This post underscores something I have discussed over time on this blog.
The shrill conservative voices over the past 15-plus years from the red-meat crowd that is steeped in harsh rhetoric and meanness is not the type of conservative that dominated the thinking in the age of Goldwater. The hyper-religious fringes with the cut-throat tactics that dominate the GOP today are not the Bill Buckley’s of yesterday. That breed was well-educated and deeply serious. That strain of conservative thinking was one that allowed for disagreement while allowing for dialogue and the exchange of ideas in a polite fashion.
All this comes to mind as the backlash from Florida Republican Connie Mack went into over-drive this week. Mack made a statement about the Arizona immigration law that was blunt and honest. Mack’s comments were very conservative in the true sense of conservative political philosophy. But the young Turks with the foaming mouths tried to paint Mack as ‘a liberal’.
What did Republican Mack have to say about the immigration law that so ‘outlandish’?
He called the law “appalling” and compared it to Nazi Germany. This law of ‘frontier justice’ – where law enforcement officials are required to stop anyone based on “reasonable suspicion” that they may be in the country illegally – is reminiscent of a time during World War II when the Gestapo in Germany stopped people on the street and asked for their papers without probable cause,” said Mack in a statement. “It shouldn’t be against the law to not have proof of citizenship on you.”
That is when the conservatives of today went bonkers. Their response makes my point.
A real conservative, from the Goldwater era, believes as Mack does that the Arizona law gives government more power than it needs or deserves. All the puffed-up blowhards that call themselves conservative today have no idea what the real themes are that embody a conservative. They blather and rant but have no real thinking behind their ‘views. They listen to someone else on the radio or TV and repeat it for the most part.
So Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh will beat up Connie Mack and incite the less educated among their listeners to scream and rant on talk radio.
Meanwhile Bill Buckley is looking down (or is it up?) and wondering what in heck happened to thoughtful conservatism?
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 
The ironic point you miss is that Mack’s statement is not made of the educated logic you claim you want to see. Why the comparison to the Gestapo? Mack has clerly not read the bill and simply reacting with emotion–stupid emotion. Of course, comparing everything to the Nazis is the current course of political dialogue. For most on the left, “nazi” is the first word they would use to describe Bush.
Also ironic is that while you claim to want educated debate, you dismiss the conservatives who disagree with you using personal attacks: “The hyper-religious fringes with the cut-throat tactics”, “They blather and rant but have no real thinking behind their ‘views”, “They listen to someone else on the radio or TV and repeat it for the most part.” This does not seem like educated debate to me. What did Beck or Limbaugh say that was so terrible, or do you just want your less-educated readers to take you at your word? No double standard there.
Real conservatives believe there is a limit to the power that government should hold. But when they simply say this–as they did during the health-care debate–they are largely ignored, so they turn up the volume and become less subtle. The same is true of liberals, and the media shares considerable blame here. Conservatives also believe that this is a nation of laws, and people who violate the laws–as do illegal aliens (people who reside in a country without being citizens)–should be held accountable. These people spit on those who are immigrants (those who follw the legal process established by act of congress). The real question is: why don’t liberals believe this? To them, the situation in Arizona is alarming because they have never considered the unique problems illegal aliens bring to Arizona that they don’t bring to Madison–drugs, crime, and a terrific drain on social services and education. Liberals who apparently like soft slavery argue that these people do jobs Americans don’t want. Yet they embrace a situation which keeps wages in these unfavorable jobs low so that Americans don’t like the jobs; kind of like the cotton trade, right. Why are liberals so in love with this?