Why Milquetoast Conservatives are to blame

Lately I’ve been trying to avoid politics. Utah has gone off the deep end nuts. The people I depend on to defend Utah values are now taking a hatchet to those ideals. The GOP moves left whether they win elections or lose them. The party is more interested in destroying their base voters than they are winning elections. Finally, Obama’s threat to fundamentally transform America has been fulfilled, with absolutely zero opposition from those elected to stop him.

Of course people like Karl Rove say that the only difference between a Republican like me and a Republican like him is one of strategy. While I hope for that to be true, is surrendering to the President at every turn even a strategy? It’s this history of folding on critical issues that caused people like me to stay home in 2006. I didn’t feel like Bush was advancing Conservatism, I felt like we had Dictators to the Left, and Capitulaters to my right. Democrats were in control of congress, getting their way constantly on issue after issue, even though Republicans actually had more seats. So I stayed home in 2006, hoping that a catastrophic loss would wake the party up. It didn’t. My mistake.  I vowed never to stay home again.

From there Bush gave us the bail outs saying, “Well, I have obviously made a decision to make sure

the economy doesn’t collapse. I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system. I think when people review what’s taken place in the last six months, uh, and put it all in one, in one, (sigh), you know, in one package, they’re realize how significantly we have moved.” Guess what? The bail outs didn’t work. Who was pushing for them? Democrats, of course. In fact (in a rare display of courage), then House Minority Leader, John Boehner led the party to help defeat of the original bailout package.  You will recall that it was the Democrats who went running to every camera in the nation to scream about how this bail out was needed, yes? And even, then candidate Obama, was one of the screamers… so John McCain suspended his campaign so that he could go twist some Conservative arms to get the bail out passed. The end result? Two years of a Democratic Super Majority. That is what Milquetoast Conservatism led to.

Then in 2010, riding the Tea Party wave, Republicans took the house, and ended the super majority of Democrats in the Senate. Sure we failed to take the Senate, but at least it should not have been possible for Democrats to continue to ride roughshod over us with a 60 plus majority… But then the media and the Democrats start whining about right wing “extremists,” and shock, horror the milquetoast crowd joins the left in attacking their own. For the next two years they beat the Tea Party out of existence, so once again, in 2012, those Conservatives stayed home, leading to a loss of the White House, a loss of seats in the House (though we maintained the majority), and a restoral of the Democratic super majority in the Senate.

In the time Republicans have had the House not a single Conservative idea or value has been advanced. Since taking the Senate in 2014, the only agendas being advanced are Obama’s, often even over the protests of his fellow Democrats. The question has not been how do we stop Obama, which is what we who have to live under the laws they are passing are asking, but instead, how do we give Obama a rubber stamp without looking like a rubber stamp?

Meanwhile, our churches have fallen oddly silent on numerous things that used to be key issues, while the Pope has fully embraced Marxism, in a full on embrace of crazy leftist policy not seen since Pope Pius XII! This is a dire situation, because Liberals are liberals first and whatever they are second, and therefore expect their religion to conform to their politics, while most Conservatives are religious, (mostly Christian) first, and expect their politics to conform to their religion. Meaning most Conservatives believe what they believe because we used to have religious leaders who were not afraid to lead. Now, however, most churches are too timid, leaving many of their congregants asking what happened.

Many commentators on the left are celebrating the collapse of religion in our society, citing recent polling which shows fewer people are calling themselves Christian. They boast that it’s obviously Christianity’s Conservatism that is chasing people away. However, a deeper dive of those studies reveal it is actually those churches who have embraced liberalism that are bleeding the most members. Far too many churches are abandoning biblical principles, or deemphasizing them in the name of political correctness, and in the process embrace a philosophy that is counter to the message of the Bible. People aren’t stupid. Liberals don’t actually believe in God. For them, religion is only useful when it can be used for political ends. Conservatives, on the other hand, can easily sniff out a phony pastor and will walk away from the church, rather than try to risk controversy by insisting on reforms. The latter of the two phenomenon is the only aspect that is new, the former, has been going on quite a while and has been well documented in the book,  Exodus: Why Americans are fleeing Liberal Churches by Dave Shiflett.

We see videos of what goes on at Liberal churches, it’s the rants of Father  Michael Pfleger, Jeramiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, or even the insanity coming out of Pope Francis, and it’s always political, always Marxist, always pushing an agenda. Compare it to what we see out of churches considered to be more Conservative, like my faith? The LDS faith? We Never speak on political matters any more. Most right leaning faiths don’t. And, that is starting to frustrate many congregants who are making political decisions based on what we learned in our youth.

Why should the SCOTUS rulings this week be a surprise to anyone? No one is fighting these bad policies at all. The GOP is weak and spineless, the pulpit silent… The Right is completely without leadership or vision. The right’s candidates and elected officials are racing to the hard left, even Jeb Bush is running ads boasting about how “moderate” and “liberal” he is. We seem to have embraced “moderate” as if the term has any meaning. I tend to believe that “moderate” means you don’t stand for anything, so you fall for everything. As John Adams once said, in a letter to Horatio Gates, “the middle way is none at all.”

The Right fears being called names. They are running clear of the very issues that won Bush re-election in 2004, and in the process alienating the very voters that gave them that election. The fact is that as long as Republicans continue to ignore those of us who live on Main Street, and embrace the fascistic leftists in the Chamber of Commies, Wallstreet and academia, they will never again have the White House. The people of Main Street are not looking for people who will, as Bush did, abandon our principals to save our principals, but for a leader who will fight for our principals and articulate a clear vision as to why our principals will work better. We don’t need another milquetoast passive, die in the night without a whimper candidate. We need someone strong.

As of right now, 2016 is shaping up to be a repeat of 2006 for me. I am not seeing that leader that will inspire me to care again. Unless Republicans are willing to put up a genuine fight for our values, and pick up the gavel, instead of the rubber stamp, I simply cannot be inspired to care. I’m far more interested in debating the merits of R+L=J than I am in helping to turn out the voter for a weakling who won’t make a difference. If the Republicans want to pull me away from my video games in 2016, I need a better reason than “well Bush will appoint better SCOTUS appointees,” because now I can point right back at Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy and say, “oh really?” Prove it, milk drinkers. It’s incumbent on you to prove to me that you are not a complete and total waste of my time, efforts and money. And with almost a full ten years of you letting me down at your sails, I highly doubt you will.