I expect Big Daddy TJ and Rockin' IROC to provide a sound debunking of this leftist drivel... Link A Conservative for Obama My party has slipped its moorings. It’s time for a true pragmatist to lead the country. Leading Off By Wick Allison, Editor In Chief THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT “the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me. In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher. Conservatism to me is less a political philosophy than a stance, a recognition of the fallibility of man and of man’s institutions. Conservatives respect the past not for its antiquity but because it represents, as G.K. Chesterton said, the democracy of the dead; it gives the benefit of the doubt to customs and laws tried and tested in the crucible of time. Conservatives are skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes, doubtful that government is wiser than its citizens, and always ready to test any political program against actual results. Liberalism always seemed to me to be a system of “oughts.” We ought to do this or that because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of whether it works or not. It is a doctrine based on intentions, not results, on feeling good rather than doing good. But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask. Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth. This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse. Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers. Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened. “Every great cause,” Eric Hoffer wrote, “begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.
Wow. Good read. Good find. Thanks. I especially like these paragraphs: "Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. ... But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers. Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened."
I'll bite. This paragraph is a conundrum of epic fail. Hahahahahaha... Why fight this... it's too funny in and of itself. Barack and "conservative" in the same thought? HAhahahahahahaha.... He is a socialist extraordinaire.
The guy is a former board member and publisher of the National Review. This is what is wrong with the neocon movement, it's just another version of McCarthyism with liberals as the enemy instead of communists.
I wonder if he was secretly tapping my mind as he wrote these two paragraphs. This man espouses the exact reasons why true conservatives are coming to their senses and separating themselves from the rabble of "lifelong Republican" sheep.
why is it that socialized medicine really irks neocons, yet the largest expansion of federal powers in our nation's history is swept aside as a complete non-issue? it's your exact response that this author is harping against... you call yourself a "conservative," but all you do is cherry-pick particular issues to express your disdain of "liberal" policies. you say you disdain the idea of a more socialized healthcare system, but have no problem spending billions upon billions in trying to improve the lives of civilians in other other countries... you oppose most forms of social welfare, yet see no problems with the precedent we've set of massive corporate welfare... you're against government intervention into our free-markets until those deregulations and lack of oversight lead to a near crippling of our financial markets until the government is forced to step in and bail out those corporations at a greater cost to the american taxpayer... you want less federal government intrusion, yet continue to support a party that has expanded the federal government further than it has ever been. it's perplexing.
Because conservatism relies on an essentially authoritarian-father model of morality. It's okay to expand Federal powers to punish 'wrong doers,' but the expansion of Federal power into health care is coddling the weak/irresponsible/undeserving. Check out: Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff.
Oh thank you for spelling out the truth no doubt this man's year's in that liberal underbelly of Texas known as Dallas, has soften the author's "conservative" creditials. I expect him to start a Daily Kos blog any day now under the name "gutlessinbigd"
Hahahahaha.... Cherry pick? Hahahahaha.... Isn't that what you just did? So then, let me get this straight... the left decries "recent government growth" base highly on necessity, and insists that growing it further through socializing medicine is justified? Crying about growth, yet wanting to grow it further? You prove my point. Enough is enough. Vote in the Maverick and his Outsider, STAT! Tell me, how would growing it even more help at this point? No, I'll answer it for you... no I won't, you don't see your own double standard which you are claiming I have. I don't want more government growth... you do.
address the points IROC, I'm really interested in what your reply to SWTsig would be if you weren't doing a very bad Conquistadork impression.. spelled out like he did, the conservative philosophy doesnt seem to make much logical sense. can you explain to an independent like me why that is?
The Dude, I can tell you, I'm not happy with the recent growth of government either, and adding to it by making medicine a national government appendage won't cure the ills. Pun intended. This is why, again, McCain makes sense on the economy and reigning things in. You an independent, really? I was a Libertarian for many years.. still get the mailings... never get a real candidate to vote on though. Here's a little funny... <div style='background-color:#e9e9e9; width: 425px;'><object id='A355800' quality='high' data='http://aka.zero.jibjab.com/client/zero/ClientZero_EmbedViewer.swf?external_make_id=cRNVYpzaGLobAxfX&service=sendables.jibjab.com' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='transparent' height='319' width='425'><param name='wmode' value='transparent'></param><param name='movie' value='http://aka.zero.jibjab.com/client/zero/ClientZero_EmbedViewer.swf?external_make_id=cRNVYpzaGLobAxfX&service=sendables.jibjab.com'></param><param name='scaleMode' value='showAll'></param><param name='quality' value='high'></param><param name='allowNetworking' value='all'></param><param name='allowFullScreen' value='true' /><param name='FlashVars' value='external_make_id=cRNVYpzaGLobAxfX&service=sendables.jibjab.com'></param><param name='allowScriptAccess' value='always'></param></object><div style='text-align:center; width:435px; margin-top:6px;'>Try JibJab Sendables® <a href='http://sendables.jibjab.com/sendables'>eCards</a> today!</div></div><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.9NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyMjE3MjY4MjI*MTcmcHQ9MTIyMTcyNjgzMTEwNiZwPTE5MTEzMSZkPTMwMyZuPSZnPTImdD*mbz*wZjQwMWMxMWZkM2E*NGQ4OTYxZTFkNjY2ZjUxODhiMA==.gif" />
