Causa Unus

Being a former conservative/libertarian and former Christian, I have read enough, and talked to enough people, to know that there must be still be people like William F. Buckley out there. Conservative intellectuals who labor over ideas and debate policy in the hope of perfecting our Union. There was once a time where vast swaths of the conservative landscape were recognizable by their intellectual curiosity. Finding them though, seems to be on par with catching the great white whale.

In the last six months, the petulant-child wing of the Republican party has managed to seize control of the headlines and the discourse. The problem with this is that it is a phenomenon devoid of content. Anger, slogans, and ad hominum is all that is coming out of this movement in any real quantity. It seems like, in a time when we need a strong conservative voice to offset the power of Democratic Party, the intellectual segment of the Right has disappeared in the sea of foamy-mouthed blue-hairs. So far, I haven't found what I am looking for - clear conservative thought - but it has to be out there somewhere. The entire Republican Party cannot be the Glenn Beck dittoheads.

I thought that perhaps P.J. O'Rourke would be a good place to start. I was wrong. In this article P.J. seems more than happen to lock arms with the crazies and mock the Left for mocking them. Most of the liberals I run across are willing to mock the Tea Party movement, but only because is it so devoid of actual policy and so full of misplaced anger that it begs to be mocked. For the most part liberals, like myself, seem truly perplexed that this is all the opposition has. The problem isn't that there is disagreement, that should be expected, the problem is the total lack of reasoned disagreement.

So here I sit, a liberal atheist who is totally behind a single-payer system, asking for the real conservatives to convince me there is a better way. I will not be convinced that there is no problem. The system is broken and is prostituting the sick for financial gain. No argument is going to shake this belief from my mind. Reality and hard facts support that our health system is not functional by any reasonable standard. I am willing, however, to be convinced that there is a workable private-sector solution. I would like to hear real arguments in favor of something of this sort. Ad-hominum, red herrings, strawmen, and the usual feable Fox fallacies will not be sufficient. I am also interested in hearing ideas on how we can push some civil debate back into the system.