David Brooks: "Traditional Conservatism Has Gone Into Eclipse."

JeopardE · Sep 25, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/opinion/brooks-the-conservative-mind.html?_r=0

I'll just quote the last two paragraphs; the entire article is well worth a read.

Republicans repeat formulas — government support equals dependency — that make sense according to free-market ideology, but oversimplify the real world. Republicans like Romney often rely on an economic language that seems corporate and alien to people who do not define themselves in economic terms. No wonder Romney has trouble relating.

Some people blame bad campaign managers for Romney’s underperforming campaign, but the problem is deeper. Conservatism has lost the balance between economic and traditional conservatism. The Republican Party has abandoned half of its intellectual ammunition. It appeals to people as potential business owners, but not as parents, neighbors and citizens.
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And my favorite quote from the comments section:

I keep saying that the divide in the country is not between "left" and "right", but between realist who look to and acknowledge the data, the facts and those ideologues who have the ability to hold beliefs that are not supported by facts or, indeed, in contradiction to the facts.

People who deny that the rest of the industrialized world gets better health care results at 40% of the cost per person by minimizing the use of private insurance and running their program through the government.

People who deny the failure of low taxes on the Rich in the 1920's and the 2000's which led to great economic inequality which in turn led to vast amount of financial speculation and then to disaster.

People who deny the success of high taxes on the Rich in the 1946-1973 period and try to say that devastation in Europe was responsible. How did that cause CEO's to decide to pay their workers better and to take much less for themselves?

People who claim our corporations pay higher taxes than the rest of the world in spite of figures that show our ratio of corporate taxes actually paid to GDP is the lowest among developed nations.

People who claim that the US is the land of equality and opportunity when our equality (no matter how you measure it) and mobility is at the bottom.

People who say the more guns we have the safer we are when the number of gun deaths per 100,000 in the US is way above that of other wealthy developed countries.

This is the great divide---Facts versus Faith.
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David Brooks: "Traditional Conservatism Has Gone Into Eclipse."

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