Pat Hynes is Wrong (blatant blog whoring)

When I responded to one of Pat Hynes many whiney “Ooooh the poor religious
right” posts I misspoke. And I decided to blog my response to my
misstatement. (Ok… so I am trying to get back into the daily read list or at
the very least get upgraded in my daily page views).
Libertarian-Conservatives are to conservatives, as Squares are to
rectangles.

This point of view is one Pat rejects because he wants the religious right
to be dominant. He wants to ignore the history of conservatism in America,
and the history of the Republican Party. He does this because he needs to
sell how important the religious right is to republicanism as a whole, and
conservatism in particular

BUNK

The Libertarianism of today was the conservatism of the 40s and earlier. And
it was mocked and marginalized in the party until a man named Barry
Goldwater came along and transformed conservatism into the winning formula
we have today. Rejection of one of the planks of conservatism (as the Cato
foundation folks and Pat Buchanan do) doesn’t make you any less
conservative. Rejecting multiple planks (like the libertarian party does) is
another story. It took the mixture of patriotism, or traditional values, of
getting government smaller and out of my life, and of a strong and vigorous
national defense-foreign policy meshed together to make a message that sold
to 50% +1 of the population. Depending on where your running you have to
tinker with the formula, but the formula fundamentally works. The political
left runs as a mixture of groups, and this is the kind of Republican Party
that in contrast to the work of Goldwater, Bush, and Reagan Pat is trying to
make happen. This of course isn’t working real well for them now is it?
While we are a party of gun nuts, religious freaks, big business types,
militia heads, and every other name you can give to marginalize our smaller
component parts we are united by our common principles. This is why we win,
and this is why I must call spank on Pat for his ludicrous notions and
ideas…. Because that’s the kind of talk that lead Bush 41 to losing… and
Clinton, Clinton used our message “Government that helps you do what you
need to do then gets out of your way.” And Bush well was confused… he
underestimated the scamp and he lost.

Now don’t misunderstand me… All republicans are not Conservatives. We do
have some true libertarians in the party (not Libertarian-conservatives) we
have some died in the wool liberals in the party to. We have folks like Weld
and Arnold who try to be as conservative as an electorate will let them be
but they still can be classified as conservatives.

I hope I qualified why I am right, and why Pat is always wrong.