This concept would be laughable, if it wasn't so tragically perverse. Far from being patriots, conservatives are too often reckless and dangerous citizens, consistently veering very close to being actual traitors, and they've actually stampeded across that line several times in American history.Consider the American Revolution. Conservatives were against it! Yes, they were the "Party of No" back then, too. Remember that the definition of a conservative is one who wishes to promote, preserve and/or restore traditional "values," hierarchies and institutions. True to form, in 1776 they wanted no part of breaking away from English tradition and their much-beloved British monarchy. They liked being the king's subjects. They were called "Tories", the name still used for the conservative party in England. So conservatives started off on the wrong side of American history, and that's where they've been ever since.
The conservative traitorous streak returned in its full audacious decadence in 1861 when conservatives in the South said to hell with the United States, and huffed off to form their own more perfect union where "states' rights" rule and a decent white person was really free... to own another person, that is! Over seven hundred and twenty thousand Americans died as a result of conservative ideology run amok during the Civil War.
You would think the stench of that shameful episode might have prompted some serious and humbling introspection regarding their mindset, but you would be wrong: down South, conservatives still proudly fly their Confederate flag, preferred, in fact, over Old Glory.
Out in Texas, meanwhile, conservatives consider themselves Texans first, Americans second (if at all). Recently Texas conservatives, including Governor Rick Perry, have rekindled the periodic Texan whine about seceding from the Union. Meanwhile, up in Alaska, there is the conservative Alaskan Independence Party, which promotes breaking away from the United States. This is the organization that Todd Palin (yes, Sarah's "First Dude") belonged to for seven years. Then we have the conservatives in Wyoming, home of Dick Cheney, who are also pondering a secession plan, complete with their own aircraft carrier that can tool around in Lake Yellowstone and perhaps send sorties out over the increasingly blue state of Colorado.
Then we were treated to the spectacle when Obama was reelected in 2012, and over one million conservative "Americans" from all 50 states sent their "petitions" in to secede from the union! Ah, the sublime hypocrisy of it all... the "true" and "brave" defenders of democracy whining, blubbering and cutting and running when they are defeated by... democracy! Throughout the old Confederacy, including Texas, and out in Alaska and Wyoming, and with all the petition filers, it's all more childish angst and macho posing and bluster than considered thought, but it certainly stands as proof positive of just how shallow "love of country" for conservatives really is.
Consider, as well, how conservatives have long tried so hard to actually thwart democracy. They were the original proponents of only allowing white men with property to vote and having senators hand-picked by state office-holders, Conserving the aristocracy you know; that's the way the Tories still have the British House of Lords rigged.
As more Americans began gaining the right to vote, plus the right to vote for most government positions, including senators, conservatives scrambled to find other ways to thwart democracy. They have variously thrown up poll taxes, means testing, intimidation, inconvenient ID requirements, providing the poor and working class with fewer and/or malfunctioning voting machines, tampering with machine-counted votes, and setting up onerous and punitive restrictions for those registering voters, just to name a few of the malicious tactics to lower voter turnout they have tried... and are still trying. After laying low for a few decades, the red states are back - right out in the open - trying to suppress the vote.
A few modern conservatives have even called for repeal of the 17th Amendment, the one which gave the people the power to vote for their senators. Now conservatives such as Antonin Scalia, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Zell Miller and others have actually proposed taking this right away from We the People and handing it back to the aristocracy. Those conservatives... loyal to something, but not to American ideals!
Moreover, in their quixotic quest to wrench power from the liberals since the last time they nearly ruined the country (the 1920s), conservatives have deliberately promoted hatred toward any government that isn't run by them. When they aren't in control, conservatives do everything they can to delegitimize the political and moral authority of those who are. This is a whisker away from high treason. Confucius was just one of the wise men who taught that it would be better for a nation to lose its security and its food than the trust of the people for the government. This is absolutely true. Many a once-powerful nation throughout history disintegrated once its people lost faith in their government (see The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire for useful information). Once the public loses love for and confidence in their government, civil strife is sure to follow, and so the Constitutional mandate of promoting the general welfare of the people is thwarted.
This hate and distrust angle for the government (and for other Americans) has won conservatives elections, but has been one of the most nefarious and potentially disastrous strategies for the country itself of any political tactic in American history. It intentionally fosters deep and passionate division within the populace. Conservatives are playing with apocalyptic fire as they fan the flames of not just disagreement with but hatredtoward all things un-conservative... moderate though such persons or programs may actually be. Over the past 50 years, conservatives have vomited up venomous bile toward the Kennedys, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and (most particularly) Barack Obama, along with any idea they proffer (even those originally proposed by conservatives... like "RomneyCare"). This dark, conservative vitriol is orders of magnitude more corrosive to national unity and stability than any push-back from the liberal side.
Following 9/11, the radical CorpCon George W. Bush had a 90 percent approval rating, which obviously included the bulk of so-called liberals, willing to give him a chance to lead the nation with due respect (even just shortly after his highly dubious Supreme Court route to the presidency). So, too, did Ronald Reagan, even as he ushered in the reckless era of "trickle-down" economics, enjoy widespread legitimacy (though not always agreement) in the view of liberals. Contrast this with the incessant and relentless conservative debasement of the American government throughout the Carter, Clinton and Obama administrations. They don't just vehemently disagree with politicians from the other side, they hate them! Seen from a non-partisan perspective, the degree of vitriol and hatred from the conservatives is utterly astounding, and easily discerned for the clear and present danger it really is.
These examples clearly show how conservatives value clan/party ideology and values over American ideals and values. Guided by clan mentality, which easily overrides both national or religious loyalty, conservatives seek not unity but division and separation of themselves, whom they consider superior, from "the other" whom they regard as inferior. This pits them against most other Americans (as well as the rest of the world). Today conservatives demonize and blame blacks, immigrants, gays, the poor, unions, teachers, firefighters, government workers, liberals, and anybody else who seems a little different, for the nation's economic woes. Not a fact in the solar system supports this worldview, but they believe if they spew the lie and their coded prejudicial message often and loud enough, just enough gullible voters will believe it... even though these conservative "values" are actually the opposite of true values.
So, innately aligned against the interests of the people, the conservative's only real means to power is to divide and conquer. They know they cannot win by standing on their positions and true aims; they must lie, deceive, frighten, divide and subjugate. The whole idea of a united States is contrary to conservative objectives. As always, conservatives have a real problem with the concept of We the People! To paraphrase William F. Buckley, conservatives stand athwart democracy yelling, "Stop!"
Meanwhile, conservative politicians wrap themselves in the flag and wallow in faux-patriotism, but actually do everything they can to thwart democracy and denigrate and degrade American government. From Harding's cronyism and corruption, to McCarthy's witch-hunts, to Nixon's lying and paranoia, to Reagan's illegal clandestine wars in Central America, to George W. Bush's immoral warmongering, incompetence and intentional running up a titanic deficit designed to "starve the beast," to the unprecedented obstructionism of today's radical Republican congressmen and senators, conservatives aggressively work to stop American progress and shared prosperity.
Shortly after Obama's election Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell famously declared that the No. 1 priority of conservatives was not to create jobs, not strengthen the economy, not defend the nation, not serve We the People... but to make Obama a one-term president. And sure enough, the Republicans have tried to block every move of the administration's effort to get the economy moving again. The Republicans don't want this president, and therefore America, to prosper, and are willing to forestall economic recovery, or even damage the country itself, to keep Obama from succeeding at anything.
This tactic reached a climactic nadir when Republicans led by Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy took the full faith and credit of the United States of America, not to mention democracy, hostage by threatening not to raise the Debt Limit and thereby defaulting on loans and debts that previous Congresses had promised. And so, Republican grandstanding and brinkmanship earned the United States its first-ever downgrade in debt rating. (And now... conservatives have the gall to blame Obama for their own backfired stunt.)
Then in 2013 Republicans held America hostage again, actually shutting down the government, demanding that President Obama defund the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). There is no mechanism in the Constitution for any branch of government (much less a minority party) to shut down the government to prevent full enactment of a law passed by Congress, signed by the President, and verified legal by the Supreme Court.
Is this behavior by the conservatives in Congress just a smidge short of grand treason... or is it actually over the line?
Conservatives have long countered liberal progress with claims that the sky is falling. Public education, workers rights, women's suffrage, Social Security, Medicare all were enjoined with shrieks of anguish from conservatives. Now it is Obamacare that is a "train wreck," or a "disaster." They never have any real facts to back them up... just myths that scream at the top of their lungs.
Again and again conservatives try to impose a rigid ideology that is based purely on mythology, totally lacking empirical evidence, an ideology that has never proven itself anything other than disastrous to the nation. Multiple times in American history so-called "laissez-faire" economic policies - i.e. let the "free market" run - have torpedoed the economy. Conservatives simply can't or won't learn the lessons, and they continue to place America at risk with their recklessness and wrongness.
Today they are doubling-down on their discredited ideologies, bellowing for more deregulation of capitalism, just a few years after that very thing - a wildly speculating banking and investment industry - drove the world economy off the rails. Such CorpCons who would bankrupt the country for an extra million in their own pockets, and the SoCons who ignorantly believe and enable them, are truly the greatest danger to our nation.
As Lincoln said, "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher." And there can be little doubt that not communism or socialism or liberalism will be that author. The true and present danger to America is conservatism!
Now this, from a conservative political operative high in the ranks of the Virginia Republican Party, proclaiming that if the "socialist" Obama is re-elected in 2012, "We shall not have any coarse (sic) but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November ~ This Republic cannot survive for 4 more years underneath this political socialist ideologue."
Right. Obama the moderate Republican, on whose watch the economcy has mostly recovered and the stock market has doubled, is a socialist ideologue! This Virginia Republican is either an utter moron, or a deliberate liar (OK, perhaps both). His frothing-at-the-mouth ilk - and all who would agree with them - are those attempting to thwart the American democratic system, and skating well out on to the thin ice of treason.
A real American patriot loves America's land, people and ideals. Conservatives have no real respect for any of these. They don't give a damn about protecting the American environment or native species; they despise most other Americans; and they really don't believe in America's founding principles, including democracy itself. They bitch and groan about paying their fair share of taxes, and hate the government. Real patriots? Not a chance. Conservatives are always just a hissy-fit away from being abject traitors!