Conservatives are in an abusive relationship with a lying, cheating and stealing spouse. And just so there is no mistaking who I am referring to, I am talking about the GOP. A lot of conservatives are fed up and, if you ask me, rightfully so with the party that they have called home.
Conservatives are in an abusive relationship with a lying, cheating and stealing spouse. And just so there is no mistaking who I am referring to, I am talking about the GOP. A lot of conservatives are fed up and, if you ask me, rightfully so with the party that they have called home. Republicans have for decades talked a good talk but have never really walked the walk relying on the fact that conservatives have nowhere else to go. They certainly are not going to become Democrats and other parties like the Libertarian and Constitution Parties have failed to woo conservatives to their ranks in any significant number for a variety of reasons.
Conservatives are fed up with the lies told to them by the Republican Party establishment every election cycle about support for fiscal responsibility, respect for individual liberties and their belief in our Constitution and justly remind the GOP that actions speak louder than words. Year after year the list of actions by the GOP that break these promises continues to grow and grow until eventually as the Republicans stay in power they look more and more like Democrats. As a whole and a party that is.
Conservatives kick and scream every now and then things get better for a time. Like right now for example. Conservatives are raising a fuss and the Republicans, out of power, are bending over backwards to lock arms and form a wall of defiance against the left. But it was, if I might be so bold to remind you, just a few short years ago that we had Republicans spending hundreds of billions of dollars more than we as Americans had to spend, most often on unconstitutional welfare programs consuming large swaths of our government bureaucracy, and rushing to the podium to sign on to plans such as TARP along with their liberal Democrat brethren.
Where were they when people were screaming then? Well, in my mind they simply did not care enough to hold to those promises they have made so many times before because they were in power. Now however they see the anger at out of control government spending, which they themselves have partaken in numerous times, as their ticket back to power and are once again putting on a mask. Personally, I see it as simply as that.
Ask any man or woman who has been in an abusive relationship with a spouse and they will tell you what will happen next. They will tell you that the promise to be better will get made once more and things will most likely get better for a time. But in the long run the abuse will return.
There are a lot of enablers out there among the conservative movement which is a plurality if not a majority of Americans. Chief perhaps among them is Sean Hannity who I hear day after day decrying conservatives who have had enough of the lies. One of his common refrains is that there is, most certainly, a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties and that this is reason enough to continue to support the Republicans. Some people, it seems, are making the claim that there is not such a difference.
Well, to that I say the later are fools. Of course there is a dime’s worth of difference between the liberal Democrats planted far on the left and the not quite so liberal Republicans tethered only not so far to the left by a strong conservative anchor farther to the right. Make no mistake, if the rope we are using to hold the Republican Party in place were to break the GOP would rush over and embrace the Democrat Comrades. Just look at their train of abuses against liberty and the Constitution! Campaign finance reform anyone?
A dime’s worth of difference is not good. If a typical Democrat is right 5% of the time, and I think that I am generous by saying that, and the average Republican is right only a dime’s worth more at 15%, it is a bad thing. There was a dime’s worth of difference between Mussolini and Hitler too but no one in their right mind would suggest that Fascism was better than Nazism on a grand scale unless they were mentally insane.
Sean Hannity, and many other enablers, encourages conservatives to stick it out. He likes to often use one particular speech by Ronald Reagan as his cane to beat conservatives into submission. Reagan once opined that at the time of his own ascendancy within the Republican Party the country needed a revitalized Republican Party and not a third party for conservatives. Like an Air America shill, Hannity repeats this defense of conservatives maintaining the Republican Party as their home because in the past Reagan did the same.
But there are some points to ponder on this shallow use of Reagan. First, Reagan was not God. He was a man and men make mistakes. Simply quoting Reagan’s belief about conservatives remaining true the Republican Party as a reason does not make it a good reason. We are, after all, talking about a President that believed the lies of the Democratic Party who controlled Congress about spending cuts that they would make and never did. We are talking about a man who inconsistently used his authority as the Chief Executive of the United States to prevent unconstitutional acts and uphold the Constitution no matter what the Congress passed into law. We are, after all, talking about a President that accepted a sweeping amnesty for millions of illegal aliens who had broken United States law and violated our sovereignty.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that Reagan was a horrid President. But let these acts show that even he was not right all the time and that simply quoting him without a strong and ardent look at the facts wins no argument on the matter of conservative loyalty to the Republican Party. In fact, and I am sure this fact has not escaped Mr. Hannity and others, at one time the Republican Party was a third party itself.
Yes, if conservatives abandon the Republican Party for other candidates and other parties the risk of splitting the vote from the "right" is there as moderate, liberal, RINOs continue to support the likes of John McCain. Such an act would indeed give a liberal Democrat a far greater chance of victory in a three way race. But I again ask the same question I have asked a thousand times before. Why should conservatives be forced to compromise with left leaning Republicans? When will the left leaning Republicans be forced to compromise with us? Sometimes you have to go through Hell to get to Heaven.
I know that I am not alone in being tired of the abuse we conservatives have suffered at the hands of the Republican Party. And I see the same scenario playing out just as it has before; abuse of us by the GOP, anger by conservatives at the GOP, a threat to the GOP’s power as conservatives start making rumblings about finding another home, a mea culpa and a plea on bended knee from the GOP for us to stay and a promise that they will be better, a sizable portion of abused conservatives getting a sentimental tear in their eye as they rush back to embrace the GOP for yet another shot at making things work. Will the vicious cycle be broken this time? I have little hope that it will. Note that I said, “little hope,” and not no hope. I foresee much pain and suffering for not just conservatives but also this country the cycle is not broken.
I am not saying that it is time to cast aside the Republican Party as of this day. But I am not saying that the Republican Party should not be cast aside either. I am suggesting that while we may continue to dwell in the same house that our relationship should not be consummated and that conservatives should allow the Republican Party to stay as long as they agree to sleep in a different bed and in a different room.
This should be their last chance to prove their worth. And when they are given a majority either in this election or the next should they fail they to act as they have promised they should not be given another chance. If they prove to be not faithful to their word by the sum of their deeds and act appropriately from this day forth then they should be indeed cast out into the cold and the rain to catch pneumonia and die. After a few decades of proving their worth then we can talk about moving their bed into the same room. After about a century of loyalty to this Republic and her ideals then we can talk about letting them sleep in the same bed once again.
So if you need me I will be sleeping in the barn out back with my shotgun. I will be seeing other people when I so desire and the occasion calls for it just as all conservatives should when the GOP puts forth a nominee that is severely lacking conservative bona fides. And if the GOP comes to try and abuse me again, well just be warned that I will plant a load of double ought buck shot between their eyes and kill them where they stand.
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts http://www.cafepress.com/rightthings. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at http://www.libertyreborn.com
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