I’ve been thinking about the tea party “phenomenon” lately. Someone told me that some of the conservatives, like Olympia Snow, are coming home. Let me help you understand one thing. The conservative base never went anywhere and Olympia Snow is no conservative.
Conservatives, contrary to the dogma of the left, are a very non-interventionist group. Conservatives do not form caucuses for the acquisition of power but for the application of principle. Indeed, conservatism, as a governing philosophy, is apolitical in nature.
We are different than liberals. A liberal’s critical approach to issues of the day is largely dictated by the machining strategies of the Democrat Party. Theirs isn’t an organic movement, it is engineered, Astroturfed, and too often plastic. Ours isn’t. Unfortunately, sometimes the Boehners, the Steeles, and the Gingrichs need reminded that just as it is against the nature of countryside to be reformed by capitols. We are not defined by our party, rather, it is defined by us. We were appalled that one of ours (reference to Sanford) waxed vile. We hoped to stand back and watch the ministrations of our party circumcise herself from the tumor of immorality. But she didn’t heal herself. Bill Clinton committed an act most vile, then lied about it and never squared with society. Sanford, on the other hand, should have resigned without a fight. What happened to the organic nature of our party? Why didn’t she clean her own wound and begin down the path of healing. Perhaps we conservatives expect too much of the coalition forming, white-haired, entitlement addicts in our own leadership.
I used to call her my own, my Grand Old Party. She used to bend her will to ours, and so she used to become something greater than before. Her nobility has failed us. I loan her my voice in pursuit of a higher plane of principle. I couldn’t care less about politics, but rest assured, I feel it a divine calling from God to concern myself very much with regards policy. And in that regard, I see that the party I have given my heart to has given herself over to the power-lusts of the world.
They have cut the throats of the poor and the middle class. They have looted our national treasure. They have abandoned their constituency in favor of a multi-national corporate behemoth and an out-of-control military industrial complex. They have created a global, geo-political catastrophe in the Middle East that will take at least a century to remedy. They have shoveled a generation of American children into an untenable slaughterhouse in Iraq. They have engendered an economic nightmare so immense that generations yet unborn will still be bearing its burden. They have sold our nation’s soul to the highest corporate bidder. They have made a mockery of the First Amendment. They have squandered a trillio-plus dollar surplus with a tax cut for a class of people who didn’t need it. They have gutted vital social programs that aid the poor and the elderly which have been in place for over seventy years. They have gutted laws meant to protect working men and women. They have plundered the environment. They have depleted our educational system. They have hijacked this nation’s political dialogue. They have ruined our international reputation. They have handed our domestic agenda over to religious fanatics. They have stolen two national elections. They have trampled on our constitution. They have sent our Bill of Rights through the sausage grinder.They must never, ever be allowed to govern our country again.
The grand old party is over.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
Tom,
It is a shame. That the party that has meant so much to me and so many other conservatives has abandoned us. I fear that the current machine has caught the GOP, and will never let it go.
So as I drift more libertarian, more reactionary, more revolutionary, I ask myself, where can I go? Who must I talk to? What must I do to tell Washington that I want my country back?