Conservatism Needs to Give Up

Fareed Zakaria: Conservatism needs to lighten up - The Washington Post:

I think this column covers the current dominant party/cultural view really well ... except a number of them would add "or else" at least under their breaths.

Things have been gong GREAT ... look at all the "progress" we have made! All these stupid conservatives have been trying to slow us down since William Buckley, but we keep winning everything and things are FINE! What is more they are going to STAY FINE ... we are like ... well, er, "Switzerland".

It is great to see him call out Reagan as some sort of an idiot for opposing Medicare, which is a major element in our 60+ TRILLION in unfunded liabilities along with FICA, but REALLY ironic to see him include the end of the USSR as one of the accomplishments of the left. Somehow I suspect he would have been just as quick to point out what an idiot Reagan was at the point of the "ash heap of history" speech. Being a "Party Member" allows one to think that way.

In the current US you can go to jail for an ever increasing pile of "hate speech" or have the IRS or NSA investigate you because you are on the "wrong list".  Remember, the maker of the anti Islam video that was the BO administrations original lie about the Benghazi attack is still in prison. Lefties will of course say "oh, that is on OTHER charges". Remember, TOTALITARIANISM is called that because ALL aspects of your life are under government control ... your health, your work, your income, your retirement, your speech, etc Breaking "laws" in any of those areas is enough to incarcerate you ... even installing a toilet that flushes too much water is crime in today's US.

But to Fareed, all of this is fine. I wonder when the last person was jailed in the US for anti-Christian hate speech? There is no problem losing your job in the US today for being too open about being against gay "marriage". You can be jailed in a number of US cites (DC, New York, Chicago), for even carrying ammunition, or as a legal firearm owner passing though with your weapon "not properly secured" (often meaning unloaded gun in locked case. Unloaded magazines in locked case, and ammunition in yet another locked case. This is in a country where "The right to keep and bear arms will not be infringed" is supposedly the law if the land.

I could keep going on and on, but what we have here is a fundamentally different view of what America is and was. There is a great book on the topic of Tipping Points ("The Tipping Point") but other than provide more detail, we all know about "the straw that broke the camels back".

There is no bold red line between liberty and tyranny that will be recognizable to all ... or even most. There were a great many defenders of the Soviet way of operation in the US at least right up to the day that the wall fell. College students ran around with Mao's "Little Red Book" in the 60's and 70's while millions were being slaughtered. Hitler was loved by the bulk of the German people.

Reading Fareed makes it clear that for significant parts of our society, we are not "near a tipping point", we are OVER it ... badly.

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