What Does "Conservative" Mean?

Rebel rouser Pat Buchanan has declared the conservative movement dead. He might be right.

GOP rhetoric and it's priorities have been unsettling to many lately. Conservatives have tended to be traditionalists and strict constructionalists, yet the movement has been leading a movement to amend the constitution on gay marriage and fundamentally change the way the Senate does business through filibusters.

The conservative movement has led the way to fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, but now the Republican majority is moving us further and further from that path.

Conservatives have wanted people to work, but one has to wonder if goal of the current conservative movement unemployment?

The Washington Times notes:
Mr. Buchanan declares war on a faction of the movement in his latest book: "Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency."
He expresses resentment over the "imperialist" prescriptions of neoconservatives. "I don't think neoconservatives are conservative at all," he says. "I'm often asked what exactly is it that they want to conserve. They are Wilsonian interventionists abroad; they are big government at home."

Who has changed? Is the movement still conservative, and Buchanan has gone to the dark side, or the left side?

Or is it the nature of power? Perhaps conservatives have not changed, but the ways of Washington just cannot be altered, regardless of who is in office?

If you look at the 1994 Contract With America, and compare it to the issues promoted today, one has to wonder what happened.

Does the conservative movement want less government? How do you explain the gay marriage constitutional amendment?

Does the conservative movement want fiscal responsibility? How do you explain recent deficits?

It seems to me that today's elected conservatives are more interested in winning ideological battles than wars.

They would rather win the battle of a judge and lose the ideological war of how a judge is nominated.

They would rather win a battle and prevent gays from marrying than win the ideological war of preserving the constitution.

They'd rather win the battle of elections and lose the ideological battle of term limits.

As Yoda might say, "unsettling, it is".


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