NO, KEVIN

Kevin Drum wants to say that the difference between conservatives and liberals is that liberals believe in funding organizations like FEMA or the Corps of Engineers and conservatives don’t. Nuh-huh. Real conservatives believe that the state should do a few things that no one else can do – defense, decent public education, police, law and order among the most obvious – and leave the rest to individuals. Funding FEMA and having a superb civil defense are very much part of conservatism’s real core. It’s when government decides to reshape society, redistribute wealth, socially engineer, and take over functions that the private sector can do just as well that conservatives draw the line. The reason I’m mad as hell over Katrina is precisely because I’m a conservative and this kind of thing is exactly what government is for. Bush in this sense is not now and never has been a conservative. A man who explodes government spending but can’t run a war or organize basic civil defense is simply a fiscally reckless incompetent. If this were a parliamentary system, we’d have a vote of no confidence. Instead we have three years of more peril.