The Myth of "Conservatism" .

With Senator  Ted Curz hitting the campaign road , along with Mike Huckabee . These two politicians have become the ironic symbols of *** "conservatism" . Just this week I was able to hear with an audience on live streaming TV Ted Cruz speaking to members of a Church that I was invited to go to. It was interesting to note how far religion has mixed with politics . Here I am going explain why "churches" have become so political.  Sen Cruz embodies a  Christian  (2)> Reconstructionism form (viewpoint)  of theocratic dominion theology in his speaking .Cruz’s campaign looks to be a remarkable distillation of the hoary, oft-repeated notion that America is a fundamentally conservative country. +++> “Today, roughly half of born-again Christians aren’t voting,” Cruz said in his kick-off speech. “Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.” There’s no need broaden the party to the center, in other words, when there’s enough room to the right with which to win.  Its leaders challenged evangelicals across a wide swath of theological beliefs to engage in a more muscular and activist form of political participation. The core theme of dominion theology is that the Bible mandates Christians to take over and "occupy" secular institutions.A number of Christian Right leaders read what the Christian Reconstructionists were writing, and they adopted the idea of taking dominion over the secular institutions of the United States as the "central unifying ideology" of their social movement. They decided to gain political power through the Republican Party. Cruz is no stranger to religion ,like his speeches , they sounded more like sermons , and "warnings" about how awful government has become. The "theory" behind what the right wing media calls  "conservatism" is a belief of   " traditional "values," socioeconomic hierarchies and institutions. And so the conservative is against most anything new, and anything that disturbs the hierarchy. The conservatism view point has come a long way , ##>  and there are "myths" that bind that idea. The idea of fiscal conservatism . Current “conservatism” suffers from a profound case of (1)>  Doublethink, trying to reconcile its principles (whatever’s left of them) to Bush’s spending, wars, and expansion of government intrusion into our personal lives (e.g., Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind). Reagan who fully embraces modern conservatism (myth) as constructed by William F. Buckley and other mid-century thinkers. Even Reagan himself had deviated prior to 1980 on abortion, but by the time he won the Republican nomination, he embraced the complete modern conservative issue bundle that included low taxes, social conservatism, and aggressive foreign policy. While there are still factional fights within the GOP after 1980, no Republican president (or presidential nominee) has seriously challenged that bundle.Everyone on the right these days claims Ronald Reagan. Neoconservatives, libertarians, social conservatives, moderates, and the rest each have a favorite quote. He was a complex man with complex thoughts, allowing every ideologue to pick out-of-context phrases. Even many of those claiming a multifaceted Reagan transcending a single ideology simplify him through his concept of an ideal city uniting the contending ideologies through politics and power. Here the Republican Party suffers from myth absorption , Reagan is no longer there but each member of the GOP are trying to bring back how  (3)> Reagan governed. The tea party was a carefully crafted PR stunt by the Republican party to “rebuild” themselves after eight years of George W. Bush nearly destroyed their entire party—and our country.Because nothing says “freedom” and “good Christian values” (you know, what Republicans claim they represent) quite like blackmailing politicians to do what you want, otherwise you’ll unleash millions of dollars attacking them in an effort to ruin their political careers.

Conservative Vs Liberal .
A social liberal wants society to change, usually to advance towards some more ideal goal.The other side of the equation, that one can be a conservative yet still want social change, thus fails. And the phrase " conservative" is an oxymoron anyway. One cannot be a conservative--meaning someone who doesn't want change-- and expect the fiscal state of the union to improve. History and logic both prove this. Historically, the economy suffers under conservatives, and although it does not always improve under liberals, Paradoxically, the people of the United States became the chief conservative nation of the world at the very time when they had ceased to call themselves conservatives at home.The tactics of conservatism vary widely by place and time. But the most central feature of conservatism is deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are better people than they are. (4)> Modern-day liberals often theorize that conservatives use "social issues" as a way to mask economic objectives, but this is almost backward: the true goal of conservatism is to establish an aristocracy, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality. Economic inequality and regressive taxation, while certainly welcomed by the aristocracy, are best understood as a means to their actual goal, which is simply to be aristocrats

The main points :

Conservative : fiscal restraint, less government intrusion into personal lives, lower to NO income taxes, no capital gains taxes, a strong military for defense, and preservation of the Constitution. Btw, it is not a living document. 
Moderate : fiscal restraint, government regulation of business, a graduated income tax, strong military for defense, and belief that the Constitution is a living document. 
Liberal (Progressive is a nice word with no meaning) : increased government spending on social programs with increased taxes, taxes on capital gains for social giveaways, decreased military strength, subjugating US sovereignty to the UN, providing illegals with social security benefits and free health care with taxpayers dollars, putting justices on the Supreme Court who will legislate their will over the vote of the people, no foreign policy, and government intrusion into our personal lives.

The "ghost" of Ronald Reagan . 

Ronald Reagan would
be disgusted  at
the GOP today.

Ronald Reagan was perhaps the "last" Great American President in my mind . Today the Republican party is chopped up , fragmented and a petty ploy to extremism . (6)>  Reagan is king. And the many Republicans vying to be president will work feverishly to align with him. But do they? Yes, to bring a Reagan back would be ideal . If Reagan could come back . His ghost , we would need a witch of  (5)> Endor . She would have  to summon up Reagan out of the smoke and fire to "warn" his "party" of their sins.Conservative Republicans today don’t have one Reagan-type to coalesce around. But they long for one, which is why all the presidential hopefuls (even Christie and Bush) want face time in front of Reagan’s old foot soldiers. Honorably today the GOP is a "disgrace" in Reagan's eyes . it’s clear that the Tea Party Republicans have little regard for the policies of the president they claim to venerate.Reagan presided over 18 debt ceiling increases, raised taxes 11 times, and signed an expansion of Medicare. Reagan was a flaming liberal compared to today’s American Taliban members and their views. In the conservative canon, Reagan was a heroic tax cutter and fiscal hawk, brought the Soviet Union down with his steely resolve and soaring rhetoric (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”), and made America proud of itself again. Reagan’s record, though, was a bit different. Was nothing like the PART of NO today . If his ghost could come back , he would be correcting the entire Congress of  Republican's of their political SINS.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

*** The real irony is that The Republican president who freed the slaves was a liberal. The

Democrats who populated the Ku Klux Klan and fought hard to deny civil rights legislation in the 1960s were conservatives. So by using the terms "conservative" and "liberal," rather than party labels, we can more clearly recognize the historic consistencies between the two opposing philosophies.Christian fundamentalists and neo-Confederate white supremacists – is set on crippling the federal government and humiliating the first African-American president. But the extremism has already shattered the Republican Party. (1)> Doublethink, is the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination.Here is an example , Senator Cruz and former congressman Dennis Kucinich put the brakes on the Obama Administration’s rush to commit the U.S. military to an expansion of the war in Syria by calling it a plan to provide al-Qaeda with an air force. It was a powerful moment of truth that delegitimized the Administration’s plan and exposed the deceit of the war on terror.And only a few week before that, liberals and Tea Party members in the House nearly prevailed on a vote to reign in the NSA’s surveillance of the American public.(2)> Reconstruction is the spark plug behind much of the battle over religion in politics today. The movement’s founder, theologian Rousas John Rushdoony, claimed 20 million followers—a number that includes many who embrace the Reconstruction tenets without having joined any organization. Card-carrying Reconstructionists are few, but their influence is magnified by their leadership in Christian right crusades, from abortion to homeschooling. The same have also embraced: They oppose raising the minimum wage, or even the existence of a minimum wage. They would gut Medicare, Social Security and unemployment benefits, along with every other government program that supports the middle class. They would reduce their own taxes even more, while raising taxes on working families—all retrogressive ideas that even the average Republican rejects.+++The Republican party’s claim that they’re the “party for Christian values” is an absolute myth.Except, being a Christian and following the Bible are not mutually exclusive. It’s very possible to believe in the Bible – without actually being a Christian. And most of what right-wing ideology is based on comes from the Old Testament, which was before Jesus Christ. ## >There’s this common misnomer within the Republican party that seems to imply calling yourself “fiscally conservative” means you’re fiscally responsible.However, Republicans are neither fiscally conservative nor fiscally responsible.So tell me again, how is that “fiscally conservative?”  Because they want to cut taxes for the rich?  Oh, by the way, cutting taxes does not make someone “fiscally conservative.”  Especially when those tax cuts have led to drastic increases in our deficits, have mainly benefited the rich and have had zero correlation with job creation.And let’s not forget the trillions Republicans have spent on bloated defense contracts and wars since the 1980′s.(3)> Reaganites don't see this, believing that the economy grew under Reagan, but the only increases were due to the fact that Reagan had crashed the economy so far down that the minor improvements under his reign of error seem impressive. By the end of the Reagan error, the economy had barely made it back to where it was when Reagan took over, and even then only after Reagan had abandoned his "trickle down" nonesense, raising taxes and growing the government to its largest size in history.(4)> Conservatism is not for individual rights or personal liberty; rather, it is for religious values (euphemistically called “traditional values” or “family values”) and a government that enforces them. Although conservatism calls for some economic liberties, it simultaneously demands various violations of individual rights in order to support certain aspects of the welfare state (e.g., Social Security and government-run schools), in order to shackle or control “greedy” businessmen (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley and anti-immigration laws), and in order to forbid certain “immoral” acts or relationships (e.g., drug use and gay marriage). Thus, conservatism is utterly at odds with capitalism. (5)> ENDOR  witch of Endor really summon Samuel from the dead (1 Samuel 28:7-20)? ... What does the Bible say about praying to / speaking to the dead? (6)> Reagan made government seem like "a lazy brother in law sleeping on the sofa and eating all your food.." (quote from George Will). The modern GOP sees the government not just as other, but alien and dangerous; an invading foreign power that must be crushed.