Dear GOP Democrats,

Political history is long-winded and complex, which is why it is understandable you are unaware of it. For instance, your support for big government comes from the fact your intellectual debt lies in the Democratic Party.

The conservative movement, as we know it in the early twenty-first century, started when President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY) started enacting the New Deal policies in the late 1930s.

The Democrats had control of the South; and these were largely limited-government conservatives at the federal level, but big-government at the state level. They formed a conservative coalition, led by senators Harry Bird (D-VA) and Robert Taft (R-OH), that opposed President Roosevelt and his successor Harry S. Truman (D-MO) in the 1940s and '50s.

When President Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-KS) stayed out of most domestic issues of the states, but intervened in foreign policy in the 1950s, conservative Democrats were happy. But upset conservative Republicans who were antiwar at the time (see: RNC breaking the rules to change the rules to force Senator Taft delegates to vote for General Eisenhower in 1952, similarly how the RNC did in 2012 for Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) against Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX); though Taft actually was winning).

Fast forward to the 1970s, when most southern Democrats had political spats with the John F. Kennedy (D-MA) and Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) administrations.

First, the antiwar left became a nuisance for the pro-war Democrats, largely thanks to the counter-culture movement born from opposition to the Vietnam War.

Second, some antiwar leftists got elected and became influential, like Senator George McGovern (D-SD) who was nominated for president in 1972.

And third, the Democrats were forced to use antiwar rhetoric to stay relevant (note how President Kennedy preached peace but beat the war drums against Vietnam and global communism, and how President Johnson was bloodthirsty for war while claiming to want peace).

So the foreign policy interventionists migrated from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Major influences of this migration include political scientist Leo Strauss and, the "godfather of neoconservatism" himself, journalist Irving Kristol.

Ever since, especially since the 1980s, they have pushed for war and interventions in the name of "spreading Western democracy" and "the State of Israel." Notice every war since this migration has been started by Republicans (but by Democrats before). Mr. Republican, Robert Taft, warned the GOP about these big-government policies.

Also in the 1970s, some southern Democrats held faith in their party because of the election of President Jimmy Carter (D-GA), an evangelical Christian. But his domestic policies disappointed them, and they disavowed the party.

They, too, migrated to the Republican Party, which was slowly but surely being controlled by neocons and their attempts at serving Israel. Evangelicals, led by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, urged political Christians to work in the GOP. Mr. Conservative, Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), warned the GOP about their infiltration.

Called social "conservatives," or theocons (theocratic "conservatives"), they started being appointed to high positions in the government in the 1980s and '90s. They pushed for domestic policy interventions and spitefulness of the unknown. Like neocons, they wanted government to enforce their brand of morality. Does not sound moral.

Literally speaking, you Republicans who espouse foreign policy and domestic policy interventions came from the Democratic Party. Hiding behind Ronald Reagan's legacy does not negate that fact.

Neocons, you have little disagreement with Democrats on foreign policy. Both sides believe in Israel-first policies, foreign aid to violent nations, nefarious oil deals with tyrants, wars with groups and countries fighting U.S. imperialism, the PATRIOT and FISA acts, NSA spying, torture and Gitmo, and a wide array of other issues.

Why not go back to your party?

Theocons, you have some disagreement with Democrats, but you all believe in Israel-first policies, getting government involved in social policy, redefining marriage (you cannot believe in sanctity of marriage and believe government ought to intervene, which is a relatively new policy in the history of marriage), the drug war, government forcing reproduction policies on the people, and so on.

You face equal amount of opposition from the GOP, so why not leave? If the Democratic Party isn't an option, how about the Constitution Party (don't let the name scare you, they are not exactly constitutionalist)?

Until you do, expect these pesky Republicans to call you out on what you really are - "modern liberals," "GOP liberals," "big-government statists," and my personal favorite, "the Democratic faction of the GOP."

That is not to say Republicans are friends to those who are liberty-oriented. By leaving the protectionists, pseudo-constitutionalists, and paleoconservatives to the GOP, you guarantee staying power for yourselves in the Democratic Party.

I will finish my open letter to you GOP Democrats with a passage from one of the most influential conservatives of the twentieth century, William F. Buckley, from the first issue of his famous publication. You might have heard of him, especially with his interviews with actual limited-government folk like Chicago-school economists Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell, and Austrian-school economist Friedrich A. Hayek. He says, in 1955, of the convictions of conservatives:

"It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens’ lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side. The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, the conflict between the Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to conform with scientific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order. We believe that truth is neither arrived at nor illuminated by monitoring election results, binding though these are for other purposes, but by other means, including a study of human experience. On this point we are, without reservations, on the conservative side."

Sincerely,

Kenny Kelly