WHY CAN'T CONSERVATIVES CATCH A BREAK?

     Mark Twain once said, "the radical of one century is the conservative of the next.

Once the idea is worn out, the conservative adopts it as its own".

     Being a conservative must be frustrating. It might be why conservatives have such a dour disposition. If you happen to be in one of those states that were once romantically described as, antebellum. A word that means, before the war. It did not originally refer to the Civil War in America but it has such an insousiant cache', making one feel that there was no misery before that miserable time when they suffered from that miserable "northern aggression". If you happened to be in one of those states, the conservative will be delivered from onesies to a cap and gown with the lesson drummed into them that " there are just things ya' shouldn't oughta do". A fellow writer of our acquaintances called it in a letter to a great grandchild, allowing yourself to "let the devil out"

     Liberals, what I believe Mark Twain meant by Radicals, might let the devil out too often. It is a common refrain. That may be why there are arguments over the relative virtues of liberalism, progressivism, and the ever-popular epithet, radical. Never-the-less they all, in aggregate, live their lives once they develop their thinking chops, on the spearpoint of ideas. Ideas, you may recall are not solid thoughts, unless you happen to be an ideologue. But then the ideologue would not be comfortable in the company of radicals or, (ahem) undesirables. Ideas that may not be well defined, yet, but idea's that open the way for advances. And always part of the capitalist ideal, advancement.

     Every advance in human rights has been at the insistence of liberals. Or radicals, less often are progressives mentioned. Maybe because they are not the same bright target to aim an epithet at. I will come back to the subject of epithets. As if you didn't know.

     In the same way human rights are advanced, civilization is advanced by liberals. Why, you might ask? Because civilization is what makes our lives civil. It provides shelter, medical care, food, protection from danger, and entertainment, even books that aren't used to heat your campfire, all part of the growth of civilization. Spartans may have been a very effective fighting force, but would you willingly subject your future to that? Your kids future? If you don't know the history, Google it. Everyone in this room has been brought up on the image of the miseries of World Communism. Often times it was misery, unless you were part of the ruling classes. It is always misery if you are not part of the ruling class. More importantly, what technological advances can come from a place that cannot abide failure? There are numerous example of this connection between advancing civilization and technology with liberal society. There are some examples of autocratic, militaristic societies that had great technological advance yet would you want to live there? Would you want your kids to grow up there. Republicans may be beginning to understand this particular idea. Why would you want to live there. This, I believe causes them to suppress labor unions and keep wages low. Ya' can't afford to move if ya' don't have gas for your car. Or even a car. We grew up with the institutional memory of the Depression and the Dust Bowl. There were great hardships for many. Those who fled the dust bowl for a more accommodating climate were the people who could no longer afford to absorb the losses of crop destruction. They were poor. They were vulnerable to farmers and banks, and business that capitalized on their lack of choices, what we would call vulture capitalists. Today those people are from the equatorial south that are feeling the effects of climate change. They are called by Republicans, "illegals". In reality, because Republicans no longer live in reality, they are trying to find ways to be legal. Just like our grandparents who fled the midwest because of the Dust Bowl were just trying to find a less miserable home for their families. Like those refugees from the equatorial south, they endured harsh treatment from the people who were already living there. Including the use of epithets from people who can't quite define epithet. 

     This is where the conservative of today is distinguished from the Burkean conservative of William F. Buckley. Today's conservative has been (oh, what is that word) groomed by a deep state of political activist groups sponsored by owners of highly profitable corporations. Corporations that are vulnerable to "woke" laws resulting from people who are waking up to climate change and the transfer of wealth from the Middle class to the very wealthy. As these corporations become more successful, the inventors of the thing that the corporations create find ways to spend the wealth that they have accumulated because they were absolved of their need to pay their fair share of taxes. Some like Bill Gates will try to cure Dengue fever, honor to him. Others, like Peter Thiel will declare themselves Libertarian and try to destroy the government that threatens to make them pay their fair share of taxes, and regulate the greenhouse gasses their businesses create. They do what all wealthy corporations and people do, they seek out politicians that can be purchased like cooking oil. Increasingly that politician has been a Republican. Because they are republicans they tend to rely on epithets against their political opponents. Usually, because those Republicans have been protected by gerrymandering from having to run a thoughtful campaign to convince the public why they should be elected, those epithets are laughably ineffective. I remember, growing up in the 1950s, a political joke aimed at the Joe McCarthy wing of the Republican party. It went something like this: "it is comforting that my worthy opponent no longer beats his wife". Those epithets are used today by the Republican office seeker, who has a very full closet of skeletons. The brighter ones write books. Senator Josh Hawley of the running for his life to escape insurrectionists he earlier encouraged with a fistbump wing of the party has published a book on The Manhood Virtues America Needs. Coincidentally, a picture is out showing him kissing his wife as if she has hemlock in her lipstick. Others, of the Marjorie Taylor Greene-Lauren Boeburt wing of the party make outrageous statements that stand, even though they can easily be fact-checked. And then there's George Santos, who by virtue of a narrow house majority will continue holding his seat while being investigated on 13 indictments. 

Even funnier for us people who like our political jokes to be written out clearly by the subject of the jokes, we are watching multiple House investigations targeted at Democrats. The first hobnailed boot to drop on the republican foot, was an influence-peddling investigation of Hunter Biden, who holds no public office. The much trumpeted whistleblower has disapeared. That investigation has now ended with no guilt found. We eagerly await Congressman Jim Jordan, he of the blindness displayed of sexual violence in the wrestling shower room at Ohio State, investigation of the Biden administration for the crime of being Democrats. During all of these investigations going rapidly into oblivion, epithets have been spoken about the usual Democrats which have been swatted away like  no-seeums at a campfire.