Heck of a job

In these days of administration corruption, incompetence, and outright blatant criminality, I'm almost nostalgic for Movement Conservatism. It went a little overboard, but it never threatened to sink the ship like the Repugs are now.

Good op-ed at The Dallas Morning News:

In this late winter of our discontent – bordering on, let's be honest, black depression – conservatives' minds turn to the ways the promise of a new era of rightist government has turned to ashes by the Republican Party's incompetence and corruption.

Heck of a job, the lot of you. You and your congressional Republican abettors have done a splendid job routing conservatism, and making it seem not like a plausible governing philosophy and approach to public life, but instead indecent drapery swaddling ambition in silken phrases, and incompetent hackery in velvety ideals.

Being conservative used to mean that you stood for certain political ideas, but it also meant that you stood for certain virtues, especially personal responsibility and old-fashioned honor. After these last six years, it's hard to know what conservatives stand for, except never having to say you're sorry.

There's no love lost between me and conservatives. Conservatism and Liberalism used to be two sides of an ongoing national debate. Both sides had good points and bad, both sides went overboard sometimes, and both sides traded the upper hand back and forth from time to time. That was all right. Looking back, it was a Hell of a lot better than what we have now.

Since conservatism has been carjacked by the current crop of Repugs, conservatives are tarred with the brush of the neocons, warmongers, big money fascist cronyism, the phony god squad, and general all 'round evil bullshit. 'Twas ever thus, but it's worse now.

Serves 'em right. They gotta be more careful who they let usurp the reins. The current crop of Repug presidential candidate clowns shows how far they've fallen. And they can't get up. Good. Maybe in a generation or so they'll get their bearings again and our country can go back to the give-and-take of actual democracy.

I was glad to read that op-ed. I'm glad conservatives are finally starting to realize the damage that has been done to them by themselves in their flawed and fatal power grab, the last gasp of a failed philosophy. I hope more conservatives come to those same conclusions and go away and re-think their raison d'être to arrive at a more fair and balanced (heh) philosophy. I won't hold my breath.

As a matter of fact, I think it would be entirely fitting if it is a team of consies who drop the trap door out from under the evildoers who destroyed them in their own name. I hope they stay destroyed for a good long time as well.