Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner delivered these remarks to Heritage members attending the Fall 2008 President's Club Meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC.
Given the results of the election, it's obvious that Congress and the White House won't be receptive to many conservative ideas. So we'll be playing a great deal more defense. And there will be plenty of defense to play as liberals try to redistribute wealth, abolish the right of workers to cast secret ballots on union elections, nationalize health care, bankrupt energy companies that use coal — the list just goes on and on.
Sorry guys, but if you don’t think greater access to affordable health care, raising the bar on environmental standards, and making measures to protect the lower and middle classes from the CEO’s who are begging for a bailout so they can continue gang-banging us, would be good for the economy, THEN YOU DON”T GET CLAIM TO BE ECONOMIC EXPERTS ANYMORE.
You never really were.
More from the Heritage meeting:
If you want to see when conservatives were in trouble, go back 35 years to 1973, the year Heritage set up shop…
At that time there were no cable outlets like Fox News. There was no conservative talk radio, because the Fairness Doctrine was still in effect, preventing conservatives from having their own programs. Rush Limbaugh was a disc jockey. Sean Hannity was in the seventh grade. Laura Ingraham was in the fifth.
It doesn’t matter how many FOX News producers you are in cahoots with, the people are pissed at your incessant bullshitting.
If you practiced some genuine interest in actually helping the people who you represent (ya know, like what Obama has done for the last year,) then you may get some popular support back.
If not, you are just isolating yourselves.
The speech goes on to define what conservativism is and how the US is a center-left nation because:
Look at our popular culture and you will see still more roots of conservatism.
Americans are still a people who feel a sense of reverence and gratitude when we hear songs with titles like:
* God Bless America;
* The Star Spangled Banner;
* America the Beautiful;
* God Bless the USA; and
* Stars and Stripes Forever.
We are still a nation that pauses tomorrow on Veterans Day, on Independence Day, on Memorial Day, and on Thanksgiving to thank God for the blessings of freedom.
Barf.
Here is why I am barfing: Nationalism, as shown by the SUV with a yellow ribbon on it, the one driven by the flag-waving Neanderthal that thinks Obama is a Muslim and the earth is 6,000 years old, has nothing to do with real patriotism. Real patriotism is the courage to question and fight the status quo when you see the status quo is hurting your people. The conservative’s watered down version of patriotism and loyalty are like the failing neon sign that accidentally reveals your real agenda.
Conservatives have lied, cheated, and stolen elections, started fake wars, incited fear, flung us into the worst credit card debt in all of human history, gone on witch-hunts, shredded the Constitution and legality, slandered the planet, and more, all in the name of the status quo. This is why the country lifted a mighty middle finger to the Bush administration, the Republican Party, and conservativism on Nov 4th.
The people saw the chance for change and jumped at it.
I don’t want to see the chasm widen. I don’t want to see the people bamboozled. I want the human race to step up to the challenge and collectively fix our problems. The only way for the Rs to do that is to get some integrity as demonstrated by results, not demonization.
If you rely on your opponent’s mistakes to win, you haven’t played your best game, nor have you demonstrated competent governance.
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