A Conservative for Obama

[proud2BlibKansan]

By Wick Allison

My party has slipped its moorings. It’s time for a true pragmatist to lead the country.

THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT “the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me.

In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher.

Conservatism to me is less a political philosophy than a stance, a recognition of the fallibility of man and of man’s institutions. Conservatives respect the past not for its antiquity but because it represents, as G.K. Chesterton said, the democracy of the dead; it gives the benefit of the doubt to customs and laws tried and tested in the crucible of time. Conservatives are skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes, doubtful that government is wiser than its citizens, and always ready to test any political program against actual results.

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But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask.

more . . . http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Core+Pages&type=gen&mod=Core+Pages&tier=3&gid=B33A5C6E2CF04C9596A3EF81822D9F8E

[jpgray]

1. From Wick fucking Allison no less! Holy shit.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I added his name

Sorry I have never heard of him. But I sure love this piece.

[cynatnite]

2. Goldwater said, "every good christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

:evilgrin:

[blueclown]

3. he only said this in the 90s.

in the 60s, he was just as bad as the wingnuts are now.

he matured and learned the errors of his ways late in his life, but he still created a monster.

the worst thing you can say about him is that he was the person who ultimately give us ronnie ray gun. and for that, he will never be forgiven.