A conservative who predicted that "Reagan was wrong". Republican seeds of destruction.

This week's issue of Newsweek has an article entitled "Reagan was wrong; to conservative Cassandra Henry Fairlie, Republicans sowed their present-day destruction from the start." A conservative English Tory who emigrated to the US in 1966, Fairlie was "the first of the Angry Young Men", who coined the phrase "the establishment". He witnessed the fallout of the Goldwater defeat and the rise of Reagan; who saw from the very start of the Reagan era how badly it was going to end.

He saw "government's role was to preserve tradition and social order; not to speed the accumulation of power and wealth among the elites or to enact sudden or overreacting reforms." He thought that by excessively embracing the free market philosophy the Republican party had gone calamitously awry. "The conservative can all too easily drift into a morally bankrupt and intellectually shallow defense of those who have it made and those who were on the make," that without the humanizing Tory influence, conservatives were apt to forget "the ugly face of capitalism". Hmmm - sounds like to me the sage warning of Paul to the early Christians, "For the love on money is the root of all evil--. 1 Timothy 6: 9-10 Read verse 9 and see if it does not describe the actions of Fairlie's false conservatives, and, in verse 10, the predictable result of their actions.

To him false conservatives were the tax-cutting regulation-haters; and the morality-legislating social activists. For him the role of government was to be big enough to unify society, relieve material want and to maintain the global order. An English moral ethicist, he had contempt for American conservatism. An example. He wrote a 1980 column in which he described the delegates to 1980 Republican convention as members of the "Boobosie", meaning they were, "Narrow minded, book banning, truth censoring, mean spirited, ungenerous, envious, intolerant, afraid, chicken, bullying, trivially moral, falsely patriotic; family cheapening, flag cheapening, God cheapenong; the common man, shallow, small, sanctimonoius." Hmmm - has much changed since 1980?

He had great reverence for another elitist reformer - FDR. He thought, even when the Democrats screwed up, they remained "the normal governing party of the most powerful and most restless free nation in the world."

He thought "The Reaganite conservative does not trust the political system, and so is always trying to circumvent it; he does not trust the instincts of Congress, but places profound faith of the executive if he is in charge; he does not trust the deep religious instinct of a people, unless it is decked out in tawdry costume of a minute of silent prayer in schools."

So what has been the result of nearly 4 decades of false conservatism? On January 23rd of this year, the Associated Press published a column entitled "Wall Street's entitlement culture." In it they describe the actions of John Thain, former head of Merrill Lynch, who was fired by Ken Lewis of the Bank of America, not long after the B of A took over M-L. Besides speeding up receipt of bonuses for several M-L executives before the sale to the B of A was consumated Jauuary 1st, but he also spent $1.2 million redecorating his office as M-L bled money. Why this bravado?

"You've always had this Wall Street ethic of, I'm going to push the rules as far as I can. That's been part of the culture," said R. Edward Freeman, a well known expert on Wall Street behavior.

In my assessment this Wall Street/Republican behavior can best be compared to that of an adolescent, who pushes the limits until the parent (in this case the government) steps in and says, "No more!" This is where, IMO, President Obama and his administration is playing the role of the grown up. What we are seeing in the Republican party is the continuing failure on their part to recognize this adolescent behavior and to listen to the sage adult advice of Henry Fairlie. Thus the bloviations of Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich continue to dominate the Republican party. They are just too blinded to the truths Henry Fairlie set forth. They treat him like Cassandra, the ancient Greek seer who was endowed by the gift of prophesy but was fated to never be believed.

To counter this is I think if we advance the wisdom of Distributive Justice Capitalism, as set forth by Frank Cocozelli, author of the recent IPC white paper, we will begin to readdress the short comings of false conservative Capitalism and adopt remedies long over due. It's time, IMO, for progressive Christians to stand up and demand government recognize it's role as the adult here, to act like a responsible adult and impose reforms that counter the greed and illusory power of false conservative Capitalism.

Of course, the added challenge is for the Democratic Party, and Mr. Obama in particular, to recognize that the adolosecent controlled Republican Party will never agree to reasonable and responsible limits and thus will have impose them, if, of course, the Democrats themselves are able to grow up and assume the role of responsible parent!