How should the conservative movement evolve?If you are talking in cultural sense then I guess Conservatism would be about protecting tradition. This is how things have been done, its got us to this point which is why we shouldn't change and so fourth. Which is how religious and Neoconservatives tend to look at Conservatism. But even though culture and lifestyle are part of politics, its not the only part and when I talk about Conservatism I'm talking about it. In a political sense and what Conservatism means in that sense and thats coming from someone whose not even a Conservative. But someone who loves politics, philosophy, current affairs and history and when I think of Conservatism. I think of people like Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen, Ron Reagan, Gerry Ford, Bob Dole, Bill Buckley and others. Men who believed that big government should be out of the boardroom, bedrooms and classrooms. And that individuals should be free to live their own lives and be able to make out of them what they can. Rather then government telling them how to live and what it means to be an American.
Todays GOP debate about the so called future of the GOP tends to be Conservative versus Moderate. And framed in terms of people who always hold to their principles and never compromise. Against people who will compromise for the good of the country and government so it can function and so. Fourth and well if thats the case, the Tea Party and Christian-Right in the Republican Party are the Conservatives. And establishment Republicans are the Moderates because they look Moderate compared with the Christian-Right and Tea Party. But who in America doesn't look Moderate compared with those groups. I have a hard time buying that John Boehner Speaker of the House of Representatives or. Senator John McCain is a Moderate, just look at their Congressional voting records but they look Moderate compared with the Tea Party. And do work with Democrats in oder to get things done when their party doesn't have all of the power.
To me the debate in the GOP should be between Conservatives who believe in individual freedom. And Neoconservatives and Christian-Theocrats who have this 1950s view of what America is and that we. Should've never evolved from that and the country has gone downhill ever since and we need to move back to that to save the soul of America. The Conservative coalition of today are the Conservative-Libertarians the Rand Paul's of the world and the Northeast-Republicans or what's left of that coalition. Versus the Bible Belt Republicans who would like to return the country back to the 1950s. And if the Conservatives win, the GOP will be back in good shape and stay there for decades to come.
