>>>>I think you are quick to condemn a group ... Go read, as I have, what the JBS has had to say.
Wrong. I've known about the Birchers since I was a youngster. Around the time Robert Welch and Revilo P. Oliver formed the JBS I was engaged in "duck and cover drills" in school, to protect us from the commie a-bombs. (That was the first and last time I found myself in agreement with the JBS. [/sarc] ) I've read what the Birchers said about President Eisehnhower, Bill Buckley, Reagan and conservatives in general. They made no sense back then, when they had 100K members and they don't make any sense today.
>>>>>You are fast to call me a "conspiracy paranoiac"...
Stop whining and stop playing games. The Birchers offer conservatism nothing.
The only real thing I see wrong about the Birchers is they were decades ahead of themselves in a lot of their political predictions that's all. Today we have a two party system being controlled by Marxist and Socialist and some very, very, rich persons.
We have had several presidents who were willing to send this nations future and freedoms to hell for trade deals especially with The Communist government of China and that's both DEM and GOP presidents alike.
The GOP leadership of today many of which are pretending to be conservatives are very timid. So timid it makes you wonder why they are actually there? It seems all Barney Frank, Harry Reid, or Nancy has to do is yell boo at them and they fold like cheap seats. No one can seem to tell me how Barney Frank managed to get so called Conservative Republicans to vote for the bailouts? However thanks to some enlightened Republicans none dare now call them voting yes on such Traitors, Communist, Socialist, or Marxist, lest they be labeled as kooks and fringe right wing extremist by the very ones practicing Political Correctness AKA Cultural Marxism within the GOP this very day.
Some very principled Conservatives at least listened to JBS and JBS listened to them as well. That doesn't mean 100% agreement. One was Paul Weyrich. Weyrich didn't agree with a lot of their policy or at least some of it yet had the JBS leader on his show. My guess is Weyrich shared their moral values.
BTW most JBS I think would more likely be Constitution Party supporters rather then Libertarian. The Co-Founder of The Moral Majority Phillips I believe was a JBS member the other one Weyrich had close friendship ties I think with it's leadership. No other group helped Reagan get elected more than the Moral Majority did.
Reagan really didn't begin to draw that much dissent within Conservative ranks till his second term. Sad to say I think he may have delegated too much policy control to the very one who would later destroy about all the good the man had accomplished making way for New World Order as he called it.
I don't think Reagan was at the top of his game his second term like the first and I don't think it was something he could help. He trusted a part of the GOP that can not be trusted period.
I am not sure how you define "conservatism", but lumping people who are for originalist interpretation of the Constitution in with the KKK and Stormfront is a bit of a push, even if people who would abolish most of the Federal Government as having no Constitutional authorization are a distinct minority in American Politics.
You see, I, too was engaged in little 'duck and cover' drills. I recall sitting at the kitchen table while my Dad took a compass and drew little circles around likely targets to determine what our chances were if the Soviets decided they could survive a nuclear war.
I have also, in the time since, regardless of administration, watched as, then fought against the consistent erosion of our Constitutional Rights. Oh, it hasn't always appeared that way in Time Magazine, The Washington Post or New York Times, but then I do not consider those sources reliable now, and I did not then.
Were the people in the JBS concerned about deals with the Soviets? Why would that be?
Lest we forget, this country was founded by "extremists". The people who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor--and who often lost all but the latter, were far from the political mainstream in the world in 1776, and were "extremists" in the colonies as well. Thank God for them. It is a pity we squander their legacy.
As for being anti-Communist (Marxist, Socialist as well), well, I am. I think the slickest trick pulled by the Communists was the slogan "Communism is dead!!". It is effective because people will not watch the subtle machinations which lead to totalitarian government, especially if they come from people who wave the proper standard as they proclaim "freedom" the whole while they rob us of it.
Would you have embraced the War on Drugs if a democrat had proposed it? (I'm anti-drug, but I'm also pro-4th Amendment) Would you have thought the Patriot Act was a good idea uder Clinton?
You see, I am an "extremist". I am a geologist who joined with a mere 31.4 thousand other scientists to sign a petition to our government to NOT sign the Kyoto accords (nor anything like them) because the issue of whether anthropogenic global warming existed was far from settled. Wackos? Conspiracy theorists? Nope, just scientists who did not agree with the "consensus" we were all assured existed. We were even given a buzzword handle: "deniers".
Then that fraud started unravelling.
In the meantime, though, we were treated like lepers.
Some things come out quickly, others take longer.
Whether you see a grand conspiracy or not, there is no denying the effects of the inexorable march of Communist/Socialist/Marxist philosophy, nor the infection of the National psyche with it.
Think about your youth.
Would anyone have tolerated the petty tyranny of a homeowner's association?
What would have been their reaction to DUI checkpoints?
No-knock raids?
Amnesty for illegal aliens? (especially during the Cold War)
The selection of any group to be held up as more sacrosanct than others by deeming a crime against their persons more punishable than the same crime perpetrated against another because it was allegedly motivated by "hate"?
How would the founders have reacted to 50% taxation? To support a semi-permanent underclass of tens of millions? To support those who are not legally present within our borders?
Social Security?
The National Instand Check System? (to purchase a firearm).
The Wall Street bailout?
As I have said, the Socialists (Communists) stated their goals, and set out to achieve them. Someone was paying attention in 1963 when these were added to the Congressional Record: 45 Communist Goals, and if you peruse the list, you will find that most have been achieved, regardless of who was in the White House.
It is comfortable in the middle of the herd, though, surrounded by others who can ignore what happens along the edges. When the sentinels bark, when the bleats of those taken down by predators are far away it is easy to ignore it and consider it a 'fringe' thing.
But it is on those selfsame fringes our liberties perish. We ignore that outcry at our mutual peril.