Facts and “Healthy” Conservatism

Jim Manzi makes what some might consider a questionable statement:

…healthy conservatism from Burke onwards has been the party of “facts trump theories”

Let’s look at the three legs of the conservative stool:

Supply-Side Economics: Based on a theory written on a napkin, contradicted by all the empirical evidence (read: "facts") as analyzed every which way from Sunday, by every leading economist. (Not a single leading university economics department is a supply-side shop.)

Religion. ‘kay, do we want to compare this theory to all the facts of biology, chemistry, and physics…?

Strong Military. This one’s debatable in the big picture, and in degree. But Iraq…well, regarding facts…’nuf said.

Maybe it just serves to point out how un-"healthy" the conservative movement has been at least since Nixon.