Bush and the people who surrounded him including(Rove) only cared about Bush’s re-election and set the Republican party up with no true conservative leaders.

Government activism means that government wishes to reshape America from a social or cultural perspective. When this happens, people simply exercise their Constitutional right to push back. Government activism is divisive. Conservative principles are not–they are foundational.

I agree with everything you say. The question my intelect struggles with is how do we get what has traditionally defined the Republican Party to be what our mainstreem representatives support and promote?

The lessons we should learn from the Bush years seem so easy for us to identify (example: your posting). We therefore should find it easy to learn from those mistakes and change our behavior. Yet we have polarization taking place within the Republican Party as we speak. It seems today’s infighting can be associated mostly with your point that many of us have become liberalized Republicans. What I take from that is we allow our idiology to be defined by a few fringe issues that are based on our biblical beliefs. I think politicians and political organizations make a major mistake when they think it is their duty to try to force what we believe on non-believers. To a great extent (not entirely) our religious-based idiologies should stimulate more of a fight to protect our rights than force our beliefs on others. This would de-politicise our religious stand on issues and allow the party to focus on the true government responsibilities (defense, enforcement of law, size of the government, fair taxes and individual liberty and authority).

I agree with your conclusion, “It is time that conservatism becomes the foundational political philosophy it was always meant to be”.