Conservatism in America

...have they lost touch with reality?  In this article that I read today (courtesy of Nick Parulski posting it on Bill Sitter's facebook wall) by Fareed Zakaria, he explains his views of the conservative members of our government, and the interesting decisions they make, and the dumbfounding policies they attempt to support.


The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who was saying that he feels that being Republican "used to be a respectable thing to do, when they fought for real American values, but as of late the party has become an embarrassment."  From our conversation, I got the impression that perhaps if he felt that Republicans weren't so out of the loop, that perhaps he might have become a Republican.


Interestingly enough, Zakaria implies that the best conservative policies (and the ones of the past) are based on reality, but that the policies that result in the government being "cut and starve[d]" do not find roots in reality, but in philosophy.  In this article, he explains that the best thing about conservatism was that it was rooted in reality, unlike idealistic philosophies like Marxism. The new conservatism has become a " a strategy that pays little attention to history or best practices from around the world and is based instead on a theory."


Here's the link: How Today's Conservatism Has Lost Touch with Reality, By Fareed Zakaria