With two honorable exceptions…

named Huntsman and Paul, the entire field of GOP candidates revealed themselves to be brutal, dishonorable and stupid cowards who only want to continue further on the path toward lawless despotism their predecessors have blazed.

Best summation of the evil contradiction at the heart of the Thing That Used to Be Conservatism: “”Paul remark goes at heart of contradiction of modern conservatism: Government is only infallible when it kills people.”

Back when conservatives were skeptical about giving the state unlimited power, Ronald Reagan signed the 1984 Convention Against Torture, saying:

“The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”

But then, he was a socialist pantywaist who didn’t know about what it took to fight real evil. He was only familiar with Nazis and Communists.

The only hopeful part about this team of moral dwarfs and cowardly fools? The people who cheered in the audience in the clip below. Alas, they are a minority judging from the embarrassed whisperers who want Paul silenced ASAP (among them the egregious Michele Bachmann, who objects to the infernal ACLU’s keeping the CIA from torturing people and our having to abide by the pantywaist Army Field Manual). But at least some souls in the Thing that Used to be Conservatism still have a conscience:

Meanwhile, Huntsman said:

“We diminish our standing in the world and the values that we project which include liberty, democracy, human rights, and open markets when we torture. We should not torture. Waterboarding is torture. We dilute ourselves down like a whole lot of other countries. And we lose that ability to project values that a lot of people in corners of this world are still relying on the United States to stand up for them.”

That this is now the controversial and crazy hippy position in the Thing that used to be the Party of Reagan demonstrates clearly how depraved the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism has become.

Despicable.