Republicanism vs. Conservatism & the Death of Small Government

As a youth who is old enough to remember President Ronald Reagan (I was 4 years old when he was elected the second time), I have always heard certain catch phrases that have become embedded in the Republican psyche--conservatism and small government. Those terms especially starting with the administration of Reagan came to define the GOP, and to this day, these terms are what any good Republican will tell you is crucial to defining what the Republican party and Republicanism are all about. Unfortunately, I believe one of the major reasons that the Republican party is no longer relevant to the American people is because they have forgotten those ideals that made them respected in the Reagan heyday. Of course, they have totally disregarded their debt to the very people that have voted them in office time and time again (the little guy in Appalachia, and the "bitter" folks in Pennsylvania), and have instead catered to a very small group of morally bankrupt individuals & corporations who tell them what to do and say for the love of money. That discussion of course, could take up a series of blog posts, so I digress.

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I am a proud lifelong liberal Democrat who has no problem voting my conscience. All that means is that for national elections I tend to vote Democrat for President and Congress, and for local and state elections, I vote for the person who best articulates and has a track record of living the values that I care about, whether Democrat, Republican or independent. As a student of history, I have always been impressed with the way the Republican political machine gained and has largely held on to power state-wide and nationally since the Nixon 1970's to the present. Ironically, the GOP has in large part become successful especially throughout the South due to the rise of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's-1970's and the resultant "white flight" from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

Certainly one term that President George W. Bush has made popular is "Compassionate Conservatism", which I guess is supposed to stand for the new and friendlier Republican way of governing. The "No Child Left Behind" endeavor as well as partnerships with community organizations and faith-based programs were to be critical elements of this better brand of conservatism. But 8 years later, all we have are broken promises, bigger government, record national debt, shaky at best standing in the international community, armed forces that are stretched thin by unnecessary war, and the collapse of our sacred financial markets due to the greed encouraged by Republican deregulation of corporate America, just to name a "negative benefits".

So I want to know what happened to the supposed GOP values of 'small government' and how does the modern GOP (not sure if that is an irony) reconcile exploding federal budget deficits, government bailouts and takeovers of failing financial corporations, disregard for the Constitution & a more insidious invasion of privacy? To help answer this question I read a recent article written on these issues by Wick Allison, the former publisher of one of the most well-known Republican publications, The National Review. In this article, I think he does a great job of describing how so-called Conservatives got away from the true meaning of small government, and why he believes a new type of politician, Barack Obama can restore conservative (lowercase "c") government to the US.

I'll leave you with links to a few articles so you can read more for yourself:

Former National Review publisher endorses Obama

The Death of Republican Philosophy

Nice Bailout. Now Pay for It!

Dodd bill more aggressive than Treasury plan