AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

Sarah Palin despite her weaknesses would have been a better President than Barack Obama with all his weaknesses. Obama lives in the intellectual, emotional, and political corral once described by Einstein: "People who keep repeating the same action and each time expecting a different result are insane."

I think Sarah will have to do a great deal of time in the 'books' to get up to speed on a lot of things, and she might not be up to it, but I agree that she at least has her mind right about the issues. Unless she has lied about everything she believes, she would not be plunging the country into an insolvency that may be irreversible, and she would not be attempting to wedge us into more and more global government, and she would not be attempting to put the people under more and more government control. I think she could be trusted to think before she acts and would be far more committed to the concept of "first, do no harm" than President Obama has been.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

wandeljw wrote:

I am probably easier to please than most people, Thomas.

So, 'easy-to-please' Wandel, if we are agreed that few if any people will be all one ideology without any exceptions, would you have a quarrel with any of the defining criteria I assigned to MACs and MALs so far? If so, which ones and why?

Do you agree with recent polls in which the majority of Americans do identify with conservative values rather than liberal ones? Please explain why you answer as you do.

Why do you think Thomas is so offended that I would respond to you as I did? Were you offended? Why or why not?

Why do you think so many people are unwilling to actually discuss the concepts? Or incapable? Do you agree with me that they are not that difficult to understand?

I didn't get the impression that Thomas was offended. Thomas may have more rigorous standards than I do when it comes to the subject of political philosophy. I myself did not enjoy studying political philosophy. I was always more interested in learning about how the institutions of government operate.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

If you are not interested in political philosophy, then why did that is why you started following this thread? But I accept that you are not interested, and while I spent quite a bit of time attempting to address your question, I won't push you to answer my other questions. I would be very appreciative if you would.

I think Thomas is offended by me and my point of view. Otherwise I think he wouldn't telegraph his opinion of that so clearly. But so far he hasn't been able to dispute my point of view which allows me to continue to believe that I am more right than wrong. Smile

But don't you think that ideology is built into, permeates, saturates, guides, and is the driving force behind the institutions of government? Otherwise how could say a President Obama favor, push, sell, and promote as well as order so many concepts that would be anathema to say a person like Ron Paul if Paul was president? Don't you think the ideology of those we elect to Congress is a significant factor in the kinds of legislation and regulation that gets passed?

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

In your own eyes, you're always more right than wrong. Only those who can observe you from afar can see you are mostly wrong.

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@Foxfyre,

Your lack of familiarity with Hofstadter is something you ought to simply acknowledge rather than try to bluster over. There's no loss of integrity or esteem from being unaware of or unfamiliar with a thing. Those losses come from pretending otherwise, to self or to others. And with them attend an inability to learn.

3 Replies

From Andrew Sullivan:

Quote:

And this helps explain the broader problem with American conservatism right now. It is less a movement than an industry. From Fox News to talk radio to conservative publishing houses, it has created an alternate and lucrative media reality that is worth a fortune to those able to exploit it. Alas, these alternative media thrive on paranoia, hatred of liberal elites and growing extremist rhetoric made worse by a hermetically sealed echo chamber of true believers. Anyone criticised by the left or even by the establishment right is a martyr in this world. In America, martyrdom sells. And Palin is a product worth lots of money.

She wants some of it; and she has no actual interest in governing America (even though she’d love the title of president). She referred to giving up her “title” as governor, not her “office”. In this, she is the ultimate Republican of this degenerate moment: all culture war, no policy; all identity politics, no engagement with practical answers to difficult public problems; and all hysterical opposition to Barack Obama, no actual alternatives offered.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6688848.ece

1 Reply

@blatham,

Hofstadter was required reading when I was in college and we explored his writings pretty extensively. He is not an old style conservative for sure, but neither is he the social liberal that you probably want him to be. When you put him within the context of his time and culture, he was progressive for his time but more on the level of MAC-ean classical liberalism. Admittedly the work you cited, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays, was written post college for me, and my experience with that was in a subsequent book club presentation. Not that I remember all that many book club presentations, but I remembered that one specifically because it was Hofstadter. I didn't read the book however.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

I should concede that Hofstadter did expound on a form of Marxist-tinged anti-capitalism but he was equally anti-communist. Basically he chafed against those extremist views that some sought to impose on others. That's why I think he would oppose modern social liberalism every bit as much as he opposed the old style conservatism of his time.

1 Reply

@blatham,

And as for conservatism being a lucrative industry (according to Andrew Sullivan) while similar efforts to promote liberalism have been an amazing failure in our modern culture, why do you think conservatism sells and liberalism doesn't?

2 Replies

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

And as for conservatism being a lucrative industry (according to Andrew Sullivan) while similar efforts to promote liberalism have been an amazing failure in our modern culture, why do you think conservatism sells and liberalism doesn't?

Succumbing to what you routinely subscribe to others, you fail to understand Sullivan's point. Fox News pundits, Limbaugh, Coulter, and others within this "conservative" brotherhood profit through the exploitation of hateful, bigoted, and paranoid right-wingers. Your query is so ridiculous that it's akin to giving undeserved credit to the KKK brotherhood (and other proponents of a jim crow society) for selling its "conservative" message during the mid-twentienth century while calling the civil rights movement an amazing failure.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

And as for conservatism being a lucrative industry (according to Andrew Sullivan) while similar efforts to promote liberalism have been an amazing failure in our modern culture, why do you think conservatism sells and liberalism doesn't?

You've often enough told me, Foxfyre, that this is a thread about the USA, conservatives and liberals there, with your (mostly personal) definition of those terms.

But quite often you yourself mingle 'outlandish' concepts and ideas with your own "standards".
Sullivan isn't an American. Marx (and Socialism) isn't American.

So it certainly might be that conservatism sells and liberalism less.
But according to what (and whose) definition? (The German conservatives are perhaps even left to the US-Democrats, the UK's conservatives about the same, and you and others called the French conservatives even socialists.)

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Your categories and memories/presumptions are not to be found in Hofstadter. Unless, of course, you find those things anywhere and everywhere.

1 Reply

@Debra Law,

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:
And as for conservatism being a lucrative industry (according to Andrew Sullivan) while similar efforts to promote liberalism have been an amazing failure in our modern culture, why do you think conservatism sells and liberalism doesn't?

Succumbing to what you routinely subscribe to others, you fail to understand Sullivan's point. Fox News pundits, Limbaugh, Coulter, and others within this "conservative" brotherhood profit through the exploitation of hateful, bigoted, and paranoid right-wingers. Your query is so ridiculous that it's akin to giving undeserved credit to the KKK brotherhood (and other proponents of a jim crow society) for selling its "conservative" message during the mid-twentienth century while calling the civil rights movement an amazing failure.

Quite.

And that's not even to mention that the mainstream media, a vast, implacable and overwhelming social phenomenon which is undeniably marked by pervasive leftwing/liberal partisan bias, sits outside of Foxfire's "if there's a market and buyers for a thing, that thing is therefore a social good" equation. Ann Coulter, Paul Krugman, Noam Chomsky, Mark Levine, cocaine and kiddy porn arrive in the same category.

0 Replies

@blatham,

Ah.. Blatham. Having had discussions with Fox about Locke and Adam Smith's writings, I can see where this is going. She claims to have read it and will tell you what it means. You can provide quotes and references galore from the author to support your position. She will provide nothing other than her recollections of when she read it 20 years ago. She will declare you know nothing and she is all knowing.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

And as for conservatism being a lucrative industry (according to Andrew Sullivan) while similar efforts to promote liberalism have been an amazing failure in our modern culture, why do you think conservatism sells and liberalism doesn't?

You've often enough told me, Foxfyre, that this is a thread about the USA, conservatives and liberals there, with your (mostly personal) definition of those terms.

But quite often you yourself mingle 'outlandish' concepts and ideas with your own "standards".
Sullivan isn't an American. Marx (and Socialism) isn't American.

So it certainly might be that conservatism sells and liberalism less.
But according to what (and whose) definition? (The German conservatives are perhaps even left to the US-Democrats, the UK's conservatives about the same, and you and others called the French conservatives even socialists.)

As always, Walter, I will use my best understanding of American definitions for the terms I use. I have thoroughly acknowledged that the same word may have different meaning in Germany as in America, but this is a thread about American conservatism, and the definitions that apply are the American definitions however much that might be uncomfortable to a European who doesn't want the words defined in that way.

If you think I have it wrong re American definitions, then write what you think the correct definition should be and let's discuss it. So far nobody grumbling about the definitions has been willing to stick his or her neck out to offer his own definition, however, which makes me believe that the liberals remain focused on attacking people rather than ideas. And I can only conclude that the reason for this is that they are unable to defend their ideas. Attacking people is the only ammunition they have.

I would expect to use the definitions as Germans use them if I was writing about German conservatism and liberalism however.

2 Replies

I was thinking about this essay posted two days ago by Foxfyre:

Quote:

Honduras' non-coup
Under the country's Constitution, the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya was legal.
By Miguel A. Estrada
July 10, 2009

Honduras, the tiny Central American nation, had a change of leaders on June 28. The country's military arrested President Manuel Zelaya -- in his pajamas, he says -- and put him on a plane bound for Costa Rica. A new president, Roberto Micheletti, was appointed. Led by Cuba and Venezuela (Sudan and North Korea were not immediately available), the international community swiftly condemned this "coup."

Something clearly has gone awry with the rule of law in Honduras -- but it is not necessarily what you think. Begin with Zelaya's arrest. The Supreme Court of Honduras, as it turns out, had ordered the military to arrest Zelaya two days earlier. A second order (issued on the same day) authorized the military to enter Zelaya's home to execute the arrest. These orders were issued at the urgent request of the country's attorney general. All the relevant legal documents can be accessed (in Spanish) on the Supreme Court's website. They make for interesting reading.

Although the Honduran Supreme Court played a leading role, the ouster of the elected president was still a coup. The new president's government does not have any legitimacy.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

There's no loss of integrity or esteem from being unaware of or unfamiliar with a thing. Those losses come from pretending otherwise, to self or to others.

On the other hand, "when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose". Bob Dylan had a point there.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Your categories and memories/presumptions are not to be found in Hofstadter. Unless, of course, you find those things anywhere and everywhere.

You could be right this five decades later since I studied Hofstadter, but my experience with you is that you will cherry pick a line and present it as absolute proof of an ideology or mindset and, and if you are challenged, you will refuse to defend it within the larger context. And I am quite certain that my point of view is no more narrow or fixed or ideologically biased or intractable than yours.

I am quite sure that you or I could cherry pick more lines from Hofstadter's writings, as you did, and present them as proof positive of what the man thought or taught. My recollections are somewhat broader than that, however, and framed within discussions of a man who was quite 'progressive' for his time and who challenged some previously sacred cows of history and philosophy.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

blatham wrote:
There's no loss of integrity or esteem from being unaware of or unfamiliar with a thing. Those losses come from pretending otherwise, to self or to others.

On the other hand, "when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose". Bob Dylan had a point there.

Well you certainly have nothing to lose by taking pokes at me instead of offering an argument against my point of view. I can only conclude that taking pokes at me is all you've got.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Conclude away, then.

0 Replies

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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