The British Conservative Legacy and the Current American Con Job

The Cons of the present day offer a far different version of conservatism than the English progenitor of conservatism, Edmund Burke. Conservatism today is all about ideology; in fact observers of the American political scene often hear arguments among conservatives about which one or ones are the most ideologically "pure." Burke based his belief in the superiority of conservatism on his conviction that it rejected ideology, thus making Burke the originator of the first modern "conservative" argument which appeared during his tenure in British politics from the 1760s to the 1790s. Burke's topic of focus was the French Revolution which spawned the first political movements of the left; liberalism, socialism, and communism. Burke's response to the political developments on the left was to propose conservatism as a counterweight to theories that he and his fellow countrymen saw as dangerous developments in the course of political thought and practice. In his book Reflections on the Revolution in France Burke based conservatism on tradition and actual experience which he proposed provided the only legitimate means to produce practical political systems of governance. Since the French proposed to base their politics on abstract ideas such as liberty, equality, fraternity the result for the French could only lead to chaos and disaster. Burke's theory demonstrated a long period of historical development that gave rise to institutions that bore centuries worth of experience. For Burke, this orderly process gave the British people a constitutional system ruled by an elected Parliament and divinely established monarchy that harmoniously ruled together. Burke, distrusted the the French Revolution's chaotic "innovation" of governance and his jeremiad was to convince his fellow countrymen and French sympathizers that they could not trust such an unnatural system of government as proposed by the French.

It was Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France who said: "A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation." The duty of the politician was to ensure equilibrium between "[t]he two principles of conservation and correction." It was the duty of government, in Burke's view, to oversee a continual process of compromise; "sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil."

Our current discussion of conservatism in America begins at the conclusion of the Second World War. It was during that period that a significant bifurcation occurred in American conservative thought. There were those American conservatives who adhered to Burke's ideal ( for identification purposes this group will be referred to as the Burkeans) that civil society must be replenished by its reactions to changing conditions in society. The opposite view held (by a group that shall be herein referred to as the traditionalists) that America's only hope for survival was in its ability to eradicate all vestiges of the welfare state from the operations of American government. It is obvious that it has been the cons who have pledged to turn back the hands of time to return to an idyllic paradise where state welfare did not exist. They wanted to overturn New Deal and reinstate the laissez-faire Republicanism of the 1920s. And the means that the traditionalists chose to undertake their cleansing of welfare from the practices of American government was through the use of the politicization of civil warfare.

The traditionalists were populated by a large group of former Marxists who bypassed the Marxist dialectic and replaced it with the idea that politics consisted of no more than an absolutist struggle between good and evil. The traditionalists represented all that was good while evil was represented by social programs; socialized medicine; big labor; activist Supreme Court justices, the media elite; tenured college and university radicals; experts in and out of government who held contrarian views to traditionalist dogma.

As a nation, America has just emerged from a period of political history that lasted for more than a quarter of a century that began with the Reagan presidency continued with the Republican Revolution that was lead by Newt Gingrich and secured the House for a Republican majority. It was the heyday of the cons attempts to kill the New Deal and replace it with free market capitalism. Their attempts for the most part ended in miserable failures but they were able to inflict considerable damage on the structure and legal foundations of the American system of government. A monumental task stands before us as Obama and the Democrats attempt to undo the rot that the Republicans have allowed to enter into America. It's a task that will take a considerable amount of effort and time to rectify.

All the Cons Soldiers Couldn't Save the Republican Revolution From Itself

Look at the pretty red map GOPers; because you will never see a red map like this again!

And in all likelihood America has witnessed the end of self-righteous and full of piety leaders of the Conservative movement such as Newt Gingrich holding positions of power and leadership in the United States government.

And the days when creatures who used the basest approaches to securing and maintaining power through secrecy and subterfuge which took the nation to the brink of forever losing it's constitutional underpinnings to the forces of authoritarianism have been denied their ends.

And the non-elected leaders of the all dominant conservative movement's propaganda wings have had the high decibel levels of their voices diminished by their inability to exhibit any sense whatsoever of public decency and decorum in their public rantings.

But we must be forever vigilant because the Republicans have been thought to have been finished as a party before and they have returned to power much faster than expected.

So Democrats and Independents out there beware of the power that lurks in the shadows; always prepared to assume the reigns of power and push our nation back into the clutches of rampant and uncontrolled money changers and their allegiance to authoritarian beliefs; its return could be closer than one thinks!

A Video Tribute to the Accomplishment of Apollo 11 Landing Two Men on the Moon and Television News Journalist Walter Cronkite's Commentary

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7/18/09 President Barack Obama Weekly Radio Address

Weekly Address: Health Care Reform Cannot Wait
Posted by Jesse Lee
The White House released the following statement: "The President calls on Congress to seize this opportunity – one that may not come again for decades – and finally pass health care reform: "It's about every family unable to keep up with soaring out of pocket costs and premiums rising three times faster than wages. Every worker afraid of losing health insurance if they lose their job, or change jobs. Everyone who's worried that they may not be able to get insurance or change insurance if someone in their family has a pre-existing condition..."

read the transcript

The Associated Press reports: "President Barack Obama told the nation Saturday that his health care overhaul is financially sound and Congress should not squander the chance to make meaningful change. Republicans didn't relent in their criticism of his plan as a costly burden unwisely on a fast track.

"For a sixth straight day, Obama sought to keep the focus on his chief domestic priority in the face of mounting resistance on Capitol Hill, including conservative Democrats. White House officials are worried they face a tougher road to passage than anticipated.

''This is what the debate in Congress is all about: whether we'll keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem fester as more families and businesses go under and more Americans lose their coverage,'' Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. ''Or whether we'll seize this opportunity -- one we might not have again for generations -- and finally pass health insurance reform this year, in 2009.''

Through the week, Obama tried to project confidence about his approach to cover millions of uninsured people. During a private meeting with Jewish leaders on Monday, he joked that the only thing more difficult than passing health care legislation might be negotiating Mideast peace.

"At a late scheduled White House appearance Friday, he appealed to lawmakers not to ''lose heart'' and asked for deeper cost cuts to calm concern over the huge expense.

"Republicans were not swayed.

''The president and some Democrats insist we must rush this plan through,'' said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. ''Why? Because the more Americans know about it, the more they oppose it. Something this important needs to be done right, rather than done quickly.''

"Two House committees on Friday approved their parts of the bill over Republican objections. That left one more to act. But Democrats facing tough re-election bids or representing conservative districts demanded additional measures to hold down costs.

"Given the complexities, as well as fresh calls for delay in the Senate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., opened the door to pushing off a vote beyond the early August timeline that she and Obama laid out weeks ago. Pelosi long has said the House would vote before lawmakers leave on vacation at the end of July. Now she hedged for the first time.

''We have to see what the Senate will do,'' she said, before suggesting that changing the bill to produce more savings might require additional time.

"It will take a lot to convince Republicans, nearly united in opposing the Democrats' plan.

''It would empower Washington -- not doctors and patients -- to make health care decisions and would impose a new tax on working families during a recession,'' Kyl said in the GOP's weekly address. ''They propose to pay for this new Washington-run health care system by dramatically raising taxes on small business owners.''

"Kyl, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, said his party's proposed alternatives should be considered.

''These changes do not require government takeover of the health care system, or massive new spending, job-killing taxes or rationing of care,'' he said, seeking to string together the biggest fears of Obama's plan to challenge the popular president.

"Obama rejected the criticism out of hand.

''Now, we know there are those who will oppose reform no matter what,'' Obama said. ''We know the same special interests and their agents in Congress will make the same old arguments and use the same scare tactics that have stopped reform before because they profit from this relentless escalation in health care costs.''

"Obama also repeated his pledge that his plan would not add to the federal deficit or deny patients' choices.

''Under our proposals, if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period, end of story,'' he said.

"That's a pledge, however, beyond Obama's control. His plan leaves companies free to change their health plans in ways that workers may not like or to drop insurance altogether."

The Right's Denial of Scientific Evidence Concerning Global Climate Change Is Profoundly Mistaken

The latest carper on the right to go nuclear over well established scientific data that points out the interrelationship between advancing global climate change and human activities is an individual who calls himself in the most dubious of terms "a scientist by trade" and a very obscure one at that named James Lewis. As a professional bomb thrower for the right wing, Lewis has his uninformed rants published in one of the most un-respected internet sites out there that goes by the name: Pajamas Media.

It has come to Lewis' attention that the New York Times is a leftist publication that has had to bow to common sense and include more right wing thought within it's pages. Lewis cites the recent addition of John Tierney, a well known libertarian. Besides attending Yale as an undergraduate, Tierney's claim to fame as a writer on scientific topics was established by his "collaboration with novelist Christopher Buckley, Tierney co-wrote the comic novel, God Is My Broker, in parody of financial and spiritual self-help books. He also wrote The Best-Case Scenario Handbook, a parody of the popular Worst-Case Scenario Handbook series." Quite an accomplishment indeed.

But lets get back to Lewis and his monumental recent crackpot discovery that serpentines its convoluted path through every right wing bogey man: "Most scientists are liberals, and like so many on the Left they think that a little lying to the public can't be all bad. They are utterly wrong. When science becomes an official lie it starts to decay; you don't know whom to believe any more. And if you can't believe published data, real science becomes impossible. I date the decay of public science to the AIDS fiasco twenty years ago, when the public health establishment failed to warn gay men that yes, AIDS is a gay disease and is communicated most often by anal intercourse.

"The establishment lied and lied and lied," Lewis claims, and more and more young men died, and the disease spread and spread. Now it's in Africa, where anal intercourse is commonly used by female prostitutes as cheap birth control. That is why African AIDS has a somewhat different epidemiology. But it all goes back to a regime of lies by scientists and public health doctors. The lesson is: when science lies, people die.

"British medical science lost credibility after the mad-cow scare," explains Lewis, "another blown-up fraud, like global warming, based on math models that never made any empirical sense. I will never believe the British Medical Journal again, and I have real doubts about the Lancet. The journals Nature and Science have become shockingly corrupt and dishonest on global warming. They are still trying to push it half-heartedly, but they really know the jig is up.

"That's why I believe the New York Times felt compelled to hire John Tierney," claims Lewis. Tierney is giving them cover by writing about global warming as an hypothesis, not a Marx-given truth. If the global warming fraud is finally breaking down, the Times wants to say it knew it all along. If, by some miracle, the politicians manage to keep squeezing more billions of dollars out "to stop the rise of the oceans," as Obama yelled out in his victory speech, the Times will take credit for saving the planet. They want to have it both ways.

According to Lewis: "The sciences are now like Russia after Glastnost: Everybody can see a massive disaster ahead, but nobody wants to say it out loud. We are in that moment of shocked silence just before the bare-naked emperor becomes a target of universal laughter and ridicule. Well, this emperor is buck naked, just like the fairy tale.

"As" Lewis has "talked with scientific colleagues in private, they are quietly nodding, yes, yes, of course it's all BS. Pure model-driven fantasy. Really lousy, deceptive, and fraudulent selection of the data. A gigantic slap in the face for NASA. A thousand greedy grant swingers all over the world. The media chasing scare stories, and fake "scientists" chasing the media. They fed each other lie after lie after lie. It was a very profitable partnership."

According to Lewis: "What's so mind-boggling is that we live in a period of extraordinary real science. We are in the midst of a biotech revolution, a materials science revolution, a genetics revolution, a brain science revolution, a near-miraculous nano-level physics revolution – just astonishing stuff." Lewis urges the public to "be celebrating good science.

Lewis then proceeds to go after the right's most hated punching bags: "Instead, the media are full of phony superstitions and the worst kind of pseudo-science. If this is the best of times, it is also the worst of times — with a fetid plague of fraud whipped up by the likes of Al Gore, who helped to put fanatics like James Hansen into power. Hansen is not a scientist. He is a zealot who uses math models to push his personal crusade.

Now Lewis dazzles his readership with his ponderous scientific knowledge which he is only too happy to fill column space with: "Any half-decent scientist can whip up a computer model to predict anything you want. Disasters are easy to build into a model, because all you need is a positive feedback loop. CO2 is supposed to reflect heat back to earth, which is supposed to increase other greenhouse gases, and if you fiddle long enough, yes, you can predict the world is coming to an end. The same kind of model will predict that your body will explode in a big puff of steam tomorrow. Or that your brain will go into a epileptic fit. Models that run out of control are a lot easier to conjure up than models that predict stability in a hypercomplex, nonlinear climate system. What's really hard to explain about the climate is those long, long periods of stability.

"As Professor Fred Singer and others have shown," says Lewis, "none of the climate models can "retrodict" the solid data of the past. How could any decent scientist therefore claim to predict global temps in the distant future? Global warming was always a flaming fraud, and at some level a lot of scientists knew it. They just kept their heads down — to their everlasting shame.

"Everybody outside the climate game just assumed the frauds must be telling the truth," claims Lewis. All that modeling seemed to be somebody's specialty, and you don't arrogantly invade somebody's specialty, do you? So the mounting fraud went unpunished for years and years, while politicians like Al Gore made sure the money went to feed the fraud," enough already with the character assassination of Al Gore!

Finally Lewis gets to the truth of the matter in his version of muckraking journalism: "Here's a bit of truth. Scientists love money. It's only corporate money that smells bad to them. Government money smells like fresh-mown grass, green and lush. Even if they knew the whole game was a set-up, professors and college presidents went right along with it. Do you have any idea how much pressure college faculty are under to bring in grant money? The big universities get a big chunk of their budgets from "overhead expenses" — payoffs from Washington. Even undergraduate teaching is subsidized by science grants. So are grad students and faculty. In the end, professors don't get tenure without bringing in a steady supply of money, and after tenure, the pressure only gets worse.

"My question is," Lewis asks, "what shall we do with the science frauds once everybody gets it? The rules are very clear. Science organizations and universities have strict regulations against fraud. Proven liars are fired, and if they have stolen money by deception, they should be held legally responsible to pay it back or go to jail.

"Bernie Madoff, Lewis crows, "is a small operator compared to James Hansen. Madoff just got 150 years. Hansen is still ranting against the plain evidence.

"There are honest mistakes in science." Lewis must believe that those are the only kind the right should be held accountable for, as he continues, "On the frontiers of science everything looks vague and debatable for a while. But you don't drop your standards so low that any con artist can get away with fraud. That's what's happened in climate modeling. It is therefore crucial to re-establish the credibility of science. That means firing the guilty, and if necessary, prosecuting them.

"We'll know that the sciences are on the road to health again when the biggest crooks are exposed and fired," Lewis chortles. Don't expect it soon. But honest scientists should speak out, as many of them are beginning to do. Climate modeling has become a rubble-strewn disaster area, and historically, tainted fields are simply choked off and allowed to lie fallow for a generation or so before the first green shoots can grow again. Choke off the money, and the climate game will wither. All that accumulated expertise can be put to do something useful — like predicting the stock market or trying to beat the house in Vegas.

"Good science is always humbling," Lewis postulates. "If you don't start out humble, the data will make sure you end up that way. It's only when you drift into self-serving fraud that the data always support your fixed and preconceived beliefs. Albert Einstein was humbled by quantum mechanics. Well, NASA has been humbled by its wild and irresponsible venture into divine prophecy.

In the end, Lewis believes: "It is high time for honest scientists to speak out."