Most voters do not think in philosophical terms. This is not to say they don’t have political philosophies. It’s just that they arrive at their politics—first and foremost—according to which politicians they like most.

This phenomenon is perhaps easiest to observe at the moment in Obama Democrats, who’ve seen so many liberal policy promises ignored or rejected now that their guy has become president. If the Left once hated the Patriot Act and our Middle East wars with a passion, under Obama that hatred and passion has evaporated as quickly as the antiwar movement. What liberals really despised was George W. Bush. Now that a Democrat continues with the same policies, the Left magically doesn’t find them so terrible anymore.

Sarah Palin is the new George W. Bush. This is not to insult the former Alaska governor, only to note that Palin has replaced the former president as a focus of Left hatred. Just ask the average liberal their opinion of Palin. The venom spewed in your direction won’t have much to do with any particular policies, it will instead be an immediate and emotional rejection of her very person, combined with some snarky tidbits about her accent or intelligence.

Palin is adored by conservatives for the same—if extreme opposite—personality-driven reasons. Ask the average conservative what they like about Palin and you will hear very little if anything about policy or philosophy. You will hear is that she’s a good mother. You will hear that she’s all-American. Maybe they’ll mention that she’s a good hunter.

Much like Obama Democrats and their hero—conservatives love Palin first and foremost because they recognize her as one of their own. Palin is the purest example of what I like to call “identity conservatism” in that “who” she is—a self-identified and widely recognized conservative—is far more important than “what” she believes specifically.

The best current opposite example of Palin on the Right is Ron Paul. Ask the average Paul fanatic what they like about him and all you will hear nothing but specific policies: “Follow the Constitution!” “End the Fed!” “End the War!” Paul is the purest example of what I like to call “philosophical conservatism” in that what he believes—strict adherence to limited government and Constitutional principles—is more important to him and his followers than how his party perceives him. In fact, the problems Paul has had with Republican voters at the national level have always been to what extent identity conservatives have welcomed him as one of their own.

And the party today is now far more welcoming. If the philosophically-based Paul never changes his positions, the Republican Party that surrounds him now shifts due precisely to the current conservative identity crisis. The pro-war rhetoric conservatives loved Bush for, and John McCain led with in the last election, now firmly belongs to President Obama. Some conservatives decided this meant they should try to talk more “tough” and portray Obama as “weak.” No doubt this has worked for some. But far more dominant is this narrative: Faced with a $14 trillion dollar debt, a highly questionable decade-long war in Afghanistan and a demonstrably stupid war in Libya—can we continue with our current foreign policy status quo?

Conservatives now ask this question regularly and it’s become especially pertinent amongst the majority of 2012 Republican presidential candidates. When I noted this GOP shift towards Paul’s politics in my last commentary (“Ron Paul Won the Debate”) more than a few Paul admirers were quick to say that this shift wasn’t truly philosophical, but opportunistic. They’re right. But their first mistake is to assume that most Republican voters—or any voters for that matter—are primarily philosophical in their politics. They’re not, they never have been, and they likely never will be.

It is a fact of politics, however frustrating or unfortunate, that most voters and candidates in both parties are driven by identity first. If Paul supporters are characteristically dismissive of a Michele Bachmann because she supports the Patriot Act or a Herman Cain because he worked for the Fed—the vast majority of voters are looking first at who to “like” or who “seems presidential.” To such voters the individual policies of the candidates are indeed important—but typically not as important as the overall package. In fact, most of these conservatives like Paul’s individual limited government policies—it’s the strident philosophical package that sometimes troubles them. Likewise, most conservatives never bother to examine Palin’s individual policies too closely because they are already madly in love with the package.

This is not to say that identity voters are dumb. In fact they simply behave the way most voters—and indeed most people—behave. Ask yourself this: How many of your family members or friends begin political discussions with a substantive examination of policies? Now ask this: How many start political discussions first with the personalities involved, who they “like,” who seems “weird,” who is a “nut” and who is not? Are these family members and friends necessarily “dumb”—or merely human? Most people, in their personal and public relationships, look for other people they think they can trust and then generally give them the benefit of the doubt. Also very few normal people let politics dictate their daily lives—something so many hardcore politicos (including this writer) often forget.

Few voters are driven purely by identity and few are driven purely by philosophy, but in politics the former will always outweigh the latter. Likewise, philosophical candidates can also become identity candidates or vice versa: Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were philosophers who eventually personified conservative identity. Palin, along with her party, now reexamines her own conservative identity as it relates to foreign policy. Said Palin this month of Afghanistan’s president: “If President Karzai continues with these public ultimatums, we must consider our options about the immediate future of U.S. troops in his country… (including) the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and the suspension of U.S. aid.”

Needless to say, Palin’s old running mate McCain does not agree with this consideration.

It is highly improbable that the masses will one day become purely philosophical in their politics. But to encourage Republican voters to finally identify more closely with true philosophical conservatism is more than just possible—it’s happening. To what degree is still in question. To what end no one can currently answer. But a truly savvy minority of philosophical conservatives certainly wouldn’t discourage mainstream Republicans who begin to question the status quo—much less dismiss them when they finally give the Right answers, however impure or opportunistic they may be.

Philosophical conservatives shouldn’t just mock the Right’s current identity crisis—they should be trying to commandeer and command it.

Ron Paul won the debate. Not necessarily the presidential debate that took place this week—but the most important debates now taking place in the Republican Party. Monday night’s event was but the latest example.

Observers who now give former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann high marks for their debate performances are not wrong. Both candidates exhibited well that presidential “style” of so much worth to pundits and voters.

But what about substance? Who best represents the GOP’s current philosophy?

At the second debate of the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, FOX News’ Carl Cameron posed the following question to candidate Paul: “Congressman Paul, yet another question about electability: Do you have any?” The audience laughed as did the other candidates. But Cameron’s condescending question did contain a valid point: What place was there in the 2008 GOP for a limited government, antiwar Republican?

Fast forward: How much room is there in today’s GOP for the Republican model circa 2008? Early 2008 presumed frontrunner Rudy Giuliani garnered much popularity due almost entirely to his aggressive foreign policy. This was true even amongst religious conservatives despite his socially liberal views. Rudy might not have been a constitutionalist, pro-life or pro-gun; but he was pro-war. That was good enough for many conservatives in 2008.

Eventual nominee John McCain had many problems with the conservative base in the last election—not the least of which was his big government record. In McCain’s defense, the Senator’s routine statism wasn’t that much different or offensive than that of President Bush. Luckily for McCain the party agreed and rallied around his “Country First” platform of “100 years” in Iraq and certain war with Iran. Of course, the economic downturn would interrupt McCain’s preferred foreign policy election narrative and America chose a Democrat who promised more jobs and less war.

Try to imagine McCain—whose current passion seems to be cheerleading for Obama’s war in Libya—on this year’s debate stage. It’s now become a conservative consensus that the US intervention in Libya is a bad idea. Candidate Newt Gingrich—a Bush Republican at heart yet deft enough to adapt—was for the Libyan war before he was against it. Populist candidate Herman Cain gave a list of reasons Libya was wrongheaded. Bachmann proudly proclaimed her opposition to the Libyan intervention. Perhaps most amusing was Romney, who said that the US military should not be used to fight for the independence of other nations. This was a complete reversal of his 2008 position when Romney thought that the primary purpose of the US military was to fight for the independence of other nations via his “No Apology” support for the Iraq War.

If the 2008 Republican primaries were based heavily on foreign policy, Monday night’s event did not even broach the subject until 90 minutes into the two hour debate—and there were only two questions from the audience about it. The first was from a Navy veteran with three sons currently serving overseas. The concerned father wanted to know, with Osama Bin Laden now dead, when we would be leaving Afghanistan. The other audience question came from a man who wanted to know how America could afford to have hundreds of bases all over the world considering our debt crisis.

How many 2008 GOP voters were asking when we might be bringing the troops home? How many would have even thought to question America’s global military footprint and tie it to spending? If Bush had intervened in Libya, would these Republican candidates have supported it? In the last election, would Romney have felt compelled to say that our military should be used more cautiously?

The reason foreign policy wasn’t discussed for most of the debate is because the 2012 GOP’s first concern—like much of the country—is the economy. But in 2008, Paul was already warning of the current economic crisis. In fact, Paul’s argument has always been that America is going bankrupt due in large part to an expensive and detrimental foreign policy. The questions related to foreign policy asked Monday were far more sympathetic to Paul’s long held views than that of any other Republican candidate in 2008. The fiscal concerns discussed were a lot closer to what Paul has been talking about for three decades as his fellow and supposedly more “electable” Republicans laughed at such warnings.

Like Bob Dole in 1996, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004 and McCain in 2008, most candidates are quickly forgotten not simply because they lost—but because they weren’t philosophers. Their opinions change with the political wind, as evidenced by many of the candidates Monday night.

But who influences which way those winds might blow? The last real philosopher candidates to get the Republicans’ nod—Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan—had to change their party’s philosophy before winning any nominations or presidencies. This is instructive because it reminds us that changing hearts and minds is just as important—if not more important—than merely winning the next election.

Whether Ron Paul gets the nomination or wins any future debates remains to be seen. Whether he is winning the debate does not.

The term “isolationist” is much like the word “racist” in that it has become almost useless due to its overuse. For example, if the Left rightly considers Ku Klux Klan members racist—but also members of the Tea Party who merely criticize President Obama “racist”—such a glaring logical disparity cries out for a reassessment of terminology. A word that can mean anything can quickly become meaningless—and it also becomes a great rhetorical weapon in a political environment that substitutes smears for thoughtful debate.

Such was the case at the Wall Street Journal last week which published an editorial entitled: “The Kucinich Republicans: The House GOP turns isolationist on Libya and war powers.” The “Kucinich Republicans” were the 87 GOP House members who supported liberal Democrat Dennis Kucinich’s bill forcing a withdrawal of American troops from Libya within 15 days. What made these House Republicans “isolationist,” according to the WSJ, is that they now undermine the President by challenging his constitutional war powers and questioning his authority according to the War Powers Resolution Act of 1973.

The WSJ makes the case that American presidents have long committed troops or taken military action without Congressional approval. It also makes the case that these same presidents and many on Capitol Hill today consider the War Powers Resolution Act unconstitutional. Said Sen. John McCain: “No president has ever recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, and neither do I. So I don’t feel bound by any deadline.” Asks columnist George Will: “Oh? No law is actually a law if presidents and senators do not ‘recognize’ it?”

Will makes a good point. Many Americans and a few in Congress believe the Internal Revenue Service is unconstitutional. Similarly, many also believe the same is true concerning Obamacare. What might happen if the people or their elected officials simply decide not to ‘recognize’ the legality of either?

The entire purpose of the House of Representatives is that the “people,” through their elected representatives, should act as a counterbalance to the Senate and Executive branch, as outlined in the Constitution. The entire overall purpose of our Constitution is to limit the power of the federal government; and it explicitly vests to the president the power of how to wage war—to Congress, when to wage it. Obama now does both while completely ignoring Congress. The inability of so many of our leaders to recognize and respect this important constitutional distinction is indicative of their routine recklessness. That the WSJ considers the historical precedent of routine recklessness justification for virtually unlimited Executive war powers, also suggests that the supposedly conservative newspaper now considers the Constitution itself a moot point.

But if the WSJ finds challenging the constitutionality of Obama’s actions in Libya absurd because it also finds the Constitution absurd—perhaps even more ridiculous is calling House Republicans who challenge this war president “isolationist.”

To my knowledge, there are no genuine isolationists—those who would build an economic, diplomatic and perhaps literal wall around this country—in modern American politics. There are leaders on Capitol Hill who are regularly called “isolationist,” much like there are those in Washington who are called “racist”—but you will find few if any elected officials who truly fit the traditional definition of these terms.

This is particularly true of the charge leveled by the WSJ at the 87 House Republicans who voted to withdraw troops from Libya. Most Americans do not understand why we are in Libya. Many leaders in both parties can’t understand why we’re in Libya. President Obama cannot give the American people a straight answer as to what interest the US has in Libya.

But who is enthusiastic about the war in Libya? “Obama Republicans” like Sen. McCain. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find an American military intervention overseas in the last few decades that McCain and similar-minded Republicans and Democrats were not enthusiastic about. Because of such consistent bipartisan champions of hyper-interventionism, the US now has arguably the most expansive and globally involved foreign policy in history. We also have a historical debt to match it.

The notion that questioning the wisdom of this foreign policy status quo is “isolationist”—something even outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates says needs serious reassessment—is a rejection of any discernible definition of that term. That the WSJ considers Republicans who question our war in Libya isolationist—a curious situation that not only a majority of Americans but the entire world looks upon with bewilderment—should really disqualify that newspaper from ever using the term again.

There isn’t a political trend or movement in this country currently that even remotely approaches genuine isolationism—but the extreme opposite of what that term actually means is treated as a matter of fact and finality in Washington every day. Indeed, if we were to take the WSJ’s definition seriously almost every other nation on earth could be considered isolationist. And calling Washington leaders who now insist on limiting the President’s power through fidelity to the Constitution “isolationist,” makes about as much sense as calling a devout husband a “bad lover” for refusing to share his passion with scores of women.

Wrote Kucinich bill co-sponsor Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) in his response to the Wall Street Journal editorial: “The Constitution is not a list of suggestions; it is the law of the land.” To the extent that this President or any other is forced to obey this nation’s laws, will also be the extent to which he is prevented from taking America to war needlessly in other lands.

Make no mistake: This is precisely what the political establishment fears most—and it will make any argument or disobey any law necessary to protect the unlimited power to which Washington has become so accustomed.

When I first heard about the scandal involving Congressman Anthony Weiner and some inappropriate photos that were taken of his private parts, I could’ve cared less. I simply thought of Weiner as a big government liberal who was pretty much like everyone else in Washington, DC—part of the problem. If Weiner was ever voted out of office his liberal district would probably elect another candidate just like him. If he were thrown out of office for being a sexual pervert, the same sort of replacement would likely occur. Scandal or no scandal, Weiner’s ultimate fate would do little to advance the cause of limited government—so I simply didn’t care what happened to him.

Writing from South Carolina, when I first heard about the 2009 scandal involving my state’s governor, Mark Sanford, cheating on his wife with an Argentinian mistress, it immediately depressed me. In his thorough fiscal conservatism—including being a lone voice amongst governors in standing up to President Obama’s so-called “stimulus” spending—Sanford was one of the few Republicans dedicated to reining in government spending. Even before the scandal, I worried that Sanford’s successor would be just another conventional big government Republican. Post-scandal, I worried that Sanford might be forced him to resign thus making way for some handpicked GOP hack. Scandal or no scandal, Sanford’s ultimate fate concerned me precisely because I did not want to see one of the few Republicans serious about limiting government banished from the political stage.

This is not to say I supported or even excused Sanford’s infidelity. I didn’t then and I still find it deplorable. Similarly, Weiner seems to be living up to his name and now the creepy confessor deserves whatever bad fortune comes his way. But as far as I’m concerned both men are, first and foremost, politicians. Their worth or worthlessness to me is based entirely on their politics.

But what about character, some might ask? Doesn’t someone’s personal judgment say much about their political judgment? Perhaps it does, and ideally I would prefer to support only political leaders who exhibited basic morality and common decency.

The problem is such idealism often clashes with political reality. For example, by all accounts Barack Obama is a morally upstanding and decent family man. To our knowledge, the President is a good father and a loving husband. We have little reason to believe otherwise. For conservatives, does this make Obama a preferable leader over someone like Sanford? Likewise, would liberals really prefer a morally wholesome conservative to a big-government sleazebag like Weiner?

The latter is the easier to discern, as we now see so many liberals not demanding the resignation of Weiner in the same manner they would have any Republican caught in similar scandal. Yes, in supporting liberal leaders, the Left has always been able to enjoy the less politically constrictive standards of social liberalism characteristic of Left philosophy.

In just the past five years, Republicans like Congressmen Mark Foley (who sent sexually explicit text messages to a teenage boy), Mark Souder (who had an affair with a staffer), Chris Lee (who sent shirtless photos of himself to a woman on Craigslist) and of course Senator Larry Craig (who had a questionable encounter with another man in a rest area), were all forced to resign from office. If Weiner keeps his office, it will be due in large part to the socially liberal attitude of his party. Bill Clinton can attest to this.

And the Left might actually be onto something. When I think of the chronic immorality of Washington leaders my first thoughts are not of Tweeted private parts and Argentinian mistresses. I think of a government that believes in taking the fruit of a man’s labor and redistributing it as it sees fit. I think of a government that sends America’s sons and daughters off into mindless wars for no clear or defined reasons. I think of a government that runs roughshod over the Constitution as both habit and sport. And I think of the immorality of burdening the next generation, their children and grandchildren with unfathomable debt—which continues to devalue our currency and damage our country.

One need not go searching for these immoral government acts on Twitter or in the National Enquirer when they can be found in any news headline at any given moment. Yes, Anthony Weiner and his goofy sex life is unquestionably sad and pathetic but so is the lopsided amount of attention America pays to such trivialities—considering the routine immoral behavior committed in Washington everyday by even the most personally wholesome politicians.

President Obama’s intervention in Libya—pardon me, “NATO’s” intervention in Libya—has become a moment of reflection for conservatives. Whereas the Right gave the last Republican president carte blanche on foreign policy despite cries from the Left about abuse of power, many conservatives now mimic those complaints by demanding that our current Democratic president follow the rule of law.

The Libyan intervention Obama promised would last only “days, not weeks” has now lasted over two months—a direct violation of the War Powers Resolution which requires the President to get Congressional authority for such action after 60 days. Writes conservative columnist George Will: “The U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war, intervention that began with a surplus of confusion about capabilities and a shortage of candor about objectives, is now taking a toll on the rule of law.”

Will isn’t alone in his concern. While the establishment centrists of both the Democratic and Republican leadership continue to shield Obama from the rule of law, some of the loudest demands that this war president be held accountable continue to come from the Right.

In the Senate, some of that body’s most conservative members—Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Tom Coburn and John Cornyn—were co-signers of a May 18 letter to Obama insisting that the President respect the War Powers Resolution and rule of law. Needless to say, Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and “maverick” Republican John McCain vocally disagree with these conservative senators.

In the Republican-controlled House, Speaker John Boehner and the rest of the moderate GOP establishment predictably had the President’s back. Likewise, Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich—one of the few antiwar liberals who did not sell out with the election of Obama—predictably launched a full-frontal assault on this war president. Kucinich introduced what the Washington Post called a “drastic” proposal that demands Obama withdraw forces from Libya within 15 days. Kucinich’s co-sponsor was Republican Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana. Indeed, some of Kucinich’s loudest champions concerning this legislation were conservative Republicans. Reports the Post: “Now, a Democratic president has asked the country to support a new military action and missed a legal deadline that required him to get Congress’s authorization. In response, an antiwar movement has appeared in an unlikely place: a House dominated by the Republican right.”

Co-sponsor Burton noted “I think, in the House, there’s probably enough votes to pass this,” and he must’ve been right—after closed door meetings with fellow Republicans the GOP leadership tabled the measure. Said Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith, “His intention is not to undermine the commander in chief, at a time when we have troops in harm’s way.”

Never mind that the Founding Fathers’ intended for Congress—especially the “people’s house” in the House of Representatives—to be the governing body that  determines what justified putting “troops in harm’s way.” True to his characteristic Bush Republican form, Speaker Boehner obviously believes this important decision should lie entirely with the President in defiance of the Constitution’s explicit instructions that Congress must declare war.

Make no mistake—a majority of Republicans in both the Senate and House still retain the same doltish mindset as Boehner. But then again, a majority of Republicans have never been conservative. This is nothing new. What is new is that the minority of Republicans who are beginning to rethink American foreign policy are almost exclusively conservatives. Kucinich bill supporter, Republican Rep. Jeff Flake perhaps had the greatest insight this week: “There’s been disquiet for a long time. Republicans have been too eager to support some military ventures abroad. And this, (getting out of Libya) I think, is perhaps a little more consistent with traditional conservatism.”

Flake is right. Perhaps more than he realizes.

Known as “Mr. Republican,” in the mid-twentieth century, Sen. Robert Taft led the conservative charge against the prevailing Democratic belief that it was America’s mission to “make the world safe for democracy,” as defined by Woodrow Wilson and promoted by Franklin Roosevelt. In 1946, Taft said that the US went to war to “maintain the freedom of our own people… Certainly, we did not go to war to reform the world.” In 1957, author Russell Kirk would write in his “Ten Canons of Conservative Thought:” “In the affairs of nations, the American conservative feels that his country ought to set an example to the world, but ought not to try to remake the world in its image.” Despite neoconservative assertions to the contrary, many historians have noted Ronald Reagan’s distaste for prolonged military conflict and that he had the least interventionist policy of any president in the last 50 years. Wrote Pat Buchanan of his former boss: “Reagan did not harbor some Wilsonian compulsion to remake the world in the image of Vermont.” At the end of his life, National Review founder William F. Buckley called the Iraq War a mistake and suggested that Bush should be impeached. So did Dennis Kucinich.

It is no mistake that many of the GOP’s most conservative members now more closely align themselves with what some might consider liberal antiwar positions, precisely because prudence in foreign affairs has always been the traditionally conservative position. This might become easier to see the more conservatives realize that Bush was this generation’s Wilson and Obama is now the new FDR—promoting big government at home and abroad with utopian rhetoric and reckless abandon.

Concerning foreign policy, traditional conservatives have always been concerned first with America’s interest, caution and restraint, and the rule of law—something Taft and Kirk always knew, Reagan and Buckley were old enough to remember and too many conservatives today have all but forgotten.

This week, more than a few Republicans proved that genuine American conservatism isn’t entirely dead yet—as a Democratic war president unintentionally jogs the Right’s historical memory and helps to revive conservatism’s traditionalist heart.

If Americans needed another reminder of why the Democratic Party is absolutely worthless, they got it during last week’s Patriot Act extension debate when Senate Majority leader Harry Reid again behaved exactly like the Bush-era Republicans he once vigorously opposed. In 2005, Reid bragged to fellow Democrats, “We killed the Patriot Act.” Today, Reid says that anyone who opposes the Patriot Act might be responsible for the killing of Americans. Dick Cheney now hears an echo and Americans deserve congressional hearings—as to whether Harry Reid is a sociopath, mere liar, or both.

But while Democrats stand pat for Bush Republicanism, the GOP now debates the extent to which it will remain the party of Dubya. Tea Party favorites like Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Congressmen Ron Paul, Justin Amash, Allen West and others, all voted against the Patriot Act. To varying degrees, each of these GOP representatives questioned the act’s effectiveness and legality. But unfortunately, most Republicans still won’t ask any questions.

The “War on Terror” that defined and preoccupied Republicans during the Bush era brought with it not only massive government growth and debt, but an unprecedented expansion of extra-constitutional state power, symbolized most famously by the Patriot Act. In the name of national security, government officials could begin wiretapping phones, hacking into email accounts, prying into business records and spying on citizens—all without a warrant and at government officials’ own discretion. Defenders say the Patriot Act did what needed to be done after 9/11. Critics say it did away with the 4^th amendment.

Let us say both have a point, and that for arguments sake, both Harry Reid and Dick Cheney are correct in arguing that it is sometimes necessary to surrender our liberties for increased security. Is this still true a decade after 9/11? Will it be true two decades after 9/11? How about three? Have the actions of Osama Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists forever altered our Bill of Rights?

Allegedly, the default position for conservatives is to distrust the government and defer to the Constitution. Concerning the Patriot Act, too many conservatives position is to blindly trust the government at the expense of the Constitution. This type of thinking mirrors the logic of the Left, in which the constitutionality of a big government program like Obamacare is considered irrelevant due to the severity of the problem at hand. The liberal healthcare ends justify the unconstitutional means. This characteristic mentality of the Left is exactly how most of the Right approaches the Patriot Act—though it is an outright rejection of what most conservatives of any generation have held most dear.

Think about it. Conservatives get upset about many things on a regular basis—ACORN corruption, NPR funding, demanding that French fries be renamed “Freedom Fries.” At any given time there is always some new and outrageous rightwing distaste of the week.

But most of these controversies are a speck on a gnat’s ass compared to the damage done to the Constitution by the Patriot Act. For genuine constitutional conservatives, something like NPR funding is undoubtedly wrong but ultimately trivial and peripheral—while the protection of the Bill of Rights is crucial and integral. If George Washington or Thomas Jefferson were alive today, are we to believe that they would be more outraged that: A. The federal government helps fund public radio. B. The federal government snoops on citizens without restraint. Those who answered A. truly don’t understand the mindset of the men who founded this country.

A Republican critic of mine once asked me during a radio broadcast “Jack, can you show me where any American has been harmed due to the Patriot Act?” I replied, “Can you show me where any American has been harmed by Wikileaks?” The caller said he couldn’t, but stated that he believed private individuals shouldn’t haven’t access to private government documents. The gentleman was basically saying that whether or not Wikileaks has hurt anyone to date is irrelevant—the whistleblower outfit shouldn’t be trusted with such power to begin with. I argue the same is true of the federal government. So did the Founding Fathers. That’s why they wrote the 4^th amendment.

The entire reason we have a written charter like the Constitution is to specify the enumerated powers that define the hard parameters of our federal government. Among those powers is national defense and security. But much of what we call “defense” is anything but. Similarly, a total police state could undoubtedly provide much better security, though few Americans would desire a country so void of liberty. After all, most Americans can barely tolerate the way the federal government handles air travel these days.

When Ronald Reagan said there was nothing closer to eternal life on this earth than a government program he could have easily been describing the Patriot Act. When Barry Goldwater said that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” he could have easily been describing the minority of Republicans who now at least question the Patriot Act. When James Madison wrote, “Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other,” he could have easily been describing our current state of perpetual war that now gives seemingly permanent life to the Patriot Act.

If the “War on Terror” is a perpetual war—as so many politicians readily contend—have we now permanently given up our liberties? If terrorists really do “hate us for our freedoms” is the best method of defeating them to permanently surrender our historic freedoms? And if so, who is really winning the War on Terror? Us or the terrorists?

By the very nature of their philosophy, conservatives are supposed to question their government. And given the very nature of our Constitution, this is precisely how the Founders would expect any true patriot to act.

When President Obama said last week that Israel should return to its pre-1967 borders, Benjamin Netanyahu declared “Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967.” Israel’s Prime Minister was clearly not pleased.

But perhaps even more perturbed was the American Right, with the potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates offering the following reactions: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Obama’s Israeli-Palestinian policy a “disaster.” Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said “President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus.” Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said that America would be “cursed” by God if it “rejected” Israel. A critical Sarah Palin even advised Obama to read the Old Testament.

Congressman Ron Paul was also critical of Obama’s Israel policy, but from a different perspective: “While President Obama’s demand that Israel make hard concessions in her border conflicts may very well be in her long-term interest, only Israel can make that determination on her own, without pressure from the United States or coercion by the United Nations. Unlike this President, I do not believe it is our place to dictate how Israel runs her affairs.”

Paul added, “We should respect Israel’s sovereignty and not try to dictate her policy from Washington.”

This is not the first time Paul has taken this position.

When Israel attacked a nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 almost the entire US Congress voted to condemn the act, but Congressman Paul was one of the few Republicans who stood up and said Israel should not have to answer to America for how she defends herself. Remember, this was the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan that had condemned Israel, a coalition that included the most hawkish anti-Communists and the most fervent Christian conservatives.

Republicans condemned Israel’s actions in 1981 for two reasons: 1. The Reagan administration was making an ally of Saddam Hussein. 2. The Republican Party had not yet conflated Israel’s and America’s interests as identical.

Yesterday’s Cold Warriors might have wanted to defeat Communism and no doubt considered Israel an ally, but by and large their hawkishness reflected a desire to put America first. Yesterday’s religious Right was also thoroughly anti-Communist and they also considered Israel an ally—but their politics were primarily born of the belief that America was no longer putting God first.

Now both groups put Israel first.

Indeed, can you imagine Republicans today—especially GOP hawks and Christian conservatives—opposing Israel on anything?

In a speech before the Heritage Foundation in 1988, conservative author Russell Kirk said “Not seldom has it seemed as if some eminent Neoconservatives mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States.” Kirk was describing the attitude of an increasingly influential part of the GOP, the neoconservatives, who would end up defining American foreign policy during the George W. Bush administration.

For most traditional conservatives of Reagan’s era, support for Israel did not necessarily mean unconditional support for absolutely everything Israel did. This is generally not true of the neoconservatives. If the US condemned Israel for attacking Iraq in 1981, it was not a shock that by the time the neoconservative Bush administration came to power two decades later America and Israel would more often begin to share the same enemies. There was Iraq, of course, and today while Ron Paul insists that Israel should do whatever it likes concerning the threat posed by Iran—the neoconservatives push for a US war with Iran. Is yet another Middle Eastern war in the US’s best interest? Whose interests are the neoconservatives putting first—America or Israel’s? Many in Reagan’s Republican Party might have asked this question. Few in Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich’s GOP would even dare to.

The Christian Coalition exemplified the power of the Religious Right in the 1980’s and 90’s and its founder Pat Robertson was regularly accused of being an anti-Semite throughout this period. Prominent neoconservative Norman Podhoretz wrote in 1995 “The conclusion is thus inescapable that Robertson, whether knowingly or unknowingly, has subscribed to and purveyed ideas that have an old and well-established anti-Semitic pedigree.” To read Robertson’s writings, Mr. Podhoretz was not being unreasonable in his criticism.

But if a Religious Right leader like Robertson might have been an anti-Semite during the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton years—in 2008 he would endorse socially liberal Rudy Giuliani for president primarily because the televangelist thought the former New York City mayor was a “strong supporter” of Israel. In supporting a pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage candidate, was the supposedly conservative Christian Robertson putting God, America or Israel first? Giuliani was also the top 2008 choice of many of the neoconservatives—including former Robertson critic Norman Podhoretz—and for the same reasons as the televangelist. To the degree that some on the Religious Right of the Reagan era might have been anti-Semitic is deplorable. But so are the Christian coalitions of today who might follow Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin in the other extreme direction by allowing their latest interpretations of the Bible to dictate US foreign policy.

“Israel is our close friend,” says Congressman Paul in response to Obama’s recent comments on the Jewish state, as he simultaneously wonders why America should even have a dominant role in dictating that nation’s policies. Whether in 1981 or 2011, Ron Paul’s position on this controversial issue remains reasonable, consistent and traditionally conservative—while that of his party continues to fluctuate with the ideological and theological fashions of the day.

American moral decline has been discussed for as long as there has been an America. Conservatives have long noted how certain cultural shifts throughout our nation’s history have redefined social norms, transforming or even damaging traditional American values. They’re often right, as concepts like the sanctity of life, the institution of marriage and the importance of faith have all been under assault for decades.

But have we been too narrow in defining our traditional values? What, exactly, are American values? How are they unique to this country?

If socialism has defined much of Europe and the world for the last century, a healthy respect for the separation of the public and private sectors has long been a distinctly American value. But not according to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB has tried to prevent the Boeing corporation from opening a new plant in right-to-work South Carolina, contending that the company’s decision to not to expand an existing unionized plant in Washington for the same purpose amounted to an illegal retaliation against union workers. The NLRB’s board members are appointed by President Obama.

Last week, Senator Jim DeMint blasted the Boeing hold-up by the NLRB as “anti-American and anti-Democratic.” South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley agrees with DeMint: “This is an issue that may have started in South Carolina, but we want to make sure it never touches another state… This goes against everything we know our American economy to be.”

The very notion that a government-backed agency can decide which states private corporations are allowed to do business in is not only absurd—it is indeed un-American. The Economist notes the unprecedented nature of this situation: “The 1935 National Labour Relations Act has never been construed so broadly. Boeing is not actually reducing the amount of work it does in Washington… It is not closing the factories where the strikes occurred, nor is it sacking the strikers. It is merely choosing to add capacity in a state where labour relations are more cordial.”

If the NLRB decision is allowed to stand it will set a new unprecedented low in how private businesses are allowed to operate in the US—and it will become yet another troublesome mile marker in America’s moral decline.

If respect for the free market is one of our most cherished traditions so is our reputation as one of the most civilized nations in human history—and it has long been a standard American value that this country does not use torture. John McCain might be wrong about many things but as a former prisoner of war who was tortured by the Viet Cong, the Senator has always been right on this issue. Said McCain in 2008: “Water boarding is torture… Under President Reagan we passed anti-torture acts… The Israelis do not use torture… and if we use torture then we cannot differentiate ourselves from the enemy.”

McCain cites Reagan as taking the moral high ground on this issue and indeed one of the last times we prosecuted anyone for waterboarding was through Reagan’s Department of Justice—which insisted that the practice was indeed torture.

The Bush administration turned Reagan’s definition on its head when it began describing waterboarding as an “enhanced interrogation tactic,” an Orwellian term if there ever was one. Last week, potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum not only heartily endorsed “enhanced interrogation” but claimed that McCain “doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works.”

The truth is that social conservatives of Santorum’s stripe apparently have no clue how American values work, as they now have typically become the most enthusiastic champions of torture, cheering its use and condemning anyone who deplores it.

When Osama Bin Laden was killed it was suggested that waterboarding may have had something to do with the intelligence gathered to complete this mission. We’ve since learned that any such intelligence gathered using waterboarding is questionable at best, but the immediate impulse to defend torture—while insisting it isn’t torture—is indicative of a Republican Party that it has lost its moral scruples.

Of course, Republican defenders of torture love to pull out the doomsday scenario: If you had the chance to save thousands of lives by waterboarding a detainee, would you do it? Well, yes, in fact, and there’s very few tactics most patriotic Americans wouldn’t endorse to save the lives of their fellow countrymen including torture or worse.

But the question never really has been about whether or not interrogators should be given extra leeway in some highly improbable hypothetical situation—but whether allowing the use of torture should now be the official policy of the United States. A majority of Americans in both political parties, starting with George Washington and at least through Reagan, have always said “no.” But in 2011, a significant portion if not a majority of Republican voters say, enthusiastically, “yes.”

Neither Democrats or Republicans have the exclusive rights to morality, American or otherwise. But both parties continue to do grave damage to some of the most cherished values that have always made this country great.

When Newt Gingrich criticized Congressman Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher plan and repeated his support for individual healthcare mandates this week, many conservatives expressed outrage and shock. Conservatives were right to be outraged. But they shouldn’t have been shocked.

Simply put, Newt Gingrich has never been a conservative.

Perhaps a quick primer in perception versus reality is in order. The reason most presidential candidates are considered frontrunners is because enough people keep saying they are frontrunners. For example, candidates like former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty or Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels are considered frontrunners despite having less name recognition, lesser poll numbers and less fundraising ability than some of the other supposed second or third tier candidates. Still, their perception as such continues to dictate the current reality.

The reason Newt Gingrich is considered a conservative is because enough people have always said he’s a conservative. The former House speaker rose to national prominence in the mid-1990’s championing the GOP’s “Contract with America,” spearheading the “Republican Revolution of ‘94” and earned a reputation for being one of President Bill Clinton’s harshest critics. From that time to today, Gingrich has no doubt remained one of the harshest critics of the Democratic Party.

But simply being partisan does not a conservative make. If so, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney could be considered conservatism personified. In a similar mold, Gingrich has rarely, if ever, been for smaller government. He simply believes Republicans can preside over big government more effectively.

The Ryan plan controversy is simply our latest exposure to Gingrich’s consistent big government Republican brand. There is currently an intra-GOP debate wherein most conservatives recognize Ryan’s plan as being bolder than most, but they also note that it doesn’t go nearly far enough considering that by its own projection we will still be saddled with a $23 trillion national debt in ten years. In this latter sentiment, Sen. Rand Paul and other conservative leaders have noted the relative timidity of Ryan’s plan.

Even so, at precisely the time when part of the GOP is praising Ryan for being bold and another part is worried his plan isn’t bold enough—Gingrich has already dismissed it as too “radical.” This might make conservatives angry, but it is also classic Gingrich.

If a candidate like Ron Paul is often unconventionally Republican precisely because he is willing to examine sacred cows in the name of more substantively limiting government, Gingrich’s unconventional Republican positions come from the exact opposite direction—with Newt typically taking the side of big government. For example, many conservatives were surprised to see Gingrich appearing in commercials with Nancy Pelosi sympathetic to liberal views on climate change. Conservatives shouldn’t have been surprised.

Of course, Gingrich was also a good Bush Republican in supporting TARP, the Medicare Plan D entitlement expansion and has even stated that he thinks No Child Left Behind isn’t big enough—despite the fact that virtually all conservatives now reject these big government schemes.

Again, Newt’s disagreement with Ryan’s plan is nothing new, as the traditional Goldwater/Reagan conservative Republican notion of actually reducing the size and scope of government has always been too “radical” for Gingrich. As Bob Wenzel notes at EconomicPolicyJournal.com, Gingrich’s 2012 political platform seems to be simply, again, that he’s not a Democrat:

“The Gingrich campaign strategy appears to be that he will run not on any principles, but more on the fact that he is not President Obama. A Gingrich snippet: ‘The fact is, we are not going to close the deficit and move towards a balanced budget unless we follow the policies that foster the economic growth necessary to create jobs. The first and most immediate step would be to employ the policies that encourage investment, create jobs, and reward innovation and entrepreneurship—exactly the opposite of the Obama anti-jobs policies”

Wenzel correctly analyzes, “Aside from the attack on President Obama, the underlying message here is that Gingrich wants to balance the budget not by reducing government spending, but by increasing tax revenues through more jobs. In other words, Gingrich sees no problem with the current size of government.”

Perhaps Gingrich has no problem with the current size of government because he has always exhibited an optimistic view of the transformative power of the state. For example, if generations of conservatives, from Robert Taft to Goldwater and through Reagan, have long defined themselves primarily in their opposition to post-New Deal America, Gingrich not only praises Franklin Roosevelt but seeks to attach him to Reagan. Sound weird? Wrote Gingrich in 2004: “If we can combine the persistence, optimism, technological curiosity and courage of FDR and Reagan we will meet the challenges of our generation… Understanding Reagan’s political strength is not possible without understanding how much of his patterns and techniques grew out of FDR.”

A conservative critic of Reagan might note that despite that president’s limited government rhetoric, the Gipper actually did little to dismantle the modern state that remains in large part an outgrowth of FDR’s regime. Gingrich finds Reagan praiseworthy exactly to the extent that he might have resembled Roosevelt. This is not a conservative sentiment. Not even close.

It should not surprise conservatives that both Newt and Mitt Romney agree in their support for individual healthcare mandates (though Gingrich’s position seems to change daily, also similar to Romney’s). In fact, this position reflects both men’s technocratic and supposedly “business” style approach to government—the micro-managerial nature of which is the very antithesis of constitutional, limited government conservatism.

One can only assume that in the wake of the Ryan controversy, Gingrich is banking on his recent comments that Barack Obama is our biggest “food stamp president” to shield him from some of the current criticism from conservatives. Gingrich has every reason to believe that yet another incident of his characteristic partisan demagoguing will work, as it certainly has for Newt’s entire political career.

Lucky for Gingrich, perception is still reality, and amazingly the perception still remains that Newt is a conservative. Perhaps this most recent episode of blatant evidence to the contrary might finally awaken some conservatives from this chronic and troublesome delusion.

After the first 2012 Republican presidential debate this month, newly appointed Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) director Christopher N. Malagisi observed:

Earth to Rep. Ron Paul… you are running for the Republican nomination for president, not the Libertarian or Democrat nomination. At various times throughout the Republican primary debate last evening, I had to remind myself I was actually watching a Republican debate. Without the interludes of Gov. Tim Pawlenty (and) Sen. Rick Santorum… you would think that Ron Paul (was) participating in a Democrat presidential primary debate, siding with Democrats on major social and defense policy initiatives.

Mr. Malagisi then explained the foundational mechanics of GOP politics that he believes Congressman Paul fails to comprehend:

The Republican Party as a whole though is based on five fundamental principles—individual freedom, limited government, free markets, a strong national defense, and preserving our traditional values and heritage… The conservative movement is a coalition made up of three disparate, yet amenable groups—classical liberals or libertarians, traditionalists, and anti-communists—or modernly referred to as fiscal, social, and defense conservatives. While each entity emphasizes different issues, they all work together in a political compact…

Malagisi concluded: “The modern Republican Party is based on the foundation of the conservative movement.”

Earth to Mr. Malagisi: The modern Republican Party is not based on the “foundation of the conservative movement” even as you’ve described it. And if there is a big-government trend within the GOP that would typically be more identified with Democratic or liberal philosophy, it more accurately belongs to the big-government Republican brand exemplified by conventional candidates like Pawlenty and Santorum.

Let us begin with Malagisi’s “five fundamental” Republican principles: “individual freedom, limited government, free markets, a strong national defense, and preserving our traditional values and heritage.” Today’s Republican Party, as defined by the last GOP administration, fails miserably on most of these fundamentals: The Bush administration attacked individual freedom and liberty (dismantling Fourth Amendment Constitutional protections via the Patriot Act), limited government was virtually non-existent (unprecedented empowerment of the Executive branch and an explosion of new departments and entitlements, doubling the national debt and overall size of government), free markets were literally mocked (The TARP and bank bailouts—“I have abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system,” said Bush), what constituted a “strong national defense” was at least arguable (In retrospect, was invading Iraq actual “defense” or an irrational offense?) and traditional values were more often used as a rhetorical electoral tool than vigorously pursued (it’s no coincidence that Bush’s first pick for the Supreme Court was Harriet Miers, a direct insult to the social conservatives who helped deliver Republicans the 2004 presidential election).

This anti-individual freedom, anti-limited government, anti-free market, hyper-interventionist and cosmetically socially conservative GOP was—and remains—the party of Republicans like Santorum and Pawlenty. Comparatively, Bill Clinton’s briefly balanced budget, support for the Defense of Marriage Act and willingness to intervene militarily in Kosovo and Somalia (interventions many Republicans opposed) puts that Democratic president in the same rightwing stratosphere as Bush, if judged by Malagisi’s stated Republican standards. In fact, if judging by the size of government alone, Clinton could be considered to the Right of Bush. How do Santorum or Pawlenty, in their records or rhetoric, differ significantly from Bush? Worse, how do any of these Republicans differ substantively from Bill Clinton?

In this light, let there be no illusions about which Republican candidates’ platforms more closely resemble a Democratic ticket, and let us recognize that the mushy, statist center of conventional American politics has long been bipartisan.

This brings us to the 2012 race’s most unconventional candidate. In citing Ron Paul’s opposition to the War on Drugs and our current foreign policy as somehow being liberal in nature, this would have surprised the late William F. Buckley and Milton Friedman, who agreed with Paul on the drug war. Conservatives as diverse as Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak, Tony Blankley, George Will and Grover Norquist have all taken Paulian foreign policy positions. In fact, many conservatives now question Obama’s war in Afghanistan and intervention in Libya, while the neoconservatives—who Malagisi subtextually implies define Republican foreign policy—now firmly side with a Democratic president.

Indeed, the very reason the GOP became the party of big government under Bush can be found in the collapse of Ronald Reagan’s “three legged stool” of “fiscal, social, and defense conservatives” which Malagisi also cites. Malagisi writes: “John McCain knew he had to win over enough people from each of the three main groups to win the Republican nomination.” Seriously? McCain joined the Democrats on supporting TARP, embryonic stem cell research and now sides with Obama on Libya. Again, which party’s nomination did McCain win in 2008?

The fiscally conservative stool leg was put on the back burner permanently during the Bush administration, precisely because so-called “defense” conservatives were elated with the most aggressive foreign policy in American history. Social conservatives were not only satisfied with Bush’s pro-life and anti-gay marriage rhetoric—they too were typically just as enthusiastic about policing the world and footing the bill. Notes The American Conservative’s Michael Brendan Dougherty: “The religious right is more convinced of American righteousness in the exercise of its military might than the neoconservatives are.”

With all the GOP’s attention paid to God and war, fiscal conservatism became an afterthought, if it was ever thought about at all—as defense and social conservatives gladly sawed off the libertarian leg of Reagan’s tri-pronged Republican coalition. The socially conservative Paul now dares to ask if federal solutions to moral depravity actually work in practice. Even though Buckley and Friedman asked the same question and drew the same conclusion as Paul, Malagisi believes this position makes Paul a liberal Democrat. More accurately, it makes the Congressman a constitutionalist in the mold of Thomas Jefferson.

Paul now also asks if what most Republicans reflexively call “national defense” is indeed that? To quote former CPAC boss and American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene’s view of Reagan’s foreign policy: “(Reagan) resorted to military force far less often than many of those who came before him or who have since occupied the Oval Office. . . . After the [1983] assault on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, it was questioning the wisdom of U.S. involvement that led Reagan to withdraw our troops rather than dig in. He found no good strategic reason to give our regional enemies inviting U.S. targets. Can one imagine one of today’s neoconservative absolutists backing away from any fight anywhere?”

One can hardly imagine this. In questioning today’s conventional GOP politics, even Reagan would likely not measure up to Christopher Malagisi’s defense of the indefensibly statist Republican Party. Indeed, where Ron Paul is unconventionally Republican is typically where he is the most conservative. Conservatism necessarily requires reflection. Protecting the status quo necessarily requires deflection. And indeed, if today’s Tea Party has a primary purpose, it is to force the Republican Party to finally remind us what, exactly, makes them so different from the Democrats in the first place.