A much clearer and better answer

Reader comment on: Optimism From Bill Kristol

Submitted by John Gillis (United States), Jul 29, 2016 17:39

Conservatism is long past renewal or reform. It is moribund. Back in 1960 at Princeton University, Ayn Rand gave a speech (turned into an essay in "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal") titled: "Conservatism: An Obituary". As with so many of her cultural analyses, she was prescient.

Conservatives have by and large been wishy-washy about the fundamental cultural-political divide of those who advocate for capitalism and freedom, versus, those who advocate collectivism and statism. The latter were the communists back at the time of her essay, and now are the socialists of Sanders, and the mullahs who advocate collectivism and statism of a much harsher sort than Bernie's crew. The conservatives never morally accepted capitalism as the right approach, so spend their time advocating generalities such as the rule of law and religious law (Christian, naturally) and sort-of free markets, which have to be controlled by benevolent bureaucrats (preferably conservative) who will "correct" the claimed nasty parts of capitalism. Their mixed message leads to the Mixed Economy, and here we are with a slow-motion train wreck of an economy, increasingly dominated by a huge federal and state structure that daily strangles the lifeblood of an innovative and rich group of people: Americans.

The empty words of Kristol, yearning for "new ideas" for a new conservatism, would probably get a hearty laugh from the woman who saw the intellectual contradictions of conservatism way before the tepid stylings of Reagan and others of a conservative bent.

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