I grew up in a fundamentalist missionary family that in the 1970s and 80s morphed into my father’s activity as one of the founders of the Religious Right. We would hobnob with Republican leaders from Ronald Reagan to Gerald Ford and the Bush family, Jack Kemp and many others. One day it dawned on me that the far right of the Republican Party -— in other words its base -— actually hates America.
The Religious Right reveled in rising crime statistics, “family breakdown” statistics, failing public schools and so forth. As I explain in my book Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism), if crime started going down, or public school test results started going up -— without the country “turning back to Jesus” -— then that would prove that somehow “we” were wrong.
We wanted our country to fail because it had “turned away” from what we believed to be true.
Combined with the fact that we began to lose parts of the culture war, when it came to other Americans beginning to recognize gay rights, expanding women’s rights, abortion rights and such, the Religious Right and the Republican Party infected gun-toting America with a chip on its shoulder about a mile wide. This led to the myth that “they” (fill in the blank, gays, Jews, blacks, liberals -— whatever) are “taking away our country from ‘us’”...
“Conservative” means that you believe it’s right to legalize torture, but reject health care for all.
These days to be a conservative means that you hate the United States government elected by the people; believe that if millions of citizens are out of work that it’s their own fault and that the rest of the community should not help them by spending tax dollars; think that Sarah-believes-in-casting-out-demons-before-she-ran-for-governorship-Palin speaks for you. To be a conservative means you believe that healthcare reform will lead to “death panels”; that the president of the United States is not a “real American”; that a university education is a dangerous thing; that Americans who live in big cities are less American than those who live in small towns; that brown people, blacks, progressive whites, gays, public school teachers, Hispanics, immigrants, are somehow conspiring to subvert the “real America” with a “gay agenda” or a “Muslim agenda” or at least the browning of “our” white America.
In other words to be a conservative today is to be an anti-American, nihilistic libertarian know-nothing who believes in unregulated consumerism and the theology of dominion, and the Rapture that many conservatives also subscribe to along with such ‘facts’ as that Obama is the - literal! - Antichrist.
In other words to be a conservative today is to be an anti-American, nihilistic libertarian know-nothing who believes in unregulated consumerism and the theology of dominion, and the Rapture that many conservatives also subscribe to along with such “facts” as that Obama is the -— literal! -— Antichrist.
RE: These days to be a conservative means that you hate the United States government elected by the people
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If you really believe this, then you don’t really know conservatives and misunderstand conservatism. In fact, you don;t really know the principles by which this coutnry was founded.
Conservatives believe in the following :
1) That there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.
2) It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It i ‘s through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions.
3) America is guided by morality, having an origin in God
4) The U.S. Constitution is not a “living and breathing document.” Americans are guided by contracts, and the biggest of these contracts is the U.S. Constitution. It is the defining document which enables our rights, and delegates the powers to each branch of the U.S. Government, as well as to the states of the Union. It prevents societal experimentation, and was the mortar on which the bricks were laid in founding the country.
5) The Free Market fosters creativity and inventiveness. American conservatives know that businesses operating in a free market system are far more productive than any other businesses in the world. For they understand that to do away with this system will create high unemployment and expand poverty never before seen on American soil.
6) Illegal immigration is against the law, and threatens our security, morality and traditions as a nation.
7) The Tenth Amendment should never be forgotten, keeping Federalism alive and well.
8) The reason for public policy is for the preservation and improvement of American society. It cannot be made in an experimental attempt to rush us into a Utopian society. It must be the same for American foreign policy.
9) Americans have the right to keep the fruit of his own labors. Taxes must be kept low, and government spending must be kept under control so that prosperity may ring throughout America.
We therefore are ALWAYS VIGILANT regarding our government, no matter which party is in power.
Therefore, Conservatives know that we must continue to educate the masses of individuals that would rather watch American Idol than to even notice the amount of taxes taken from their paycheck. It is in this principle that we can never, under any circumstances, allow ourselves to fall into a malaise when in power. We must continue to be active in our educational opportunities. “The conservative must become more engaged in public matters. It is in his nature to live and let live, to attend to his family, to volunteer time with his church and synagogue, and to quietly assist a friend, a neighbor, or even a stranger. These are certainly admirable qualities that contribute to the overall health of a society. But it is no longer enough.” We must be organized, resolved and aggressive in defeating the left, and keeping them down so that they never dare think of entering public life again.
And therein lies the problem with your statement -— You confuse being vigilant with “hating” the government that we ( conservatives included ) elected. It is not “hate” that drives conservatives, it is the desire to hold those in power ACCOUNTABLE to the people that drives us.
in other words, YOU FORGET what our founding fathers and early presidents and even those whose thoughts influenced the shaping of this country warned us about. Here they are again to refresh your memory :
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“But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government.” — Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” — Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884), abolitionist, orator and columnist for The Liberator, in a speech before the Massachusetts Antislavery Society in 1852, according to The Dictionary of Quotations edited by Bergen Evans
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)
“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” — Edmund Burke
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” — James Madison, Federalist no. 51.
“It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.” — John Adams, 1788
“Those who have been once intoxicated with power and have derived any kind of emolument from it can never willingly abandon it.” — Edmund Burke
“Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” — Thomas Jeffferson, 1799