Dale’s post needs to be read in conjunction with the piece Lew has in American Conservative regarding the modern “conservative” movement. It has become nothing less than a caricature of what 1950s and 60s liberals were saying about conservatism: it is pure authoritarianism.

I remember conservatives a few decades ago decrying all of these “useless” procedures in arresting accused criminals. It was not just Miranda that they hated, but anything that got in the way of police arresting people, gaining “confessions,” and then throwing people in prison.

On economics, conservatives are as bad as ever. While Pat Buchanan preaches authoritarian protectionism, O’Reilly insists that the government should force us to switch to ethanol, declaring that if the Brazilians have done it, so should we. (He declared that since Americans were as “smart” as Brazilians, then there is no reason why we cannot have ethanol and, thus, “wean” ourselves from “dependancy on foreign oil.” The recent LRC piece on Brazil and ethanol should be enough for anyone to realize that O’Reilly and his allies are economic and social illiterates.)

Modern conservatism is a dangerous joke. From Michelle Malkin’s endorsement of an American gulag to the latest idiotic utterances from Pat “I leg pressed a ton or two” Robertson (this time declaring he was convinced that global warming is a threat because of recent high temperatures — Hello, Pat, it’s summer), we are fed nonsense. Do these people really believe we can build a peaceful, prosperous society by imprisoning millions of people and using the violence of the state to force people to drive on ethanol? It is mind boggling.