Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Conservatives Invoke Reagan, But…

One thing I’ve noticed about conservatives, especially ultra-conservatives, is they like to invoke Ronald Reagan. Oh, they love to invoke him, as though he is their long lost messiah.

The problem is that the conservative movement, especially on the far right, is absolutely nothing like Reagan’s conservatism.

The first major difference between Reagan and today’s conservatives was he was a pragmatic over an idealist. Modern conservatives are exactly the opposite. They will die before conceding, believing even 80% is no conservative victory – it’s all or nothing. Look at last year’s election and the vilification of John McCain – a Senator who voted their way over 80% of the time.

Ron knew better. Reagan thought it necessary to defeat the Soviet Union and had no problem running up big deficits in order to do so, despite proclaiming himself a fiscal conservative.

The next thing about him was he carefully honed a public persona of likeability. Whether it was an act or not, I can only relate what I’ve read from others who met him; they invariably say what a great guy he was. I don’t know of anyone, even those opposed to all of his policies, who hated him as a person.

Nowadays conservatives go out of their way to not only be as unpleasant as possible, but literally revel in their opponents hating their guts.

Were he alive, I’m not sure if he’d approve. In fact, I can almost see him shaking his head and saying, “There you go again…”

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