Comments on: Andrew Sullivan, “The Conservative Soul”

By: Deoxy

Deoxy — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:09:16 +0000

OK, I was going to say that David Wilson nailed things… then I read his second paragraph. Um, yikes. Well, the open borders thing is still fairly accurate…

And I’ve already been saying “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me” about the Republicans for some time now….

One of the weaknesses of a 2-party system (which ours is inherently) is that if one party is weak, many of it’s ideas actually get implemented more and better than if they were in power! To understand why this is, look at the current Republican party. If I want limited government, etc, am I going to vote for Democrats? NO, of course not, so the Republicans can take my vote for granted, just by being less bad than the Democrats, yet still violating all their supposd principles to reach out “across the aisle” to the voters on the other side, thus holding a stronger majority.

It’s not pretty, but it does seem to be happening right now.

By: David Wilson

David Wilson — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:03:47 +0000

For all the supposed influence of the “religious right,” I don’t see much implemented as policy. Abortion is legal. You can participate in a wide variety of appetite-feedings, excluding now-illegal drugs. Pornography is widely available. Andrew Sullivan is free to indulge himself with anyone but the underaged. Really, the only fundamentalist religion I see being practiced in American culture and politics is political correctness. Simply say the wrong thing about the right ethnic, racial or religious groups, and you will quickly discover what awaits the heretics of this state religion.

I think that making the “religious right” a boogeyman is a way of deflecting attention from the true New Masters of the GOP, the neocons who seek to make Israel the sole beneficiary of our foreign policy and leave America’s borders open to an invasion of illegals. Both of those policy goals, you’ll notice, have been achieved.

By: billb

billb — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 08:12:25 +0000

I’m not sure that personal autonomy/freedom was ever really a plank in the platform of conservatism. It seems to me that as long as western conservatives appeared to be more freedom-loving than the communists in the east, then their Purtainism went largely unnoticed or was at least given a pass. But, I was rather young during the Reagan and Thatcher years, so I could be wrong about the history. Still it seems that the War on (Some) Drugs got going in true earnest during that time. Perhaps the repressive tendencies of conservatives were actually held in check as long as there was somebody huge to fight who was off-the-charts repressive.