The tendency of “Conservative” institutions to gutlessly defend a big-government statis-quo program like ObamaCare can often leave much to be desired. It’s like sending up The Bat Signal and having Ben Afflek respond. It’s like watching The Washington Redskins’ Defense attempt to stop a NFL offense from putting up 30+ points.

At times I’m left thinking that National Review could shorten their name a wee-tad for the sake of brevity, and continue peddling boilerplate Leftism under the masthead “The Nation.” Give or take an occasional copyright infringement suit, I’m not sure readers of this NRO article by Avik Roy would notice much philosophical difference.

Avik Roy demonstrates what a cynical, Inside-the-Beltway Conservative does to drive a cold, iron shiv into the kidneys of any Wacko-Bird who is naïve enough to actually believe in smaller government. It seems Avik Roy doesn’t want them to raise a stink by voting to defund ObamaCare in th FY14 Continuing Resolution. Efforts to assassinate the characters of Mike Lee and Ted Cruz follow below.

If you’re a regular reader of National Review, you know that a faction of conservatives, led by Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, have been seeking to convince Republicans to threaten to shut down the government if the Democrats don’t agree to fully defund Obamacare. However, there’s a larger faction of conservatives who see this as a reckless and destructive strategy.

When NRO starts favorably quoting anything you can go read on Slate, they’ve more or less drifted in the editorial direction that would make Slate Magazine seem more mainstream than most on the Right would find it to be. Roy essentially praises Slate for accusing The Heritage Institute of being a cabal of frauds. Weigel’s money quote comes from a staffer of Senator Jon Cornyn who is no fan of his fellow partisan from Texas, Senator Cruz.

“The Senate Conservatives Fund and Heritage Action . . . have spent more money so far on attack ads this year against House and Senate Republicans than the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic National Committee, combined,” calculates Brian Walsh, a former staffer to Senator John Cornyn (R., Tex.), in U.S. News. “All the while, virtually every Senate Democrat up for re-election in 2014 . . . has been given a free pass by these groups. . . . You see, money begets TV ads which begets even more money for these groups’ personal coffers. Pointing fingers and attacking Republicans is apparently a very profitable fundraising business.”

Yes, indeed. Anyone who wants to defund ObamaCare is not really sincere. They are all charlatans on a level of Joel Osteen passing the hat around for Jeebus. It’s all about the fundraising necessary to buy Ted Cruz a big private jet. That’s the only reason Avik Roy can believe a Conservative would oppose something so utterly banal and mild like ObamaCare. And I wish that prior sentence was merely snark. Roy describes how foolish he thinks opponents of ObamaCare are in the long run below.

Even if Obamacare can’t be reversed, it does not spell the doom of conservatism, any more than the passage of the Great Society in 1965 spelled the doom of conservatism, any more than the passage of the New Deal in the 1930s spelled the doom of conservatism, any more than the creation of the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve in 1913 spelled the doom of conservatism.

And this sort of attitude is what made The Whig Party what it became – extinct. No, defeats don’t doom conservatism. They just make it a heck of a lot harder to put into real-world practice. It got cozier up in Avik Roy’s Beltway perch after almost every item he cites in the above list. In this sense, there becomes less and less of a difference between a Republican and a Democrat.

As long as the Latte’s still get brewed at The K Street Starbucks, Avik Roy could truly give a rat’s rear-end less what ObamaCare does to the average American. Crazy people like Ted Cruz, who engage actual constituites in conversation and email, just don’t play the game. They rock the boat too much for Avik Roy’s effete, patrician sensibilities.

I mean who cares if ObamaCare requires some little guy’s cardiologist to ask questions about how many same-sex partners they have. I mean as long as Congress and The Federal Workforce are exempt, why would a Beltway Conservative like Avik Roy get his undies wadded up? The important things are covered.

No need to rock the boat – unless of course, you are actually foolish and stupid enough to believe in Conservative principles. The Right kills itself when it isn’t the Right. The only difference I see between NRO (as represented by Avik Roy’s latest article) and David Vitter is the type of prostitution industry that they help support. ObamaCare may well become the way in which the GOP goes the way of the Whig.