Even as a kid in high school I was wondering how you can combine "strong national defense" (euphemism for big military), small government and low taxes. The foundations of modern "conservatism" are utter nonsense.
Strong national defense does not have to mean big military. You could have an efficient military, and be a member of alliances, and achieve strong defense.
If the school system was not infected with Liberal Democrats they might have been able to teach you. Conservatives are strict constitutionalists. The Constitution is very clear that the one of the few roles of Federal Government is to protect the citizens from foreign attack. __________________ That the legitimate function of government is to secure these rights through the preservation of domestic tranquility, the maintenance of a strong national defense, and the promotion of equal justice for all;
Cut the crap, you know damn well what "strong national defense" means in the context of Republicans/Conservatism. The "conservative hero" ronald reagan jacked up military budgets and people like Limbaugh are all too happy with an insane military budget too. In the context of history of US political discourse, "strong national defense" means exactly what I said, increased outlays for the defense department and an expansionist foreign policy. As I said before, small government and big military don't combine (military is part of government) big military and low taxes don't combine either. The essence of all of this is that conservatism is a fraud.
Well, in that sense, you can't accuse conservatism alone, as both parties are "a fraud", in that they are both owned, imho, by the political/economic elite, and thus practice essentially the same foreign policy.
Are you inept at understanding relativity? You state the phrase low taxes as if there is a universally accepted percentage considered to be a low tax. In 1900 Americans would consider the taxes of today to be gigantic. Today Denmark citizens would consider American taxes to be tiny. Traditional conservatives believed in a foreign policy built around isolationism and small government interference in the market place. A foreign policy built around isolationism with small government interference in the market with minimal human resource programs would create very low taxes relative to today. The error you're making is that you assume modern Republicans are traditional conservatives. They are not. The majority of Modern Republicans believe in an expansionist foreign policy with a moderate amount of entitlement programs relative to Democrats. That won't create taxes as low as traditional conservatives but will keep taxes lower relative to the other party. The majority of Modern Democrats believe in an expansionist foreign policy with a high amount of entitlement programs relative to Republicans. That will create higher taxes relative to the Republicans. Modern Republicans will not create low taxes in the sense of traditional conservatives but they will create lower taxes relative to the Democrats.