Posted by
King Vinyl on Thursday, January 22, 2009 9:00:31 AM
The only mechanism that will fix the ills in each of our lives is personal responsibility. Conservatism by definition seeks to influence government at every level to conserve the freedoms and the responsibilities that come with it. What our founders fought and died for is the same set of principles Martin Luther King fought and ultimately died for. The knowledge they had because of their oppressed backrounds was that people can more effectively run a government. That when government rules over a people those in power exempt themselves from the equal sharing of those responsibilities. Their drive is to by what ever means they can deflect those task on the classes they rule over. By way of controling education the ruling body projects their own short comings and wreckless behaviors onto those classes.
Media is actually a form of education which is a very effective means of passing information. All education is not a default benefit to anyone. Our society has set strict guidlines for what can be taught to children irrespective of studies suggesting most people don't mature past a third grade mentality. The FCC used to strictly regulate the veiwing content of TV, and the oppinions exoressed over public airways. In todays higly charged political apparatus the race is on to exploit the fringe, to push the envelope, or to plainly find a way around such regulatory pitfalls in promoting an agenda.
The public by in large understands the processes of propaganda most are predisposed to one side or the other. That is why most successful politicians call for a bipartisan approach to governance when they campaign for the office they seek. Often they liken themselves to the qualities of a leader from our nations past as a way of distancing themselves from opposition attacks. Our new president is not immune from this tactic he has already sought the social reforms of FDR, tailored his speeches to the tone of JFK, and was sworn in on the Bible of Abraham Lincoln.
The GOP lost this election in the primary season for three main reasons. First and chief among them was that after four years of a socially Liberal president we failed to recognize the trends that started in 04' when Bush defeated Kerry. The country was willling to give the GOP one last opportunity to correct itself but public oppinion was slowly tilting away. The second reason was that educators on our side of the equation known as talk radio set the bar height at the level of Ronald Reagan. The problem has not nor will it ever be Reagan rather the focus placed on which candidate could most liken himself to Reagan. The third reason relates to the second in that talk radio made their choice very clear in the weeks before our primary season.
The lies and distortions they engaged in caused a catastrophic rift in the base of the party. Using the same tactics they blast the Liberal media over they assasinated the chartacter of Mike Huckabee by making the race about religious idealogy rather than about the issues. Anyone who voted for Huckabee was also labeled as a bigot but almost more importantly as an Evangelical. The reason Evangelical became such a factor is because that brand happens to be very outspoken on their views. Those views however are not always popular with other brands of Christianity and by placing that label on the Huck voter the talkers were attempting to normalize LDS as a mainstream brand of the Christian faith. The idea that Christians go into a voting booth by in large Bible in hand is absurd and that is the greater lesson that needs to be learned by our party.
Until our party can set itself apart from the mistakes of the past and learn the lessons of it's inherit failures we will never regain control of any branch of political power. Nor should we as a false production of sudo-Conservatism will only serve to futher damage the brand. Wake up be your own man, be all that you can be, for God and for country. Just don't get the idea that you can replenish the well from which you drink by releaving yourself upstream.