Conservative Failure Quotes

Governments usually end not with a bang but with a whimper, as the Conservatives learned in the 1990s. Support and authority erodes over time until there is a final collapse of support and pivotal electoral shift.

The reason any conservative's failing is always major news is that it allows liberals to engage in their very favorite taunt: Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy is the only sin that really inflames them. Inasmuch as liberals have no morals, they can sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards that liberals simply renounce. It's an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites.

We're doing a horrible job, and by "we" I mean conservatives, Republicans, free marketers, anyone who believes in liberty is doing a horrible job if half of young people think socialism is a good idea.

Liberals have a new wish every time their latest wish is granted. Conservatives should make them spell out their principles and ideals. Instead of doing this, conservatives allow liberals to pursue incremental goals without revealing their ultimate destination. So, thanks to the negligence of their opponents, liberals control the terms of every debate by always demanding 'more' while never defining 'enough.' The predictable result is that they always get more, and it's never enough.

Everyone knows history is written by the winners, but that cliche misses a crucial detail: Over time, the winners are always the progressives. Conservatism can only win in the short term, because society cannot stop evolving (and social evolution inevitably dovetails with the agenda of those who see change as an abstract positive). It might take seventy years, but it always happens eventually. Serious historians are, almost without exception, self-styled progressives. Radical views--even the awful ones--improve with age.

Too often the revolutionary is the man who must create order in the chaos left by failed conservatives.

I'm not denying I've espoused and promoted conservatism, because conservatism's the alternative. And conservatism works every time it's tried. That's the problem. It really hasn't been tried. Even people claiming to be conservative, when it comes time to actually do it, chicken out.

Iraq failed for the same reasons that all conservative public policy efforts fail. Refusing to acknowledge the importance of government while relying on it to achieve your objectives causes the same kind of chaos in foreign policy that it does in matters closer to home.

How long do we have to deal with conservative failure? How long? Thirty years is not enough? So I would say enough with that, and I would say check out the Center for American Progress, and the writings by Patrick Garofalo, economic guru. That's what I would say.

One of the big weaknesses of the Conservative Party is not just their ignorance of and lack of effective response to the cost-of-living crisis but a more fundamental error about what makes for success in the 21st century.

The Conservatives played like England cricketers - too many rash strokes and run-outs, dropped catches and bowling anywhere but the stumps.

The intellectual debility of contemporary conservatism is indicated by its silence on all important matters.

The Tories have been offering us a cocktail of incompetence and malice and Labour haven't done anything to draw attention to it. It's been like watching Mesut Ozil drop perfect crosses on to the head of an increasingly frustrated Stephen Hawking.