Conservatism: Not TBTF

« Return to Article

Discuss

Member Comments

  • Posted By: Steve5684 @ 07/20/2008 2:50:45 PM

    Yah, I enjoy paying welfare for poor trash who never tried, or to subsidize some investment banker's get rich quick scheme turned market collapes.

  • Posted By: gglenc @ 07/20/2008 2:39:32 PM

    Mr. Will's offering that somehow "corporatism" is good for America, is tantamount to sayng that Mussolini's Corporatism (i.e. FASCISM) was good for Italy...or Hitler's fascism in Nazi Germany.

    The United States government during the past 30 years via its "deregulation mania" has CAUSED America's economic downfall. WE taxpayers were LIED to by presidents and Congress that it would be GOOD for America in a "free market" (as if there IS such a thing), when in fact it only OPENED the ability of corrupt corporatists to sell Americans' birthrights.

    Then, when the corporatists reached the END of their corruption, as the "free market" fell apart as it always does without "regulation" by US, the citizens, then the "Corporatists" run TO government, meaning to us, the TAXPAYERS, to pay for THEIR, the corporatists, corruption via bail-outs!

    IF there was any reason to overthrow the government AND the corporatists by any foreign nation, or citizens of this nation, the thesis by Mr. Will demonstrates it. Corporatism is CORRUPTION by its very ELITIST definition. Corporatism IS Fascism.

    That Mr. Will has not recognized the difference between "Populist Conservatism" and what he calls "conservative corporatism" demonstrates what is WRONG among so-called, "Conservatives." They simply do not have the intellectual power to KNOW the difference between what is GOOD for this nation and what has SUBVERTED this nation into a third rate nation BY the CORPORATISTS using their own brand of "SOCIALISM" via the U.S. Government.

    That Mr. Will does NOT know the difference should cause true CONSERVATIVES to change their affilations and to create a NEW MOVEMENT among those of us who ARE populists and do NOT support subversives like the fascist corporatists, trying to pose themselves as "conservatives." They are NOT and never have been anything "conservative."

  • Posted By: Jim_009911 @ 07/20/2008 1:45:17 PM

    The most significant thing about all of this "death of conservatism" talk is the complete lack of historical perspective that it inevitably displays. In terms of economic policy, we have been living in Reagan's world for almost 30 years. The Clinton Administration essentially conceded (or was forced to concede) that Reagan was right, and contented itself to nibbling around the edges. Lest anyone forget, during the 90s the presidency was all the Democrats had (thanks to Ross Perot). Republicans held majorities in both houses of Congress, and also the majority of governorships and state legislatures. In other words, the American people have not seen true liberalism in action since the Carter Administration, if not LBJ.

    If the current trend toward Democrats continues, there is about to be a massive public education provided about what liberalism actually looks like and produces. The rubber has not really hit the road on these ideological policy differences for a long, long time. That's why conservatives have found themselves in limbo. The baby is being thrown out with the bath water because people have forgotten the baby is even there. I maintain, and have for a long time, that the Clinton Administration was the most destructive thing to happen to America in recent memory--but maybe not in the way people normally think of it. Clinton's shifting, dishonesty and lack of principle distorted and confused our entire political system in ways that most people have never recognized. The end result is that people truly do not even know what they're voting for anymore. Luckily, the political scene will eventually return to its own equilibrium. The Left is feeling its oats. The gloves are off. The games are over. Given their chance, they will pursue global warming mythology to its logical conclusion. They will gut the military. They will raise taxes, over and over again, and they will attempt to nationalize health care. It is perhaps only then that people will be forced to remember that Reagan was right after all.

    If the Left is right that Bush is Nixon and Iraq is Viet Nam, then they must concede the flip side--Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter. My personal bet? Newt Gingrich in 2012.

  • Posted By: black saint @ 07/20/2008 11:21:43 AM

    Very good! Privatizing Profits but Socializing failures, Another way of saying the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, paying for the rich. Like providing an invading horde of Uneducated peons and Criminals for Businesses to employ at slave wages so they can pocket the profits and make the tax payers pay for their Medical, Schools and Welfare to the tune of net 20k per year!

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/20/2008 10:44:32 AM

    We can pay Mars with loans from Pluto, and Pluto with loans from Saturn, and, oh well, you know what I mean.

  • Posted By: carminejd @ 07/20/2008 10:24:59 AM

    There is a presumption with which I repectfully disagree: The war in Afghaanistan was indeed about Afghanistan. The war in Iraq was not about Iraq, but Iran, and we are still in the middle of this silent war with Iran, which soon will likely become a very noisy military action. So this is not so much Big Government waiting to fail but a Big War we cannot fail. Regarding Republican/Conservative social programs, particularly EDUCATION, and the Fanny et al bail out, these actions are also required if we hope to keep conservativism alive. Stupid children end up Victim Democrats, Social Workers or simply the tattooed, drugged and rivetted unemployed , but they are certainly unable to produce much that is economically useful or personally satisfying. Regarding Fanny and friends, if we have extremely limited capital available, which the Fanny crowd has precipitated, again there will be little produced that is economically useful. The role of Conservative Government is vigorously to enforce honesty in contracts. It is not to push badly run organizations into oblivion. The entire mess we now have with scarce capital is that our government has confused governmental incompetence with a free market place. Bad government, kleptocratic government, self interested government or a government too tied to doing favors for criminally leaning organizations and monopolies, say Fanny et al, is worse than no government at all. So, saving failing but useful institutions is not contrary to conservative principles at all, but allowing criminals to continue doing business is. So long as our governement protects the producers of dangerously useless garbage like public education, psycho-pharmacological drugs and bizarre structured debt vehicles-- tranches etc, well that isn't just Republican Big Government about to fail, rather it is wicked incompetent government that must fail.

    • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/20/2008 10:40:34 AM

      I am fascinated by the new political party, the "kleptocrats". Actually, for the past eight years, they have been the "Klepticans". The Kleptocrats are soon to take over from them, but still, "klepto" is the correct prefix for the fix that we find ourselves in.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/20/2008 10:36:07 AM

    Whack A Mole is a game that recently was invented in Iraq. Trouble would break out in the country where the troops were not located. The troops would rush there and quell the trouble, "whacking" it, as one would whack a mole which suddenly appeared through a hole in its underground tunnel. As soon as the trouble was whacked, then another trouble would emerge in another place where the troops were not, and they would rush there to whack, and on it went, ad infinitum, as the "game mole" would escape and go elsewhere to appear.
    This game is so much fun for the moles and for those who profit from the whacking that it is expanding out of country into the world. As General Petraeus has effectively suppressed the mole appearances in Iraq, the moles have migrated to Afghanistan where they are popping out in so many places that the troops are unable to whack them all.
    The Original Mole, Osama Ben Laden, quit appearing. We whacked just one time, missed him, and he went underground. The whacking got so bad in Afghanistan, that we went to Iraq to whack. But now that the fun has thinned out in Iraq, we are about to move most of our troops to Afghanistan where the whacking right now is superior.
    There are envious world leaders who see all of the fun of this game who wish that they only had the resources to play it. Once they catch on that you really don't need any money to play it, as our leaders did, and that you simply borrow the money that generations of citizens in the future will pay back, they will jump on the wagon and play, too.
    This is consistent with the tradition of the United States in leading the world since World War II. Having led them in our form of government, and in how to duplicate our many modern conveniences, we are now leading them in how to continue their favorite follies with debt. Once the whole world catches onto this and runs out of currency, then we will show them how to borrow from other planets. We have already sent some machine envoys to Mars, and the secret news that comes back from there tells us that there is enough borrowing there to last more than the petroleum that we have been burning here for a hundred years. Once we run out of the money that doesn't exist here, we will open up the universe and borrow where the lenders will last forever. I can't wait to see the new games.

  • Posted By: uuforyou @ 07/20/2008 10:18:46 AM

    The Conservative movement is dead.
    America is moving to the center/left.

    Barack Obama is going to be the next great president
    of the United States of America. I trust and support Obama!

    www.Bravenewfilms.org
    www.therealmccain.com

  • Posted By: love234america @ 07/19/2008 4:58:02 PM

    Obama should feel right at home with all the Islamic population

    • Posted By: muslimsforpresidents @ 07/20/2008 10:13:41 AM

      Hey bigot, move back to your trailer trash home, and don't come out. Your an absolute shmuck and putz for saying that about Obama, and has nothing to do with George F. Will's article.

  • Posted By: notroubleatall1963 @ 07/19/2008 10:42:23 PM

    Hooray for Obama!

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse