The Current Condundrum of the Conservative Party

     In today's times, conservatives have shifted so far right that they would reject Ronald Reagan if he campaigned today with his couple-decade old ideologies. Reagan was actually in favor of background checks, something that no republican, tea-party supporter, establishment, or libertarian, would ever be in favor of. Indeed, instead of shifting ever so slightly liberal as the passage of time should do, they have become more reactionary and unchanging as the rest of the world has moved onto the twenty-first century. The party still opposes gay and abortion rights, issues that almost all other first-world countries, even ones with conservative parties in charge, have granted. Even the drug wars, which the majority of the country is against, which costs billions of dollars, which is listed as the causation of the majority of arrests in America's top-ranking prison count, are supported by the supposedly fiscally responsible republicans. The military-industrial complex is so bloated that it is bigger than the next twelve biggest military budgets (including China and Russia) combined. Surely, it is plain that such policies, when looked at with some critical analysis, seem counter-intuitive. What can over-spending and over-regulating accomplish? Especially when republicans complain about an overreaching government when these policies do just that? Evidently, the answer to these questions cannot be synonymous with the general well-being to the country. It seems that all venues to do so leads to more sinister motives. The problems are two-fold: there is an imbalance of power due to the stratification of wealth and its potential influence in the current government, and the subsequent propaganda that cloaks this problem with other trivial concerns. Thanks to Citizens United (an ironic name, as is usually the case with regressive bills nowadays), entities, usually corporations due to their vast wealth, are able to make unlimited political "contributions," or legalized bribes. Such a problem is further complicated by the fact that the average election to run for the house or senate requires millions of dollars just to have a chance, resulting in a dependence on external support. Naturally the corporations, who traditionally donate the most, have the greatest influence. The answer to this problem is plain enough; just repeal the bill, right? Although such a solution is obvious and of no conceivable detriment to any individual, it sorely lacks the attention it so rightly deserves due to heavy propaganda. Perhaps the most glaring and, paradoxically, subtle proof to this statement is the average Joe's insistence that the media is liberal. If this astounding statement were true, then clearly the country would shift left instead of right over time due to its undeniable influence over the citizenry. Gay rights and drug wars would end before they started. Instead, the opposite is demonstrably true. When George Bush called on for war, claiming that his administration had solid proof that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction," every single media outlet reiterated this unfounded and highly dangerous sentiment constantly. There is no doubt that had the media not constantly bombarded their watchers with demonstrably false information, the U.S. would not have went to war nearly as quickly, perhaps not even doing so had the actual facts had time to surface. Even if one were to argue that although that it is not the case today, the most recent Syrian crisis disproves such an argument. Even now, when a democrat is in charge, the media went wild with stories insisting the U.S. had to go to war. Although this particular point may be attributed to the democratic party's own rightward shift, the fact that the republican party considers itself more extreme in matters of war makes matters far worse. By doing such ludicrous reporting, the media has shifted the gazes of the public away from more important matters such as education and representation. Even traditionally liberal media outlets support corporations, as is the case with Erin Burnett. The extreme shift to more reactionary methods has been so severe that even notable democrats such as Feinstein have gone so far as to propose legislation that severely limits the First Amendment Rights of practically everyone. Dubbed the Free Flow of Information Act (again ironically so), the law is being presented as a shield law when in fact it actually takes away protections of free speech of everyone that have always existed under the Bill of Rights except salaried journalists, i.e. virtually everyone except the establishment media. Senator Feinstein magnanimously stated that she "is not going to go there," referring to protecting the rights of bloggers and otherwise average people. The bill has passed the senate and is moving on to the house for a vote. Even though some democrats and a few republicans oppose such ridiculous bills that seem to be proposed every other day now, almost all republicans are invariably in favor of them. The republican party has been losing more and more voters since Ronald Reagan, meaning that if it is to survive it has to at least partially shift to a more reasonable and less restrictive, anti-middle and lower-class position on its policies. In the past, such thinking of a mainstream party would have been cast as mere lunacy. But more and more people agree that the government is becoming extraordinarily unresponsive to everyday people, and that it must be more connected to the majority constituency. As the democrats have followed suit to become more conservative, the republicans must become more moderate for the betterment of all of America.