This letter is a response to "We must protect the ideals on which this country was founded"(CT, March 16).
Was this column a satire of how the GOP moves on? Perhaps it's not, as a woman as vacuous and moronic as Sarah Palin has more than 500,000 supporters on Facebook.
Granted, in my opinion, most of what conservatism represents is a vile trash heap that stands in the way of society progressing forward, but I can sympathize with the part of the "movement" that feels disenfranchised with the Bush and Reagan era.
I call it a "movement" because America has never had a solid definition for "conservatism;" perhaps that's its real problem.
In this sense, conservatism does need to be reinvented. The author of this column is arguing for the GOP to kill itself on several counts. Not that I have any problems with that. If he wants to have Bobby Jindal and Rush Limbaugh lead his party, then by all means, go for it; the Overton Window will be pushed to the left.
First, the most intellectual voices are coming from YouTube and the bellows of Limbaugh. Using YouTube videos as your argument is a cop-out and a way of avoiding critical thought.
The YouTube user specifically cited went so far as to compare stem cell research to Nazi eugenics. If there's any Nazism going on, it's that of the torture regimes of Dick Cheney. Many of the same tactics imposed on "enemy combatants" were used by the Gestapo.
There are no new ideas coming from the talking heads, but rather a rehashing of the old with the expectation that they will work in the present.
If you'd like to preserve what this country was founded on, then perhaps you should follow Thomas Jefferson's advice that argued for "progressive changes to institutions as new discoveries are made." For the most part, the founders were a group of radicals who sought to get religion out of the state, give people freedom in their lives, and some of them argued for a welfare state (Thomas Paine, anyone?).
Second, find an actual conservative message while offering real solutions. The American people are frustrated not because they oppose smaller government - whatever that means - but because the GOP has lost all credibility. Tax cuts and vouchers aren't going to solve education; bellicose and torturous foreign policy doesn't stop terrorism or make us safer. On the contrary, much of the terrorism we currently face is the direct result of Ronald Reagan abandoning the Afghan people after funding the Mujahideen to wage war with the Soviets, ignoring his promises to fund their infrastructure once the Soviets retreated.
Third, get rid of the Religious Right. They are the crutch of the GOP, they are against scientific advancement if it interferes with their dogmatic religion and most of their views are not conservative at all.
Talking about small government is not only a hypocrisy in the economic aspect, as spending hasn't been reduced in decades, but it's a slap in the face to the following groups that might otherwise contain conservative members: homosexuals who cannot marry, women who want freedom over their uteri, nonviolent citizens who are put in jail for using certain substances and a view of the wars in the Middle East and South East Asia as "religious" in nature.
Speaking as a radically left progressive who supported Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic primaries, this is my advice to you: Rid the GOP of the "family" and religious values of the Religious Right, end the War on Drugs, be the party of nonintervention and offer real solutions to domestic problems instead of "tax cuts."
If this is done, I might be inclined to vote for a Republican, regardless of how idiotic I think his or her economic policy is. The question is, are you really ready to preserve conservatism, or will you continue on the downtrodden path of Neoconservative Totalitarianism?
Justin Seabe,
junior, aerospace engineer