Fundamental principles of liberty; limited government, responsibility, morality - no longer exist or apply in either one of the two major parties, nor the culture that they represent.
The word "Conservative" no longer represents what it once meant - and it is being redefined on two fronts; from within the Republican Party itself - and the label that the media and the Leftists/Marxists continue to fling upon it.
Everyone laments that the GOP cannot mimic the Democrats' ability to force fealty and march in lockstep to whatever issue and motion their leadership is pushing for. I lament the fact that most in this country pine for party loyalty and fealty, rather than loyalty and fealty to our foundational documents that were created to protect liberty. Liberty, that the vast majority of the population and nearly all the political creatures that represent them, want nothing to do with outside of the freedom to do whatever feels good without consequence at someone else's expense.
The fact is limited, small and responsible government is no longer a platform of the Republican Party. Neither is adherence or respect for the Constitutional limits our Founders placed upon it. The Republican Party now stands for "better managed" big Government Statism, or European Socialism versus overt Marxism/Communism that the Democrat Party now operates under. "Conservative" in the Republican party now means being just slightly to the right of Democrats on policy, even if the goal of Statism is the same as long as one wraps themselves up in the flag and attach a flashing light over the big fat "R" they wear next to their name.
It should not be surprising that after the major parties have abandoned the Constitution and the political caste works together to circumvent or ignore it altogether - that the whole people by and large also have followed their lead and abandoned Constitutional principles in favor of getting their slice of pie at the hands of those they send to negotiate robbing the treasury on their behalf. Two decades ago, the idea of government-run and mandated health insurance and healthcare was anathema to Conservative thought. Today - the argument is over how it must be managed and regulated rather than eschew the very idea of it.
So now the talk is the need to enforce fealty to party, fealty to the President, rather than fealty to the oaths the representatives in those parties swear allegiance to.
I'm not interested in building coalitions with the wicked to adopt more Liberal Socialism to get an empty promise of rolling back the iron fist of the state by electing more liberal Democrats to power in the party with a big fat R. I'm interested in separating from them. The consequences both parties have sown - is a bitter harvest we have yet to truly reap. I do not want to be anywhere near them when that unravelling begins.
Yes, I completely recognize that my view is in a woeful and tiny minority. It's an indictment of the whole corrupted system and the people that wallow in the slime they happily coat themselves with because they do not want liberty. They want security and the illusion of peace, safety and provision, at the expense of others. I'm happy to be the only guy in the mob, not saluting, because my fealty is not to what the mob salutes. My fealty is to what the mob has rejected and replaced.