The Cost Of Compassionate Conservatism

"The Founding Fathers created a free society grounded on the moral sovereignty of the individual. They recognized that the only legitimate function of government is to protect each individual’s right to act on his own judgment—so long as he does not violate the rights of others. Accordingly, the Founders established a government limited to the protection of individual rights—that is: limited to making and enforcing objective (i.e., rights-respecting) laws, to resolving civil disputes, to protecting private property, and to enforcing contracts.

While this is the ideal that defined the American Founding—and the ideal to which Goldwater conservatives have long claimed allegiance—it is not the ideal to which today’s conservatives subscribe.

To what ideals do today’s conservatives subscribe? What are their political goals?

In recent years, the conservative intellectual and political movement has become strained and divided. Political analysts now speak of the great conservative “crack-up.” At the heart of the ideological wars now engulfing the movement are two putatively conflicting philosophies: a moral philosophy called “compassionate conservatism” and a philosophy of governance known as “neoconservatism.” To understand the state of the conservative movement and where it is headed, one must understand the nature of these two conservatisms, what they have in common, and how they shape today’s Republican Party.

Compassionate Conservatism...

Read more by clicking here. It's obvious what the Bush Administration tried to do, namely feed the insatiable beast in order to make Conservatism at least appear to be keeping it's finger on the pulse of those who will forever feed at the public trough. Like it or no, our country has many, many, more beggars than in Goldwater's day, and Ronald Reagan's only come along once in a blue moon so who is available to take the case to the American public?

Bush was and remains a solid war-time President, but promising death to our enemies is an easier sell than fiscal conservatism. An incaculable amount of bargaining had to be done in order to begin, then finance the war we continue to wage, and it was not merely our "allies" who needed a hefty pat in the purse-string. We've done the impossible but it came with a price tag. Still and all, the ecomomy is in fantastic shape and Bush's balancing act, while regrettable, is understandable to a certain degree.

Thank you to Pat at Born Again Redneck for the above article.