I hear a lot of Republicans these days complaining bitterly about the need for serious reforms in DC. They lament our vanishing rights, the incremental intrusions of fed.com into our private affairs, the stench of moral decay all about us. Yessir, there’s a whole lotta hand-wringing going on in the GOP over the sorry state of things. “We need to get out and vote,” they say. “Write letters to Congress.” “Let’s get our act together, get organized.” “We need a new Republican revolution!”

Is there an echo in here, or is this just deja vu? There’ll be no Republican “revolution,” of course. Why? For the same reasons it never materialized when Republicans took control of Congress a few years back. Because the mainstream media are essentially under the direction of bleeding-heart, socialistic ideologues who report (or don’t) what they wish, when and how they choose, thereby controlling the flow of information to millions of Americans and setting the tone for whatever passes for public debate these days. Because liberalism (translated “socialism”) has become so ingrained in our institutions, social policies, and national psyche that few conservatives, let alone liberals, would be willing to pay the personal price of seeing it utterly abolished. And because, quite frankly, “traditional” American conservatism--the conservatism of our grandparents’ generation--is dead. We’ll probably not see its like in this nation again. May it rest in peace.

What treason! Surely I must be deluded! On the contrary, what has happened to American conservatism makes perfect sense when examined from, say, a “strategic” point of view. Conservatism is by nature defensive, in that it defends “what is” against the unceasing onslaught of “what could be.” And as any military strategist will tell you, you cannot fight a protracted defensive war against a determined, well-organized, well-armed adversary and expect to win. Conservatism does have its offensive capabilities, of course, but only to the extent that people accept the basis of its authority. “Traditional” American conservatism is, at its core, an extension of Judeo-Christian ethics. That is to say, the Bible is essentially the basis of its authority. One need not be a Christian to acknowledge this. Thus, to the extent that people respect the authority of the Bible, to that extent conservatism lays just claim to the moral high ground with regard to whatever issue or controversy currently occupies the public’s interest. What liberals have succeeded in doing, however, is to discredit the inspiration, and thus the authority, of the Bible in the mind of the masses, who have now taken the next logical step of rejecting out of hand the very notion of moral absolutism, while embracing the absolutism of moral relativism: The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

Some non-Christian conservatives may balk at the suggestion that the Bible lies at the heart of their political beliefs, for they have chosen to rely upon more “acceptable,” more “enlightened” standards by which to determine the moral temperature of America. In so doing, however, they’ve ironically assured the destruction of the conservatism they so vigorously defend. For example, most conservatives today, be they Christians or not, believe that homosexuality is wrong. But while Christian conservatives will appeal to the Scriptures to justify their views on homosexuality, secular conservatives must appeal to science (“statistics show that homosexuals don’t live as long as heterosexuals”) or good old common sense (“it’s just unnatural”). Unfortunately, neither science nor common sense equips them to defend against the devestating liberal argument: “Well, it may be wrong for you, but it’s right for me.” Whether they admit it or not, secular conservatives are powerless against the tidlewave of moral relativism that has swept across our nation. The best they can hope to do is dictate the pace of their retreat into obscurity. They’ve been forced into making small but constant concessions to the liberal worldview in order to assure their brand of conservatism remains not only relevant, but reasonably palatable to public tastes. The more concessions they make, the wider the gap between them and their Christian compatriots grows--and the further they stray from the spiritual fount of their “faith.”

Eventually, secular conservatism will come to have more in common with the relatively subdued liberalism of the 50s than with the conservatism of, for example, Ronald Reagan. It is only a matter of time until the GOP tent expands enough to accomodate “conservative homosexuals,” “conservative pro-choicers,” and so on. As a result, the distinction between them and their liberal opponents will become increasingly blurred. Not that it really matters; the war for the American mind has already been won--by the liberals--and the GOP is simply going through the painful motions of ratifying that victory, dying a slow, agonizing death in the meantime. Granted, conservativism will win a few battles on its way to the boneyard. And each time it does, Republicans will trumpet their victory far and wide, proclaiming a new dawning of conservatism, losing sight of the fact that while they’ve been kept busy fighting a thousand skirmishes on a thousand fronts, the liberals long ago outflanked them and are now in the process of dividing the spoils.

Poor Republicans! They’ll learn too late that one does not abandon one’s principles in order to win a war of principles. Rather, one stands firm in one’s convictions, irrespective of public opinion, and in so doing becomes a steadfast beacon of light to those who have lost their way. If a lighthouse is always moving, never remaining in one spot, it cannot be trusted for guidance. So it is that the GOP cannot be trusted, because it has become more concerned with opinion polls and winning elections than with standing firm on the bedrock of principle. As a result, those who grow disenchanted with the empty promises and cotton candy platitudes of liberalism will find no clear alternative in the GOP. They’ll simply turn to third parties: Libertarian, Reform, and so on. This, in turn, will further hasten the demise of the Republican Party.

Conservatism derives its strength from the loyalty of people to the values of yesterday, from the assumption that those values are not only right, but worth living by and defending. Liberalism, on the other hand, thrives on questioning the wisdom of the elders, if only to question for the sake of questioning. Look around. Which of these two opposing ideologies are being espoused by our mainstream media, our universities, artists, authors, journalists, poets, singers, and filmmakers? Once a society has lost sight of why its elders believed as they did, then what they did no longer seems relevant. That’s where America is today. In the broad scheme of things, the conservatism of our elders, the patriotism of our founders, seems irrelevant in a culture (according to liberals) as different from theirs as theirs was from medieval Europe.

That’s a crock, of course, but this nation seems intent on learning the hard way that while the stage may change, the actors remain the same. Human nature has not changed over the millennia, be the “stage” a village in Vermont, or a “village” that circles the globe. No, human nature has not changed, and neither has the nature of government. Thomas Jefferson’s words, penned in 1788, will likely prove as true (and prophetic) a hundred years hence as they have in our own day: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground” (Letter to Carrington).