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Hey SampleMan, I appreciate your honesty, as well as your willingness to set aside polemic for the sake of conservatism. I agree that we are kindred spirits struggling with the hand we have been dealt this time around. Like you, I want what is best for this country.

I also believe that our approach has been colored by our respective experiences as conservative activists. Since you have been honest about yours, I am more than happy to share some of mine.

This is not my first time at FR. I was a member years ago and posted occasionally. Cannot recall my handle at the time, and the email address I had registered under has long since become defunct. Then I married a conservative subject of Her Majesty the Queen. Sadly, conservatism in the British Empire had all but collapsed.

So I left FR about twelve years ago to help my spouse rebuild the conservative movement in the UK, Canada and Australia. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do. Dubya had just been elected President, and both the House and the Senate were firmly in Republican hands. Plus conservative Republicans were winning at state, county and municipal levels. However, conservatism among our English-speaking allies was in shambles.

This troubled me because I felt that conservatism in America was always strongest when we have strong conservative allies internationally who share our values. Probably the best recent example is the Reagan-Thatcher alliance, which also included Mulroney in Canada (more of a CINO, but as conservative as one got in Canada at the time).

This experience helping to build the conservative movement among our traditional British/Canadian/Australian allies was a real eye-opener for me. One of the first things I learned was that conservatism had been destroyed in these countries not by leftist politicians representing leftist parties, but by CINOs and leftists who had taken over the various “Conservative” parties. One of the first things they did, once elected to office, was to purge the Conservative parties of actual conservatives.

The second harsh lesson I learned is that CINO’s seldom remain static or shift to the right once elected. In the vast majority of cases, they shift to the left. Hence the current situation in Britain where the “Conservative” government of David Cameron is leading the state persecution of Christians and Muslims who continue to stand for traditional marriage. Once a party is taken over by CINO’s, it becomes almost impossible for principled conservatives to take back the party. In fact, this was something recognized by President Reagan, who steadfastly refused to compromise with Rockefeller Republicans. At a minimum, it takes years and years of activism within the party, followed then by years of activism among the more general public.

A third lesson, which should not surprise any serious student of conservatism since Russell Kirk pointed it out decades ago, is that a nation’s conservative movement rises and falls on the strength of its commitment to social conservatism. Even the most economically marxist social conservative will shift to fiscal conservatism over time, due to real-life experience and the strength of fiscal conservative argument, if he feels that social conservative principles are securely adhered to. On the other hand, a fiscally conservative politician who sells out social conservatism will almost always in time - in order to retain political office - sell out one’s previously held fiscally conservative values. The reason that such a politician, while rejecting communism, has bought into its ideological mother - that is, cultural marxism.

Finally, the fourth lesson is that it communist and socialist government are sometimes the best reality check for voters, and that sometimes we must tolerate (but never support) such government for a time, in order to bring about principled conservative government. I believe it is no coincidence that Reagan arose in the aftermath of Jimmy Carter, or in the U.K. that Lady Thatcher was elected following the disastrous prime ministerships of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. Of course the best example from Canada is Mike Harris’ election following the premiership of Bob Rae. And who could forget John Howard’s four terms as Australia’s prime minister after Paul Keating?

So I’m not as concerned about stopping Obama as I am about replacing him with a true conservative. In my experience the bigger danger is electing a RINO or CINO, since when elected they usually set conservatism back several years. I’ve had several British friends flee to Canada and the U.S. in recent years because the current “Conservative” government has proven to be just as fiscally leftist and socially marxist as the Labour Government under Gordon Brown.

Likewise, it took the conservative movement in Canada something like 25 years to take back the federal government after Mulroney turned CINO and destroyed conservatism from within the Progressive Conservative Party - Canada’s historically conservative party at the time. First principled conservatives had to split off from the CINO government that had destroyed the Conservative brand among voters and found a new party. Then they had to suffer through inept Liberal rule for a decade, then a few more years of Liberal-socialist-marxist coalition rule, then minority conservative governments for a few years that was limited by three leftist parties holding a collective majority of seats. In other words, every time the conservatives wanted to pass legislation they had to negotiate with at least one of the three left-wing parties for support.

My fear is that America is headed in the same direction with Romney, that Britain has gone with David Cameron, or Canada with Brian Mulroney once he turned CINO. What is needed is a Reagan or Thatcher or Harper.