Quote of the Day

"I had a heretical thought for a conservative - that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word - that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot - that they have to question authority.

On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?

Will my children, too small now to understand Iraq, take me seriously when I tell them one day what powerful men, whom their father once believed in, did to this country? Heavy thoughts for someone who is still a conservative despite it all. It was a long drive home."
--Conservative columnist Rod Dreher, discussing how President Bush and his failed war has caused him to question his beliefs.

As Barbara O'Brien notes, so much of what constitutes modern, Reagan-era conservatism is just knee-jerk reactionism against the phantom hippies of yesteryear (not to mention liberals and the media, etc). One needs only listen to the talk of the Limbaugh/Fox News crowd to know this is true. It has poisoned our politics for nearly 30 years now. God only knows what it would it take to correct that.

We have been moving backwards so fast, we have to fight just to maintain the status quo.

Those like Mr. Dreher who wake up from this spell are few and far between. This country still has a long way to go before we regain the sanity we have surrended over the past few years.

[hat tip to Green Greenwald, who's always an excellent read.]