What is a Conservative?

John Stuart Mill, an early 19th Century British Philosopher once said, "I never meant to say that the conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

Okay, this is 19th Century Saturday Night Live, so let's move on.

Modern day conservatism consists of a belief in limited government, laissez-a-faire economics, a biblically based morality, and a strong military.

You hear conservatives say "the less government, the better" (except when it comes to war).

But when conservatives in this country become the ruling power, it seems that government instead of smaller gets bigger and bigger until you are spending $700 billion to bail companies out. That's out of my pocket.

For example, under Ronald Reagan the deficit grew enormously. Of course it only seemed enormous until George Bush became elected. And then the deficit grew to such a monstrous level, that it will take until our great-great grandchildren's generation to pay it all off. Sarah Palin said publicly that she and John McCain will balance the budget within their first term. Cannot happen. All the economic figures are against them.

So my question is, why does conservatism in practice produce the exact opposite of the philosophy that it espouses? Perhaps because facts have a liberal bias? When you leave corporations to their own devices, they will seek to maximize their profits at the expense of everything else. Thus we have the financial crisis of today which has resulted from a combination of corporate greed and laissez-a-faire economics by the government.

Add to that the neo-conservative desire to wage war on what they perceive to be America's enemies without regard to any of the consequences to our young people or our economy. And you have the situation we find ourselves in now. Trillions of dollars down the hole with nothing to show for it except for some very large bonuses for a few corporate fat cats.