As some have said above, the "Tea Party Patriots" really don't seem to be true conservatives. I would think that true conservatives are those that favor business, and see business instead of government as the true, rational, and effective solution to social needs and problems - the center of decision-making for society. Conversely, "liberals" would then see government as the solution for social problems and the necessary center of decision-making. I think that both of these perspectives are valid and need to be included in the process of running our society. They are different, and they conflict with each other - but both are valid.

I think that the goals of true conservatism were accomplished through most of the presidential administrations of the second half of the twentieth century, particularly during the administrations of Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton-Gore (who, to my mind, were Republicans in Democrat clothing). I will exclude the Bush-Cheney administration from consideration because I think they were extremist, evangelical idiots - not true conservatives. There really hasn't been much of a move toward "liberal" government since the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson. Clinton-Gore privatized my government job (a conservative ideal Reagan tried but didn't accomplish). Clinton-Gore attempted and Obama accomplished a corporation-dominated healthcare program, instead of the single-payer program that would be closer to the "liberal" (socialist) ideal. In international relations, the US has always been closer to the conservative ideal of solving conflicts by military power, instead of the liberal ideal that would tend more toward pacifism. Liberals would tend to tax corporations and the rich heavily, but that's not the tax structure you'll find in the US nowadays. Liberals would expect workers to have long-term employment and the expectation of a decent pension and health benefits, but job security and benefits are constantly dwindling in the US. Instead of being able to expect a stable pension on retirement, workers now have to give their money to banks and the stock market and hope there's something left after the fat cats have taken their supersize share. Even the Obama stimulus programs that the Tea Party Patriots decry, are of primary benefit to corporations, not to needy individuals.

So, I think the reason that the only "conservatives" we can find nowadays are these Tea Party idiots, is that the true conservative ideals have been accomplished and the Republicans no longer have anything to fight for. It may well be that liberalism is near dead in the US (and getting there in Europe), and that conservatism is alive and well and just doesn't realize it.

As for me, I'm waiting for the Second Coming.....of FDR.

-Joe-