Neo-Con, Nuevo-Conservative, Compassionate Conservatism. These are the names given to the modern dominant Conservative movement in the country today (dominating the conservative movement). But this is not Conservatism as espoused by the founders and reformers of the Conservative movement, people like Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich.

 

 

The Conservatives who sit in the powerful places today, the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives are often made of the same cloth. They have stolen our movement and they have made a mess of it.

 

 

We have spent the last 42 plus years educating the public about what to expect from a Conservative Government and these people, these modern Blue Bloods, the same ones who hated Reagan, hated Goldwater are in charge and are managing to set the movement back a decade or more.

 

 

When did we lose control of our movement? At what point in time did the idea of Compassionate Conservatism, giving the Democrats every big spend bill they wrote like the education bill Kennedy put together, come into play. When did Conservatism decide to show that they could better Democrats than Democrats could be? It wasn’t just when Bush 43 came into power. No, it was far back before him, closer to the 101st day that the Republicans held the House of Representatives. Let’s try 1995 around the middle of May. That’s when we lost focus of our movement’s mission.

 

 

The Conservative Movement, the True Conservative Party has had three high water marks in recent history. First came the campaign of Barry Goldwater, followed 16 years later with the election of Ronald Reagan and then peaking with the election of the Republican controlled House of Representatives in 1994 and the Contract with America.

 

 

On the 101st day of the 104th Congress we lost control. Now obviously there is not a set day that we can pinpoint our loss of focus, however it was on this 101st day that we started to “wing it”. The contract with America was done and the foundation started to crack, not with a load snap, but with small fractures quietly moving in concentric circles growing daily, under our feet.

 

 

In 1964 Goldwater galvanized a movement based on certain simple ideals. Among these was Fiscal Responsibility, Personal Responsibility, The Defeat of Communism, Less Government Regulation (Smaller Government) Privatization of Social Security giving the people control over their money and even prayer in school for those who “choose” to participate.

 

 

Just 16 years later Reagan focused like a laser on one of these ideals as paramount to all the others, the defeat of Communism. When asked about the Cold War and what to do about it Goldwater was clear in his response, “Why not Victory”. This was Reagan’s North Star as he dealt with the largest issue of his time, the Soviet Union. This issue alone was to define the way Reagan did everything. From Iran/ Contra to the repairing of Jimmy Carter’s dismal economy that he inherited in 1981, it was all to position America to win a “Victory” over the Soviet Union. Whether you give credit to Gorbi, the Soviet economy, Star Wars or time, there can be little debate that Reagan was instrumental in the Soviet Union’s eventual collapse. As Reagan once said, and I paraphrase “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when nobody cares who gets the credit”. This was Reagan’s style.

 

 

Though Goldwater lost his bid for the Presidency and Reagan was locked at times in a death match with a Democratic Congress, both accomplished a great deal for the future of America and the future of Conservatism. It eventually led to the retaking of Congress by Republicans (we assumed Conservatives) after 40 years.  In large part that credit is to be shared by Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America. Again focus was the key, not on one subject but on a handful of subjects. http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html

 

 

As Reagan built upon Goldwater’s vision, so too did Gingrich would pull a portion of the Contract with America from Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union Address. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?p

 

 

It was, at least up to this point, a long process of education that began well before my time, handed down almost like a generational hand off, each chapter in the Conservative Education of America was specific and build upon the foundation of those who had come before us.

 

 

But after the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, it began to unwind. While 12 years would go by before the Republicans lost majority control of Congress as a whole, the focus disappeared almost over night. In the mid-90’s we started hearing the worse kind of talk from Radio personalities and others that the Republican Party was incapable to lead beyond the contract itself. Then Republicans lost it completely as they made a mountain out of the mole hill that was Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. As big an embarrassment as Clinton was to this country and the Presidency, it was the Whitewater land deals that should have continued to be the subject of Ken Starr’s quest.  When nothing was found they should have moved on with their agenda of those things that would have produced the reductions in Governmental control and lower taxes and let Hillary Clinton deal with her husbands problems.

 

 

This is where the Conservative movement and the Republican Party started to part ways in my opinion, or, where the truth started to unveil itself. But those of us in the Conservative movement were too busy hoping it would get back on track to notice that the light at the end of the tunnel was an oncoming train. They have never completely parted, keep that in mind, but at some point in our history (I believe it was here) the Republicans became more concerned about power than doing the work of the people. Conservatives (including Libertarians who share a great may positions on issues with Conservatives) were taken for a little 10 year ride, an odyssey if you will of dazzling statements to keep us in line while the “Republican Conservatism” (and there is a difference) continued to unravel at the seams.

 

 

Here is where Conservatives began to go along to get along (although we thought we were still in the majority at this point), a mistake on our part. We believe strongly in the ideals of Reagan and Goldwater; that the government is there to do a particular job; that they are there primarily to defend our freedom to do for ourselves. This is the loftiest of Conservative ideals. We are the people who want to succeed and build wealth not for the sake of becoming rich but for the sake of our children, giving them a jump start to a better life and building something solid for us to retire on so our kids do not have to take care of us financially. This is the American Dream; I want my children to have a better life than I have. All humanity wants this, but only in America can that truly be accomplished in one lifetime.

 

 

A side note: That is really the main difference between Conservatives and Liberals; Conservatives believe that government’s job is to clear the way for the people to thrive and Liberals believe that the Government’s job is to assist the people in thriving. These are two sides of the same coin. Obviously Liberals don’t want everything handed to everyone, and obviously Conservatives don’t want the government to do nothing for anyone. It is a question of degrees. At what point does the assistance of the Government deplete a persons desire to do for themselves, and at what point do the people sometimes need to be reigned in so as not to do damage to themselves or other in their pursuit of success?

 

 

Back to the point: The Blue Blood Republicans, those who like the middle ground of governmental control over the masses while allowing freedom for themselves are the ones we see today as the modern Republican Party, a sharp departure from what Goldwater and Reagan had in mind. Now, as the sun sets somewhat on the Republican Revolution we Conservatives are starting to see in retrospect what went wrong. We did not continue to educate the Party we aligned ourselves with on what the goal really was. We never wanted a party based government; we wanted an ideal based government, one committed to doing what was best for all the people by moving away from a government build upon social engineering. Welfare as it is today holds people in poverty, Medicare as it is today does just enough to treat, but not enough to prevent, and Social Security steals from the young and keeps them from being able to prepare for their own old age while maintaining in near poverty those who have worked hard all their lives. We wanted a Revolution for the people, not for the powerful and elite. We were betrayed by the very Party we drove to power.

 

 

They say Washington has a way of taking a good man (or woman) and making them a Washington man (or woman).  Power corrupts; this we know regardless of Party. We need to re-evaluate what we need to do to get back to where the Conservative movement is recognized as the best possible way to free Americans to create their own destiny as many people understood when the Revolution started in 1994. We need to align ourselves with Conservatives or either party not just one. I still see the Republican Party at the grass roots level as having the most numerous candidates for us to support in the cause; however there are many Democrats who understand this desire to be free to make decisions based on our daily needs and dreams. Conservatism is the movement that has the power to bring the poor up from poverty, allow the people to control the money that they earn and plan for their retirement and give people the freedom to live free and without worry that the government is going to create obstacles to reaching that goal.

 

 

Liberalism is not bad in theory; it simply is naïve to the needs of humans to make a world for themselves. Too often the best of intentions create horrible results; this is the state of modern Liberalism in my mind. Through their unending desire to help they have hindered so many for so long. While not their intention it has become for many the outcome. Conservatism calls to the heart of humanity, to do for thyself and teach other how to succeed.

 

 

It breaks down to a simple biblical idea; give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. This is the heart of Conservatism, true Conservatism, not Republican Conservatism and not Compassionate Conservatism. Conservatism is Compassionate in its very being.

 

 

I look forward to your comments.