By now, I’m sure you’ve all seen this article on how American conservatism is dead/dying. It’s a load of rubbish, and I’ll tell you why.

First of all, this author has no idea what real conservatism is. He tries to use Nixon and Bush, of all people, as the typical conservative examples. While both men had streaks of conservatism to them, they weren’t/aren’t real conservatives in the full sense of the word.

Let’s take a look at Nixon first. Nixon had some conservative beliefs, such as trying to balance a budget (he went so far as to impound funds). He was vehemently anti-communist and anti-Democrat. He knew the press was liberal and fought back accordingly. His foreign policy was conservative in nature, which Reagan would later build upon. But that, ladies and gentlemen, is where his conservatism stopped.

He imposed wage and price controls. He established the EPA and OSHA (if you’ve ever dealt with OSHA regulations, you’ll understand how much of a headache they are and how useless it is). He began what could be considered one of the first affirmative action programs in the country (the “Philadelphia Plan“). There’s plenty more I could list, but let’s move on to George W. Bush.

Bush’s only conservative qualities, as he has displayed them to date, extend only to the tax cuts, his belief in faith, and his pro-life policies. He has, to his credit, appointed two conservative Justices to the Supreme Court. However, he tried to saddle us with Harriet Miers, who was a dubious choice at best. It was only after the base reacted that he pulled that nomination and did the right thing.

I would also point out that, at the start of his first term, he did try to reign in the growth of spending. He wanted to tie the budget to inflation. It didn’t happen, and ever since then he presided over some of the most enormous budget deficits this country has ever seen. He never vetoed a spending bill until the Democrats took office, and that is what led to the red ink. Granted, we are in a war and he was correct to fully fund it, but too much pork made its way to his desk and he happily signed it into law, rather than be a conservative and veto it. He seems to have changed his ways with the Democrat majority, but one has to wonder if he really has seen the light, or if he’s just doing it because it’s the Dems sending the bills to him.

Now, on to why conservatism is not dead.

First of all, we have no conservatives running on the national level. McCain isn’t conservative. None of the other Republican candidates who were running, with the possible exception of Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter, were Reagan-style conservatives. And when you have non-conservatives running for office, they lose, because conservatives will not abandon core principles just to win elections.

Second of all, Reagan-style conservatism is what real conservatism is, and always will be. Less government intrusion on your personal life, less money being taken from you through taxes and regulations, more personal responsibility, a strong national defense, peace through strength, pro-life beliefs, belief in God, belief that all men and women (regardless of age or color) are equal, the belief that most things are best handled at the state level, and respect for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as originally intended by the founders. Really, the list goes on and on, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll leave it at that.

Third, America is, and will long remain, a somewhat conservative nation. People get mad when they see government pandering to people who do nothing but mooch off of the system. People don’t like to see the government throwing their tax dollars away on pork spending, especially when they see a tide of red ink coming from Washington all the time. And people get sick and tired of all the nickel-and-diming they get hit with by various taxes and fees. People just want to live their lives and get the government the hell out of their wallets.

Finally, we are currently seeing damn few Republicans, at this point in time, standing up for those principles. As Private Pigg said not long ago, the Republicans we have running now are trying to beat the Democrats at being Democrats, and that’s simply not possible. To put it simply, once the current crop of Republicans (and those recently defeated in 2006) realized that they could buy their way to re-election with pork spending and entitlements, they abandoned conservatism and started behaving like Democrats. Democrats realized this long ago (think FDR), and they became pros at doing it. That’s why it was so easy to predict what to expect out of a new Democrat majority in Congress after their win in 2006. And with a friendly media, nobody every called them on it, except — ready for this? — conservatives. But the sad fact of the matter is that there are no real conservatives (or damn few) in Washington anymore, so nobody is raising hell about this at the national level except the conservative blogosphere and the conservative pundits in the papers, on the radio, and on television.

Conservatism is not dead, it just currently lacks a leader. Conservatism was there in the 1970s, even though we had two moderate Republicans and a liberal for President during those years. It only took someone like Ronald Reagan to step forward and lead the conservative movement back to the front of the room. The same thing is happening to the modern-day conservative movement. Somewhere, someone is laying the foundation to take a leadership role, and when the voters in the Party have said “enough” to all these faux-Republicans and their liberal ways, that person will step forward and lead the conservative movement back to its rightful place in American politics.

I honestly think that the best thing that can happen to this country, in the long-run, is for McCain to lose in November. Yeah, we’ll see a liberal President and perhaps an even farther-left Congress than we currently have, but it’s only for a short period of time. Although they can (and probably will) do enormous damage to the country during those years, I have a higher opinion of this country than that. If the United States can bounce back after the Great Depression, two world wars, a Cold War, and 9/11, it can surely bounce back after whatever the Democrats do to it.

If McCain loses, it will be because he won’t able to woo the conservative wing of the Party. That being the lesson, we should see a strong conservative step forward in 2012, and he/she will revitalize the conservative movement like Reagan once did and bring conservative Republicans back into the majority. The trick is that once they’re there, they have to remain conservatives, or they won’t stay there very long.

One final thought, if I may. Conservatives won’t stand for politicians who don’t live up to our principles. If they stop being what we elected them to be, then we stop voting for them. Democrats (especially liberals) usually stick to their guy/gal no matter what it is they’ve done. Sex scandals, theft, bribery…it really doesn’t matter. They will vote for the person again and again and again because…well, because they’re a Democrat, that’s why. That’s the only reason they need, basically, to vote for someone.

While I’m ever the hopeless optimist, I’ll be honest with you, I think we have only a very slight chance at maintaining our position in Congress. With every passing day we see more and more Republicans being less and less conservative, and that has me concerned that we’re going to see massive losses in both Houses. And, again, I don’t necessarily have a problem with that if it leads to postive changes down the road. Yes, we’ll see the government move further to the left in the short-term, but the long-term benefit is that once we get rid of these fake conservatives, we clear the way for real, honest-to-goodness conservatives who will do what we elected them to do and keep on doing it.

(Note: I may go back and edit this to clarify some stuff. This was written as a “thought piece”, and upon re-reading it later after it publishes, I may want to add to it or edit some stuff to be more clear on what I’m talking about. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments, too.)

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