"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
The quote above is almost dead right about every Conservative I have ever met or listened to. Frankly the vast majority of them use their "fiscal conservatism" as a way to fatten their own wallets. They preach corporate welfare while crying foul about how social programs take taxpayer money. They can put us into endless wars that are basically fronts to fund their corporate war profiteering friends who get contracts from Washington and then deposit paybacks to these politicians with campaign funding but they whine without end about the need to privatize (another corporate giveaway) Social Security or Medicare. Or worse they take aim and cut Welfare, WIC and Energy Assistance Programs for the poor.
There is a deep irony involved when you look at what they say to get elected. They talk about tax cuts and then pander to evangelicals by claiming the Christian mantle as if they own religion.
The truth is the tax cuts they want are only for the rich and they could care less about poor and middle class voters.
Those who have similar interest in keeping the rich filthy rich and keeping the poor down continue to work with "fiscal conservatives" to get whatever they want and use as many fear tactics in their field as you would hear from Bush and the Neo-Cons when it comes to War.
Here's a fun example. Moody's who rated those subprime loans highly (and we know how that worked out), tried to scare people this week saying that America's triple A credit rating was in jeopardy.
I can believe that, after all we're racking up huge debt to China, spending like crazy on endless war and gutting the middle class and poor for tax cuts for the rich which obviously hurts consumer spending.
But what did Moody's blame? Healthcare and Social Security spending. Even though we have the least government-financed health care available for our citizens (to disasterous results I might add), we need to cut there... yeah... right.
It's funny how all these like-minded people stretch the truth as far as they can to corrupt the system to work in their favor.
What's worse though is how these people can whine incessantly about the burdens on our tax money that the poor cause with the social programs in place to help them but never once whine about the pork that gets into every spending bill to pay off their political donors.
And this tends to go back to the second staple of the Conservative Politician: Christianity.
They scream up and down about how Christian they are. They use ads and pundits as weapons to push this farce onto potential voters.
Ignoring the poor and enriching yourself at the expense of the hard working taxpayers is exactly what Christ worked against and ignores every principle in his teachings.
With so many 'do as I say, not as I do' Republicans out there, it's rare that I am surprised in a positive way from these people.
In fact "Christian Politicians" are hardly the only hypocrites when it comes to using innocent people for their religious beliefs while scamming them out of their hard earned money. Many of the evangelical preachers from these "Mega Churches" are picking their people clean (I think there should be a major investigation into Pat Robertson also but that's a different story).
Republican Fiscal Conservative, Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa actually found out about such a case and unlike other conservatives that learn of this corruption and turn a blind eye as long as they are ideologically aligned, he decided to do something about it:
From Alternet:
The New Testament reports that Jesus rarely used fancy modes of transportation to get around. He walked most of the time, although Matthew and other gospels mention that he once rode a borrowed donkey into Jerusalem, where he burst into the Temple and tossed out the money changers.
Nearly 2,000 years later, some who claim to speak in Jesus' name are taking a different view. Consider Bishop Eddie Long, who pastors a megachurch in Lithonia, Ga. With a salary approaching $1 million a year and a nine-bathroom mansion situated on 20 acres, Long's choice of vehicles reflects his opulent lifestyle: He drives a $350,000 Bentley.
-snip-
Long's lack of humility has probably done him no favors. At the time, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), expressed dismay.
"When I hear about leaders of charities being provided a $300,000 Bentley to drive around in, my fear is that it's the taxpayers who subsidize this charity who are really being taken for a ride," he quipped.
In November, Grassley, who serves as ranking minority member on the Senate Finance Committee, ramped things up a bit. He announced that he is seeking detailed financial information from six mega-ministries, Long's among them.
Bravo to Grassley (at least for now). It's a rare day you'll hear me say that but even a broken clock can be right twice a day I suppose.
However the rest of fiscal conservatism is a scam. As long as their corporate campaign donors are protected then it's perfectly fine to attack the poor and kill their programs.
With all of this protection of Corporations and the rich it's no wonder why they all seem to fear John Edwards the most.
