My liberal beliefs are only as good as the challenges offered by good, thoughtful conservative debate that only serves to reaffirm them. That's why I dutifully follow a couple of conservative blogs that I highly respect (i.e.
Tacitus) and regularly read
American Conservative Magazine online.
As I'm want to do, I did my usual Friday wonderings over to the "other side" to get their latest musings regarding the election. Imagine my jaw dropping surprise to discover that American Conservative Magazine has endorsed Senator Kerry. The last two paragraphs of the article are devastatingly brutal in it's logic:
If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past--and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.
George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies--a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies--temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election--are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans "won't do." This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.
Ouch. You can bet these folks won't be getting any WH invitations anytime soon. Their logical and factually based arguments help to keep me sharp and focused on what liberalism is and should be about. Good for them for making the right [no pun intended, I'm sure] logical choice.