Over the past 25 years, as the political pendulum swung to the right after several decades of liberal sway, the left has moved toward the center as the right has moved to the far right. The result? Conservatism--and I say this with the innate caution of a moderate 65-year-old--has been seized by extremists who have emerged from the fringes of the right wing and dragged that once honorable political philosophy into a swamp of moral degradation. They have twisted its tenets into ugly, unrecognizable rationales for the abuse of power, while trampling on the grave of Edmund Burke, conservatism's founding father.

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