Today's GOP are antithetical conservative values.
"Today's Republican policies are antithetical to bedrock conservative
fundamentals. There is nothing conservative about preemptive wars or
disregarding international law by condoning torture. Abandoning fiscal
responsibility is now standard operating procedure. Bible-thumping,
finger-pointing, tongue-la****ng attacks on homo***uals are not found in
Russell Krik's classic conservative canons, nor in James Burham's
guides to conservative governing. Conservatives in the tradition of
former senator Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan believed in
"conserving" this planet, not relaxing environmental laws to make life
easier for big business. And neither man would have considered
employing Christian evangelical criteria in federal programs, ranging
from restricting stem cell research to fighting AIDs through
abstinence.
Candid and knowledgeable Republicans on the far right concede --
usually only when not speaking for attribution -- that they are not
truly conservative. They do not like to talk about why they behave as
they do, or even to reflect on it. Nonetheless, their leaders admit
they like being in charge, and their followers grant they find comfort
in strong leaders who make them feel safe. This is what I gleaned from
discussions with countless conservative leaders and followers, over a
decade of questioning.
I started my inquiry in the mid-1990s, after a series of conversations
with Goldwater, whom I had known for more than 40 years. Goldwater was
also mystified (when not miffed) by the direction of today's professed
conservatives -- their growing incivility, pugnacious attitudes, and
arrogant and antagonistic style, along with a narrow outlook intolerant
of those who challenge their thinking. He worried that the Republican
Party had sold its soul to Christian fundamentalists, whose divisive
social values would polarize the nation.
For almost half a century, social scientists have been exploring
authoritarianism. We do not typically associate authoritarianism with
our democracy, but as I discovered while examining decades of empirical
research, we ignore some findings at our risk. Unfortunately, the
social scientists who have studied these issues re****t their findings
in monographs and professional journals written for their peers, not
for general readers. With the help of a leading researcher and others,
I waded into this massive body of work.
What I found provided a personal epiphany. Authoritarian conservatives
are, as a researcher told me, ``enemies of freedom, antidemocratic,
antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry,
Machiavellian and amoral." And that's not just his view. To the
contrary, this is how these people have consistently described
themselves when being anonymously tested, by the tens of thousands over
the past several decades.
Authoritarianism's impact on contem****ary conservatism is beyond
question. Because this impact is still growing and has troubling (if
not actually evil) implications, I hope that social scientists will
begin to write about this issue for general readers. It is long past
time to bring the telling results of their empirical work into the
public square and to the attention of American voters. No less than the
health of our democracy may depend on this being done. We need to stop
thinking we are dealing with traditional conservatives on the modern
stage, and instead recognize that they've often been supplanted by
authoritarians."
Shalom,
--- Prof. Leland Milton Goldblatt, Ph.D. =AE
http://www.prof.faithweb.com
http://drgoldblatt.blogspot.com/
New Dr. Goldblatt's Message Board: http://www.eboards4all.com/867960/
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