As Rational Reasoned Individuals Leave the Conservative Movement... GOP Bears Responsibilty

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

Reuters

I used to proudly call myself an independent conservative. Back when conservatives actually offered a cohesive, rational, and defensible national agenda directed at making America better. Somehow, don't ask me how the Republican party has managed to cause many intelligent and capable individuals who supported conservatism and the Republican party to look for other alternatives. Sadly it appears the party "brass" is either 1) incapable of, or 2) unwilling to recognize what it needs to change within the party to bring the many who have left it, as well as the conservative movement back to the fold.

Federal Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner, a Reagan appointee has described how the current Republican party has in fact made him less conservative.

NPR - Judge Richard Posner, a conservative on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, has long been one of the nation's most respected and admired legal thinkers on the right. But in an interview with NPR, he expressed exasperation at the modern Republican Party, and confessed that he has become "less conservative" as a result.

"I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy," he said.

Posner, who was appointed to the appeals court by Reagan, speculated that the leaks about the deliberations over the national health care law — which are apparently designed to discredit Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion upholding the law — would backfire. "I think these right-wingers who are blasting Roberts are making a very serious mistake," he said.

"Because if you put [yourself] in his position ... what's he supposed to think? That he finds his allies to be a bunch of crackpots? Does that help the conservative movement? I mean, what would you do if you were Roberts? All the sudden you find out that the people you thought were your friends have turned against you, they despise you, they mistreat you, they leak to the press. What do you do? Do you become more conservative? Or do you say, 'What am I doing with this crowd of lunatics?' Right? Maybe you have to re-examine your position."

Judge Posner certainly gets little to no argument from me.

Reuters - A conservative federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan said in an interview published Thursday that the Republican Party has gone “goofy” and that “these right-wingers who are blasting [Chief Justice John] Roberts are making a very serious mistake.”

“I mean, what would you do if you were Roberts?” Judge Richard Posner, of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, told NPR. “All of a sudden you find out that the people that you thought were your friends have turned against you, they despise you, they mistreat you, they leak to the press, what do you do? Do you become more conservative? Or do you say, ‘What am I doing with this crowd of lunatics?’”

He was referring, of course, to conservative backlash over Roberts’s opinion upholding President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Posner said “there’s been a real deterioration in conservative thinking” over the past 10 years...

Indeed...

Via: Memeorandum