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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Chuck Baldwin: Conservatives Lost More than Election November 7, 2008 Conservatives Lost More Than an Election By Chuck Baldwin - NewsWithViews.com That Barack Obama trounced John McCain last Tuesday should have surprised no one. In fact, in this column, weeks ago, I stated emphatically that John McCain could no more beat Barack Obama than Bob Dole could beat Bill Clinton. He didn’t. (Hence a vote for John McCain was a “wasted” vote, was it not?) I also predicted that Obama would win with an electoral landslide. He did. The real story, however, is not how Barack Obama defeated John McCain. The real story is how John McCain defeated America’s conservatives. For all intents and purposes, conservatism–as a national movement–is completely and thoroughly dead. Barack Obama did not destroy it, however. It was George W. Bush and John McCain who destroyed conservatism in America. Soon after G.W. Bush was elected, it quickly became obvious he was no conservative. On the contrary, George Bush has forever established himself as a Big-Government, warmongering, internationalist neocon. Making matters worse was the way Bush presented himself as a conservative Christian. In fact, Bush’s portrayal of himself as a conservative Christian paved the way for the betrayal and ultimate destruction of conservatism (something I also predicted years ago). And the greatest tragedy of this deception is the way that Christian conservatives so thoroughly (and stupidly) swallowed the whole Bush/McCain neocon agenda. For example, Bush and his fellow neocons like to categorize and promote themselves as being “pro-life,” but they have no hesitation or reservation about killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in reckless and unconstitutional foreign wars. By the same token, how many unborn babies were saved by six years of all three branches of the federal government being under the control of these “pro-life” neocons? Not one! Ask the more than eight million unborn babies who were killed in their mothers’ wombs during the last eight years how “pro-life” George W. Bush and John McCain are. As a result of this insanely inconsistent and pixilated punditry, millions of Americans now laugh at the very notion of “pro-life” conservatism. Bush and McCain have made a mockery of the very term. Consider, too, the way Bush and McCain have allowed the international bankers on Wall Street to bilk America’s taxpayers out of trillions of dollars. Yes, I know Obama also supported the Wall Street bailout, but it was the Republican Party that controlled the White House for the last eight years and the entire federal government for six out of the last eight years. In fact, the GOP has won seven out of the previous ten Presidential elections. They have controlled Supreme Court appointments for the past thirty-plus years. They have appointed the majority of Treasury secretaries and Federal Reserve chairmen. They have presided over the greatest trade imbalances, the biggest deficits, the biggest spending increases, and now the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression. Again, the American people look at these so-called “conservatives” and laugh. No wonder such a sizeable majority of voters yawned when John McCain tried to scare them by accusing Barack Obama of being a “big taxer.” How can one possibly scare people with a charge like that after the GOP has made a total mockery of fiscal conservatism? That’s like trying to scare someone coming out from a swim in the Gulf of Mexico with a squirt gun. Then there was the pathetic attempt by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to scare gun owners regarding an Obama White House. Remember that John McCain is the same guy that the NRA rightly condemned for proposing his blatantly unconstitutional McCain/Feingold bill. McCain is also the same guy that tried to close down gun shows. He even made a personal campaign appearance for a pro-gun control liberal in the State of Oregon a few short years ago. In fact, the Gun Owners of America (GOA) gave McCain a grade of “F” for his dismal record on Second Amendment issues. Once again, Chicken Little-style paranoia over Barack Obama rang hollow when the alternative was someone as liberal as John McCain. But the worst calamity of this election was the way conservatives–especially Christian conservatives–surrendered their principles for the sake of political partisanship. The James Dobsons of this country should hang their heads in shame! Not only did they lose an election, they lost their integrity! In South Carolina, for example, pro-life Christians and conservatives had an opportunity to vote for a principled conservative-constitutionalist for the U.S. Senate. He is pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and pro-traditional marriage. He believes in securing our borders against illegal immigration. He is against the bailout for the Wall Street banksters. His conservative credentials are unassailable. But the vast majority of Christian conservatives (including those at Bob Jones University) voted for his liberal opponent instead. The man that the vast majority of Christian conservatives voted for in South Carolina is a Big-Government neocon. He supported the bailout of the Wall Street banksters. He is a rabid supporter of granting amnesty and a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. In fact, this man has a conservative rating of only 29% in the current Freedom Index of the New American Magazine. Why did Christian conservatives support the liberal neocon and not the solid pro-life conservative? Because the conservative ran as a Democrat and the neocon is a Republican. I’m talking about the race between Bob Conley and Lindsey Graham, of course. Had South Carolina’s pastors, Christians, evangelicals, and pro-life conservatives voted for Bob Conley, he would be the new senator-elect from that state. In fact, Bob was so conservative that the Democratic leadership in South Carolina endorsed the Republican, Lindsey Graham! No matter. A majority of evangelical Christians in South Carolina stupidly rejected Bob Conley and voted for Graham. Across the country, rather than stand on principle, hundreds of thousands of pastors, Christians, and pro-life conservatives capitulated and groveled before John McCain’s neocon agenda. In doing so, they forfeited any claim to truth, and they abandoned any and all fidelity to constitutional government. They should rip the stories of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of their Bibles. They should never again tell their children, parishioners, and radio audiences the importance of standing for truth and principle. They have made a mockery of Christian virtue. No wonder a majority of the voting electorate laughs at us Christians. No wonder the GOP crashed and burned last Tuesday. Again, it wasn’t Barack Obama who destroyed conservatism; it was George W. Bush, John McCain, and the millions of evangelical Christians who supported them. And until conservatives find their backbone and their convictions, they deserve to remain a burnt-out, has-been political force. They have no one to blame but themselves. And since it is unlikely that the Republican Party has enough sense to understand any of this and will, therefore, do little to reestablish genuine conservative principles, it is probably best to just go ahead and bury the scoundrels now and move on to something else. Without a sincere commitment to constitutional government, the GOP has no justifiable reason to ever govern again. Therefore, put a fork in them. They are done. Let a new entity arise from the ashes: one that will stand for something more than just “the lesser of two evils.” As we say in the South, That dog just won’t hunt anymore. © 2008 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/
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#8. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#0)
George Bush is NOT now nor has he ever been a conservative. The caricatured monster associated with George Bush is many things but one thing it is not is conservative. Capo in a Crime Family is much more appropriate and accurate. Conservatism is not dead but it has had its name drug through the mud, and this I believe was intentional. Conservatives are the backbone of the resistance, most militia members were, and are, conservatives. Most of the people openly opposing the totalitarian state being constructed are conservatives. Conservatives, loyal Americans, are an anathema to the Bush/NeoCon/Banksters/Israeli Agent crowd. We don't do things the way good little slaves are supposed to. We actually believe in things like the Constitution, Literacy, and Religion. These are all road blocks to their 1984 designs, as literate limited government religious (and that does not mean just Fundies but anyone who sees religion as an important element of society) conservatives. They actually educate their children - some even going so far as to withdraw their children from the state approved indoctrination centers (Skools for you grajiuts of State Skools) and teach them PHONICS. You people are not cooperating with the program. So, conservatism as an organized movement had to be destroyed. That is why you have places like FRaud Republik to further fragment and control the dialog creating a false image of what it means to be a conservative. Although just as a point of fact modern conservatism is actually what it used to mean, in Jefferson's day, to be a liberal. One who believes in limited government, individual liberty, and the rights of man used to be what was considered the liberal position. However, the language has been debased and the Trotskyites misappropriated the good name of liberalism to their communist totalitarian evil. The reality is that free people do not want an overarching government stealing their money in the name of help. However, they have not heard the last of us.
that's correct. i am a classical liberal as explained below, but i dare not label myself a liberal of any kind today. it's amazing how the lexicon gets bastardized, isn't it? Classical Liberalism Prior to the 20th century, classical liberalism was the dominant political philosophy in the United States. It was the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and the signers of the Declaration of Independence and it permeates the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and many other documents produced by the people who created the American system of government. Many of the emancipationists who opposed slavery were essentially classical liberals, as were the suffragettes, who fought for equal rights for women. Basically, classical liberalism is the belief in liberty. Even today, one of the clearest statements of this philosophy is found in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. At that time, as is the case today, most people believed that rights came from government. People thought they only had such rights as government elected to give them. But following the British philosopher John Locke, Jefferson argued that it's the other way around. People have rights apart from government, as part of their nature. Further, people can form governments and dissolve them. The only legitimate purpose of government is to protect these rights. People who call themselves classical liberals today tend to have the basic view of rights and role of government that Jefferson and his contemporaries had. Moreover, they do not tend to make any important distinction between economic liberties and civil liberties.
Yes, back to Saul Alinsky again - although he didn't invent the tactic of shifting the meaning of language - he just codified it. Orwell wrote about it in 1984. When you control the language and the definitions then you control the debate. That is basically what the Plutocracy/Fascists have done - control the language. You can look at other words as well: Gay used to mean carefree and happy and had noting to do with sodomy. We didn't say "intellectually challenged" for stoopid. Not all people opposed to Socialism and Government Confiscation of Private Property were "fascists". Being in favor of "choice" did not mean you were a booster of infanticide. Listening to the average television newscast is a hoot if you don't look at the picture but instead listen to the language used, how it is twisted, how certain words are carefully chosen to manipulate the watcher/listener whether it being a negative choice or a positive choice to push something. Nader ran into that the other day with Sheepherd Smif. By twisting the language and implying definitions not in evidence he attempted to paint a picture other than what Nader was plainly saying. That is PsyOps/Agitprop/Perception Management.
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