While looking up some other information on our good ol' buddy Trent Lott, I was googling around some of the more "moderate" hmmm...Confederate sites on the internet. Other that the fact that they all still still seem to want to be free and independant of the United States of America, they can just not seem to understand that the war really did end over 100 years ago. But I digress.

Some of the most interesting accounts I have read of the Conservative Movement seem to peg its origins with William F. Buckley over 50 years ago. I think that Buckley might have had a little guidance in his thinking. Here's a quote and a link to a very interesting document. What jumped out at me is the discussion of Taxes.

"Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them were expended among them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them would have been expended on other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy was one of the motives which drove them on to revolution. Yet this British policy has been fully realized toward the Southern States by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected three-fourths of them are expended at the North."

Well isn't that interesting. There is much more here, in fact the whole "The Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States". I see so much of the language and rhetorical construction used by everyone on the right from Grover Norquist on down the right wing-neocon food chain that it's frightening (it's almost as if the never really had an original thought). Was this little gem somewhere in Tricky Dicks brain somewhere when he began his "southern strategy"? The whole thing seems to argue for "states rights", "local control", "lower taxes" all the right wing "virtues" espoused by everyone from Dubya on down in his administration. If the "Mayberry Machiavelli's" are using this document or something like it as a touchstone for Public Policy, it's no wonder that John D'Iulio saw no signs of intelligent public policy life at the White House. Hell, just follow an obscure document more than 100 years old written by an old dead white guy, that still resonates with your political base today and you have a winner.