Conservatism in Crisis

One debate among Conservatives who saw this economic crisis coming over the last 2 years(there were not many, but a few) or so has been whether the crisis would lead to, in general, more support for Conservative economic policies, whatever shambles they are left in after W Bush, or less support.
The answer appears to be more and more obvious that the slow train wreck of economic disaster that is unfolding is being blamed on "Bush's Conservative economic policies." Conservatives are going over the cliff because they have never fully detached themselves from Bush like they did from his father. After that detachment they won the Congress in a landslide in 1994. In this decade they made the opposite decision and hitched to an ineffectual, incompetent failure who was not even a Conservative anyway. Its quite inexplicable.

The horrible truth however, is that in general it is conservative economic policies, in the traditional sense, that are needed to get us out of the crisis, not Bush's policies. Purging debt through spending cuts, finding alternatives to the income tax and decentralizing banking are what is needed. This will not avoid the disaster, that is already happening. But they are the only way to perhaps avert a collapse of the entire economy.

I say that with the knowledge that the problems we are experiencing now will accelerate the demographic crisis that is approaching and the mix will collapse the economy. Therefore, if the current crisis is prolonged through bad policies, we could be facing an economic meltdown as the horrible problems of the present meet the calamitous problems of the near future.

Any way you look at it, Conservatism is in crisis, and for any thoughtful Liberals that is also a crisis because a healthy Conservative movement is needed to keep in check the radical Left.

John.