A letter recently appeared

in our newspaper calling conservatism a failed ideology. I responded with this letter, though they asked I shorten it to meet their guidelines. Here is the unabridged version.

Regarding: Conservatism called bankrupt ideology:

Most historians are wise enough to know you can’t rank a president during his life time, much less a week after he has left office. Only the future will tell us if Bush is remembered kindly or not.

The statement “Conservatives fought ending slavery” shows a decided lack of knowledge of history. It was Lincoln- a Republican- who freed the slaves. It was Republicans who fought for and signed every major piece of civil-rights legislation on our books and Democrats who fought to KEEP the Jim Crow laws and segregation (the KKK is made up of Democrats).

The fact is that Bush is not a Conservative. He is a Moderate. That he proved Moderate-ism is a bad idea, I won’t argue. Even if he was a Conservative, blaming his failures on Conservative ideologies and not on his in-ability to fulfill them is a logic fallacy of the highest degree. It does not prove an idea is bad just because one person fails to live by them.

The ideologies we have labeled “liberal” in this country are called socialism and communism in other countries. It has been proven over and over again, throughout history that these ideas don’t work. They always result in oppression and a bunch of dead human beings.

“Liberals are willing to share.” Yep. They are willing to “share” my hard earned money with those who don’t earn it . This makes me not want to work and earn more money. Very soon, everyone is on the dole and no one is earning the money to pay for it. Then the country collapses. See the history of Russia and our current mortgage failures (programs started by Democrats, and managed by Democrats. I have seen a tape of a hearing in 04 with Republicans begging for some regulation to stop the Fanny Freddie nonsense before it collapsed and the Democrats refusing!) .

What history also tells us is that true “conservatism,” (the ideas of our Founding Fathers that everyone should be responsible for themselves, as far as the government is concerned, and that the government’s job is army and police and “stay out of our way”) will work if they are actually tried. Even the “down and out” are better off under such a system as they have more opportunities to pull themselves up and successful, conservative people give more to private charities than those taxed into poverty. The problem is that there are very few true Conservatives in government. True conservatives are too busy feeding their families to bother. It is only the power hungry that run for office and they are NOT going to be the ones to give people control of their own lives. They are the ones who pass laws to punish everyone because a tiny percentage of people are stupid.

We need to start studying history again and bring this country back to the ideas that made it great.

Before it’s too late.