Conservatives Internal Ideological Conflicts

Many political pundits today talk about the possible demise of the Republican Party. The reasoning being that they have become too out of touch with their constituents, the general public, have too much internal conflict and too influenced by the extreme right and are intractable in their views. All of these may have a bit of truth in them, but I would like to pursue another line of thought.

In this country as in others there have always been as a rule two primary points of view, conservative and liberal with most folk being a bit of each. The moderates generally provide enough stability to carry the day and keep the wheels of government turning. That has become less and less true in our country where we have suffered “gridlock” for an extended period of time and great animosity between the parties, and within the parties.

Let me turn in particular to the Republicans. Republicans have long stressed individual freedom and individuality and the right to do as one pleases as long as it does not infringe upon others freedom. This may well be impossibility as everybody affects everybody else to some degree; nevertheless that is a traditional conservative value. Yet that does not seem true of the Republican Party today. If it would true, then Republicans should be supporting same sex marriages, pro-choice options for women, gender equality, equal educational opportunities, equal employment possibilities, and the like. All of these fit their ideological premise of individual rights.

But it is clear those are not the values being advocated by Republicans today who instead of taken a certain set of values, being almost the opposite of those things mentioned in the above paragraph and seek to enforce those values and ideas upon others whether they like it or not. This is their internal ideological conflict or as judgmental folk might call hypocritical.

This is not infer that the liberals as embodied in the Democratic Party do not have to deal with internal ideological conflicts as well; it is just less prevalent than it is of the conservatives. In my opinion the Democrats have also moved a significantly towards the political right and have become less and less progressive over then last 30 some years. The Democratic Party can easily be viewed as taking positions Republicans did in the Eisenhower and even the Nixon years.

As a country the number of folk in poverty has increased rather than decreased. This distribution of wealth has turned us into a plutocracy or oligarchy rather than a democracy where the rich rule by power and influence. The Democrats who claim to stand up for the common persons have failed to do so. The middle class the claim to represent is decreasing in size, economic well being, and the American Dream is more of a dream than a realistic possibility. Education, which is the backbone of democracy has suffered becoming more of a right of the wealthy that a necessary component of the American Dream.

While minimal advances have been made in the area of medical care, we fall far behind other first world countries in quality and cost of care. Capitalism, lacking the proper government oversights does not operate according to supply and demand but seems the mechanism by which the rich grab and oversized share of the economic pie, which is socialistic not capitalistic.

I have often said for a healthy country we need to strong political parties with real differences in their ideologies but also able to come together in compromise for the common good; to be public servants of all citizens not just the few that can contribute to their campaigns and reelection.

I believe there is a social and economic awakening in this country not unlike the spiritual awakening that I have been talking about recently. We need strong populist movements to encourage this awakening and we politicians with the courage to do the right thing rather than the expedient things.

May both find their voice soon before it is too late.