The Sucker Dance

The Republican Party, President Bush, the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church, Wall Street, Corporate America, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, William Buckley, Bill O’Reilly, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal. These institutions and people are what most consider to be symbols of Conservative America. Sometimes they are called right wing as well. Do you consider them conservative? Do you consider yourself conservative? If the answer to both questions is “yes” then the label is meaningless.

These questions are at the heart of what I consider to be the conservative dilemma. Since conservatives are characterized by wanting to maintain the established order and the established order is now rotten (due to institutionalized liberalism) are conservatives, therefore, rotten? Thoughtful Conservatives do not want to conserve everything and instead only want to conserve what is good but they are now a fringe, having been either purged from any meaningful institutional power or been reeducated into seeing the “light”. Conservatives are also characterized by a respect for authority which further exacerbates the problem since our institutions have adopted the fundamental premises of liberalism.

The conservative rank and file still believes in our institutions even though the institutions now embrace those very things Conservatives used to consider anathema. What gives? Are Conservatives nothing other than the practical implementers of liberal ideas? Are we the ones who prevent the crazy uncle (liberalism) from killing himself on heroine by instead giving him methadone and Marlboros? The blogger Lawrence Auster has a term for the mechanism that holds the unholy relationship between conservatism and liberalism together – unprincipled exceptions. Go to his web site (View from the Right) for an explanation much better than I can provide. Sadly the relationship is completely one way. Liberalism is suicidal such that, if allowed to continue without constraint, it would destroy its host. Conservatism provides the brakes to this runaway train but Conservatives are never in the Engine, just the Caboose. Conservatives eventually grow to love the monster more than the Liberals who created it. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

Does the Conservative Establishment (CE) challenge the New Deal era programs that now characterize our government? Does the CE challenge the taking of our freedom of association by “Civil Rights”? Does the CE challenge international American political tyranny through our stated advocacy of forced democratization? Does the CE challenge the imperialism of American Corporate conquest at home and abroad? Does the CE challenge the modern American identity of Consumer instead of Producer? Does the CE ever say that Caesar is subordinate to God and not vice versa? Does the CE do anything to stop the constitutional rape occurring because our Supreme Court acts as the Supreme Legislature? Does the CE try to defend the racial stock that created America in the first place by stopping unlimited 3rd World immigration? Does the CE do anything of substance to return us to a state of natural liberty?

Not only is the answer in almost every case “no” but the CE is often the very proponent of these agendas. Sometimes, comically, they are even opposed by the LE. Conservatives are now the chief defenders of a status quo that is diametrically opposed to Christian concepts of right and wrong.

I no longer think Frankenstein can be turned into Fred Astaire. No charm school, no makeover, no dance lessons, no education can do it. Eliza Doolittle was turned into My Fair Lady but we are dealing with Bella Abzug. Henry Higgins wouldn’t have a chance and neither do we. We now have a beast that should be given enough rope to hang itself. The sooner we jump out of the caboose the sooner those that love the train will catapult over a cliff. I am afraid if we keep trying to stop it we will only become its advocates and, therefore, its food. Leave it and start to build something better subordinating all to The Author of all that is good. It’s been done before and it can happen again.

Your treasure is in your kin and kith, in your industriousness, in your willing submission to Jesus as the Lord of your life, in your voluntary sacrifice for your community, in your love of liberty, and of justice. If you want to conserve the established order your real treasure will be destroyed or corrupted. Which do you choose?

I pray that God will give me the courage and wisdom to follow the example of Joshua who said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."