communications

This column may not be reprinted in print or

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of Griffin Internet Syndicate



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There are still a few...

by Diogenes Monday, May. 26, 2003 at 1:49 AM

...principled Conservatives left. Hower with the advent of the NeoCon takeover they are becoming an endangered species.

NeoCons don't like people with principles.

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differences

by Sheepdog Monday, May. 26, 2003 at 5:11 PM

between Democrats (against small businesses) and

Republicans (for big businesses) are few because the same hidden power has always called the moves producing this puppet show. It's merely a transfer of wealth to a group

of dangerously powerful few. The laws of the land do not

apply to them or their insturmentalities.

It's called selective enforcement and conflict of interests, in the real world.

Your construct of polarity I believe, is a distraction from

the common boot of privilege and power.

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Labels

by Bush Admirer Monday, May. 26, 2003 at 6:04 PM

We all tend to use labels like liberal and conservative but they mean different things to different people.

I consider myself a conservative but I'm pro-abortion, an athiest, anti-gun, and liberal on many social issues. I just don't attribute as much importance to social issues as I do to economic and defense issues. That's where the Republicans are so far ahead.

The Democrats are NOT the same as Republicans, not even a little bit. They're in favor of organized labor, one of the true ills of our society. They're behind the trial lawyers and frivolous law suits. They're wanting to confiscate money from Republicans and use it to 'buy votes' from the losers in our society. The Democrats really really suck. Clinton was history's worst president.

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BA being in favor of...

by Diogenes Monday, May. 26, 2003 at 8:42 PM

...Crony Capitalism is not a Conservative position - unless you want to go back to Dickens' England. I don't know where you get off calling yourself a Conservative. NeoCon i.e., closet Trotskyite yes. Conservative? No fucking way.

Read a little Russel Kirk if you want to find out what REAL Principled Conservatism is about.

And Helen Thomas who has been Reporting on Presidents since Truman is of the opinion that DUHbya is the Worst President in her lifetime if not in the history of the Republic.

The way he wipes himself with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Neither is he a Conservative. A Republican? Yes. A Conservative? No way in hell.

Fascist? Certainly the policies he has espoused and executed so far certainly fit the Mussolini Brand of Fascism. I think it is probably the best, and most accurate label, for the Bush Junta and it's policies.

Real Conservatives have PRINCIPLES (I may not always agree with them but they are fundamentally decent). I see no decent principles at play in this administration. I see only self-aggrandizing corruption, dishonesty and a total disrespect for the Constitution and it's guiding principles. Were Jefferson still alive he would probably Horse Whip him - proividing he could elbow "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson out of the way.

While Organized Labor is today a corrupt charicature of what it once was it was the only thing that brought a decent standard of living to the humble working man in the last Century. It broke the back of savage Captialist Bastards whose only thought was their own self aggrandizement regardless of the human toll. Certainly they did not follow the enlightened self interest of a humane Capitalism. Unions only become strong when you have abusive management and old man Rockefeller was a a Major League Bastard as were his contermporary Robber Barons. Certainly those of your ilk despised them, afterall - those unreasonable demands. You know, like safe working conditions, a decent wage, reasonable Grievance Procedures, and an acceptable Work Day. The sheer effrontery of them to want such foo-fraw.

BA you are joke and a charicature of everything Principled Conservatism is about.

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well dio

by fresca Monday, May. 26, 2003 at 9:46 PM

Beyond the fact that your take on Bush is silly and childish I have to laugh at this gem:

"And Helen Thomas who has been Reporting on Presidents since Truman is of the opinion that DUHbya is the Worst President in her lifetime if not in the history of the Republic. "

Helen Thomas?

Give us a fucking break. The woman is senile and at best a typist.

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post script

by fresca Wednesday, May. 28, 2003 at 7:01 AM

PS dio

You think you know the president?

I mean i like to tell everyone how i know the

president so well from watching CNN and reading newspaper articles on him.

Its kinda like when someone says they know what some rockstar thinks.

I mean, of course they know them - theyve READ all the info on the person.

I dont think you actually have to talk to a person or know them for a while...

You just know.

And i know GW is a great guy.

Im the fucking authority here..

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I’ll tell you what counts.

by Eric Wednesday, May. 28, 2003 at 10:04 AM

Actions are what matters. Opinion means squat.

And GWB has been a man of action since his inauguration.

He’s had to cope with some of the most catastrophic events in the history of this nation, and all while the liberals repugn his very existence. Mostly, they hate him because they hate themselves. Their own candidates have let them down and certainly would have been incapable of adequately dealing with the fallout and aftershocks of an incident as tragic as 9-11.

Recent Democratic Presidents prove this. Jimmy Carter and his inability to free the American hostages in Iraq, and Slick Willy Clinton who was more concerned about receiving oral favors in the Oval Office than with the bodies of dead Army Rangers being drug through the streets of Mogadishu.

Those guys were and are, inept. And that makes the liberals mad. A leader like GWB comes along, a man that the country is able to get behind, a man that stands for the values that Americans hold dear, a man that is as tough as nails, a straight shooter the likes of which even “Old Hickory” would have had to acknowledge, and well… that makes the liberals even madder.

All this garbage about him shredding the Constitution and wiping his ass with the Bill of Rights is nothing more than political protestation. Hollow empty nothingness propped up by a void of choler. That sort of mud slinging is as old as politics itself.

I’m not a “turn the other cheek” sort of American. I don’t believe that most Americans are.

When our US EP3-C turboprop goes down in China, and the Chinese see the opportunity to make us squirm, how did GWB handle it? He did what was necessary to get those folks home, and then he demanded that those Socialists return our plane. They got mouthy, so he took missiles that were “pointed” at Russia, and had them reprogrammed to cover another target package, namely Beijing.

Of course there is a such thing as “principled” conservatism. But the problem that the leftists have with it is that those are “American principles” were talking about. We’re not going to stand here and take it when some group of religious zealots take our buildings down, or some renegade faction of some Middle Eastern Nationals harbor the terrorists that did it, or some despotic tyrant threatens the world with VX nerve agents or Anthrax, or worse.

GWB has been faced with more challenges in three years than perhaps any President in history. Three years is hardly enough time for him to be bestowed the credentials of a fascist autocrat to be likened unto Hitler. But to listen to the liberals grizzle about him, that’s exactly who you’d believe he was, Hitler himself. What a load of hogwash.

Faced with all these challenges, GWB has come out looking like a God. Americans have an insurmountable amount of respect for the man, and unless something drastically changes, he’ll be getting re-elected in 2004. And that just blisters a liberal’s ass, now don’t it? Yes, it really does.

And you can bet there will be a lot of pock-marked asses in November of next year.

And don’t blame me for zeig heiling to the fuehrer. It’s not my fault that the Democraps still don’t have anything better to offer us. Maybe they should try supporting America for a change, and then possibly, Americans would support them…

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Action Counts

by brigg Wednesday, May. 28, 2003 at 10:45 AM

The name-calling and labels the left try and attach to Bush are just another in a series of accusations to try and get something to stick, something they can try and hang their hat on. So far, every label they try, from “neo-cons” to “tax breaks for the rich” to “not doing enough to stop terrorism” to “where’s the wmd’s” to “he’s killing the rainforests” to “the economy is sinking” to “unemployment is high”, doesn’t resonate with the American people. The left can’t get anything to stick. And it frustrates some people so much they go to the extreme (that’s where IMC comes in) and start using words like “fascist” and “unconstitutional”, which is a clear indication they have nothing to offer of any significance and their political beliefs are not worth considering. They are worthy of ridicule and nothing more.

Liberals in this country have had it easy for so long. For years, the nightly news and the mainstream newspapers just reflected what the “intelligentsia” was saying. Whatever Uncle Walter and the NYT said was what everyone was to believe without question. In the past 15-20 years, we conservatives finally took all we were going to take and started speaking up. And then it started. How dare we question them. They were the elite and we were lucky to have them to tell us what to think and how to conduct ourselves. That just made us ask even more questions and demand even more proof. Now, the left actually had to DEFEND what they had been spouting all these years and they found they couldn’t do it.

So what do we have now? A bunch of lefty’s whining about Rush Limbaugh and Clear Channel and Fox News and Rupert Murdock and how they can’t get their message out when they had 50 years of getting their message out virtually unopposed. Well, BOO HOO HOO!!

Also, you leftists/anarchists seem to want to debate endlessly. That’s the big difference between we conservatives and you. We’re goal and result oriented. We’ll debate for a while, long enough to make our point and then humor you for a while so we can hear what you’re going to do to try and stop us (like it would matter). But we want results. Screw debating all fucking day. Screw going to some stupid, immature protest march. We don’t have time for that non-sense. We’re the movers and shakers. While you’re marching and debating endlessly, we’re out there actually making things happen.

“Marge, I FEEL so much better after carrying my “Bush Is Hitler” sign and wearing my “Stalin Is My Hero” shirt to the protest today. There’s no way they can go forward with their plans now.”

And then after the action happens anyway,

“Marge, Can you believe it? Why didn’t they listen to us? We carried our signs and made our voices known. Just because the majority of people see it the other way is no reason for them not to do what we demanded they do. If this weren’t such a fascist state, they’d listen to us, the vocal minority.”

Yeah. Whatever. Idiots. Go out every week and march if you want. Debate endlessly on IMC or elsewhere. See if we care. Should you ever have anything worth while to say, we’ll listen to you. In the meanwhile, we’ll do what we damn well please.

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