(This is an Autumn 2011 commentary re-posted here for your reading and enjoyment.)

For years now – decades, in fact – we conservatives have been warned about our platform, our conduct, our demeanor. We have been told to act in a benevolent and compromising manner and are assured that the path to political victory for our movement is in moderation. We are instructed that we must not be seen as confrontational or demanding.

Yet the most successful Republican president of the last 100 years was a commanding conservative named Ronald Reagan…

And we have been warned not just by our Democrat adversaries but by our Republican adversaries, the ones who often hew to an agenda put forward by the ‘progressive’ movement (i.e., the far left).

Huh? Progressivism in the Republican party? Are you kidding?!

Yes. Progressivism. Liberalism. It started with Teddy Roosevelt who might as well have been a Democrat. And John McCain spent a lot more time spinelessly disrespecting conservatives than he spent criticizing Obama and the Democrats. Which is precisely why he is not president today.

Because liberalism and progressivism have now infected the Republican party after they have taken over and undermined the Democrat party. And if we allow them to continue to take over the Republican party our nation will die because socialism is a materialistic ethos of decline and decay.

George W. Bush was a liberal Republican who gave us things we might expect from a progressive – disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a massive new Medicare entitlement, open borders and runaway spending even with a Republican-controlled Congress.

And don’t forget that the atheistic materialism in the ‘moderate’ Republican business establishment is a trait of the left. After all socialism is a materialistic ethos that rejects God and loves money. Just like Republican business interests reject God in favor of profits. That is why they are called Rockefeller Republicans. They don’t go to church except for show, rest assured.

And that is fine. Just as long as they know who they are. And just as long as we know who they are.

On the other side of the coin, we rational conservatives simply apply common sense to every issue. We ask, “What is good for America about more debt, two wars, open borders and an increasingly secular society?”

Nothing is good about any of these policies. And our position is not radical. It is rational. And most independents, understanding rationality when they see it, agree with us.

And liberals and progressives know one thing: That the only block to total power for them is in the rational ethos of peaceful, rational, productive, faith-based conservatism.

Because they recognize that conservatism is not an ideology but is clearly anti-ideology. And that is why they fear it. Because they understand that their ideology is up against something that is alien to them – common sense and rationality and faith in a higher power, which is what makes us conservatives conservative.

Now we have the Republicans constantly warning us Tea Partiers that we are going to go too far and upset the “moderates” and the “independents” who are the swing voters who decide elections.

We are told that the “independents” are like a squirrel that we wish to attract with food and honey, and that we must not make any sudden moves or that we conservatives will scare off the squirrel.

Yet Obama goes around handing out $800 billion for a failed “stimulus” and billions more for corrupt solar energy and independent voters are not supposed to care?

Sure they care. That is why the Media Left are keeping these stories as quiet as possible. If this were any Republican, particularly a conservative, these stories would be all over the editorials of NBC, CNN, the New York Times etc.

Meanwhile we have Obama calling for “civility” when in fact his Democrats are the most radical, uncivil, racist and bigoted people in America.

So what gives? How are the undecided voters of America supposed to be terrified of our conservative and rational prescriptions for creating a new prosperous and rational order in America but somehow they are not going to be terrified by Maxine Waters and the occupying protesters on Wall Street with their belligerent tone and their hate speech and their radical language and their calls for revolution?

Well, apparently when the left offers us extremism the moderates are not going to be offended. Or at least that is what the occupiers and their backers in the Democrat party like Nancy Pelosi seem to think.

But there are now Democrats who are warning their party of the danger they are stepping into with these protesters. And only the next election will tell what the voters really think about all this. Because the reactions of the radical Democrats like Waters and the Wall Street occupiers are direct reactions to the effectiveness of the sensible, calm Tea Parties who won the last election Big Time.

Yet still we conservatives are maligned by Republicans. Yet we are actually offering a calm, assured path to reform – a legal, legislative plan to economic rebirth. We do not propose radical ideas like having the corporations take over the government or cutting social programs to zero. On the other hand we are not holding anti-Semitic signs and ranting about revolution. We are rejecting extremism of all kinds.

In a recent article in the New York Times, one mainstream Republican figure expressed amazement that the newly-elected Tea Party members in the US Congress were not giddy about their new power, but that they were in Washington only to serve the bigger cause of restraining government.

This shows the Republican establishment for what it really is – a Big Government party that is enamored of the power and money in Washington. Just like the Democrats.

But America was founded on the aspirations of the common man, that he too could have a piece of the pie. And to the Big Government advocates in both parties that is simply folly. And that is why they both oppose us conservatives and why the independent voters of America indeed are with us for the long haul. Because we believe truly in liberty, prosperity and justice for all.

Please visit my blog at www.nikitas3.com for more conservative insights.