The Republican conservative movement is dead. The modern conservative movement brought to us by Bill Buckley and Pat Buchanan (with the help of others) was not conservative at all, but was rather a ploy by reactionaries to divide the country using sex, race and religion.

The ploy worked and Republicans have had control of our government since 1968.

What did they promise? Smaller government, a balanced budget, to overturn the 1960s civil rights laws and Roe v. Wade.

What did they accomplish? None of the above.

In fact, we now have bigger government, spending is out of control, there is no balanced budget and huge deficits (except for Clinton’s eight years).

Conservative Republicans have spent billions of dollars on weapons that don’t work and aren’t needed. Then they send our troops off to war in vehicles that don’t have armor. When our troops get wounded or killed, it is as if they fell off the end of the earth. They don’t get the health care they deserve, and survivors don’t get the benefits they are due.

The stockholders of defense contractors are happy, and they continue to pour money to the re-election funds of our lawmakers.

The country has not been in this kind of shape since the end of the last golden age. The last golden age also brought us the Great Depression.

Judson Duncan, Monmouth