AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Everything is that isn't it.

A 'conservative' wishing to revitalize or rehabilitate their party and movement could do far worse than to look here... http://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Conservatism-American-Political-Lost/dp/0195335589



short interview here... http://movies.crooksandliars.com/bmj_mccain_hagee_unitary_executive_030908.wmv

Re: AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

1. The Bushes were never conservatives.
Reagan chose a Bush to balance his own conservatism on the ticket; an error.

2. Tho I believed and believe that overthrowing Saddam
was necessary to American security from very loud radioactive noises
manifesting in American port cities,
Saddam is no longer a threat.

We shud have left as soon as we caught him.
Waste of our troops' lives and tons of American cash
cost us the good will of the electorate.

Remaining in Iraq is pointless and irrational.
Enuf is enuf.

David

In my opinion, the topic here has been blurred by philosophical ramblings. Conservatism is not complicated. It is simply common sense that works. Basically, it says, believe in the rights and responsibilities of individuals. And what individuals can't do for themselves, let government help, but make that government activity as local as possible. Small government, efficient government, and responsible budget management are conservative values. Free enterprise and private property rights are cornerstones to conservative policy.

Conservatism requires a citizenry that is responsible. If too many citizens are willing to sacrifice freedom and personal responsibility in return for government handouts, then our form of government is in real danger. We are currently drifting in that dangerous direction. Modern culture, in conjunction with the media and a lousy education system are promoting the idea that government is supposed to not only allow for the pursuit of happiness, but to guarantee it. Although there are some reasons to hope for a turnaround, I am not particularly optimistic that the current political trends toward liberalism and increased socialism will be reversed.

Communism requires a citizenry that resposible. Funny that while it is far removed from classical conservatism, it fails for the same reason... the human factor.

T
K
O

I can understand that it is sometimes difficult to follow ideas on the left and right side of one's own position; something what happens to all fixed on one idea, especially on a political.

When you watch the modernizing, antitraditionalist ideas of liberalism or/and the failure of socialism in history (or in Cuba, as the last country following socialism), conservatives surely must feel ... disturbed, but hoping that the good old days wilöl come back some time.


The term 'conservism' was first coined by the supporters of the newly restored Bourbon monarchy in France (1840) - quite significant, I think.

IMO modern American conservatism cannot be equated with European conservatism nor a dictionary definition nor, any more than any other ideology, is it exemplified by its most radical or extreme manifestations.

I can't speak for all conservatives of course as none of us walk lockstep with anybody. But I think most modern Conservatives will agree with most or all of the following:

1) America must have a strong federal government and a strong defense capable of defending itself against all enemies, domestic and foreign, and capable of defending the U.S. Constitution plus enforcing such regulatory processes as necessary for orderly and effective interstate and international banking and commerce and control of particular hazards. A smaller, leaner government is far more effective toward that end as a swelling and bloated bureaucracy will inevitably venture into areas never intended for the Federal government to address.

2) The Constitution is a worthy and efficient document that covers the basics of what the federal government should be about. The 10th Amendment should again be taken out of its poor stepchild status and restored as an important component. The States, the counties, and the communities should be left to order their lives according to the community values and moral standards.

3) The Supreme Court best serves when it holds to Constitutional constructionist principles.

4) A government of the people, by the people, and for the people will put its faith in the people. It can provide incentive, encouragement, and information for the people to be able to be the best they can be, but will get out of the way and not get involved in processes and activities that can be managed more efficiently and effectively in the private sector.

5) The goverment cannot be all that everybody wants it to be or provide all that everybody wants it to provide. To expect the government to provide the precise environment amd standard of living we want without the people themselves being accountable and taking responsibility for that pushes us further and further into the arms of socialism until we are so deep we will never be able to extricate ourselves.

This of course does not cover every point or every issue, but it could be a place to start.

We need to bear in mind that both conservative and liberal
have no meaning in and of themselves;
thay have meaning only insofar as thay RELATE to something else,
to some practice, or to some body of rules.

The words conservative or liberal describe the absence or the presence
( respectively )
of DEVIATION from something.
For instance,
a man who wears a dark suit n tie is dressed conservatively,
because he adheres closely to the paradigm of clothing style.

In other words, he does NOT deviate from that style.

To the extent that my fonetic spelling deviates from and repudiates
the historical paradigm of non-fonetic spelling, it is liberal.
To the extent that someone else uses the old paradigm,
with no deviation, his spelling is conservative; he is conserving that norm.


In the interpretation of a contract,
there can be rigid, inflexible adherence or
there can be deviations therefrom.
If there were no deviations from the contract
in carrying it out, then it was done CONSERVATIVELY,
in that all signatories thereof kept their words.

Liberalism cannot exist without deviation.
Deviation is the LIFE, the essence, of liberalism.

The Classical Liberals deviated from the authoritarianism of Monarchy,
choosing instead for libertarianism.

If Dad tells little Johnny to be home by midnite, or no ice cream tomorrow,
and he shows up at that time, there is no deviation therefrom:
thus, he is being conservative.

If Johnny shows up at 12:30 a.m., he is being somewhat liberal
as to the midnite standard.
If he shows up at 3 a.m., he is being more liberal.

If he comes back 2 weeks later, he is being even MORE liberal,
regarding the midnite requirement.

If he moves out and never comes back, he is being RADICAL
( i.e., to pull up by the root ).

In America, the social and political contract
is the US Constitution, which was laid upon a foundation of libertarianism,
individualism and l'aissez faire free enterprize.
To the extent that there is deviation from the social n political contract,
there is liberalism; to the extent that there is NO deviation therefrom,
there is conservatism; i.e. government is keeping its word,
as set forth in that instrument.

If a poker player grabs for the pot, claiming to have a diamond flush,
when he has 4 diamonds and a heart, he is being liberal with the rules of poker.
If he gets caught 4 flushing, he declares:
" that 's close enuf; don 't be too technical. "

Conservatism = rigid, inflexible adherence to a standard ( e.g., a contract ).
Liberalism = deviant flexiblity, or loose interpretation thereof.

David

My reference above was just and only to the time when the term 'conservatism' was first mentioned anywhere in the sense of a political idea.

Certainly there are many spectra of conservatism - conservative social democrats follow a different idea than conservative nationalists and the conservatives in any national conservative party have different aims as well.

However, as well as you can 'assemble' social democratic parties under one 'umbrella' you can do it with liberal parties and conservative parties.
And that's done so.

With conservatives it's the International Democratic Union, the Republican Party (GOP) being the only member party from the USA.

How about American conservatism being applied to conserving constitutional principles? That seems simple enough. I agree with OmSigDAVID in the definition of the word without restricting the word to political interpretations, but as I said, I think the best political interpretation of American conservatism can be applied to the conservation of constitutional principles, the Bill of Rights, rights and responsibilities of the individual vs the state, free enterprise, private property rights, etc. There are always going to be disagreements among conservatives on the details of such policies, but at least I would think there should be agreement on the broad interpretations of it.

In contrast, liberals seek to propagate the constitution as being a living breathing document, subject to change, and there is a broad and constant push toward more and more socialism. We as conservatives have a tough time knowing just where liberals want to stop this change, but I suspect some of them have a hidden agenda, they want to go all the way to communism. Socially, liberals also want to break down all the moral constraints upon society that they possibly can. They view religious constraints and moral constraints as shackles on their freedom, not recognizing the economic and cultural chaos that results.

I agree, okie that e.g. Hobbes', Locke', Mill's views on religion are still seen quite radical by some, perhaps even a-moral.

And it might well be that the US doesn't need a living constitution but a static one.

I like it better, when a constitution is breathing, follows the progress of a maturing society, like European conservatives think, too.

I haven't been to Paris or Rome, but I have London, and you couldn't pay me to live there. It is a miserable place in my opinion.

By the way, Washington, Detroit, or Philadelphia can hardly be blamed on conservative policies.

Not much can be. You have the Truth and the Light on your side.

Yes, professor.

Re: AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND


Now you tell us! Talk about hindsight!

bookmark

The following is long, but is so appropriate to a discussion on ideology, I hope some will enjoy it.

An except from "The Village Voice":

". . . .I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the **** up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been?-rather charmingly, I thought?-referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.
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I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances?-that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired?-in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.

I found not only that I didn't trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president?-whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster?-were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"?-the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world. Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations?-they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I. So, taking the tragic view, the question was not "Is everything perfect?" but "How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?" Put into which form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well.
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Do I speak as a member of the "privileged class"? If you will?-but classes in the United States are mobile, not static, which is the Marxist view. That is: Immigrants came and continue to come here penniless and can (and do) become rich; the nerd makes a trillion dollars; the single mother, penniless and ignorant of English, sends her two sons to college (my grandmother). On the other hand, the rich and the children of the rich can go belly-up; the hegemony of the railroads is appropriated by the airlines, that of the networks by the Internet; and the individual may and probably will change status more than once within his lifetime.

What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.

But if the government is not to intervene, how will we, mere human beings, work it all out?

I wondered and read, and it occurred to me that I knew the answer, and here it is: We just seem to. How do I know? From experience. I referred to my own?-take away the director from the staged play and what do you get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter rehearsal period, and a better production.
The director, generally, does not cause strife, but his or her presence impels the actors to direct (and manufacture) claims designed to appeal to Authority?-that is, to set aside the original goal (staging a play for the audience) and indulge in politics, the purpose of which may be to gain status and influence outside the ostensible goal of the endeavor.

Strand unacquainted bus travelers in the middle of the night, and what do you get? A lot of bad drama, and a shake-and-bake Mayflower Compact. Each, instantly, adds what he or she can to the solution. Why? Each wants, and in fact needs, to contribute?-to throw into the pot what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal, as well as status in the new-formed community. And so they work it out.

See also that most magnificent of schools, the jury system, where, again, each brings nothing into the room save his or her own prejudices, and, through the course of deliberation, comes not to a perfect solution, but a solution acceptable to the community?-a solution the community can live with.

Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is exclusively liberal, he is a self-described independent (read "conservative"), and he was driving the flock wild. Why? Because a) he never discussed politics; and b) he taught that the quality of political discourse must be addressed first?-that Jewish law teaches that it is incumbent upon each person to hear the other fellow out.

And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth grinding, to attempt to do so. And in doing so, I recognized that I held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other?-the world in which I actually functioned day to day?-was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).

And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.


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"Aha," you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.

At the same time, I was writing my play about a president, corrupt, venal, cunning, and vengeful (as I assume all of them are), and two turkeys. And I gave this fictional president a speechwriter who, in his view, is a "brain-dead liberal," much like my earlier self; and in the course of the play, they have to work it out. And they eventually do come to a human understanding of the political process. As I believe I am trying to do, and in which I believe I may be succeeding, and I will try to summarize it in the words of William Allen White.

White was for 40 years the editor of the Emporia Gazette in rural Kansas, and a prominent and powerful political commentator. He was a great friend of Theodore Roosevelt and wrote the best book I've ever read about the presidency. It's called Masks in a Pageant, and it profiles presidents from McKinley to Wilson, and I recommend it unreservedly.

White was a pretty clear-headed man, and he'd seen human nature as few can. (As Twain wrote, you want to understand men, run a country paper.) White knew that people need both to get ahead and to get along, and that they're always working at one or the other, and that government should most probably stay out of the way and let them get on with it. But, he added, there is such a thing as liberalism, and it may be reduced to these saddest of words: " . . . and yet . . . "

The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed about the fools on the other side?-but, at the end of the day, they are the same folks we meet at the water cooler. Happy election season.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374064,374064,1.html/full

I am interested in better understanding actual conservative thought and positions (not the stereotyped versions, or the ultra-biased versions), and of course arguing against them respectively, and where I feel the need to.

I hope this thread can remain somewhat civil.

That is my hope too, Maporsche. Thank you.