Thanks to this and a few other good publications, I’ve learned the following:

The rank-and-file Lefties haven’t recently had an opportunity to watch their good intentions achieve the outcomes that ideological goals ultimately and inevitably produce.

Rank-and-file Righties had 8 years of Bush and 6 years with a rubber stamp GOP Congress, so ideological and imprudent use of state power by Republicans had a chance to reach its logical conclusion. Unfortunately, the conclusion drawn by most Lefties was simply that Republicans are stupid and don’t know how to use government— instead of the real lesson, which is that effective use of government power has natural limits.

So, now we all get to suffer through the education of the Left. They rightly point out that many Republicans are now only interested in limited government because they no longer control it. This allows them to ignore conservative warnings and plow ahead into the beautiful future that they know is possible with the right smart people in charge. If that future turns out to be a nightmare? For some, that will probably be the fault of those stupid Republicans. Hopefully, for more it will be a lesson in what is achievable by the collective and what is best left up to the individual.

That is, whether under Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan or even Bush I there was still a separation that people saw between their ideas and the instincts of the mob, even if they saw themselves as populists of a sort and were against elitism. Indeed, in hindsight, the sense that there *were* ideas behind them and not just instincts may have been the over-arching characteristic that defines them for us now.

To a great degree of course Thom Meehan and Chris Moore are right about how the Repub. Party has been bought, but that doesn’t quite explain things to me at least. For instance I didn’t see any great monied constituency in favor of going to war in Iraq and occupying Afghanistan, instead what I at least perceived was more of an instinctual “bad guys over there, we make big war on them” kind of impulse. And look how that impulse even over-rode the monied interests behind the Republican Party’s traditional anti-tax positions; it was clear from the start that at a minimum such adventures were going to cost billions upon billions if not trillions.

And as to many other issues—especially today—it just seems to me that the instinct is merely (if almost totally) a reactionary one: If the Dems are in favor of it, the “conservatives” are against it.

I guess this is pretty gloomy since if the Repub. Party and its current crop were just merely corrupt in Thom and Chris’ monied way its redemption would seem more possible given that at some point it and they would realize that losing wasn’t helping their coffers. But how do you change instincts and what amounts to a culture? Reasoned dialog? Well, maybe. But here what can seem the very *hallmark* of the instinct and culture Bush II bequeathed on conservatism is anti-intellectualism.

So how do you persuade it that it’s going wrong when, in short, ideas are the first and foremost thing that it is disdainful of?

I have seen these folks in action, and I doubt that any of them are anything more than small minded fanatics, who have created their own reality and then wish to pretend it is real.

Let’s take the recent “Obama as Hitler” posters. If you look closely you see the web site printed at the bottom points to the LaRouche crowd. This group is anything but centrist, middle America, and I think it is certainly disingenuos to suggest such on this blog.

Basically, there appears to be three main bodies of dissenters that show up to these meetings – the thugs namely the left-wing crazy LaRouchites, the right-wing crazies who think a failed Alaskan governor is their saviour, and those who simply have sober and serious concerns about public policy, but are not given the opportunity to inform themselves or question the town hall panels.

This goes to the fact that the crazies are not interested in honest debate. Like all members of radical political and/or terrorist movements, facts and pragmatic discussion is anethma to them, as when people can properly inform themselves and develop informed opinion and make educated choices, they lose, and lose big. So they spread lies and half-truths and shout down anyone who tries to do anyting different.

Let’s not pretend that these nut jobs are anything other than the radicals that they are. The only way to put an end to it, is to take away their bully pulpit and stop giving their arguments even the remotest consideration. The only thing they are interested in is scaring enough people to actually matter.

So stop castigating Pat Buchanan for having a Republican background or for hoping that the GOP will take on some conservative positions. There are only two parties. And the Democrats have already been bought by a different set of interests.

Why don’t the Republicans actually follow their Conservative campaign promises? Because Conservatives are unfocused, complaining, navel gazers, who do not understand that only two things count to any political party, money and votes. The Business Round Table, the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street and the AARP provide one or the other. Conservatives provide both, but never get around to holding the GOP accountable because they do not organize and get in the game. They just keep complaining that the GOP doesn’t love them for themselves.

I’m thinking out loud here, so take it for what its worth…

Deep down, Buchanan probably believes the GOP can be redeemed, and possibly salvaged from the grip of the Israel lobby, the war-profiteering complex, the corporatists, all of whom have a grip on the Dems, too. (With the latter, you can also throw in lawyers and Big Government unions.)

But the GOP has so much blood on its hands, and so many power-mad cynics, opportunists and charlatans at its helm.

On the other hand, all of the above can be said of the Democrats. And the GOP does have Ron Paul…

It could be the libertarian populist groundswell that will lead the GOP out of the wilderness, if the entrenched and corrupt powers at the helm could be forced to follow. And they CAN be forced to follow, because the only remaining alternative increasing looks like American economic and social collapse.

Since we’re apparently stuck with the two-party system, perhaps Americans of conscience can muscle the GOP back towards the Founders’ ideals. And because only conservatives are really interested in those ideals, I think Buchanan has concluded it will have to be the GOP or no one.

The other possibility, though, is a third party Ross Perot figure (but libertarian populist) that could totally bypass the two corrupt entrenched parties and pull off a victory by tapping into the groundswell of populism we’re starting to see today.