Article first published as I Think I’ll Vote Republican — NOT! on Technorati.

On this, the eve of Glen Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, I think it a good time to reflect on what it means to be a conservative in 21^st Century America. Beck has scheduled his rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “March on Washington.” According to Beck, the purpose of the rally is to celebrate “upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.” Such patriotism, such vision, a staunch supporter of the Republican Party, Beck is at the core of contemporary conservatism.

So, what is it that defines today’s conservative? What is the Republican plan for the future of America?

John Boehner shared the Republican vision for America earlier this week. And fortunately for conservative voters, the Republican platform is far more simple than that of their Democratic counterparts. Republicans don’t spend all that wasted time worrying about equity and ethics and all that stupid liberal stuff. Heck, when your objective is limited to maximizing the profits of big-business and minimizing the tax burden of the top 2%, all that fairness stuff just gets in the way.

Oddly enough, the new Republican Party looks an awful lot like the party of George Bush. So drastic is the likeness, that topping their list of priorities is the extension of the Bush tax cuts — for even the very rich, permanently. They even espouse the same disproven Bush tenet that tax cuts pay for themselves. So, although economists contend that the $678 billion price tag to extend the cuts for the top 2% will directly impact the deficit for which the Republicans feign concern — not to worry — we just need to cut spending.

Ah, but where to cut? Not defense! Oh no, the Military Industrial Complex is the heart and soul of conservative America — not to disparage the fossil fuel industry or the gun lobby. But, with defense costing over $1 trillion and representing more than 25% of the budget, where better to slice? Wait a minute . . . what would George Bush do? That’s it — Social Security can be privatized! Never mind that it’s solvent through 2037 and that with minor tweaking it can provide a vital safety net well into the next century; it’s a huge pool of money just begging to be exploited.

But, what about jobs? The problem is that Americans still expect far too much in compensation for their labor. But is it government’s responsibility to get people back to work? Unemployment is actually a good thing, for business, so long as you don’t have to pay benefits. There are really few things better for corporate profits than an abundant supply of labor so desperate for work that pay-scale and fringes no longer matter. So, the solution is self-evident: oppose any government funding of benefits, rail against government investment in infrastructure or energy or anything else that might tip the balance of economic power, and for God’s sake make sure nothing stops the flow of jobs overseas.

So, less taxes, fewer entitlements, an eager workforce, it’s music to the ears of contemporary conservatism. And the final ingredient to restore the Bush recipe for a prosperous upper crust — more deregulation. Just keep those oil wells pumping, those insiders trading, that gas flowing, and blessed will be the fruit of the offshoring multinational. The heck with the environment. What’s a little oil spill here and a little flaming water there? Businesses have to compete on a global scale, and worrying about the environment just isn’t good for profits. Besides, if you’re already exploiting the people, who gives a care about the planet?

Does any of this sound at all familiar? It should, because it’s Bushonomics 101. Today’s Republican Party promises a full return to the very practices that produced the most meager job growth since the 1940s, resulted in the first decline in median household income of any cycle since 1967, set modern records for the concentration of wealth at the very top, crashed the economy, brought us the Massey mine disaster, filled the Gulf with oil, and divided our nation.

The only real difference between the Bush Republicans and the Boehner, McConnell, Palin, Beck contingent is that where the Bushies confined their fear mongering to terrorists and certain foreign enemies, the 2010 Republicans have turned their sites inward. American citizen or not, if you’re Islamic or Mexican, Black, gay or liberal — you are an “Other,” and that makes you the problem . . . or rather the solution, because wealthy or not, the Republicans still need votes, and with a platform that only benefits 2% of the population, distraction is everything.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined an array of Republican lawmakers who feel we should examine whether to rescind all or part of the 14th amendment to the Constitution to prevent some children born in the U.S. from being granted U.S. citizenship. The pro-life, pro-family Republicans are now pro-neonatal detention and deportation. It isn’t enough to drive out the people not born here, now they want to drive out the ones that were.

Actually, I agree with Senator McConnell. We absolutely should hold hearings as soon as possible to discuss whether we should amend the U.S. Constitution to make newborns deportable. We need a high-level national discussion in both Houses of Congress on the issue of whether to station federal ICE agents in every maternity ward and delivery room right between the OB-GYN and the expectant father.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Congressman

Great, so Rep. Gutierrez is already fear mongering up a storm with scenarios of Gestapo enforcers stomping around in maternity wards. I can’t help but wonder how liberals separate this type of fear based campaigning from the Sarah Palin death panels. Both contrive wildly extreme possibilities in order to discredit legitimate concerns, and neither attempts in any way to identify a solution.

I’m sorry, but I find it poetic that the one amendment to our Constitution that was enacted without rightful ratification and is also unconstitutional in its inclusion of ex post facto law, should now be the subject of such debate. The 14^th Amendment obviously did the right thing in providing citizenship to blacks and guaranteeing due process and equal protection, but the way in which it was enacted was an abomination. And now, the Party that illegitimately enacted the amendment wants to review and possibly rescind it. Now that’s poetic!

Personally, I‘d like to see the amendment changed, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I would support any retroactive application. The truth seems evident that the enacting Congress didn’t address the potential for abuse from illegal immigrants having children in order to obtain citizenship. That’s the just the way it is.

People like me, who believe that the abuse warrants a change, have but one form of recourse — amend the Constitution. That’s the way we do it in the United States. To do otherwise is to subvert the very spirit of our democracy.

I for one would welcome a national conversation on this topic. I’d like to hear the reasoning of people who believe that a child born of parents in the United States illegally should be granted citizenship. Is there an ethical argument? Is it simply a position of practicality? I’m sorry, but to me it wreaks of defending the rights of litigation for the guy who climbs on somebody’s house to burglarize them and falls through their skylight and gets injured.

I know, I know — there’s a child involved. But what I don’t understand is why there’s not more outcry against parents who would use their child this way. Break the law and hide behind a child . . .  now that sounds unethical to me.

Whatever side people are on, wouldn’t it be great if we could all just state our piece and work together toward a solution? It would be quite remarkable, but we’ll never get there so long as every issue is met with all the fear-mongering hyperbole currently waged by conservatives and liberals alike. How about instead, we stop the posturing, listen to one another and open a dialog?

September 11, 2001: Two airliners strike the World Trade Towers, 2973 people die, the entire planet watches in horror . . . America weeps. It is the single most deadly attack, by a foreign enemy, ever on American soil. Islamic fundamentalists claim a resounding victory, but wounded and stunned, America unites and vows not to let terrorism win.

As I look back on that day, tears well up in my eyes. I still feel the shock and the pain, for though I did not directly experience loss, I feel as though I was personally attacked. The assault was not waged upon my person, but at my beliefs, upon an integral part of who I am. I believe that most Americans feel this way. We will forever carry the sadness of that day in our hearts, but because of what happened afterward, it will always share its place with a sense of national pride. We did come together as a nation.

But it’s now almost nine years later. Our nation’s largest banks have nearly collapsed, saved only by a massive government bailout. Our jobless rate is at levels not seen in a quarter century. We continue to amass virtually unimaginable levels of national debt, and we still have thousands of American troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting the War on Terror. Things have changed drastically since 2001. For most Americans, those changes have been for the worse — the worst in my lifetime. That realization begs me to ask the question: “Have we allowed the terrorists to win?”

The sense of unity that spread across our great nation in the aftermath of 9/11 is all but completely lost. In its place is a growing division of the people that threatens to destroy the very soul of our country. How has this happened? Sure, it’s in part a sign of the difficult economic times, but I fear it’s more than that. Even in the most desperate times, American democracy has endured, always upheld by our standard of honest debate and open discussion. But our national “conversation” has changed. Dialog, moderation and compromise have become vestiges of the past. Rancor and vitriol are now the staples of the day, and the only rule seems to be that there are no rules.

Indeed, the political climate in America today increasingly rewards those who don’t follow any rules, those who will twist the facts, ignore the truth and otherwise do whatever’s required to advance their positions . . . and their careers. Sadly, thoughtful response and honest deliberation are rapidly becoming liabilities. You no longer need to understand the complexities of any given situation; all that’s required is a scatter gun of incendiary rhetoric and the willingness to indiscriminately pull the trigger.

It may have been foreign terrorists who initially set the wheels in motion, but we need not look beyond our shores for those to blame for the forces tearing our nation apart. What ails us today is not fear of foreign aggression but rather the internal politics of fear. George W. Bush was quick to seize the day. He positioned himself as the great protector and leveraged the 9/11 attack to justify all manner of aggression and indiscretion. In the process, America lost a significant part of its identity. We might have come away from this great tragedy a stronger nation, but instead the power of fear was evoked . . . and regrettably, it worked. As a result, we learned the wrong lesson, and the politics of fear are now tacitly accepted as part of American politics.

In no way do I want to diminish the significance of what happened on 9/11 or to ignore the horror of violent terrorism. But still I feel compelled to suggest that, in the end, the politics of fear will bring far more devastation than any overt terrorist plot. As I’ve written in other posts, America is in dire fiscal straits; we are threatened on many fronts, and instead of working with the current administration, the Republican Party has veered so far to the right that it is quickly losing any semblance of legitimacy. They are guilty as charged of now being the “Party of No.” But of much more serious consequence is the fact that they’ve become the Party of Fear.

Once the upholders of legitimate conservative views, the Republican Party has been taken over by self-serving opportunists who don’t so much as blush when they twist the most flimsy shred of truth into patently false assertions, accusations, and indictments. For them, the truth matters no longer; the SOP for the GOP has become: saying whatever it takes to instill fear into their loyal conservative following. They prey on hard working Americans, fill their heads with nonsense designed to elicit a fearful response, and thus gain their misinformed support.

It doesn’t seem to matter to these individuals that their lies and distortions are destroying our country, that the hate they work to spur clouds the issues and prevents the dialog needed for resolution. Does Michele Bachmann really not understand the destructive  impact of suggesting that the Democrats were moving toward “mandatory service” for America’s youth, where they would be forced into political “re-education camps?” Who does Sarah Palin serve when she insists upon the validity of her claim that the health care legislation would bring “death panels,” and that it was “evil?” When House Republican Leader, John Boehner’s claims that the health care bill will bring “Armageddon” and “ruin our country,” is he just trying to make a substantive point? Just today, at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, former Speaker, Newt Gingrich called President Obama “the most radical president in American history,” and accused the President of saying, “I run a machine. I own Washington and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Is this form of hyperbole appropriate?  Is fear mongering really an acceptable form of intelligent exchange?

Make no mistake about it; regardless of your philosophical goals, when fear is your primary tactical method for achieving your short term objectives, you are a terrorist. Our current Republican leadership has cast their lot; they’ve chosen their tactics and must now wear the mantle associated with their actions — they are political terrorists. And while their form of terrorism may appear more sanitary than the bloody world of suicide bombers, it is far more dangerous. Their methods are destructive, their process deceptive, and their results are insidious. Republicans have become adept at scaring Americans into fighting against their own best interest.

When we were threatened by Islamic terrorists, calls went up from liberals and conservatives alike, asking where Muslin moderates were, why they had not spoken up to decry the radical rants of their religion’s extremists. Today I wait to hear those voices of moderation rise amongst American conservatives. When will they speak up and demand that their party cease the inflammatory politics of fear, return to the table, and once again engage in meaningful conversation. If those voices remain silent, then although we survived the 9/11 terrorist attack, we may not survive the political terrorism of the Republican right.