I find it very difficult to call George W. Bush a conservative. Here are my reasons:

1. He has done nothing to work toward the end of the illegal immigration problem.

2. He has gone beyond the constiutional charge given to the federal government to protect this country "from all enemies foriegn and domestic" when he sends our military on missions to spread "democracy" around the world.

3. His military adventurism, educational policies, maintaining big government programs while cutting taxes is not the way a conservative would handle this nation's fiscal issues.

4. He is a globalist not a nationalist and demonstrates this by his support of NAFTA.

This is the short list.

Anyone agree???

I think Barry Goldwater, a real conservative is spinning in his grave.

Bush is by far the most liberal president we have ever had. With the exception of his religious wackoism of course!

BUSH IS A LIBERAL!

I certainly wouldn't consider him a conservative, or at least I wouldn't by the standards Greg has laid out for Conservatism. Unfortunatly I think Gregs conservatism might be a dying world view, replaced by the "neo con". briefly and roughly defined as socially very conservative, aggresivly pushing an activist foreign policy, and subscribing to some sort of non-sensical economic line of reasoning that is the wrong 2 parts liberal and the wrong 2 parts conservative.

Thomas Jefferson laid the ground work for a great and enobling american breed of conservatism and it is entirly a shame to see it dying out in favour of this "new" conservatism.

ps: I also think liberal is an inappropiate label for him that has mainly been applied because conservative no longer seems to fit so people just assume if not conservative the only alternative is liberal.

I would agree with your assessment. The term conservative in the classic sense has become meaningless.

George W Bush is certainly not a conservative in the traditional sense - that of the Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan tradition.

His administration has been hijacked by neoconservatives. These "big government conservatives" have no real problem with the large meddling federal government created by liberals in the past few decades. Their main concerns are reduced personal and corporate taxes, promotion of multinational corporations, and a meddling interventionist foreign policy that promotes American-style democracy abroad, primarily as a conduit for greater corporate proliferation.

Please join me at http://cobbtown.com.

Thanks.

It's curious you lumped reagan in with your group of "true" conservatives. To me Reagan is really the first of the important neo-cons. Allthough he talked the conservative talk he certainly never walked the walk. While he certaily talked about slashing government size and expenditure he never touched middle class benefits (by far the largest government expenditure) he de-regulated the economy essentially ceding control of the economy to the multinational corporations and he undertook numerous military escapades abroad, while dramiticly and in my opinon unneccesarily increased military expenditures (The USSR was ready to collapse whether he spent more on the military or not) and that in my opinion makes Reagan as neo con as the rest of them.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying here.

The 3 biggest entitlement presidents of all time were FDR, LBJ and GWB. If you don't believe me then just look at the cost estimates over the next ten years for GWB's Medicare Reform Bill.

Sadly, the Republican leadership has given up many of the ideals that made me a Republican. Thats why I'm an independent now. The Democrats have and probably always will be "Tax and Spend Democrats", but the Republicans are now "Borrow and Spend Republicans". Is that really supposed to be better. The Democrats want the rich to pay for everyone's government services and the Republicans want our children to pay for everyone's government services. Absolutely no one talks about people paying their own way anymore. I suppose thats unfair or something. lol

I also think its a waste of our resources to be spreading democracy around the world. We are not the world's policemen or their mothers or anything else. Sadly, we cannot retract our military that is spread accross the world until we reduce our reliance on foreign sources of oil. Until we can become self sufficient with respect to energy, we have to maintain this 21st century version of Empire or place ourselves at the mercy of others.

I voted for Bush both times out of fear of the Democrat alternative.

But:

I do not support Bush in that he has nominated Democrats (including one Slick nominee that the Senate had already rejected) for the federal bench.

I do not support Bush in that he he gave us targeted tax cuts instead a simple across the board cut in tax rates.

I do not support Bush in that he has done nothing effective to end abortion.

I do not support Bush in that he has returned us to deficit spending.

I do not support Bush in that his so-called war on terror means that Israel has to make peace with the PLO.

I do not support Bush in that he invaded Iraq simply because he thought Hussein had WMD, but he has done nothing against North Korea- a country that by its own admission has WMD.

I do not support Bush in that he wishes to perpetuate our dependence on oil as an energy source.

I do not support Bush in that he apparently is in favor of granting sodomites a right to "legal unions"- which is nothing but marriage under another name.

I do not support Bush in that he kow-tows to large corporations whenever he can.

I do not support Bush in that he has implemented an open border policy with Mexico.

BTW:
I do support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, but in the context of today's world I don't think he presented the most pressing danger.

I am not an isolationist in that I think U.S. troops can be deployed only after a declaration of war; as both the only person constitutionally responsible for enforcing federal law and commander-in-chief of the military, the President has the authority to deploy troops as he deems necessary to enforce the law and protect the rights and property of U.S. citizens abroad and maintain national security against rogue states. If Congress does not like a particular deployment, it is Congress' responsibility to eliminate funding for it.

I am generally in favor of free trade, and I support NAFTA. But, I would support placing restriction on imports from nations that pose a threat to our economic and national security (read Red China) and I am not wild about delegating our trade policy to international bodies such as GATT.

I am an environmentalist in that I want to preserve natural resources whenever possible for future generations.

I strongly support consumer protection laws and I would not mind seeing Wal-Mart and Home Depot destroyed.