Reply #8: I would argue that it is not in our best interest to eliminate [View All]

[Oak2004]

conservativism -- as in traditional American conservativism. Without a "loyal opposition" any movement, however well intentioned, will go astray. The catch here is that what has been trumpeted as "conservativism" for the last 20 years (at least) is not conservativism at all, but protofascism all decorated up to look like conservativism.

(Note the timeline here: I am not making the Johnny-come-lately argument that "Bush is not conservative" but an argument that pretty much no current Republicans, and very few from the recent past, are. I mean, really, could you imagine Eisenhower, or even Goldwater, siding with this crowd?)

Traditional conservatives, however, shouldn't be let off the hook. With few exceptions, they did exactly what Von Papen and his ilk of the late Weimar Republic did: they tried to use the fascists to their own ends, and then watched as the fascists swallowed their movement whole. If they expect to be acknowledged again as legitimate voices within the democratic (small-d) dialogue, they need to both re-establish their bona fide commitment to democracy and do some serious soul searching as to how they could have been so opportunistic, stupid, and complicit.