Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Farce of the Conservative Movement

About five years ago, if you had talked to me about politics, you’d note that I was a conservative with some slight right-wing leanings.  In fact, if you trace my blog to its origins, you might find much of that sentiment in my writings.  I believed in the righteous cause of the war on Islamic Terrorism, that conservatives care about freedom, and that Republicans are better than Democrats.

I couldn’t have been more wrong about all of these things.  I don’t know what ignorance compelled me to view things this way, but I know that I started to change my mind about these things in 2006.  When the Republicans lost big in that year’s election, I was happy, not because the Democrats had won, but because the great purge had begun.

This purge I speak was an ideological purge where the true believers in freedom and liberty, who understand that more government does not bring about more freedom and prosperity, were being given the opportunity to take over.  I knew though that the road ahead would take awhile.  Still, when many Republicans didn’t even bother to modify their stances and instead continued to adhere to their Statist principles, I started looking for alternatives.

This is when I saw how there was one man in Congress who stayed true to the constitutional limitations.  While he wasn’t perfect, he was at least willing to step up and demand that Congress, the President, and the courts hold themselves accountable to the Constitution, which tells the Federal government specific powers which they have.  When I began to question governments actions on the basis of constitutional support, I began to get a lot of blowback from fellow conservatives.

It was very frustrating to see people who claim to adhere to constitutional principles completely and utterly abandon them on foreign policy issues.  What’s even more frustrating is being targeted and insulted for taking such a stand.  I had one asshole claim that I was saying there was no constitutional justification for NASA, never mind that this organization has no intrinsic or strategic value to the American people and largely serves to suck taxpayer dollars.  He never once considered that maybe, just maybe, allowing the government to expand its powers means that those powers can be used against us by people who don’t like us.  And then in 2010 we had Janet “Shoulder Pads” Napolitano try to classify liberty-minded individuals as terrorists.

She slipped up though and included war veterans.  Of course, everyone honed in on that aspect of the policy and neglected to acknowledge that it was a largely political maneuver designed to justify imprisoning the stronger dissidents to the Obama administration.  I realize this seems a bit extreme, but do you really believe that secret police and political prisons are created overnight?  They take time and usually gradual measures of ever increasing expansions of power.

The failure of conservatives to see the problems inherent in yielding more power to the Federal government in the name of safety and security is just a small microcosm of their blatant foolishness.  But this year, we saw how Ron Paul won the Presidential straw poll at CPAC.  This means that the movement is featuring more and more liberty-minded individuals who are tired of seeing a group of people be treated by Republicans in the same manner that black civil rights organizations are treated by Democrats.  In both cases, the votes are counted and the agenda is never pushed through.

Naturally, the near-perfect neocon came in a close second to Ron Paul.  Mitt Romney would be the perfect candidate if he didn’t have the whole Romneycare thing hanging over his head and because he’s a Mormon.  Other than that, he’s pro-war, probably pro-life, and has a nice haircut.  This makes him the #1 candidate in the minds of many conservative pundits who are seeking out a pro-war Statist agenda.  It’s always fun to read a book like Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin and see him run logical circles trying to paint ‘Statists’ as being anti-war.  While it was true that Left-wing Statists were anti-war, it was clear this was a political motivation rather than an ideological one.  In the end, Statism is Statism and war is always a good way to keep the State going at the approval of the dumb masses.

So there is a sharp divide in the conservative movement these days.  Like all movements, the elites within the conservative movement have become oligarchs and are demanding obedience within their own ranks.  But there are many who are sick and tired of the same old song and realize that the oligarchs are getting us no where.  And these people are largely much younger than the oligarchs.  Naturally, this burgeoning movement will probably overtake the conservative movement, as time is on their side, but they will eventually become the oligarchs they hate.  It is the way of how these things work.  Every revolution always brings about the same results in the end, just different faces.

As for me, I’ll continue to support liberty and freedom by living it.  I refuse to submit to the unconstitutional laws the State has passed.  To be frank, though I am an Antistatist, I am perfectly fine with the constitution because it does place severe limits on the Federal government.  And, after all, just because you have the legal authority to do something, this doesn’t mean that you have moral authority nor does it mean that you should use that authority at all.  Granted, I would rather there be little to no government at all, but anything less than what we have now is what I consider a small step toward freedom.