A Closing of the Conservative Mind

From the NY Times article I read today discussing David Frum and the American Enterprise Institute - the conservative "think tank" he was fired from because he publicly lamented the party of no strategy and the permanent Klu Klux Klanning of the Republican party - the following quote from the article laments "...a closing of the conservative mind."

My response:
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By definition a conservative has a closed mind so where is the big surprise here - they charmed their way in with aww shucks Regan and ruled against precedent to shoe horn Bush "W" in with a supreme court ruling that in and of itself said - don't ever reference this ruling again.

They had their big moment (several decades)and put their theories into place.

The end result is that they undid thoughtful regulation, got their precious tax cuts, and went out on international reckless cowboy adventurism the first chance they got - and destroyed - I repeat destroyed the economy and the middle class.

If they had maybe shared the tax cut with the middle class and small business they wouldn't have been so bad off but not understanding or forgetting rather the impact of macro-economics, economies of scale, and factors of magnitude they protected, enhanced and incentivised only the few 1% of the actual popultaion.

Nothing trickled down except stagnant wages and human nature was again proven to be its own worst enemy as everything was hoarded at the top and jobs were moved to cheaper labor markets. They didn't pull the rest of the world up as they lavishly envisioned but dragged America down. Their irrational exuberance to dogma as opposed to common sense practicality destroyed and continues to destroy them as a political party.

That they dragged the whole country down with them and put real hard working, educated and honest families out on the street is the crime.

Because in the end it was all about power - the power to go into Iraq and secure the oil fields, the power to manipulate the media by actually owning it, the power of consolidation of industries including the insurance industry, big oil, telecommunications and big finance chocking off competition and creating too big to fail.

A closed conservative mind and their is no other - rejects diversity - while a liberal mind embraces it - a healthy nurtured diversity is the life blood of co-existence and the life blood of the markets. Greed, power and ego will always be the three heads of the apocalypse. Consolidation defeats competition and promotes monopolies but kills the market like incest kills everything - so in the end it is no good to anyone.

If it was about governing instead of power and swinging as much capital, pork and benefits to their friends the Conservatives "might" have a chance of being good stewards of our democracy. But even still as long as they think capitalism and democracy are the same thing they are doomed to fail - just like the unfettered, unregulated, bubble economies they literally worship.

I recommend taking the evangelicalism out of political and economic theory and getting back to the brass tacks that have actually proven to work, and governing instead of ruling.

Paul Burke
Author- Journey Home