I wrote this to some friends who are conservatives and are supporting Bush….

One thing people are confused about this next election is that it’s perceived to be about liberalism vs. conservativism. It is not. It’s about a progressive view of government vs. neo-conservatives. My thesis in this post, Bush is NOT conservative.

Traditional conservatives espouse 3 things (as a recent add in the NYT from 20+ GOP officials/governors).
1) Fiscal Responsibilty:
It seems that the last 12 years has born this out: The Democratic party is dedicated to fiscal reponsibility (dem pres. surpluses vs. republican pres. deficits). No one can refute this. It seems our country works best with a conservative house, moderate senate, and progessive president.

If you are an avowed conservative: has the Bush administration delivered? A 500 billion dollar YEARLY deficit is anything but that: the tax cut has not created one job (as there is still a deficit of 1 million jobs) and if the tax code wasn’t touched, (even with 9/11, economic downturn, and that horrible strategic error called Iraq) the deficit MIGHT have been kept under 50 billion and that’s being generous. No president has ever espoused a tax cut during a time of “war,” and any red blooded conservative should be pissed off. This is ESPECIALLY egregious because Republicans control both houses in Congress (i.e. the purse strings).

2) Conservation:
All Republicans from Theodore Roosevelt to that cold blooded bastard Nixon were still environmentalists (Reagan’s and Bush I’s legacy is a milquetoast on this) and have been rather progressive in this regard. They realized the importance of having a healthy environment by signing into law such things as the National Park Service (TR) and the Clean Water Act (Nixon). In this regard, a traditional conservative believes in conservation. As the Bush administration has clearly shown is that they have no regard for the environment and science in general. By using oil company “research” on greenhouse gases to halting higher standards of mercury emissions from power plants to the Orwellian named “Healthy Forests Initiative” (which will actually be used to cut down old growth trees and in fact destroy vast tracts of wilderness in order to “save it”). This administration is not conservative in that regard. Any red blooded conservative should be pissed off.

3) Small Government:
This seems to be the bread and butter of the conservative mantra (which is intrinsically linked to fiscal responsibility). Under Bush II, government spending has gone up. It even went up under Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton (but Clinton was progressive and not conservative). The number of people employed by the federal government has gone up. A true conservative believes in shrinking the government in all regards. There are three forms of this: a) Letigously shrinking government: like keeping the Bill of Rights/Constit. simple, upholding civil rights like privacy/search and seizure, and keeping regulations at a minimum. b) keeping beaurocracy small and non-invasive c) financial responsibility from a smaller government thereby lowering the tax burden. All of these things are perfectly legimate political ideas and true conservatives have espoused these ideas (I don’t necessarily disagree with this). Unfortunately, the Bush administration has failed in this regard too. By passing the Patriot Act in the middle of the night on a Friday, the administration has invaded our privacy by making it legal to track our library/bookstoore habits. This administration has suspended the writ of habeus corpus for Americans, like Jose Padilla, by calling them “enemy combatants.” (Certainly, these Americans are shady characters, but they are still U.S. citizens who deserve rights: if you want to call them traitor, then look in the Constitution because even traitors have rights Article III, sec. 3). And don’t get me started on prison abuse….

Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, the idea of “big government” is a misnomer. Republicans believe in “small government” when it comes to social programs, but when it comes to the military, Republicans certainly believe in “Big Government.” Democrats believe in the power of federal social programs and especially during the post-Cold War, a smaller military. Neither *political party* believes in small government. Personally, I don’t know how a bigger military could have prevented 9/11. With strong allies around the world, why have a big military? With a healthy intelligence community (an egregious oversight of both Bush I and Clinton: after the Cold War, intelligence spending went down because many didn’t realize the new threat) why do we need a big military to fight terrorism when when it’s boundaryless? Terrorism’s problem is universal, but our adminstration, for some reason, thinks it’s our sole burden and is unwilling to work with other countries. Why? They don’t realize (and neither does Mark) that our country doesn’t need to convince the ultra-extremists that we’re O.K., our country needs to reach out to those who *might* sympathize with the extremists. These normal people who live in the Middle East have no reason to believe EITHER SIDE and they want change but don’t know who to trust. Well, Bush II gave them a reason to align with the extremists because of Iraq. Why should Joe Arab believe us when we invaded a country without SOUND PROOF. We gave them no reason to believe us! Attacking an oil rich country is EXACTLY what Bin Laden wanted (btw, where is he?), and those moderates are more in Bin Laden’s camp. That’s an utter failure.

One other misconception is that taxes will go up under Kerry and/or that your taxes will go down with Bush. Wrong. For us in the middle class, there are other taxes that we carry an undue burden. When you go to pay the taxes on your car,house, or food, that’s a state and local tax. In fact, state and local taxes have gone UP because the federal government can no longer send money to municipalities for stuff like police officers, firemen, and education: the states/cities have to make up for this lost revenue or cut services. Why? See conservative principal #1 and how there is now no fiscal responsibility!! In fact, the tax burden (as a percentage of total federal income taxes paid) of the middle class has expanded under Bush!

Lastly, the media is NOT liberal (usually this refers to broadcast media). Republicans have been crying about this for the last two decades. It’s a simple method used by coaches in sports: it’s called working the ref. They yell and yell and insult until the ref/media cowers. Look at any of the broadcast media: they’re owned buy huge coorporate interests!! Huge coorporate interests that overwhelming donate to the Republican party (opensecrets.org)! Look how GE, Westinghouse, and News Inc donate to the Republicans. Look at the coorporations that ADVERTISE on the networks: they overwhelming donate to the Republican party. There are only three categories that donate overwhelmingly to Democrats: Labor, Lawyers, and Entertainment. I hate to burst your bubble, but Entertainment, does NOT include GE and Westinghouse and certainly does NOT include the newsrooms (plus, look at some of the news orgs inside the Entertainment subsection: they give about 50-50 to the parties with Fox News…well you know how they lean). Here is the most profound thing you’ll hear from this paragraph: THE NEWS MEDIA IS NOT LIBERALLY BIASED, BUT PROFIT BIASED (thanks Al). They will report anything that will turn a profit (and not report if it will hurt the bottomline). What other proof do I have? CNN/FOX, et al, did not question our war in Iraq!! Where was this so-called liberal media when they never really questioned the motives and most importantly, THE EVIDENCE of Iraqi connections to Bin Laden and WMD?!?! I don’t want to toot my own horn, but before the war began: I REALIZED THAT IRAQI WMD AND AL-QUAEDA CONNECTIONS WERE A RED HERRING!! Look at my website: click on the “Journal Link” then go down to the March 12/13, 2003. If you had been reading international news in addition to blogs and the Knight-Ridder news service (Reuters, AP, and the Rev. Moon owned UPI also failed to report this stuff), you would have realized that there was no nuclear program, that there were no connections to Al-Qaeda, and that if there were bio/chem weapons in Iraq, why didn’t he use them against us in the last 13 years? WHY DIDN”T THEY ASK HARD QUESTIONS AND GIVE THESE PITIFUL REASONS FOR WAR ANY SCRUTINY? The thing is: They didn’t!!! How dare you accuse the media of being liberal when they utterly failed to do their job and became a mouthpiece of the administration.

I will say this: I have respect for the traditional conservative political philosophy because it’s well developed and cohesive (I disagree with some of its tenets, but that’s…just politics), BUT I GIVE NO QUARTER TO THOSE WHO SUPPORT NEO-CONSERVATIVES. People who support this president and its administration are intellectually lazy or are voting for Bush out of personal gain. I don’t know who you are voting for or if you’re voting: just remember George Bush is NOT a conservative. If you want an alternate view, and in my opinion, a more comprehensive vision of our future, go to johnkerry.com and look up his views. Also, listen to the media with a better understanding of their motive, and take Republican/Democrat smears with a grain of salt. However, I categorically say that those who vote for Bush are WRONG !!! A traditional conservative SHOULD NOT support this administration. Thank you. Maybe next time, I will tell you why voting for Kerry is RIGHT for a conservative..