That “Fall of Conservatism” essay in the New Yorker

Well, I guess we all gotta read the thing, but…

Unlike all the big shots quoted in the article, I’m as far from the Beltway as you can get. No wonder my analysis differs so much from their’s.

Here’s the real problem with Establishment/Movement Conservatism:

It refuses to address the very issues that working class people bitch about among themselves and that the elites won’t even acknowledge:

* racial/cultural divides and differences, such as taxpayer sponsored serial unwed motherhood that’s become an institution among blacks, hispanics and lower class whites

* illegal and legal immigration, its effect on everyday life (“press one for English”) and the resentments these effects engender among immigrants vs citizens

* tort reform (because most politicians are lawyers, we’ll never see that happen)

* the sense of entitlement that seems to be the one thing all Americans have in common anymore…

Reagan campaigned on “protecting” you from Big Government. But isn’t it just as vital, today more than ever, for someone to “protect” us from our parasitical fellow citizens: those who demand an unearned share of our income, to use on gay weddings and “sensitivity training” and unisex bathrooms and free abortions and bus trips to the casino and — in the case of welfare bums — satellite tv?

People who will sue us into bankruptcy for the crime of looking at them funny, or losing their “favorite pair of pants”, or failing their stupid kid in Third Grade.

Here’s what I want:

* to make and keep as much of my money as possible and spend it on whatever I want, including my own health care and nobody else’s
* the right to free speech, private property and self-defense
* for everyone else to grow up or shut up

But of course, you can’t really “vote” for any of that, because that’s nobody’s campaign platform and never will be.

(Read the rest here, at Kathy Shaidle’s blog FiveFeetOfFury.)

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