Right-Wing Philistines

       American conservatism at one time held a set of beliefs that included things like anti-Communism, belief in limited government, und so weiter.  These principles were reflected by an intellectual class who made reference to them in their writings.  There were different strains of conservative thought, but common themes united the Barry Goldwaters, Russell Kirks, and William F. Buckleys.
       The past decade has seen a dramatic deevolution in the complexity of conservative thought.  Talk radio, which at one time seemed like a means for bypassing the liberal messages of network news, has encouraged a pettiness that doesn't become any movement.  Conservative thought has become obsessed with the economic.  Right-wing philistines only concern themselves over the economic life of man.  Cutting taxes has gone from being a treatment for symptoms of liberalism to being the entire Republican message!  Limited government and the more philosophical aspects of the message have gone the way of the passenger pigeon. 
       A few years ago, the TEA party movement started this process, in an Ayn Rand reaction to budget-busting Obama policies.  The TEA party was agnostic on social issues, hence one never saw people in colonial garb protesting gay marriage or abortion.  Their simplistic tirades about taxes ended up becoming the dominant strain on talk radio.  It never occurred to the right-wing philistines that Obama was hardly the first president to go to absurd lengths in growing the size and cost of government.  When a New York liberal decided to try to get the Republican Party's nomination, the memories of the right-wing philistines didn't encompass the decades of sex and scandal that he brought with him.  Absurdly, many people who were strongly religious started to compare him to King David, or say that he was God's anointed, meant to bring America back to her roots.  Those of us who were skeptics were decried as liberals.
       The result is a Republican Party that is morally bankrupt.  Having abandoned her principles to a horde of talk-radio dittoheads, she created an Obama-style continuing resolution (weren't we supposed to be done with such things?) that even funded the worshippers of Moloch over at Planned Parenthood!  The obvious question is whether voting Republican has any discernible effect over what kind of government we get.  We may get a tax cut, but the schema of government remains the same.