The Problem With Fortune 500 Conservatism

I would like to issue a challenge to any neo-con out there to square his/her views with traditional conservative ones (e.g. Edmund Burke, NOT Rush Limbaugh). In the title of this post I am borrowing a phrase I heard during a course on business crimes - "Fortune 500 Conservatives". I have given a lot of thought as to what that phrase means and I have decided that it is best applied to those who identify with the "neo-conservative movement".

To make this conversation relevant, here are a few things that sicken me about the neo-con hijacking of our government that has occurred over the past 7 years:

(1) People at the FAA have been threatened with their jobs for...well, doing their jobs. Source.
(2) The Dept. of Justice has been politicized to the point that their legal opinions have become little more than punditry. Source. Source. Source.
(3) The FDA is in bed with pharmaceutical companies. Source.
(4) The Fed bailing out a failing investment bank that got caught in a tangle of irresponsible investments. Source.
(5) The privatization of our military. Source. Source. Source.

And those are just a few.

My beef with the Fortune 500 Conservatives is that their "political philosophy" is completely self-serving, disingenuous, and serves as an eroding force to the underpinnings of our system of governance. The proper role of government regulatory agencies such as the FAA and FDA is to ensure that the public safety remains a concern to corporations who are increasingly more concerned with the bottom line and who do not seem to mind a little collateral damage, so long as the venture remains profitable. Putting industry insiders in charge of regulatory agencies is a classic case of the fox watching the hen house.

Fortune 500 Conservatives are disingenuous in that they distract their "base" voters with red-herring issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and flag-burning to attain positions of power and then proceed to loot the government power coffers for their own benefit. All this comes at the expense of the American public and causes a significant portion of voters to continually vote against their own interests. And what is more insulting is that when a political candidate calls these people out, such as here, that person is immediately tagged as out of touch or elitist.

Over the past 7 years we have witnessed a large scale hijack of our government, particularly the agencies that are supposed to be guarding the public from being savaged by powerful corporations and inhuman forces of the private sector. For example, after telling us over and over how scared we should be of terrorist threats our government set up the Office of Homeland Security. Sounds like a good idea. I'm all for "homeland security". Of course what most of us did not realize is that in the process the director of the DHS, now Michael Chertoff, has the power to waive laws that get in the way of his intended projects.

Let's think about that last fact for a moment. One guy, who was never elected, has the power to unilaterally circumnavigate laws passed by Congress (all elected) to further projects that he and his army of bureaucrats have initiated. And for what do you think DHS uses this vast power? Stopping the latest Al-Quaeda threat? Strengthening the security around nuclear power plants? Nope, they're waiving environmental regulations to expedite the building of a fence along our border with Mexico. Source. If that is not eroding the separation of powers, the single-biggest check and balance on government provided our Constitution, then I don't know what is.