Today’s conservative would not be recognized by the father of modern conservatism Edmund Burke. Burke stressed the importance of property rights as a countervailing force to reign in royalty and the aristocracy.

Growing up, I thought a conservative was someone who only spent money when he had to. The preservation of what is good in society is a conservative view.

Today’s conservative was yesterday’s reactionary, a person who holds an extreme ideological view who seeks to maintain the status quo, and is against reform. I see no similarity between being tight with money and only spend it if you need to, and a person today who claims the mantle of conservatism but refuses to spend it under any circumstance. As Benjamin Franklin so wisely warned, don’t be penny wise and a pound foolish.

I have been accused of being a liberal as if being a liberal were an epithet or a cuss word. Our Revolution was a revolution led by classic liberals, and I proudly share their beliefs and wear the mantle of being a classic liberal.

In one accepts the current version of what a conservative is, they have always been on the wrong side of history. From the day, that some residents of Boston dressed up as Indians to throw the Tea into the harbor, and from the day, the shots that were heard around the world at Lexington and Concord, we started a revolution. There is nothing conservative about starting a revolution.

The Loyalists who sided with King George were Conservative in that they did not support change and they were loyal to the crown.

Those who argued for the conservation of State’s Rights and the preservation of the Confederacy as constituted in our Articles of Confederation were conservatives.

The defenders of the immoral use of slavery wanted to keep and preserve their peculiar institution. Those who sought to deny women the right to vote were conservatives. All of them were conservatives and their behavior and actions required liberals to bring about change.

Liberals have brought to the country a revolution and a new system of government. Liberals expanded the vote to all white men and liberals demanded that no only should women have the right to vote but that all Americans should have the same right to vote irrespective of their race, color or creed.

Liberals during the 1930’s gave us Social Security and the many protections that we have to thwart greed and prevent a repeat of the Great Depression.

John F. Kennedy, a purported Liberal brought down the tax rate from 91% to 70%. Outside of Dwight David Eisenhower no Republican in nearly a century has balanced a budget. Eisenhower would be too liberal for today’s Republican Party.

The question is if you are really a conservative please walk the walk and just don’t talk about, do it. The Republican claim that they are conservative is a big, big joke. They run up the debt and help to cause recessions and depressions and then bemoan big government and liberals, give me a break!

Maybe the real reason so-called conservatives hate Bill Clinton is that he did something no conservative President has ever come close to doing, he balanced the budget and lowered the debt. Just maybe their paranoia about Hillary Clinton is that she might actually make government work for all Americans, and succeed on putting America on more solid financial footing. If Democrats didn’t have to clean up Republican created financial messes, there is no telling what could have been accomplished.

Let’s look at so-called social conservatives. There are a lot of evangelical Christians that frankly I find confusing. They claim to be Born Again in Christ’s love and grace but exhibit in many cases the total opposite behavior of the teachings of Jesus. Love thy neighbor as thyself is a key, if not the most important lesson that Jesus taught us. Where is the love for their fellow men and women when they don’t practice what they preach? Forget people of color, some treat people of color as if they were a pariah. And women, forget it, they still treat women as if they were inferior. Forget about feeding the hungry, let’s take their food stamps away..

Jesus had trouble with the money changers in the Temple, and threw them out. He was a Revolutionary in the true sense. What would Jesus have to say about the Mega Churches of today? They teach their congregants that Jesus would want you to be wealthy. RIGHT, that is why he went around in a loin cloth, drinking from a simple chalice, and giving comfort and aid to the poor and hungry.

How in the world are any of today’s candidates for President conservative? What do they want to conserve? They sure are against a lot, they are against reforms when it comes down to their actually voting for change, forget it. They talk the talk but they do not walk the walk. They even call the Pope a Marxist. I suppose if Jesus returned they would call him a Marxist as well.

Conservatives purport to be about family values. Well, nothing could be more important to family values than if each person had a wage by which they could live on.

Now we are seeing the biggest joke of them all, Donald Trump for President. He is not a conservative, unless you want to accept the idea that he wants to keep political power among the white elite. He claims to want to make America great again. His ideas would require an immense expenditure of money to build a wall. If you think he can force Mexico to build it. It isn’t going to happen unless he decides to invade Mexico and conquer it. He wants to physically remove all of the illegal immigrants. Who is going to pay for all of this? He wants to expand the military that already had a bloated budget to make sure that no one messes with us.

Our Defense budget is intended to defend America, not to insure that we are the world’s biggest bully.

And then he wants to justifiably rebuild our infrastructure. I hope all of you have been adding this up, because it would cost the taxpayers a fortune. I dare any of the alleged conservatives out there to actually read and study the Federal Budget. Our discretionary spending is quite small. Where are you going to find the money unless you are going to have a tax increase?

The Donald, the other day, brought up the idea of putting a tax or what it used to be called a tariff, on goods coming in to the USA from other countries who make things cheaply. Donald Trump sounds like he is against free trade. So, again, I ask you how is he a conservative?

The only way any country attacks us is like in the movie, “The Mouse that Roars,” where a very tiny country attacks the USA only to surrender immediately and then ask us for foreign aid.

The wheels have come off the training wheels , of the kid’s three wheeler. We are becoming the gang that can’t shoot straight.

The Republican Party succeeded the Whig Party as a major force in American politics. It was the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight David Eisenhower. Each of those gentlemen would not recognize today’s Republican Party. Republicans are nothing but reactionaries, the supporters of Wall Street and the biggest fans of the oligarchs, like the Koch brothers. If you think you can relate or they can relate to you, I have a bridge for sale. Billionaires would not have you for dinner or allow you to play golf with them at their country club. As P.T. Barnum would say, a sucker is born every minute. America’s conservatives are a big, big joke. The truth is no one is laughing, except for the ruling class, the top 1%. They are laughing all the way to the Bank.