Future of Conservatism

"Republicans by consensus in Washington need to be less tolerant of sleeze than Democrats, since conservatism and traditionalism are moral precepts."

There probably isn't a better sentence that sums up modern conservatism than the one above by Victor Hanson. I've always considered myself a conservative Democrat. Conservative in the classic Goldwater sense, not in the modern Limbaugh sense. And I think where conservatism went wrong was when they used morality to judge their ideology. It is humanly impossible to set a moral standard when morality was never meant to be set. It's something to strive for no doubt. But not something that can define politics. It just can't. Some may disagree with me, and that's fine.

When morality is your precept, it automatically gives off the impression that others who don't walk your line aren't moral. That too is debatable but over the last 15 years or so we've seen many politicians of the conservative lot turn up scandal after scandal causing the "movement" to become scarred with uncountable hypocrisy. It would be wise, in my view, to set the bar a little lower than morality. Of course doing that destroys modern conservatism and admonishes the Christian right. In the long run, I think it's worth it.