To wit, the 2006 mid-term elections began a trend, one unthinkable just half a dozen years ago, and that is an incremental moderating of America's historically conservative instincts.  Indeed, polls show that those calling themselves conservative has changed from 37 percent just four years ago to 31 percent, and the downward trend continues apace.

Concurrently, the nonjudgmental, mushy middle is increasing, due, in part to the anemic voices of real conservatives, which have been muted in the past few years.  That may be due to their wholly misguided attempts to act like liberals on key domestic legislative initiatives--i.e., the prescription drug benefit, environmental issues, and a smattering of social and judicial concerns--but there is also the less detectable phenomenon of elected officials falling sheep-like into line with electoral expectations.

As we've argued, in our culture, which is effectively unmoored from traditional values and where, thanks to our liberal elite establishment, judging others is proscribed, making the case for conservatism is a decidedly uphill climb.  Indeed, the civic trend seems to be one in which government has the solutions, and where redistribution of wealth is justified by artfully crafted entreaties to class warfare disguised as 'fairness.' 

For those who cherish the freedoms that naturally accrue from lower government intrusion--read low taxes and regulations--it's a daunting time to be alive.  Making the argument that the vast majority of our nation's history stands in stark contrast to the massive federal bureaucracy which metastasizes with every passing year, and which is stifling our freedoms and shifting wealth to government, is made more challenging by our public school system, academia, the media, and entertainment, which constantly barrages us with messages that we're helpless without a robust government.

That, of course, leads to an emasculated citizenry, one conditioned to expect relief from every real or perceived ill, and where a solid income is a kind of birthright, not the result of hard work, talent, sacrifice, and risk.

As disquieting as it is, the truth is that the nation is moving towards the blurry middle, and although conservatives can and must continue to make the case for the virtues of smaller government, low taxes and regulation, they must also realize they're swimming upstream in a culture at odds with much, perhaps most of its agenda.

For reasons best left to future cultural anthropologists, many on the left are reticent to use the word 'victory.'  Whether it's achieving a victory in the form of energy independence or in Iraq, it just seems insurmountable to liberals.  Writing in today's Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldberg links the tandem terrors of Gitmo with Yucca Mountain, arguing that nuclear energy and keeping terrorists secured are in America's best interest.

Let's set aside that the much vaunted French currently use nuclear energy for eighty percent of their nation's energy needs.  And, of course, history is replete with examples of enemy combatants being detained until the cessation of hostilities.  The fact that these are stateless foes without uniforms makes the argument even more compelling, save for those who instinctively characterize criminals as victims.

And, therein might be the solution to this conundrum, although it would be apparent to all but Democrats.  We can stipulate that justice for all is a healthy motto, but we would also add the codicil that it's reserved for U.S. citizens, something the left's anti-nationalism positively fears.  But against the backdrop of our engagement with radical Islam, retaining those enemy combatants seems like a low intellectual hurtle.  Yet the left, and a growing number of moderate Republicans, have concluded that Gitmo is evil incarnate.

Whether it's due a short-term memory problem or the absence of historical precedent, many Americans seem to have a stunted sense of justice, one that holds the U.S. to a disparate set of standards.  That takes us back to the propensity of liberals to have sympathy for criminals, which they seem to hold as dearly as any virtue.  In part, that's because the left habitually forgives pathologies such as patterned criminals.  Why?  Well, you see, it's not really their fault--they were children of alcoholic parents, abused themselves, living in a nation with systemic racism--the list is as tiresome as it is endless.

It's the palaver you can be assured is being piped into our children's brains at every turn in our public school system, along with condom etiquette and the virtues of recycling.  Never mind about the Federalist Papers, or Adam Smith, or Edmund Burke, not to mention enough mathematics so they can balance a check book.

So, the world's criminals, whether the common variety or totalitarian despots such as Saddam Hussein, are given a pass, as the left only grudgingly admits the world is better off without Iraq's dictator.  It's as though their determined to make the world safe for despots while hobbling our nation with an ineffective energy policy, one which forces bio-fuels and wind on the masses, when nuclear power is clean, safe, and effective.

This chapter in our nation's history will be a joy to write, because it's rare that an entire party is so unmistakeably guilty of ignorance, intellectual myopia, and moral indifference.  Living in this age, we have some slight idea of what Churchill must have suffered as he watched Hitler walk all over Europe.