TomPaine: Right Wing Swings and Misses

[marmar]

Right Wing Swings And Misses
Isaiah J. Poole
March 02, 2007


Isaiah J. Poole is executive editor of TomPaine.com. Bill Scher, who is blogging the Conservative Political Action Conference (http://blog.ourfuture.org/) for Campaign for America's Future contributed to this article.

Conservatives are nothing if not stubborn. Having lost control of Congress in 2006 and finding themselves badly divided since, activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this weekend are telling themselves that they only need to go back to the roots of their ideology to regain political hegemony. Of course, their roots, to borrow a phrase from their hero, Ronald Reagan, are not the solution to their problem; their roots are the problem, and the crowd whipping itself into a righteous frenzy at a hotel just outside of downtown D.C. willfully refuses to see that.

You don’t have to look further than the opening address delivered Thursday by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who is the Senate’s lead voice of conservative Republicans. To DeMint, the 2006 election was not a defeat for conservatism but was the result of voters being “confused.” Well, on that score, actually, he may have a point. Voters who were drilled to believe that Republicans stood for fiscal discipline, efficient management of government and ethical behavior were certainly confused when conservatism’s iron grip on the White House and Congress produced record budget deficits, the cataclysmic failures of Hurricane Katrina and the departures in disgrace of Republican congressmen Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Bob Ney and Mark Foley.

But DeMint’s point was to lay out three core values “that have made America great” and that for conservatives should be “the prisms through which we must evaluate all of our policy decisions.” He called them “individualism, capitalism and volunteerism.” What they are really is this: You are on your own, greed is good and, yeah, a little bit of charity is not a bad thing—but don’t feel obligated.

DeMint spoke of people having “the capabilities to succeed in a free society,” of free markets where “consumers can make their own decisions” and of citizens who care for each other and their communities without “government coercion.” It sounds so appealing, until you review how conservatives have, over the past three decades, perverted the highest forms of those values into government policies that are heartless, corrupt and corrosive to the economic political and spiritual underpinnings of the country. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/02/right_wing_swings_and_misses.php

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. "Consumers can make their own decisions"

ummm...yeah. It's kind of like when the owner flips a newly acquired radio station from progressive talk to conservate hate. Kind of like that? That's not consumer choice, it's ownership decision.