Death of Conservatism

Something nefarious is killing Conservatism; it's the marrying of religion and politics. Over 35 years ago Zionist Evangelical Christians sank their fangs into the right and have sucked the life out of this legitimate and necessary political movement.

The Evangelicals have saturated the right with emotional hysteria, paranoia, superstition, misogyny and racism.

What was once a vibrant philosophy of less government, more fiscal responsibility and constraints and the champion of individual freedom from government interference has mutated into a forum of religious fanaticism, intolerance, militarism and hyper patriotism. It's the same religious extremists in both Canada and United States that are at work fulfilling their strange biblical prophecies. I will briefly site two examples: recent fiscal and rationality failures of the conservative movement.

The excessive emotionalism and paranoid rage I encounter when reading or dialoguing with modern conservatives is what has me most baffled and off balance; it's virtually impossible to have a conversation about current affairs without being personally attacked or accused of hating ones country. Attempting to introduce rational dialogue via historical context, fact or analysis into the current conflicts in the Middle East is impossible, the vitriol that erupts from conservatives about how evil 'those people' are and how 'savage' and 'uncivilized'. Point out that North American foreign policy and imperialistic wars in the Middle East have killed millions of innocent Arabs over the past 60 years compared with 3000 in Sept 2001 and the reaction involves much hissing, spitting and chest thumping; the facts, the numbers clearly declare the west as the instigators, the savages and the barbaric invaders.

After every Republican presidency in the past 35 years the United States was left in economic ruins, broke, in debt, involved in several military operations globally and tax benefits to the richest of the populace. In Canada, the conservative rule of Brian Mulroney almost killed us, after he ran our nation into debt and installed a loathed sales tax of 7% to pay for their fiscal disasters, it lead to the single greatest and most humiliating defeats in our political history; after the federal elections the conservatives were decimated as a force from majority rule to two seats in parliament.

The consequences of the religious take over of the right is that all rational dialogue has disappeared and is replaced with primitive raging, fear, war mongering, hatred and promises of heavenly rewards for followers.

Here are a few of the catch phrases of these extremists:

"You're either with us or against us"
"Clash of Civilizations"
"Gods Foreign Policy is to protect Israel at all costs to ensure the Rapture and Second Coming of Christ"
"Axis of Evil"
"Liberals Hate America"
"Dissent is unpatriotic"

The Evangelicals as a political force have turned everything into mythical and gothic battles between good and evil, as opposed to the reality of foreign policy, diplomatic relations, conflict resolution and cross cultural understanding. These Christian fanatics have infested the conservative wing of politics like a disease or a parasite that latches onto the host and sucks the life out of it until all that remains is the carcass of it's former self.

If the Conservative movement has any hope of survival, it needs to exorcise itself of religion generally and the Evangelical Zionists specifically.