Readers' forum: Mainstream conservatism

Published: Tuesday, June 21 2011 12:00 a.m. MDT

Summary

Utah Sen. Bob Bennett was voted out of office for supporting TARP, a government effort to prevent a run on banks that was a major cause of the Great Depression. Tea Party founder David Kirkham compares TARP and other government interventions in the economy to the brutal and failed socialist economic policies that led to the downfall of the former Soviet Union.

Such comparisons are absurd and not rooted in reality. The United States needs conservative ideas to modernize the American economy and reform government, not eliminate it. The tea party wants to cut and starve government until we have nothing left. The absence of government does not bring freedom or liberty; it just brings anarchy. American voters need to reject tea party extremism in favor of mainstream conservatism.

Neil Thomas

Clinton

Featured Comments

See all 34 comments »

Roland Kayser

Cottonwood Heights, UT

I always say I'm an Eisenhower Republican, but Dwight Eisenhower would have no place in today's Republican party. He was a firm believer in balanced budgets as a matter of public policy, not as a matter of political rhetoric. He did what he could to More..

8:42 a.m. June 21, 2011
Top comment

Furry1993

Somewhere in Utah, UT

It's well past time for mainstream conservatives -- REAL conservatives -- to step up and take the Republican party back from the far right wing authoritarians who hijacked it in the 1990s and skewed it out to the far right fringes.

6:48 a.m. June 21, 2011
Top comment

Blue

Salt Lake City, UT

Good letter as far as it goes, but it fails to address a critical point.

Where is "mainstream conservatism" if the GOP is dominated by the far-right?

The elephant is spinning faster and faster to the right, and people

12:18 a.m. June 21, 2011
Top comment

Comments