That’s what I’ve been saying for a long time. Romney will lose the election and the Republicans will suffer a defeat in the next elections to Congress and Senate. Hopefully, this will prod the country’s Conservatives to lose the ultra-religious branch and start formulating the tenets of a modern secular Conservatism. I, for one, cannot wait to see what the American Conservative movement will look like when it isn’t hijacked by its fundamentalist wing. I am convinced that the Conservatives who respect the separation of the Church and State and do not want to legislate morality have a lot to contribute to our political discourse.
Fanatical state-sponsored religiousness is losing ground fast even in the least secular of all Western societies. The Republicans will have to pay the price of not seeing that most people prefer to hear about addressing the problems with the economy instead of policing the reproductive and sexual choices of others. That price would be the loss at the polls in November.
The Conservative movement in this country is in a deep crisis, in my opinion. The Republican flailing around for at least a marginally tolerable candidate in the recent primaries was evidence of that. More and more people are getting repulsed by the screechings about how needing contraception and having boyfriends makes a woman a “slut” who shouldn’t have political opinions. More and more people laugh when they see politicians have fits of hysteria over pornography, homosexuality, and masturbation. More and more people are confused by how one can support a limited government and, in the same breath, try to legislate the government sticking ultrasound probes into women’s vaginas against their will.
Dear fellow Conservatives, lose the fundamentalist branch already. The country needs the rational, intelligent, powerful thinking you are so capable of providing.
Clarissa's Blog 
You know, I once had a professor of American history with whom I think you would get along famously…
In any case, I can’t say, personally, that I would support the American version of Conservatism even with its fundamentalist aspects ejected (Canadian and British Conservatives are far less religious, and I don’t support them either). However, as an opponent, I might be able to at least respect it, which is more than I can say for its present lunatic version.
Plus, it goes without saying that the country, in general, would benefit enormously from having both major political parties actually formulating policies based upon observable facts, rather than thousand-year-old dogmas and gut feelings.
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“In any case, I can’t say, personally, that I would support the American version of Conservatism even with its fundamentalist aspects ejected”
– Oh, I’m not sure I’d support it either. 🙂 But I’ve met some real, non-fanatical Conservatives and they have very interesting things to say. I have such Conservatives in my own family and, although we disagree, we have a fantastic time debating and exploring each other’s points of view. I mean, you can’t have a debate with fundamentalists because they go all fire and brimstone on you and start making weird howling sounds within minutes. This is why it’s such a pity the rational conservatives have been displaced by the howlers.
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Indeed, I am good friends with one such conservative; he is religious, but regards it as a personal thing, and while we agree on very little politically, we can at least have pleasant conversations with one another.
I don’t suppose you’ve ever read David Frum’s blog? He’s a former Bush-era Republican speechwriter who became disgusted by the rise of the Tea Party, and has since been disowned by most of the conservative movement. It’s a very interesting read.
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Personally I can’t stand David Frum. I think he’s smarmy. But the conservatives I used to read seem to have decided to go down the racist misogynist homophobic tubes, and I have no desire to join them in their slide to wherever that route leads. And the Tea Party seemed to have such promise, but see the previous sentence. Also, add a topping of a particular kind of backwards-looking fundamentalist Protestant Christianity, and I’m gone.
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I hope you are right, Clarissa. I think it is just as likely that the religious conservative fundamentalists will usher in a new Dark Age, wherein actual free thinking will be punished severely, but imprisonment and worse.
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I don’t think they have any such power to do that. There’s already a backlash against these people, and they’re losing ground bit by bit. The screeching and flailing around you’re seeing is the mark of desperation as the realization that they are losing takes hold.
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“Fellow conservatives?” Are you a conservative?
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Freudian slip! Good catch!!! 🙂
My subconscious has betrayed me.
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Ja Ja Ja!
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Meaning you want to be a conservative but since the progressives have redefined our vocabulary you can’t quite figure out how to say it and still be PC? It can be confusing, when the only difference between the two parties is who they buy their votes from. The solution is to ignore the PC crap and just say what you really believe.
I wouldn’t bet that Romney will lose just yet. I think four more years of an unrestrained demagogue who wants everyone to be a socialist; well everyone except for himself and Michelle (Let them eat cake) Obama, who as near as I can tell view themselves as royalty – could turn out to be the worst thing that could happend to the democrats.
On the other hand, Romney wining could be the worst thing that could happen to the republican. Hard to tell – they both deserve to be ignored, sadly that’s not going to happen.
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