A “small c” Conservative

When I was a teenager in the 1960’s, dabbling in politics,

my mom and dad left the Democratic party. They’d had enough of street protests
and flag burnings, and made for the shores of the party of Eisenhower and
Nixon. They’d seen Democrats try to solve all problems by throwing away money,
but government, they reasoned, should conserve. They were conservatives. They
didn’t like the idea of government being in debt, and were aghast at this new
thing called a “trade deficit.” The 1994 “Republican Revolution” would’ve
especially thrilled them. Small government and Welfare limits would’ve been
right up their alley.

But they were true conservatives. Yes, keep government out
of your pocketbook, but also out of unnecessary wars, your bedroom, and your
telephone records. If they were alive today, they’d be appalled at the number
of Republican congressmembers under investigation for corruption. They’d have
just called it stealing. They would have found the Republican’s trillion-dollar
boondoggle in Iraq
just as offensive as the useless Democrat-led government agencies of their own
day. And the idea that a Republican President would move America from a
surplus to this yawning, endless deficit would’ve made them furious. After all,
isn’t that what “tax and spend” Democrats did? But Democratic spending was drop
in the bucket compared to current Republican pilfering. No wonder commentators
like George Will and have long claimed that Bush and the current Republican
crop, with their mounting legal bills, are not conservatives at all.

Me, I’m a liberal, a bit homeless in the current climate,
but if my parents were alive, they’d feel just as adrift in today’s “Party of
Abe Lincoln.”

When I was a teenager in the 1960’s, dabbling in politics,
my mom and dad left the Democratic party. They’d had enough of street protests
and flag burnings, and made for the shores of the party of Eisenhower and
Nixon. They’d seen Democrats try to solve all problems by throwing away money,
but government, they reasoned, should conserve. They were conservatives. They
didn’t like the idea of government being in debt, and were aghast at this new
thing called a “trade deficit.” The 1994 “Republican Revolution” would’ve
especially thrilled them. Small government and Welfare limits would’ve been
right up their alley.

But they were true conservatives. Yes, keep government out
of your pocketbook, but also out of unnecessary wars, your bedroom, and your
telephone records. If they were alive today, they’d be appalled at the number
of Republican congressmembers under investigation for corruption. They’d have
just called it stealing. They would have found the Republican’s trillion-dollar
boondoggle in Iraq
just as offensive as the useless Democrat-led government agencies of their own
day. And the idea that a Republican President would move America from a
surplus to this yawning, endless deficit would’ve made them furious. After all,
isn’t that what “tax and spend” Democrats did? But Democratic spending was drop
in the bucket compared to current Republican pilfering. No wonder commentators
like George Will and have long claimed that Bush and the current Republican
crop, with their mounting legal bills, are not conservatives at all.

Me, I’m a liberal, a bit homeless in the current climate,
but if my parents were alive, they’d feel just as adrift in today’s “Party of
Abe Lincoln.”