Conservative Principles

I have wondered in recent times what the term "conservative principles" means. I hear it used by politicians all the time, but the ones who use it are also the ones expanding the government, engaging in nation building and rolling back civil liberties. Not thing which are encompassed by my understanding the tern conservative. I've been having a Montoya Moment where someone says to me, "I dont think that word means what you think it means".

Glenn Greenwald though, in his usual way, defines it for me in a way I now understand when I hear it:

One of the principal flaws of Sullivan's book is that it speaks of "political conservatism" in a way that exists only in the abstract but never in reality. The fabled Goldwater/Reagan small-government "conservatism of doubt" which Sullivan hails -- like the purified, magnanimous form of Communism -- exists, for better or worse, only in myth.While it is true that Bush has presided over extraordinary growth in federal spending, so did Reagan. Though Bush's deficit spending exceeds that of Reagan's, it does so only by degree, not level. The pornography-obsessed Ed Meese and the utter lawlessness of the Iran-contra scandal were merely the Reagan precursors to the Bush excesses which Sullivan finds so "anti-conservative." The Bush presidency is an extension, an outgrowth, of the roots of political conservatism in this country, not a betrayal of them.All of the attributes which have made the Bush presidency so disastrous are not in conflict with political conservatism as it exists in reality. Those attributes -- vast expansions of federal power to implement moralistic agendas and to perpetuate political power, along with authoritarian faith in the Leader -- are not violations of "conservative principles." Those have become the defining attributes of the Conservative Movement in this country.

Well done.

We now return you to our usual, amusing program.