Fast change makes me uncomfortable; but no one has initiated faster or more radical changes in American society than the last several Republican administrations. Anything Clinton managed to do was peanuts compared to Reagan’s deregulation drive, which had a very destabilizing effect on business, the marketplace and society; and I don’t think Bush is going to be much better in this regard. The banking scandal in the 1980s – which of the Bush boys was involved in that one? Now we have Enron et al.

Environmental policy – the choice is not between Communist abuse of the environment or Republican abuse of the environment. Yes, the environment was greatly damaged in most Communist countries. Texas is also the most polluted state in the Union.

I take issue with the notion that conservatives don’t wish to preserve democracy and civil liberties. It is not conservatives – in either Europe or the USA – who push at all times for more centralized authority and undemocratic decison-making by unelected elites. The concentration of power in Brussels and Washington, DC are the creation of the left, not the right. Local decison-making is, in most instances, the first instinct of a conservative (some exceptions apply, to be sure). Uniformity mandated from above is the policy preference of the left.

As for the environment, well, disagreement on the merits of environmental policy and the alleged science upon which it is based does not equate to opposition to the environment itself. Acknowledging that economic growth and prosperity are the fastest and best proven path to environmental improvement requires only a clear-eyed look at the evidence. OTOH, one need only look at the environmental degradation perpetrated by the “progressive” bastions of the former Communist (leftist) bloc to see how effective the liberal preference for top-down, government-controlled environmental policy is.