Some Quick Corrections

I've been posting on CONVPOL lately, and I want to address a few points here so as to not add to an already outrageously long response, or detract from the main point. The post in question is here, and Kyle says a number of things which seem unnecessary, or even badly in error:

Marxism

I mentioned briefly that Kyle's ideals are very close to the Marxist "from each... to each..." formulation. Kyle admits this himself; I admit it is essentially the goal of any society. The difficulty starts because people don't, never have, and don't seem inclined to ever comply with the "from each" bit. Conservatism says give 'em what they earn; liberalism, largely, wants to give them the "to each" anyway. I'm side-tracking here, but I just wanted to point out that describing a thing accurately doesn't necessitate a defense in detail like Kyle gave.

Obama The Leftist

This one's a little trickier. President Obama is not a vegan, PETA-endorsing, alternate-power-is-the-only-good-thing leftist. But in the American political calculus, his determination to follow leftist – that is, liberal Democratic – policies put him about as far left as you can get while still being even vaguely in the main stream of American thought.

"Effectiveness" of Leftist Presidents

If you want to demonstrate that conservative ideology is a wrong, you need to do more than point out that you disagree with it. We know that already. You also need more than your "effectiveness" argument. Great – FDR was better at instituting liberal ideals than Reagan was at establishing conservative ones. We get that. Mao was more efficient at getting his way than the Kuomintang, too.

List of Accusations

With conservatives in power, the military industrial complex tends to rapidly grow, legislation making lists of banned behaviors (books, religions, abortions, medicines, organizations, etc.) appear[s], and even more legislation is passed to specifically allow previously unallowed behaviors (death sentences, guns in the workplace, etc.).

This is pretty much nonsense. Yes, the biggest agitation to ban things in recent history has been to ban abortion, which is murder. If you don't like the word, what do you call something which is, at the very least, by scientifically unassailable facts, the destruction of a unique human organism? There can be and should be no apology for any attempt to ban murder. But after that, two can play the accusation game. The next biggest political crusade has been against "hate speech" – and that's a liberal cause that treads dangerously close to transgressing on the right of freedom of speech. It's to the point where few comparisons that even mention race can be made publicly without accusations of racism flying, no matter how incidental or true the point made.

But these specific accusations are silly too:

• Allowing gun ownership and carrying is consistent with low-regulation conservatism, what do you expect? (It's not like it really adds to risk, either - if anything, the opposite.)
• The death sentence was regarded as an effective deterrent and just punishment for virtually the entirety of human history. In terms of human rights logic, it's an established line of argument that involvement in certain crimes forfeits societal rights, including life. Many conservatives accept that, or believe the death penalty acceptable for religious reasons, or both.
• The "military industrial complex" is a thing of dubious definition, and seems above politics. If Bush I had Iraq, Clinton had Kosovo. If Bush II had Afghanistan, Obama has Libya.

As for banning books and religion? I have never heard of a conservative trying to ban anything more than immoral books (whether rightly so considered or not) from a school – which seems eminently sensible, and not a Federal matter at all. Under banning "religion", that's been a liberal crusade lately: no prayers in school, no Ten Commandments in public buildings, etc. If you can back that one up I'll be disturbed, but it seems little more than a wild accusation with, at best, fault on both sides.