"We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government."
Radio Buffoon Rush Limbaugh at Recent CPAC Conference
Neo Conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh, you may recall, spent many years addicted and illegally obtaining the prescription drugs oxycodone and hydrocodone. All during those illegal drug induced years, Limbaugh inspired conservatives by giving the same message he is delivering today. Which makes me wonder if he is still on something.
Today we see a collapsed economy precisely because the government removed or failed to enforce regulations on Wall Street. The message of removing taxes is not too much of a problem for most people now because they don't make enough money to pay too much in taxes. The tax message is simply a message to the wealthy that conservatives will not abandon the corporate and financial interests that presently control America. The message of too much government is not only ignorant but irrational. Conservatives have opted for empire around the world and here at home. You cannot have an empire and have small government.
Roosevelt was a "trust buster"and he broke up the large monopolies, like Standard Oil, that were controlling markets and thus killing market competition. Teddy Roosevelt took on the Robber Barrons of his day and conservatives today would find that the Robber Barrons are even richer and more powerful than in Teddy's day.
Teddy Roosevelt was also a conservationist. He believed in conserving America's great natural resources. He was responsible for much of the peoples ownership of American lands in the form of actively promoting national parks and conservation. Conservatives today would find much work to do in containing global environmental degradation and promoting a green world.
Teddy Roosevelt was no free trader. He wrote, “pernicious indulgence in the doctrine of free trade seems inevitably to produce fatty degeneration of the moral fiber.” He also said, "Thank God I am not a free trader.” Roosevelt understood that tariffs and certain economic protections were needed to benefit a nation.
So Conservatives can continue to embrace the disastrous policies of deregulation, globalization, and promoting the interests of the super rich. They can continue to look to leaders like Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, and Ronald Reagan and spout the broken economics that brought America and the world another Great Depression. Or they can look to the past and discover a Progressive Conservative with a working message for Conservatives today.
After all, Teddy Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore for good reason. Conservatives Bush and Limbaugh should be in the Hall of Shame for good reason.
It is certainly time for all serious and sober people to abandon the failed economics and policies of Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Reagan. Conservatives certainly know that they are out of power for good reason. That is unless they are on something.
