And he looked so hot in that flight suit too! Well, at least I still have
Cappy!


Redefining Conservatives
By John Bender

George Bush is getting credit for redefining the Republican Party and taking
issues away from the Democrats by advancing their agenda and taking credit
for the advances. He is not getting credit for an even bigger
accomplishment, redefining the political labels in use for about 100 years.
By calling himself a conservative, Bush is redefining the term.

Since at least as far back as Woodrow Wilson's administration, the word
conservative meant someone who favored smaller government, less government
spending, and a belief that it was not the government's job to redistribute
wealth from those who earned it to those who wanted it. Bush shares none of
these principles.

He never saw a government program he wanted to reduce or eliminate. He
strongly believes in the nanny government and redistributing wealth. Under
Bush discretionary, non-defense spending grew more than under any president
since Jimmy Carter. Bush worked against hard won Republican victories such
as the Freedom to Farm Act, passing the most socialist farm bill since the
New Deal. He worked with radical leftists against conservative Republicans
to pass an education bill that vastly increases the federal government's
power over local schools.

Bush calls this accountability. It is a smoke screen, setting the stage for
federal bureaucrats to mandate what is taught in our local schools by
writing the test the students will be required to pass.

He expanded the failed Head Start program, increased welfare to people
calling it a tax cut for people who don't pay taxes. Congress cut AmriCorps
and Bush worked with liberals to restore the cuts. Now Bush is pushing the
biggest new entitlement in 40 years, a socialized drug plan for seniors. The
list goes on and on, but the point is, Bush is for everything conservatives
have historically fought against.

This new definition of "conservative", of necessity, brings a redefinition
of other political labels. People who were liberals only 3 years ago are now
moderates. Far left extremists are now mainstream liberals.

The rise of Nancy Pelosi to the position of House Minority Leader best
illustrates this change. Pelosi is a radical leftist who was out of the
mainstream of even the Democrat Party just three years ago. In fact her
challengers for the office pointed out that Pelosi is a radical leftist.

Harold Ford and Martin Frost ran against her as moderates. Both Ford and
Frost are only moderate if Pelosi is mainstream and Bush is conservative.
These men have a long history of aggressive liberalism. Both men chided Bill
Clinton for not being liberal enough. Now they are moderates.

Bush made this shift happen. He co-opted the label "conservative" and
applied it to his big government agenda. It is his greatest accomplishment
to date. And his accomplishment isn't just shifting the definition of
"conservative" 180 degrees. He also redefined the full spectrum of political
labels.

If one is willing to allow Bush to claim the label "conservative" one must
then redefine those slightly to his left as "moderates" and those to their
left as "liberals". One can only guess where we now define the radical left.

By defining Bush as a conservative one must also relabel those on his right.
Conservative statesmen like Tom DeLay, Bob Barr, Dick Armey, Jim Inhofe,
Ernest Istook, etc., must now be defined as the far right wing.

If one takes this new definition back a few years, he has to also redefine
LBJ and Jimmy Carter as "conservatives", and the great Ronald Reagan as a
right wing extremist. LBJ and Carter were much closer to Bush's example of a
"conservative" than President Reagan was.

Under this perverted definition of what a "conservative" is, Bush is buying
the votes of the greedy, selfish, irresponsible, people with money that will
be taken from our children and grandchildren. Our children and grandchildren
will live in a socialist cesspool like France or Germany because no
president will ever be able to wean the leaches from their dependency on the
subsidies stolen from the productive.

The greedy, selfish, underachievers will never be satisfied. They will
demand more and more be taken from the producers to pay for their wants. The
socialist utopia Bush is creating will be no more economically viable than
any socialist society has been.

But hey, why should we worry about that? Let our children and grandchildren
figure out how to get by in the socialist muck. It's not our problem.


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John Bender is a freelance writer from Dallas, Texas. His columns have
appeared in The Dallas Morning News, Ether Zone, Right Magazine, The Sierra
Times, USA Daily and other print and online publications.