Big Conservatism

I spend a lot of time ruminating on the problems with conservatism today. So, apparently, does Mark Shea, who has been reading Rod Dreher's Crunchy Cons. We've come to a similar conclusion:

[I get the impression] some smart guys in the corporate and political world latched on to nascent conservatism somewhere back there and said, "How can we *use* this to serve our ends?" the rank and file have been manipulated and don't know it, till things like Crunchy Cons make them stir and say, "Something's wrong." The basic difference between Russell Kirk, the founder of Modern Conservatism and so much of what passes for conservatism today is that he was about preserving small things while much of it today is about protecting large things: big corporations, big gov't (yes, I know the rhetoric, but look at what the GOP in power *does*).