Debunking the "We are Conservative" Lie

[danarhea]

As Bush twists his tongue into knots, saying that he represents Conservative values, the facts speak otherwise. I will make my points in short order:

1) First of all, lets go right to the horse's mouth. William Kristol, the son of the father of Neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, the founder of PNAC, and the spokesman today for Neoconservatism, had this to say last year:

If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me.

I will take Bush over Kerry, but Kerry over Buchanan ... If you read the last few issues of the Weekly Standard, it has as much or more in common with the liberal hawks than with traditional conservatives.

Here is the telling quote, which defines the actual political affiliation of Neocons, and where the Neocon movement is heading.

Alluding to his father Irving's definition of a neoconservative as a liberal who has been mugged by reality, Kristol describes a neoliberal as a "neoconservative who has been mugged by reality in Iraq."

According to Kristol, those who follow what passes for Neocon philosophy are being repeatedly mugged, from Liberal to Neocon, and finally to an extremist Neoliberal line. There is no Conservativism here. These are hard core Liberals, and will always be hard core Liberals. And why not? The creators of Neoconservatism were once card carrying members of the Communist Party, and aligned themselves with Leon Trotsky. They only called themselves Conservatives in order to lie themselves into power.

From this article.

2) The end products speaks for TRUE IDEOLOGY of the creators of those products, so lets look at the products themselves.

Government spending - More than that of FDR, JFK, and LBJ combined. Even outside of Iraq, Bush himself has never met a domestic spending bill he didnt like, and has failed to use his veto once.

Government debt - Same here.

The Constitution - Look at what has been done with the 10th Amendment, not to speak of other amendments which are being trashed. Sure, the Neocons led the charge to eviscerate our Constitution, and Democrats and other Liberals were eager to help out. Why? Because they are all of the same cloth.

Globalization and loss of soverignty - What Bill Clinton started with NAFTA, George Bush is gleefully continuing with CAFTA.

Welfare state - Same as the Liberals, but instead of handouts to welfare mothers, corporations are now getting that same money.

Conservative, my ass. Just judge for yourself. Nothing speaks for itself like the facts.

 

[SHodges]

Conservative means what those who call themselves "conservative" choose to make it mean, just like Liberal. They're labels for the benefit of the people, and if someone wants to attract a certain crowd, applying those easy to recognize lables can go a long way in a short amount of time. Most people look at your party and what you call yourself before they look at your issues, if at all.

 

[danarhea]

Conservative means what those who call themselves "conservative" choose to make it mean, just like Liberal. They're labels for the benefit of the people, and if someone wants to attract a certain crowd, applying those easy to recognize lables can go a long way in a short amount of time. Most people look at your party and what you call yourself before they look at your issues, if at all.

I would say that you are partly right, in that many people tend to look to party before ideology, and that has always happened. However, both Liberal and Conservative ideology are real, and although I cannot speak for Liberals, I can definitely speak for a lot of other Conservatives, who are very angry about our own "Label", if you can call it that, being hijacked, and used to justify extremist Neoliberal views.

 

[SHodges]

We get regularly accused of having complete control of the media (explains all those victorious elections, seeing as how we can influence everyone so easily), of having mental disorders, Pat Robertson calls us all homosexuals and tells us we want to spit blood in the face of ministers to give them aids and all sorts of stuff, you guys will get used to it.