Conservatism: n, The disposition and tendency to preserve what is established; opposition to change; the habit of mind; or conduct, of a conservative.
I have a conservative that likes to post comments every now and then on this blog. This person seems to think like all conservatives tend to do that they are smarter than everyone else. I've got to call him out on one of his more ludicrous statements.
To borrow an old saying, those of you who THINK you are intelligent really annoy those of us who ARE.
One of the things that I have noted in my decade long battle of wits on and off the Net with conservatives is that they always make this claim that a Democratic or progressive hero if he were alive today would vote GOP.
Excuse me for a moment while I double over in laughter. (cue The Proud Family Papi Boulevardez laugh here)
One of the people whose name they love to try claim as one of theirs, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had this to say about conservatives in an October 26, 1939 radio address:
"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward."
Obviously FDR wouldn't be voting GOP right now because the Republicans are the peeps who playa-hated the New Deal for decades and have spent the latter half of the 20th century working tirelessly to dismantle it and its crown jewels of Medicaid and Social Security.
Abraham Lincoln said about them in a February 27, 1860 speech:
"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?"
John F. Kennedy? Please. There's as much chance of JFK voting Republican as George W. Bush has of successfully completing a Dale Carnegie speaking course.
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
Does that sound like a man that would vote GOP? Nope.
They sank to new lows last year when the National Black Republican Association ran ads in support of Michael Steele's failed 2006 US Senate campaign in Maryland claiming that Dr. Martin Luther King would have voted Republican.
I have only this to say. Better yet, I think I'll let Dr. King's words speak for themselves.
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
Is the conservative movement so bereft of its own heroes that you have to disingenuously try to appropriate mine and attempt to twist their words to support your political agenda when that person's lifetime body of work is geared toward progressive causes and themes?
Yep.
Both parties have been in existence over 100 years. Their constituencies have flipped over time. It is now the GOP that has since 1964 been the home of the Dixiecrats and race-baiting bigots. The once solidly Democratic South has flipped the script in our time period to become Republican. Conversely the Democratic Party since 1964 is the one pushing progressive forward-thinking legislation and the one taking the lead role in civil rights matters.
It must be frustrating to be a conservative. Y'all have a longer losing streak than the Chicago Cubs and you're not as loveable. Ann Coulter and the conservative pundits that spout similar poisonous rhetoric devoid of facts just illuminate the image problem y'all have and the moral bankruptcy of conservatism as a political philosophy.
I gues it's tough being on the WRONG side of every issue in American history.
Y'all were on the losing side (and still are) in terms of American independence, slavery, the 40-hour workweek, women's suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, interracial marriage, US involvement in World Wars I and II, the environment, meat inspection laws...Shall I continue?
You conservatives will also lose on gay rights, universal health care and campaign finance reform.
But back to the originally scheduled post.
If conservatism is as superior as you peeps claim it is to liberalism, why would you spend so much time hatin' on liberals? Why do you always go negative in your campaigns and use vote suppression tactics if your conservative ideas are supposedly superior election winning ones? Why is it necessary for you to use Orwellian weasel words and deception to articulate and implement your policies? Why do you come up with bogus theories, excuses and spin to hide your policy failures?
With such a losing track record and a political philosophy that has more in common with communism in terms of stifling freedoms and individual rights, I can see why you'd attempt to falsely attempt to claim our progressive icons as your own. If I had folks like Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush as shining examples of conservative leadership I wouldn't claim them either.
Oh well, at least y'all have Ronald Reagan.