How Post-Modern Conservatism Bankrupted Its Own Ideology

President Ronald Reagan was the first person who made me realize there was something wrong going on in America. I was 22 years old and happy to have a job just out of college when the lionhearted Ronald Reagan took office. My politics were admittedly liberal, formed around the course of my studies in biology, English, art and a little bit of religion. I liked nature and great literature. My mind was attracted to all things beautiful and free. I trusted in God but did not try to use my religion to gain friends, tell other people what to do or run the country.

Then Ronald Reagan came along trying to tell me it was somehow wrong to be a liberal thinker.

Despite claims by conservatives that Ronald Reagan saved the country from economic ruin and killed off communism, by some estimations his White House turned out to be a closet full of crooks. Not petty criminals on the order of Richard Nixon, mind you, but people who bent the rules at the politically cosmic level. Reagan was undermined in his supposedly purer brand of politics by the Iran-Contra scandal in which money intended for negotiation of a hostage crisis wound up being funneled through one country to fund the overthrow of another. A group of Republican conservative zealots took liberties with our national policy, hijacking our nation's reputation along with it. This also served as the first warning shot that conservatism was a political ideology out of control. Behind the affable Reagan stood a conniving force of dangerously committed conservatives who would stop at nothing--not even international law--to carry out their goals.

I never bought the whole Reagan Great Communicator thing. Reagan was certainly slick at delivering his schtick to the American people. But even at 22 years of age I quickly (and astutely, it turned out) realized that anyone who would install a cynical jerk like James Watt as Secretary of the Interior did not care to understand the nuance of judicious stewardship of national resources--be they natural or political. Reagan introduced America to a harsh, doctrinal approach to politics that evolved into what we now know as neo-conservatism.

Reagan's legacy would rise even to even further prominence through a Conservative Right that would hijack our government during President Bill Clinton's two terms as President. Then neo-conservatism developed an even stranger new look with the installation of George W. Bush as President through vote by the Supreme Court.

These were conservatives who cared only about holding power, and little else. This philosophy would drag conservatism farther than ever from its hallowed roots of fiscal responsibility, moral certitude and limited powers of government. The power quotient of having all three branches of government pretty much under conservative control was too much political capital even for the power-hungry neo-conservatives to handle.

A political movement that prides itself on self control turned out to have no control at all when it came to favoring friends with money. The ideology (conservatism) that claimed to represent good government consistently abused its power while accepting little of the responsibility that came with it.

Remember Hurricane Katrina? That emergency mismanagement debacle was the direct product of conservatives who viewed government as a necessary evil even while it was their job to run it. We can blame 9/11 on a similar dynamic, a government so preoccupied with its ideological goals of overthrowing other nations (for oil and profit?) that they failed to protect our own.

All these events illustrate a coarse and immature ideology insisting that the role of government should be to eliminate itself. More than one conservative has been quoted along those lines, which shows a lack of real intellectual investment in the fact that what makes a democratic country work is twofold: investment and involvement. Conservatives are in love with the concept of a great nation but do not want to carry out the dual tenets of funding and working on our government. These dual goals should incorporate respect for and sustaining a functional middle class...

Political conservatives have chosen to ignore the fact that the public holds elections to install peopleto serve the public interest, not spend all their time promoting a theoretical ideology. But our politicians are encouraged in their doctrinal excesses by a bunch of loudmouthed, irresponsible commentators whose shrill approach does not even allow considerate discussion, much less clearheaded decision-making.

The current crop of leading conservatives such as Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly spend most of their time trying to prove they are smarter and better than you and me. Or, they simply assume that large numbers of people are dumb enough to follow along. Perhaps that is the case. In any case, they seldom ask questions to which they do not think they already know the answer. They are perpetually on the attack and say the most provocative things for the purpose of gaining attention while contributing little to our true understanding of most issues.

They are most certainly protected by our nation's laws governing free speech, but their self-serving approach does little more than help them sell books and get TV and speaking appearance fees. It does nothing to improve the state of our nation. Here's a challenge: Name one suggestion or idea that any of these commentators has made that improved our country in any way. You can't, because that is not their true mission. Their mission is sustaining their own audience and putting people in power who favor their own viewpoints, however untenable they are.

Apart from these very public personalities, there are others that operate behind the scenes, such as political operative Karl Rove. Manipulators like Rove prefer to crawl under the surface of the political earth until they can pop up inconveniently to undermine an important bit of legislation or drag our country into a militaristic venture that satisfies their lust for assertion of power.

The King of all Moles is of course Dick Cheney, who served 8 years as our shadow president. The man seldom surfaced except to growl at the occasional journalist unless the journalists worked for Fox, for whom he would curl up on a couch and coo like a pit bull having its chin scratched. Cheney is the poster child for the eventual bankruptcy of the neo-conservative movement. He spent conservative capital doing unpopular and often evil things like promoting torture until his reputation overflowed his secret bubble and his approval ratings dropped into single digits. If ever there was a man who symbolized the inevitable moral bankruptcy of moral conservatism in grabbing power and using none of it to invest back in the country, it is Dick Cheney. Cheney was so vested in the neo-conservative mindset against conservation that he groused that conserving energy through more fuel efficient vehicles is a waste of time. To paraphrase, Cheney said, "We can't conserve our way to energy independence." So much for trying.

Where do we find the conservative movement today? Mostly complaining that it can't get attention because Mr. Sunshine, Barack Obama, wants to run the government above ground and with transparency. This makes neo-Conservatives nuts because they had grown quite accustomed to running everything-underground, behind the scenes and outside the law. The recent discovery of corruption and scandal inside the Bush administration Interior Department further illustrates the conservative attitude toward responsible environmental policy begun by Reagan and continuing through Bush. If conservatives cannot respect even the land upon which we depend for sustenance, how can they possibly respect the people who call that land their home?

Even when Republicans did things in the sunshine the last 8 years, it was still outside the law. Remember all those signing statements executed by George W. Bush? Each was designed to say "this may be law, but it doesn't apply to me/us." That's like signing credit card bill when you know you've exceeded your credit limit. Signing statements were an early and ongoing warning that conservatism as a contributor to real policy for America is a bankrupt ideology.

Here's what the conservative underground and overboard conservative movement hath truly wrought. Conservative policies of deregulation and free market speculation have literally bankrupted the economy and ruined our financial systems. For years conservatives bragged about the power of the market, encouraging American workers to forsake legacy programs like Social Security (an above ground program...) in favor of throwing money into stocks and mutual funds and other investment vehicles that were supposed to be superior to pensions and other guaranteed retirement plans. But these turned out to be a tragic mess because immoral and irresponsible financial managers put their own interests (the financial underground...) before those of the investors and stockholders they represent. This pattern of acting in intense self interest is a pattern among neo-conservatives in every sector.

The people who stood to lose the most were the American workers who tried following the advice of those angry, browbeating conservatives who were the ones issuing constant threats that basic, proven programs like Social Security would sooner or later bankrupt the country. Bush wanted to privatize Social Security. What a farce that would have been. At least Social Security guarantees a modest government check to Americans in their Golden Years. Instead people who trusted the advice of free market capitalists are now faced with working well past retirement age to make up for money lost in the financial market maelstrom created by a conservative movement that sold America down the river on advice that markets offered the more genuine and real security.

The same thing has happened to Americans whose jobs have been shipped overseas by companies following capital in the effort to grab ever more profit. Meanwhile workers earned less and the buying power of the middle class dollar shrank in comparison to foreign capital like the Euro.

The Bush administration made it all worse in borrowing billions of dollars from China to fund the Iraq War. That created and swelled the national budget deficit even as it sustained the damaging illusion that America could carry on two wars without breaking a fiscal sweat.

Neo-conservatism bankrupted America by telling us that its policies were a guaranteed way to get rich quick both politically and financially. But like most Get Rich Quick schemes, there was a catch. When it came to actually running the country, conservatives could not reconcile their political assets like fiscal responsibility with their political liabilities like world domination, unregulated free markets and unencumbered environmental extraction.

Neo-conservatism even lied to its religious partners, whose evangelical voters blindly cast their ballots in favor of "moral values" even after the Republicans running the political Right were shown to be hypocrites--one after the other--as lines of supposedly righteous people fell victim to their own carnal and political desires.

Instead of coming to grips with the results of all these bad decisions and policies, conservatives have apparently turned their movement over to a group of pathological truth manipulators such as Rush Limbaugh, the media commentator has made himself rich twisting facts into ideological falsehoods while claiming to represent Excellence in Broadcasting.

There is no doubt Limbaugh is successful at what he does, but that does not make him a character worthy of trust at the top levels of government. If it is true that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, Limbaugh may be s the Prince of All Scoundrels, leader of the disillusioned rabble who snatch up his phony verbal jewels as if they were scripture. Limbaugh has done little to improve and everything to serve his own massive ego and pad his wallet. Rush Limbaugh's America is the Nation of Rush Limbaugh. He is patriotic only to himself.

It is finally time to say out loud that the conservative movement in America is bankrupt. Its liabilities now far outweigh its assets when it comes to managing the country. Conservatism's unwillingness to examine its own ugly reasons for going to war, its general refusal to regulate financial markets or to fairly advise the American people on the dangers of unmanaged debt (both personal and national) along with its hypocritical use of religion to make a case for moral superiority are huge red checks against which no credit should be drawn or allowed.

The clear, inviting voice of Sean Hannity may make it seem like conservatism is a brand worthy of our investment, but until the movement has paid its penance for sins committed against America, and until conservatism participates in the repair of an economy and the lost reputation of a once proud nation in the world at large, it does not deserve one red cent of credence in planning the future of our country.