Another Rant Against Flim Flam, Horse Feathers, and Horseshit...

Oh no…there he goes again!

In order to understand where the Conservatives are coming from, and being the historian that I am, I did a bit of research on the Conservative tradition in America.

According to Wikipedia: “…there has always been a Conservative tradition in America, but the American Conservative tradition was popularized by Russell Kirk in 1953, when he wrote The Conservative Mind. Russell Kirk state that Conservatism is base on the central idea of ordered liberty. It is the blending of the sometimes contending requirements of the community and the individual, of individual freedom and individual responsibility, of limited government and unlimited markets. To Kirk, there were six basic “canons” or principles of Conservatism:
• A divine intent, as well as personal conscience, rules society.
• Traditional life is filled with variety and mystery while most radical
systems are characterized by a narrowing uniformity.
• Civilized society requires orders and classes.
• Property and freedom are inseparably connected.
• A man must control his will and his appetite, knowing that he is governed
more by emotion than by reason.
• Society must alter slowly.

In 1955, William F. Buckley. Jr. founded the National Review, a Conservative magazine that included traditionalists such as Kirk, along with Roman Catholics, Libertarians, and anti-Communists.

In 1964, when Barry Goldwater, the United States Senator from Arizona and the author of The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), won the Republican Presidential nomination after a fierce fight. He lost the election badly, but permanently shifted the Republican Party to the Right. Part of Goldwater’s base were Southern Democrats who were alienated by Democratic support of Federal Civil Rights legislation.

Modern Conservatism became a major political force in the ‘70’s when religious organizations such as the Moral Majority brought together separate ideologies under a Conservative umbrella know as “fusionism”.

In the ‘80’s Ronald Reagan solidified Conservative Republican strength by appealing to fundamentalist Christians – historians and textbooks refer to this as “The Age of Reagan” or the “Reagan Era.”

In the ‘90’s, Conservatives found consolidation in a new and somewhat controversial leader, Congressman Newt Gingrich. His Contract With America created an atmosphere that allowed Republicans to gain 52 seats and assume a majority in the House and recapture control of the Senate.

The one political constant throughout the last 50 years has been the rise of the Right. The Conservative movement has become a major and often dominant player in the political and economic realms of America.
- Lee Edwards, Ph.D. – Distinguished Fellow in Conservative thought in the
Kenneth B. Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

…I just know that everyone is waiting with “baited breath” for my response in my next posting…