Inconcievable!

There are intelligent conservatives. There must be. I mean, they write books, they own the media, and they're in charge. So they've got to have something upstairs. However, I look at commentary on politics and economics by conservatives and it is very clearly at odds with everything: history, recent history, current economic realities, and even common sense. I try very hard to understand where they're coming from, but I just can't do it.

There are a couple of conclusions that can be drawn from their opinions. One, they are insane: schizophrenic in the sense that they are detached from reality, and live in a fantasy world where corporations act in the best interests of everyone and nothing is provided by the government. Two, they are not as smart as I'm giving them credit for. They are just really, really lucky. Or three, and this is most likely, they are lying. All the time. About everything. They don't believe the things they say they do, they don't read the stuff they say they read, and they don't actually behave in the way they want us to think they do.

I've found evidence for this all over the place. My last two blog posts are about this very phenomenon. I've got a new one, courtesy of our friends over at Christian Worldview Network, written by Shawn Akers. This is a fine specimen, not only at odds with reality, but internally inconsistent as well. Entitled "Donkeys, RINOs and PUMAs, Oh My! Can We Please Be Conservative Again?", it starts with the standard paranoiac bullshit about liberals owning everything: the media (hah!), the schools, the courts, Public Radio (really, they say this like it means something), and the respect and admiration of other nations.

It's a funny thing with conservatives in America. They don't give a shit what you think unless you agree with a liberal, and then you're a commie, a socialist, a totalitarian or European.

It doesn't take long before Akers starts actually dismissing reality, as opposed to simply misrepresenting it:

And then there are the rarest creatures of them all, those elusive phantoms, the genuine Republican elephants, who stare incredulously into the hollow eyes of the great grey beasts that have overtaken their party and ask – “hey, who invited the RINOs, and where did they get those fake trunks?” It seems that only now the true conservative Republicans are beginning to realize that while they slept, they lost their souls. Indeed, they can scarcely call themselves “conservative” anymore, because there is very little left to conserve.

The religious right co-opted the Republican Party (or was rather co-opted by) in the 1980s. Before that, they were more libertarian than conservative, and while they disagreed with the Dems on several things, there were no great rifts in beliefs. So who do you think Akers is talking about when he talks about "genuine Republican elephants"? Oddly enough, elephants are supposed to have long memories. And I've written in the past about "conservative" being a misnomer, because they don't stand for the conservation of anything worth conserving.

In practice, there is very little left of the founding principles. The Founders simply would not recognize the eternally-evolving ethereal cacophony of politically correct juris-imprudence that the left now calls the Constitution. One can imagine the disbelieving reply of a Signer of the Constitution: “A fundamental right to brutally take the life of an unborn child? . . . A fundamental right to have the state steal from one citizen to give to another? . . . The ability to tax a church into oblivion if it dares speak out against a political candidate? . . .The power to force the removal of the Ten Commandments from the public square? . . . What?. . . In the Constitution we wrote?. . . Heaven forbid!”

Again, Akers is not reading from the same play book as the rest of us. The Constitution actually contains instructions for changing it. The founding fathers (who have become as mythical as god himself) knew that the document they were writing would not be relevant for all time. So they made allowances for it to evolve. The questions he imagines the founders asking are ridiculous. And again, I cannot fathom how abortion rights are the most important issue facing the US right now. Your priorities are skewed badly if that's your number one issue.

Whatever is left of the Constitution, there is even less left of traditional morality. Indeed, in a mere forty years, the ideological fires of Haight Ashbury have melted down every communication of objective morality into prima fascia evidence of “hate speech.” Sexual misconduct between people of different genders is glamorized through every medium of entertainment. Sexual misconduct between people of the same gender is not only tolerated but is increasingly celebrated by society and sanctioned by governments. And, if you do not like the gender God assigned you, you can always disagree with Him and decide to be the other gender or some combination of the two; increasingly, the law will accommodate.

The traditional morality thing really chaps my ass, though. Traditional morality required forced conversions, allowed slavery, allowed lynching, forced women to stay home, denied them the vote, and allowed white folks to kill every other colour at will. It's called progress for a reason. There's also the whole issue that morality is concerned only with sex. I still can't understand why conservatives are so interested in other people's genitalia.

Likewise, there is certainly little or nothing left of the limited government and financial stewardship that conservatives have so vocally championed. In recent years, Republicans have spent public funds at a rate to be envied by even the most indulgent Democrats. They seem to have forgotten that the monstrosity of government bureaucracy can swing the socializing hammer of nationalization as effectively through disingenuous bailouts as it can through the direct theft of private property. To the outside observer, it would appear in many ways that we are all Democrats now – fighting merely over whose unstable positive law will rule the day and which special interests will reap the stolen fruits of redistributed property.

Akers begins well enough here, but again can't remember what happened less than 20 years ago. Clinton ran surpluses, Reagan and the Bushes ran deficits. It's clear to most people that democrats are more prudent fiscally than the GOP. Except this guy. And he seems to equate "Democrat" with "Communist", which is no surprise, but is still inexplicable. And I don't understand how giving all the money on the planet to corporations and to an infinitesmally small segment of the population is "Socialist". Again, Akers is ignoring reality. I have no idea how they get away with it.

The appearance is misleading, however, as the core of America remains open to reason.

If this is true, then Akers' days are numbered, but I'm not holding my breath.

Up until the very day they painted the map blue, even Democrats would admit that America is a center-right country. The one thing the American People will not tolerate when choosing leaders, however, is cowardice. Increasingly, leaders are elected when they unapologetically stand for something greater than themselves – even if the electorate does not necessarily agree with their positions. Why else would a nation that overwhelmingly favors protecting traditional marriage between one man and one woman elect a president who impenitently supports the “gay” agenda?

I don't even know what this means. But cowardice can mean a lot of things, like sending thousands of people to get killed, and not having the balls to do it yourself. Cowardice is also the inability to admit you made a mistake. Cowardice is caving to your friends when they're trying to get you to do something stupid. Cowardice is doing what is easy rather than doing what is right. Cowardice is making your children pay for your SUV, your war and your brand new bureacracies. Cowardice, in many ways, well describes Dubya's performance in the White House.

But the best is yet to come:

If it is to remain relevant, much less experience a renaissance, the Republican Party must become the new progressive.

Progressive is the opposite of what Akers wants. He makes me think of Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."

It must shelve its clever electoral strategies and muster the courage to be faithful to its principles even if polling data says to lie, or at least equivocate. It must decide what it believes and unapologetically speak the truth with compassion. It must apply its principles impartially, governing itself before attempting to fix the other party. If it is going to lead, it must lead – and lead the nation not to where it has been but to the blessings of liberty found only when government limits itself to its original purpose: securing the unalienable Rights that the Creator has granted to each and every person.

And that finally is what made me annoyed enough to write this. Akers is a lying bigoted motherfucker who wants to take rights away from people, and he claims to be protecting human rights. I am utterly gobsmacked by the inability of some people to see their own duplicity.

If it leads in this way, the people, hungry for the mature substance of truth rather than the superficial sweetness of socialist confections, will follow. If not, it will fail because conservative counterfeits will never be as attractive as utopian lies.

Akers and people like him have no respect for you, your intellect or your rights. They have rewritten history to cast progressives in the role of villains. They hide their prejudices behind a mythological being, and they ignore the consequences of their own actions. They are destructive, dangerous frauds.