Conservative Estimate

A Complete Refutation of Conservatism According to Its Own Principles

By: Scott McMurrey

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

“Conservatism” is a con.

For seventy years, “conservatives” have been running a con job on America and on themselves. Because they were getting their heads bashed in by liberals, they created a bunch of phony “principles” in the early 1950s. They’ve been pushing them ever since. And they’ve managed to convince millions of people—even liberals—that “conservatism” is a legitimate world view.

It is not. It is a farrago of deception, illogic, unreason, and selfishness painted over to seem unthreatening and wholesome.

The principal author of this con was Russell Kirk, whose 1953 book The Conservative Mind pulled together all the historical strands of regression and wrapped them up with a bow. He “discovered” some rules of thumb that eventually became “principles” for “conservatives” to rally round. The trick? Each “principle” was actually a genial disguise for a sordid human vice that no decent person should tolerate.

Using Kirk’s “principles” as cover, “conservatives” quickly learned to hide the curmudgeonly, classist, racist, and intemperate personas that had lost them all public support starting in the 1930s. From this beginning, with the financial backing of a long line of self-interested billionaires, “conservatives” stood up a sprawling conglomerate of think tanks, institutes, universities, research foundations, and political operations to inject the venom of bad faith into American society.

This book peels back the camouflage of Kirk’s fake “principles” and shows the reality underneath. By going through each disguise, the book reveals the fathomless fear that dominates “conservatives” and compels them to ever escalating acts of hubris and antisocial hostility.

And it shows exactly what we need to do with “conservatism” to make America decent again.