Conservative Donnybrook

Reporting to you from the heart of SNOWMAGEDDON!!!, the snowfall in DC is just now tapering off, leaving a heavy blanket of upwards of up to 20+ inches in its wake.

It’s customary to make fun of Washington for shutting down completely at the slightest dusting of snow, but I think by the time you hit two feet of accumulation, it’s pretty understandable that stuff just isn’t going to happen here. Plus, it’s Saturday.

Unfortunately for anti-government activists, the DC shutdown will probably only last through Monday and thereafter the wheels of the State will continue to turn in their depressing fashion.

Those looking for salvation from the RNC are likely to be disappointed. I can’t agree with my colleague Karl’s optimism about the recent noise being made from the bowels of RNC officialdom about withdrawing support from candidates who don’t hew closely to the 2008 Republican platform.

Of course, the Republican party has been an unmitigated disaster to conservatism in America.

Just take a look at that platform that’s supposed to be the basis for ideological cleansing. Section One: “Defending Our Nation, Supporting Our Heroes, Securing the Peace.” Translation: maintaining the aggressive, expansionist foreign policy that has been at the heart of exploding government spending, the curtailment of civil liberties under a bipartisan national security state, and the unprecedented expansion of the military-industrial complex.

Meanwhile, vague platitudes about “reducing spending” and “reforming the budget process” serve as promises to tinker with, not demolish, the corrupt fusion of the State with corporate interests that has resulted in the wholesale robbery of trillions of taxpayers’ dollars by corporate elites — under the watch of Democrats and Republicans alike.

What would the consequence be of a successful purge of non-GOP-approved candidates? For one thing, the promising candidacies of such genuine anti-government figures as Rand Paul and Peter Schiff would have been strangled in their cribs.

Unifying behind “GOP values” would spell the end of reform, not the beginning, and would represent a betrayal of the grass-roots Tea Party phenomenon, constitutionalism, and traditionalist conservatism.  It comes down to this: You can’t be anti-government and pro-Empire. The cause of liberty won’t be furthered by strengthening the RNC leadership — instead, it must be overthrown.