The Face of Conservatism
What is it with the Millers? The Strange Case of Zell and Dennis Miller.
Republican Party found to be harboring Conservatives...
but the Democratic Party is not without then either.
In fact they have harbored Zell Miller and Gary Condit...
...two strong Conservatives, who are really more Conservative than they are Democrats, and admittedly so.
Zell Miller complains about "his party leaving HIM". Well, what would you expect when the feller acts like an adolescent hothead? What is a gentleman to do? Respect the man for acting like a boor and a madman? This sort of behavior might be fine, even de rigour, for Conservatives, but frankly it is too intolerant, too illiberal, for the mainstream of America, and it is certainly over the top for the gentle and kind Liberal.
But now that I have had time to think about the matter, I am glad that he exposed not only the content, but also the style of today's Conservative. It may well prove to be the very tipping point where people realize Liberal is not such a bad thing, and Conservative is not such a good thing.
After all...today, the real fringe, the real radicals, are on the Right, not the Left. The Left are really only just those with the backbone to stand up to the Right. In every other way, they are the center.
The Left is the defender of the center in more ways than one. The Left defends the common well; air, water, peace... the things we all cherish and, usually, share. The Right, however, is trying to privatize water, in fact they already are, and they have privatized not Peace, but War...and it won't be long before they privatize air. But some things should be geyond mere purchase by the highest bidder. It is this sharing of the common well that has been where politics end. But no longer. And it is time to become a little more traditional in this sense of protecting the well.
And the Center should not resent the Left for fighting to protect it. It is their children and grandchildren who will most benefit, or failing the help, suffer its loss.
It really is a time for a kinder, gentler America. At home AND abroad. Zell Miller ain't it. Pat Buchanan ain't it. Rush Limbaugh ain't it. O'Reilly certainly ain't it. And the Conservatives, of which these are all big stars, ain't it.
Republicans should think twice about harboring these hothead, intolerant, illiberal radicals. The Democrats, you can bet, will. Mean-spiritedness may play well in certain televangelized congregations in holdout haunts in the Deep South, but it cuts against the grain of common decency most everywhere else. The world certainly finds these intolerant cults to be atavistic and counter-productive.
