Jack Hunter: 'Downgrading Liberalism?'

Source:The Atlantic- the self-described Southern Avenger blogger, Jack Hunter.

Source:The FreeState 

"I’ve been mulling over Dan McCarthy’s rich meditation on intellectual splits in the right, evoked by the Jack Hunter controversy. Salon editor Joan Walsh was right to observe that the attack on Hunter was really an attack on Rand Paul for his father’s skepticism about imperial wars and American obeisance to the Israel, a skepticism assumed to have been at least partially transmitted to his more mainstream son. The writers who have gone to town in attacking Hunter—Alana Goodman,Jamie Kirchik, Jennifer Rubin—are all well-entrenched in right-wing Zionist advocacy journalism. Though photographs of a top Senate aide in a Confederate mask do make for entertaining imagery on the local news, no one else seems to care very much.

Walsh notes that in the modern GOP there are leaders “correct on the righteousness” of the Civil War or the Iraq War, “but rarely both.” If, as she and I assume, the smart positions are pro-Lincoln and anti-George W. Bush, the simple explanation is that northern moderates are now rare in the Republican Party. Five of the seven GOP members of Congress who voted against the Iraq war resolution were moderates from non-Confederate states, unlikely to have Stonewall Jackson memorabilia in their dens. Add to them Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chaffee, the sole GOP senator to speak out against the Iraq War, and you have a fairly representative slice of the vanishing brand of moderate Republicanism, absent perhaps its Rockefeller-Jacob Javits pro-Israel wing." 

You can read the rest of this article at The American Conservative

"Jack Hunter: Downgrading Conservatism?" 

Source:Jack Hunter- on the future of American conservatism.

From Jack Hunter

I blame the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress’s of the early 2000s with their two-trillion in tax cuts, that weren’t paid for and their two unpaid for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and their Medicare expansion, and their constant borrow and spending that stayed with President Bush throughout his administration. 

I also blame President Obama with his Democratic Congress in his first two years for failing to reverse the Bush neoconservative  policies. Leaving in the borrow and spending to deal with the Great Recession. And of course the Great Recession, as well as the Democratic and Republican leaderships for their inability to take on their fringes when it comes to the debt doing things they view as completely unacceptable, for the downgrade of 2011.

But Jack Hunter is dead wrong to blame what he views as liberalism, a warped view at that, for the American downgrade. Since it is really the Great Recession that has had a lot to do with the current debt situation. Along with two unpaid for wars that are now in the trillions of dollars and both Democrats and Republicans increasing the role of government. As they’ve both decreased the revenue sources to pay for that government expansion.

If you really want to blame the downgrade on anyone, blame it on the policies and people who put those policies in place for the downgrade. I know that sounds like a warped concept, but commonsense tends to sound warped in Washington to begin with. 

President Bush, comes in with a four-trillion debt and leaves with an eleven-trillion debt and the Great Recession. Which didn’t happen by accident. Again, the two unpaid for wars that are still not over. Three-trillion in tax cuts, that weren’t paid for, that didn’t have much if any positive effect in the economy. The seven-hundred-billion dollar Medicare expansion from President Bush that wasn’t paid for. Most of the spending in the Obama Administration, has been to deal with the Great Recession. Not to create new Federal programs. If you want to downgrade anything, downgrade Bush/Cheney neoconservatism.

Jack Hunter: 'Conservatism's Future: Young Americans For Liberty'

Source:The Southern Avenger- Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater, when he was running President in 1964.

Source:The FreeState 

"An editorial in the August 1960 edition of National Review described the conservative youth activists who agitated to get Barry Goldwater on the ballot with presidential nominee Richard Nixon:

Youth was everywhere at the Republican convention. Youth managed the various candidates’ booths. Youth waved the posters. Youth held the convention parade, and it was youth, primarily, that staged the Presidential demonstration Wednesday night … Lots of the young people had no ideological interest, they had come … well, because their family was Republican … But those who were serious, the ones who will be working hardest to guide the Republican Party in the future, were conservatives: and most of them Goldwater fans. They passed out 15,000 Goldwater buttons, handed out literature, rallied inside and outside the amphitheater. They greeted Richard Nixon at the airport with Goldwater signs, and did the same thing for President Eisenhower the next day. 

The editorial then noted: “They drove one Nixon aide into muttering in exasperation ‘Those damn Goldwater people are everywhere.’”

Youth might not show up in droves at the ballot box, but their activism and enthusiasm has long been a driving force behind the direction of both major parties. This has been particularly true of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

The youth activists who so passionately championed Goldwater in 1960 and 1964 were at the forefront of a conservative revolution that would eventually take over the GOP and deliver Ronald Reagan the White House. The old Republican guard, which preferred Nelson Rockefeller, would push back in ’60 and ’64, and the establishment fought hard against conservatives again in 1976 when Reagan challenged President Ford. But by 1980, the old Republican guard was simply no match for the long-building Reagan Revolution, something everyone concedes started with Goldwater.

And it all began with youth." 

From The Daily Caller

The Barry Goldwater conservative movement of the mid 1960s and even late 1960s launched Ron Reagan into office as President of the United States in 1980. But actually Congressional Republicans didn’t get the majority back in the House, or Senate in the mid and late 1960s, but made them a strong minority in both chambers. As well as Richard Nixon elected and reelected President of the United States in 1968 and 72, placed Ron Reagan in strong place to be the GOP frontrunner for President.

After losing in 1976, Ron Reagan became the Republican frontrunner in 1980. The way Gerry Ford governed as President of the United States in the mid 1970s, fiscally conservative, as well as respecting personal freedom and civil liberties, all of these things started with Barry Goldwater when he ran for President in 1964. And took sixteen years for it all to come together with a Republican president in 1980, a Republican Senate for the first time, since 1952 and a large Republican minority in the House of Representatives in 1980 as well. Where House Republicans led by Minority Leader Bob Michael, could work in coalition with right-wing Southern Democrats in the House, to pass and block legislation.

What happened with the Barry Goldwater conservative movement of the mid 1960s and what it finally led up to and what’s going on with the Ron Paul libertarian movement of today in the Republican Party, both have one thing in common: neither one was big enough to be a governing coalition in the United States, or even a leading coalition in the Republican Party, where they hold a lot of leadership positions. Back in the mid 1960s, America was still in the LBJ Great Society Progressive Era. Where Americans by in large wanted and liked big government taking care of them. And we are obviously pass that now. But Ron Paul’s problem in the Republican Party are the Neoconservatives and Religious-Right are still in charge of the Republican Party. 

But what they also have in common with the Goldwater Conservatives of the 1960s, is the old-guard is dying off and losing influence. While the Goldwater Conservatives were growing back then. And the Libertarian Republicans are growing today, as the Religious-Right and Neoconservatives are dying off and losing influence.

As then U.S. Senator Jim DeMint said back in 2012 before he became President of the right-wing populist Heritage Foundation political action group: “The Republican Party needs to become more Libertarian for them to be successful in the future.” But they do not have to embrace all of their positions, but they have to move in that direction on social issues. And get back to being a real fiscally conservative party. And stop nominating presidential candidates who run as fiscal Conservatives, but have records that suggest otherwise. Who run as Religious-Conservatives, but have records that also suggest otherwise. And get back to being a real Conservative-Libertarian-Federalist party again, that can compete and be successful all over America.

Jack Hunter: ‘Libertarianism For Social Conservatives’

Source:The American Conservative- talk about your political odd couples: Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.

“At the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, the nation’s largest annual gathering of conservatives, many speculated that the GOP might be veering in a more libertarian direction—or at least influential leaders within the party might be prodding it or might be anxious for it to go in that direction. The Daily Beast ran the headline “Libertarians run the show at CPAC.” In his CPAC speech, former presidential candidate Rick Santorum warned that conservatives should not surrender their principles, referring specifically to social issues.

Some on both the left and right perceive libertarianism as inherently hostile to social conservatism. Some libertarians even think this. This is not only a misperception, but flat out wrong—libertarianism offers social conservatives a better hope for success in our current political environment than the nationalist approach often favored by some social conservative leaders.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, the nation’s largest annual gathering of conservatives, many speculated that the GOP might be veering in a more libertarian direction—or at least influential leaders within the party might be prodding it or might be anxious for it to go in that direction. The Daily Beast ran the headline “Libertarians run the show at CPAC.” In his CPAC speech, former presidential candidate Rick Santorum warned that conservatives should not surrender their principles, referring specifically to social issues.

Some on both the left and right perceive libertarianism as inherently hostile to social conservatism. Some libertarians even think this. This is not only a misperception, but flat out wrong—libertarianism offers social conservatives a better hope for success in our current political environment than the nationalist approach often favored by some social conservative leaders.

Part of the beauty of libertarianism is that you can be socially liberal or socially conservative and subscribe to the label. For the millions of social conservatives who constitute a significant base of the Republicans Party, embracing libertarianism is not an all-or-nothing question of accepting or rejecting deep convictions about life, traditional marriage, or drug regulation. It simply means rethinking the approach to these issues.

The distance between mere rhetoric and tangible success for social conservatives essentially comes down to this question: Does the federal government always have to become involved? Or should certain decisions be made at the state and local level, as the framers of the Constitution intended?

The protection of innocent life is the number one concern of millions of Americans in both parties. Most pro-lifers believe that Roe v. Wade was constitutionally unsound, and indeed, some pro-choice advocates even admit that the legal reasoning was flawed. Given the gravity of what’s at stake, it is understandable that many would demand federal protection of the unborn.” 

From The American Conservative 

I guess I’m just old fashion here, but when I think of the term conservative, I think of someone who believes in conserving. And when I think of conservative in a political and governmental sense, I think of someone who believes in conserving the U.S. Constitution. Not someone who wants to blow up the U.S. Constitution and our Federal Republic to advance some fundamentalist, religious and cultural agenda and try to stuff their fundamentalism on the rest of the country, with the force of Uncle Sam.

Jack Hunter’s best line in his column was: “The distance between mere rhetoric and tangible success for social conservatives essentially comes down to this question: Does the federal government always have to become involved? Or should certain decisions be made at the state and local level, as the framers of the Constitution intended?” I mean this is what this is about really, which is the role of the Federal Government.

If you really are an American Conservative, do you really believe it’s the role of Uncle Sam to decide social and cultural policy for the rest of the country, as if America is now the United Theocratic or Unitarian States of America and we’re no longer a Federal Republic with sovereign states?

Or do you believe in American traditionalism and are a traditionalist when it comes to culture and religion, but you also understand that America is a Federal Republic with a strong Constitution and there’s only so much for the Federal Government to do constitutionally. And therefor the states are better left to deal with social and cultural policy both constitutionally, but also in practicality, since they’re the folks who are closest to the people.

I don’t think this is a question of whether Conservatives should be opposed to same-sex-marriage, pornography, adultery, gambling, abortion, alcohol, tobacco, dancing, rock culture, hip hop culture, women working and managing and owning businesses, all issues that Rick Santorum and his supporters made part of his 2012 presidential campaign. I think the real question here is whose best to deal with these issues; the states and localities or Uncle Sam? If you are a Federalist and a Constitutionalist, I think the answer is obvious. 

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Jack Hunter: 'Constitutional Conservatism'

Source:The Daily Caller- conservative blogger Jack Hunter.

"This is the third installment in Jack Hunter’s new Daily Caller video commentary series, “The Deal with Jack Hunter.” In this week’s installment, Jack argues that Rick Santorum’s insistence that the federal government should set national social policies threatens both our constitutional and moral values.

Jack Hunter (also known by his radio moniker the “Southern Avenger”) is a frequent guest on Fox Business, Michael Savage’s nationally syndicated radio program “The Savage Nation” and a frequent guest host on The Mike Church Show on Sirius XM. Hunter is the co-author of “The Tea Party Goes to Washington” by Sen. Rand Paul, assisted Sen. Jim DeMint with his book “Now or Never: How to Save America from Economic Collapse” and writes the Paulitical Ticker blog for the Ron Paul 2012 Campaign." 

From The Daily Caller

"Jack Hunter, radio personality & columnist, weighs in on today's definition of Conservatism. Liberty Political Action Conference (LPAC) in Reno, NV

Brought to you by Liberty News Network - a project of The John Birch Society." 

Source:The New American- conservative blogger Jack Hunter.

From The New American 

"In a heavily Democratic state, Goldwater became a conservative Republican and a friend of Herbert Hoover. He was outspoken against New Deal liberalism, especially its close ties to labor unions. A pilot, amateur radio operator, outdoorsman and photographer, he criss-crossed Arizona and developed a deep interest in both the natural and the human history of the state. He entered Phoenix politics in 1949, when he was elected to the City Council as part of a nonpartisan team of candidates pledged to clean up widespread prostitution and gambling. The team won every mayoral and council election for the next two decades. Goldwater rebuilt the weak Republican party and was instrumental in electing Howard Pyle as Governor in 1950. 

Goldwater's maverick and direct style had made him extremely popular with Republican Party's suburban conservative voters, based on the South and the senator's native West. Following the success of Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater became the frontrunner for the GOP Presidential nomination to run against his close friend John F. Kennedy.[69] Despite their disagreements on politics, Goldwater and Kennedy had grown to become close friends during the eight years they served alongside each other in the Senate. With Goldwater the clear GOP frontrunner, he and Kennedy began planning to campaign together, holding Lincoln-Douglas style debates across the country and avoiding a race defined by the kind of negative attacks that were increasingly coming to define American politics." 

Source:Wikipedia- Mr. Conservative U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater (Republican, Arizona)

From Wikipedia

Jack Hunter's brand of conservatism, is the same conservatism as Barry Goldwater's or Calvin Coolidge's or Warren Harding's conservatism, from the 1920s, perhaps even Robert Taft's conservatism from the 1940s, Gerald Ford's from the 1960s and 70s. 

This conservatism is known as classical or constitutional conservatism, conservative libertarianism, that's based on limited government and that the government that works the best, does the least, meaning only what we actually need it do to and is the government that's closest to home. Instead of having a Federal solution to deal with every social and right-wing cultural war issue that the country is debating. 

So when you have right-wing Christian populists like Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann stand up and run for high office, promising to fight and win the Cultural War with big government, Federal programs and policies, the Jack Hunter's of the world stand up and say, no. There isn't a Federal solution to solve every issue that the Christian-Right in America sees as problems that country faces. 

Jack Hunter: 'President Obama Kept Us Safe'

Source:The American Conservative- from Jack Hunter's page at TAC.

"When I repeatedly denounced George W. Bush’s doubling of the size of government during the last election, Republicans had one primary defense of their president: “Bush kept us safe.” Indeed, little else seemed to matter to most Republicans at the time, as the party rallied around their leader, his record and a GOP presidential nominee who ran on a virtually identical platform. The War on Terror trumped all else, Republicans insisted, as the party devoted itself fully to the Warrior in Chief—who also happened to be one of the most big government presidents in American history.

Last week, President Obama significantly out-Bushed Bush: We killed Osama Bin Laden. Judging by their top priority for most of the last decade, it would seem that most Republicans will now vote for Obama in 2012. Sure, Bush doubled the size of government and the debt. Big deal—we were fighting a War on Terror. Sure, it’s true that Obama is now tripling the size of government and our debt. But so what—President Obama just killed the world’s top terrorist! “Obama kept us safe” might even be enough to carry the president through the next election.

The mindless war rhetoric the GOP cultivated during the Bush years might just be the Democrats’ best election weapon. Just let possible GOP presidential contenders Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney try to bash Obama for only fighting three Middle Eastern wars instead of four (the neoconservatives are dying for a war with Iran). Just try to let Republicans bash Obama for “apologizing” for America, whatever the hell that means. It’s bumper sticker time, baby: “Obama killed Osama!” What’s “weak” about that? How many terrorists have Newt or Mitt killed?

Heading into 2012, could domestic policy once again take a backseat to foreign policy? After all, the “official” estimate for what it cost to kill Bin Laden from 9/11 to last week is $1.28 trillion. This is basically the dollar difference between Bush’s national debt and Obama’s. It seems that “freedom isn’t free”: It cost $1.28 trillion. This is only slightly more than the supposed “official” cost of Obamacare.

The truth is we could have captured or killed Osama Bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and other Al-Qaeda leaders for significantly less money, without invading Iraq or staying in Afghanistan for a decade, and most importantly, without losing so many American soldiers. Bin Laden was assassinated using military intelligence and a handful of highly trained soldiers, or as columnist George Will noted: “bin Laden was brought down by intelligence gathering that more resembles excellent police work than a military operation… the enormous military footprint in Afghanistan, next door to bin Laden’s Pakistan refuge, seems especially disproportionate in the wake of his elimination by a small cadre of specialists.”

There is a difference between the very real, if often overblown, war on Islamic terrorism in which we find ourselves, and the War on Terror narrative, in which virtually any foreign policy misadventure can be rationalized by invoking 9/11. But with the mastermind behind 9/11 dead, the question for America is now this: Is it time to come home? And if the death of Bin Laden is not the time, when will that time be?

The death of Bin Laden is a reason for all Americans to celebrate—and the celebration certainly cuts across party lines. But at precisely the moment many Americans and a majority of the Republican Party seem most concerned about the size of government and deficit spending, many conservatives are using the death of Bin Laden to vindicate Bush, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, “enhanced interrogation” and all the rest. This takes us right back to the Bush era contradiction of supposedly being for limited government while supporting leaders who consider it unlimited. “Getting back to the Constitution,” as the Tea Party now demands, is going to be awfully hard while simultaneously defending a president who arguably did more violence to the Constitution than any other.

In the wake of Osama’s death, Republicans have been quick to point out that Obama basically continued Bush’s entire national security agenda, and he did. In fact, he expanded it. But Obama has also carried out and expanded Bush’s domestic agenda. This is not a coincidence. Big government abroad is impossible without big government at home, and both presidents have been unsurprisingly consistent in their statism.

On both domestic and foreign policy, America desperately needs a cost/benefit analysis, not simply a blind defense of cost during a time of national jubilation. The death of America’s top enemy—and the way in which we achieved it—should encourage national reflection and hopefully a major reassessment of what this country can realistically achieve militarily. We should also begin to consider what we can afford and what we cannot.

All Americans should be happy we finally got Bin Laden. No American should be happy with the amount of money we’ve wasted and the number of lives we’ve sacrificed to do so, precisely because most of it wasn’t necessary to get Osama.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that our debt is the greatest threat to our national security, which means neither Bush or Obama have kept this country safe. Now is not the time to forget it." 

From The American Conservative

Just the fact that a Conservative blogger would be willing to admit that President Obama kept us safe, says it all. No matter what arguments that they make about President Obama's economic record, this is more than Mitt Romney could do. 

Jack Hunter arguing that what Republicans have been arguing that it's OK to be a Big Government, borrow and spend Republican, if you keep America safe. Which is what he's saying that partisan Republicans were saying about President George W. Bush in the 2000s: 

"So what if President Bush doubles the size of the Federal Government and national debt. America is now safer than we were 10 years earlier." I think a lot of Republicans would disagree with Hunter's argument here, but he's right. The Republican Party forgot about, or ignored fiscal responsibility and limited government, once they had The White House and Congress in the 2000s.

Jack Hunter: 'Neoconservatism is Stupid'

Source:Liberty in Time- Jack Hunter talking about neoconservatism.

"Mitt Romney reminded everyone with his foreign policy speech this week." 

From Liberty in Our Time 

"Neoconservatism, variant of the political ideology of conservatism that combines features of traditional conservatism with political individualism and a qualified endorsement of free markets. Neoconservatism arose in the United States in the 1970s among intellectuals who shared a dislike of communism and a disdain for the counterculture of the 1960s, especially its political radicalism and its animus against authority, custom, and tradition." 

Source:Britannica- Jane Kilpatrick I guess is someone that Britannica identifies as a Neoconservative.

From Britannica 

I think before someone talks about Neoconservatives and neoconservatism, they should first know who and what they're talking about. Hopefully that sounds obvious and fair enough. 

Is neoconservatism a national security policy or is a broader political philosophy with a strong and national security and foreign policy that's part of it? I tend to look at it as a broader political philosophy the same way I look at socialism or communism as broader political philosophies as well. The only evidence that you need to know about that is to look at George W. Bush presidency that had that strong, hawkish foreign policy, to go along with a reformist-conservative (progressive-conservative, if you will) economic policy. 

President George W. Bush was never a hard core, right-wing, classical conservative ideologue, at any point during his political career. But someone as President and as Governor of Texas, was a reformist-conservative (Progressive Republican, if you will) as Governor of Texas, who brought those reform-minded reform conservative values to The White House. And became very hawkish on foreign policy and national security after 9/11. So ideologically I would put President Bush down as a Neoconservative Republican, which means he was very hawkish on foreign policy and national security, but very reformist, progressive even (in a Republican sense) on economic and social policy. 

So, my personal definition of a Neoconservative, is a Progressive Republican, or Right-Progressive. Men like Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller fit into this ideological camp. The ideas of Welfare To Work and reforming the private health care and health insurance system, the Patients Bill of Rights, clean air, environmental standards, President Nixon was a pro-civil rights President and so were both President Bush's. School choice both private and public are neoconservative ideas. 

Newt Gingrich at least when he was in the House and even as Speaker was a Progressive Republican, or Neoconservative. Senator Joe Lieberman is a Neoconservative and so is Senator John McCain, even though they're from different parties.  Comprehensive immigration reform is a neoconservative idea, as well as reforming as public assistance system so it moves people out of poverty, with things like child care and job training, school choice for kids of low-income parents, incentivizing work, even low-income work, over not working at all, instead of just subsidizing people while they'll in poverty. Or just slashing and burning programs, which is what Conservatives has traditionally wanted to do with our public assistance programs. Medicare Advantage and giving seniors choice in how they get their health insurance and health care, instead of just eliminating Medicare or nationalizing the entire health insurance or health care system, these are all neoconservative ideas. 

Neoconservatism rose in the 1960s with Richard Nixon and perhaps with Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, as a response to the New Deal and Great Society progressivism from that period. As well as a Center-Right alternative to the rise of Robert Taft/Barry Goldwater, classical conservatism of that period. That George W. Bush and his followers picked up again in the 2000s to respond to the right-wing conservative takeover of the Republican Party, to show Americans that there's a Republican third way in dealing with our domestic and economic issues that a lot of Americans are facing, without looking like Socialists, who just happen to be Republicans. 

To reply to what Jack Hunter said about neoconservatism: I think to label any philosophy outright as stupid, is stupid. So perhaps it takes an idiot to know an idiot. Actually, I don't believe Jack Hunter is an idiot, but there are plenty of people if not a lot of people who are very intelligent that come from all sorts of different political movements and philosophies. 

There are plenty of problems with the neoconservatism as it relates to foreign policy and national security, with their preemptive wars, putting national security over civil liberties, their borrow and spend, supply side economic policy and all the deficits and debt that we're still paying for that. But with one broad stroke to label neoconservatism as stupid, is stupid. 

Jack Hunter: 'Goodbye to Conservatism'

Source:Wikipedia- Conservative radio talk show host and blogger Jack Hunter.

"Jack William Hunter Jr. (born June 1, 1974) is an American radio host, political commentator and Politics Editor for Rare.us, a Washington, D.C.-based news website. He began his career in the late 1990s on alternative rock station WAVF 96.1 FM using the moniker "Southern Avenger", an anonymous pro wrestler/superhero-style character. In 2007, Hunter began appearing every Tuesday and Friday morning on WTMA News-Talk 1250 AM, and contributed to a weekly column to the Charleston City Paper.[1] Hunter was also an aide to U.S. Senator Rand Paul, whom Hunter helped write the book The Tea Party Goes to Washington.[2] He is perhaps best known for his decades-old, racially charged writings whose reemergence caused a major media controversy for his boss, Senator Paul.

Hunter's reputation as a political operative was discredited following the Washington Free Beacon's revelation in July 2013 that he had repeatedly espoused racist views on a local South Carolina radio station under the Southern Avenger moniker. His racist comments included expressions of contempt for Hispanic immigrants, and a call for NAACP director Kweisi Mfume, whom he referred to as "NAACP Grand Wizard," to be tied to a tree and whipped.[3][4] Following these revelations, Hunter resigned from Rand Paul's staff in what the Senator called a "mutual decision." In a November 2013 article for Politico, Hunter repudiated his former views, writing "I'm not a racist; I just played one on the radio." 

From Wikipedia 

"To my friends that are supporters of Rick Santorum: I won’t say you are an idiot, I’ll just say the definition of ‘conservative’ has changed… that way I won’t have to have the discussion that you are a flaming douchbag of stupidity." 

From Brian Gallimore  

“September 3, 2008 Interview with TPMtv – Santorum says that the GOP has moved away from the Goldwater, “small government” ideas. The full interview can be seen here… 

Source:Talking Points Memo- interviewing former U.S. Senator (Republican, Pennsylvania) Rick Santorum in 2008.

From Talking Points Memo 

This photo is from a video that conservative blogger Jack Hunter did about Rick Santorum’s support for big government. And Hunter even covers Rick Santorum’s views on the Barry Goldwater classical conservative wing of the Republican Party. That Senator Santorum is obviously not part of.

Source:The Southern Avenger- former U.S. Senator (Republican, Pennsylvania) and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

Jack Hunter the so-called Southern Avenger, is right again when he says that conservatism is not about fixing things or telling people how to live their lives. But that conservatism is about keeping or getting the Federal Government within the Constitution. Meaning that the Federal Government shouldn't be doing anything that's not laid out for it to do, or that it doesn't have the constitutional authority to do under the U.S. Constitution. When you think of conservatism, think again of Barry Goldwater and his book the Conscience of a Conservative, read that book. 

If 2012 Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is supposed to be the face of the so-called Modern Conservative, then Conservatives believe that the Federal Government: 

Should be doing more when it comes to public education, not less. 

That we should be doubling the size of Medicare, not reforming Medicare and other entitlement programs to keep them solvent. 

That deficits and debt doesn't matter, at least they didn't matter when Senator Santorum was in Congress with all his votes to increase the national debt and borrow hundreds of billions of dollars for wars and to pay for expanding our social programs like Medicare. 

And instead of conserving the U.S. Constitution, which is what political Conservatives used to be about, we should amend if not throw out the First and Fourth, and perhaps the 10th Amendments as well, so Big Government can make sure every decent American is not listening to music that Senator Santorum and the rest of Christian-Right doesn't approve us, or watching a film they disapprove of, or going to a nightclub they disapprove of, men having sex with men, women having sex with women, consensual sam-sex-marriage, etc. 

People that right-wing populists like to call the Old Right today and even people that Libertarians like Tom Woods and others views as the Old Right, were the real Conservatives, because they were constitutional Conservative. (Something that Michele Bachmann knows nothing about) And these are the folks that today's populist Republicans would call Liberals. Those great Liberals like William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, Robert Taft, Calvin Coolidge, and Ronald Reagan. You can see why I have a hard time taking populist Republicans seriously about anything.  

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