Politics...

[trooper6]

I conservative professor of history and international relations makes an argument for why conservatives should vote for Obama.

If more conservatives were like this guy rather than W....well...I'd be a lot more charitable towards the Republican party.http://www.amconmag

Comments

[whswhs]

He's the kind of conservative that libertarians used to find common ground with, during the historical phase when libertarians felt at home in the Republican Party. Unfortunately, his sort are thin on the ground these days.

From a libertarian perspective, the decay of the Republicans went through four phases. First there was the movement to support for a massive peacetime military presence overseas, under Eisenhower. Then there was the movement that began with Nixon's "southern strategy" of capturing the segregationst vote, and culminated with Reagan's embrace of the fundamentalist Christianity the southerners had brought into the Republican Party with them. In the 1990s we saw the Republican abandonment of fiscal conservatism and balanced budgets in favor of massive government spending unsupported by revenues. Most recently, under Bush II, we've seen the old Republican devotion to constitutional government and opposition to unchecked executive power thrown aside with the excuse of "national security." At this point, the Republican Party is dead-or undead, being possessed by a spirit that claims to worship Christ and actually worships the Caesarean power of the imperial state.

But this kind of turnover is nothing new. Back before FDR, I understand that libertarians generally called themselves "Cleveland Democrats."

[trooper6]

That is so fascinating!