Conservatives without conscience

Triumph of the Authoritarians
I've almost finished reading Chapter one. Dean is right on target.---BBB

Triumph of the Authoritarians
By John W. Dean
The Boston Globe
Friday 14 July 2006

Contemporary conservatism and its influence on the Republican Party was, until recently, a mystery to me. The practitioners' bludgeoning style of politics, their self-serving manipulation of the political processes, and their policies that focus narrowly on perceived self-interest - none of this struck me as based on anything related to traditional conservatism. Rather, truth be told, today's so-called conservatives are quite radical.

For more than 40 years I have considered myself a "Goldwater conservative," and am thoroughly familiar with the movement's canon. But I can find nothing conservative about the Bush/Cheney White House, which has created a Nixon "imperial presidency" on steroids, while acting as if being tutored by the best and brightest of the Cosa Nostra.

What true conservative calls for packing the courts to politicize the federal judiciary to the degree that it is now possible to determine the outcome of cases by looking at the prior politics of judges? Where is the conservative precedent for the monocratic leadership style that conservative Republicans imposed on the US House when they took control in 1994, a style that seeks primarily to perfect fund-raising skills while outsourcing the writing of legislation to special interests and freezing Democrats out of the legislative process?

How can those who claim themselves conservatives seek to destroy the deliberative nature of the US Senate by eliminating its extended-debate tradition, which has been the institution's distinctive contribution to our democracy? Yet that is precisely what Republican Senate leaders want to do by eliminating the filibuster when dealing with executive business (namely judicial appointments).

Today's Republican policies are antithetical to bedrock conservative fundamentals. There is nothing conservative about preemptive wars or disregarding international law by condoning torture. Abandoning fiscal responsibility is now standard operating procedure. Bible-thumping, finger-pointing, tongue-lashing attacks on homosexuals are not found in Russell Krik's classic conservative canons, nor in James Burham's guides to conservative governing. Conservatives in the tradition of former senator Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan believed in "conserving" this planet, not relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. And neither man would have considered employing Christian evangelical criteria in federal programs, ranging from restricting stem cell research to fighting AIDs through abstinence.

Candid and knowledgeable Republicans on the far right concede - usually only when not speaking for attribution - that they are not truly conservative. They do not like to talk about why they behave as they do, or even to reflect on it. Nonetheless, their leaders admit they like being in charge, and their followers grant they find comfort in strong leaders who make them feel safe. This is what I gleaned from discussions with countless conservative leaders and followers, over a decade of questioning.

I started my inquiry in the mid-1990s, after a series of conversations with Goldwater, whom I had known for more than 40 years. Goldwater was also mystified (when not miffed) by the direction of today's professed conservatives - their growing incivility, pugnacious attitudes, and arrogant and antagonistic style, along with a narrow outlook intolerant of those who challenge their thinking. He worried that the Republican Party had sold its soul to Christian fundamentalists, whose divisive social values would polarize the nation. From those conversations, Goldwater and I planned to study why these people behave as they do, and to author a book laying out what we found. Sadly, the senator's declining health soon precluded his continuing on the project, so I put it on the shelf. But I kept digging until I found some answers, and here are my thoughts.

For almost half a century, social scientists have been exploring authoritarianism. We do not typically associate authoritarianism with our democracy, but as I discovered while examining decades of empirical research, we ignore some findings at our risk. Unfortunately, the social scientists who have studied these issues report their findings in monographs and professional journals written for their peers, not for general readers. With the help of a leading researcher and others, I waded into this massive body of work.

What I found provided a personal epiphany. Authoritarian conservatives are, as a researcher told me, "enemies of freedom, antidemocratic, antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry, Machiavellian and amoral." And that's not just his view. To the contrary, this is how these people have consistently described themselves when being anonymously tested, by the tens of thousands over the past several decades.

Authoritarianism's impact on contemporary conservatism is beyond question. Because this impact is still growing and has troubling (if not actually evil) implications, I hope that social scientists will begin to write about this issue for general readers. It is long past time to bring the telling results of their empirical work into the public square and to the attention of American voters. No less than the health of our democracy may depend on this being done. We need to stop thinking we are dealing with traditional conservatives on the modern stage, and instead recognize that they've often been supplanted by authoritarians.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John W. Dean, former Nixon White House counsel, just published his seventh nonfiction book, Conservatives Without Conscience.

Triumph of the Authoritarians
I've almost finished reading Chapter one. Dean is right on target.---BBB

Triumph of the Authoritarians
By John W. Dean
The Boston Globe
Friday 14 July 2006

Contemporary conservatism and its influence on the Republican Party was, until recently, a mystery to me. The practitioners' bludgeoning style of politics, their self-serving manipulation of the political processes, and their policies that focus narrowly on perceived self-interest - none of this struck me as based on anything related to traditional conservatism. Rather, truth be told, today's so-called conservatives are quite radical.

For more than 40 years I have considered myself a "Goldwater conservative," and am thoroughly familiar with the movement's canon. But I can find nothing conservative about the Bush/Cheney White House, which has created a Nixon "imperial presidency" on steroids, while acting as if being tutored by the best and brightest of the Cosa Nostra.

What true conservative calls for packing the courts to politicize the federal judiciary to the degree that it is now possible to determine the outcome of cases by looking at the prior politics of judges? Where is the conservative precedent for the monocratic leadership style that conservative Republicans imposed on the US House when they took control in 1994, a style that seeks primarily to perfect fund-raising skills while outsourcing the writing of legislation to special interests and freezing Democrats out of the legislative process?

How can those who claim themselves conservatives seek to destroy the deliberative nature of the US Senate by eliminating its extended-debate tradition, which has been the institution's distinctive contribution to our democracy? Yet that is precisely what Republican Senate leaders want to do by eliminating the filibuster when dealing with executive business (namely judicial appointments).

Today's Republican policies are antithetical to bedrock conservative fundamentals. There is nothing conservative about preemptive wars or disregarding international law by condoning torture. Abandoning fiscal responsibility is now standard operating procedure. Bible-thumping, finger-pointing, tongue-lashing attacks on homosexuals are not found in Russell Krik's classic conservative canons, nor in James Burham's guides to conservative governing. Conservatives in the tradition of former senator Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan believed in "conserving" this planet, not relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. And neither man would have considered employing Christian evangelical criteria in federal programs, ranging from restricting stem cell research to fighting AIDs through abstinence.

Candid and knowledgeable Republicans on the far right concede - usually only when not speaking for attribution - that they are not truly conservative. They do not like to talk about why they behave as they do, or even to reflect on it. Nonetheless, their leaders admit they like being in charge, and their followers grant they find comfort in strong leaders who make them feel safe. This is what I gleaned from discussions with countless conservative leaders and followers, over a decade of questioning.

I started my inquiry in the mid-1990s, after a series of conversations with Goldwater, whom I had known for more than 40 years. Goldwater was also mystified (when not miffed) by the direction of today's professed conservatives - their growing incivility, pugnacious attitudes, and arrogant and antagonistic style, along with a narrow outlook intolerant of those who challenge their thinking. He worried that the Republican Party had sold its soul to Christian fundamentalists, whose divisive social values would polarize the nation. From those conversations, Goldwater and I planned to study why these people behave as they do, and to author a book laying out what we found. Sadly, the senator's declining health soon precluded his continuing on the project, so I put it on the shelf. But I kept digging until I found some answers, and here are my thoughts.

For almost half a century, social scientists have been exploring authoritarianism. We do not typically associate authoritarianism with our democracy, but as I discovered while examining decades of empirical research, we ignore some findings at our risk. Unfortunately, the social scientists who have studied these issues report their findings in monographs and professional journals written for their peers, not for general readers. With the help of a leading researcher and others, I waded into this massive body of work.

What I found provided a personal epiphany. Authoritarian conservatives are, as a researcher told me, "enemies of freedom, antidemocratic, antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry, Machiavellian and amoral." And that's not just his view. To the contrary, this is how these people have consistently described themselves when being anonymously tested, by the tens of thousands over the past several decades.

Authoritarianism's impact on contemporary conservatism is beyond question. Because this impact is still growing and has troubling (if not actually evil) implications, I hope that social scientists will begin to write about this issue for general readers. It is long past time to bring the telling results of their empirical work into the public square and to the attention of American voters. No less than the health of our democracy may depend on this being done. We need to stop thinking we are dealing with traditional conservatives on the modern stage, and instead recognize that they've often been supplanted by authoritarians.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John W. Dean, former Nixon White House counsel, just published his seventh nonfiction book, Conservatives Without Conscience.

Triumph of the Authoritarians
I've almost finished reading Chapter one. Dean is right on target.---BBB

Triumph of the Authoritarians
By John W. Dean
The Boston Globe
Friday 14 July 2006

Contemporary conservatism and its influence on the Republican Party was, until recently, a mystery to me. The practitioners' bludgeoning style of politics, their self-serving manipulation of the political processes, and their policies that focus narrowly on perceived self-interest - none of this struck me as based on anything related to traditional conservatism. Rather, truth be told, today's so-called conservatives are quite radical.

For more than 40 years I have considered myself a "Goldwater conservative," and am thoroughly familiar with the movement's canon. But I can find nothing conservative about the Bush/Cheney White House, which has created a Nixon "imperial presidency" on steroids, while acting as if being tutored by the best and brightest of the Cosa Nostra.

What true conservative calls for packing the courts to politicize the federal judiciary to the degree that it is now possible to determine the outcome of cases by looking at the prior politics of judges? Where is the conservative precedent for the monocratic leadership style that conservative Republicans imposed on the US House when they took control in 1994, a style that seeks primarily to perfect fund-raising skills while outsourcing the writing of legislation to special interests and freezing Democrats out of the legislative process?

How can those who claim themselves conservatives seek to destroy the deliberative nature of the US Senate by eliminating its extended-debate tradition, which has been the institution's distinctive contribution to our democracy? Yet that is precisely what Republican Senate leaders want to do by eliminating the filibuster when dealing with executive business (namely judicial appointments).

Today's Republican policies are antithetical to bedrock conservative fundamentals. There is nothing conservative about preemptive wars or disregarding international law by condoning torture. Abandoning fiscal responsibility is now standard operating procedure. Bible-thumping, finger-pointing, tongue-lashing attacks on homosexuals are not found in Russell Krik's classic conservative canons, nor in James Burham's guides to conservative governing. Conservatives in the tradition of former senator Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan believed in "conserving" this planet, not relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. And neither man would have considered employing Christian evangelical criteria in federal programs, ranging from restricting stem cell research to fighting AIDs through abstinence.

Candid and knowledgeable Republicans on the far right concede - usually only when not speaking for attribution - that they are not truly conservative. They do not like to talk about why they behave as they do, or even to reflect on it. Nonetheless, their leaders admit they like being in charge, and their followers grant they find comfort in strong leaders who make them feel safe. This is what I gleaned from discussions with countless conservative leaders and followers, over a decade of questioning.

I started my inquiry in the mid-1990s, after a series of conversations with Goldwater, whom I had known for more than 40 years. Goldwater was also mystified (when not miffed) by the direction of today's professed conservatives - their growing incivility, pugnacious attitudes, and arrogant and antagonistic style, along with a narrow outlook intolerant of those who challenge their thinking. He worried that the Republican Party had sold its soul to Christian fundamentalists, whose divisive social values would polarize the nation. From those conversations, Goldwater and I planned to study why these people behave as they do, and to author a book laying out what we found. Sadly, the senator's declining health soon precluded his continuing on the project, so I put it on the shelf. But I kept digging until I found some answers, and here are my thoughts.

For almost half a century, social scientists have been exploring authoritarianism. We do not typically associate authoritarianism with our democracy, but as I discovered while examining decades of empirical research, we ignore some findings at our risk. Unfortunately, the social scientists who have studied these issues report their findings in monographs and professional journals written for their peers, not for general readers. With the help of a leading researcher and others, I waded into this massive body of work.

What I found provided a personal epiphany. Authoritarian conservatives are, as a researcher told me, "enemies of freedom, antidemocratic, antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry, Machiavellian and amoral." And that's not just his view. To the contrary, this is how these people have consistently described themselves when being anonymously tested, by the tens of thousands over the past several decades.

Authoritarianism's impact on contemporary conservatism is beyond question. Because this impact is still growing and has troubling (if not actually evil) implications, I hope that social scientists will begin to write about this issue for general readers. It is long past time to bring the telling results of their empirical work into the public square and to the attention of American voters. No less than the health of our democracy may depend on this being done. We need to stop thinking we are dealing with traditional conservatives on the modern stage, and instead recognize that they've often been supplanted by authoritarians.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John W. Dean, former Nixon White House counsel, just published his seventh nonfiction book, Conservatives Without Conscience.

Bears repeating, eh?



I don't suppose you could provide that least scrutiny? And what would count as substantiation to you?

Cycloptichorn

Well documented references are always good for substantiation...The original rawstory article Xingu posted spoke about a "largely unknown 50 year academic study" and in the same transcript Dean called it a "massive study that has really been going on 50 years now by academics. They've never really shared this with the general public." No names, no organizations, no titles, no specific dates...all which, based on what I knew at that point, called into question the reliability of Dean's sources.

Now I readily admit I haven't read his book but to Dean's credit, BBB has provided some quotes from his first chapter in which he alleges one might see the documented "findings in monographs and professional journals written for their peers, not for general readers." This is all well and good, and I'd accept those as references if Dean provides names, organizations, titles, specific dates, etc.

BBB, does he?

BBB
Dean's book contains study documentation on pages 189 to to 199. Dean's notes and quotations begin on page 201 to 233. The index begins on page 235 to 246.

If you read the book, you will find all of the documentation information you need.

BBB

Re: Conservatives without conscience




Is this not a shining example of just how easy it is for these right wingers to lead their flock?

"find their conscience", I guess you can hope John Dean.

John Dean knocks ?'imperial presidency'
John Dean knocks ?'imperial presidency'
Watergate whistle-blower asks if U.S. ?'is on the road to fascism' in book
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:33 p.m. MT July 27, 2006
LOS ANGELES

John Dean, the White House lawyer who famously helped blow the whistle on the Watergate scandal that drove Richard Nixon from office, says the country has returned to an "imperial presidency" that is putting the United States and the world at risk.

In his new book, "Conservatives Without Conscience," Dean looks at Republican-controlled Washington and sees a bullying, manipulative, prejudiced leadership edging the nation toward a dark era.

"Are we on the road to fascism?" he writes. "Clearly, we are not on that road yet. But it would not take much more misguided authoritarian leadership, or thoughtless following of such leaders, to find ourselves there.

"I am not sure which is more frightening," he adds, "another major terror attack or the response of authoritarian conservatives to that attack."

Dean, who served 127 days in prison for his part in the Nixon administration's Watergate cover-up, recently talked to The Associated Press about the ascendancy of the conservative right and the two-fisted style of political leadership he says was central to its rise.

"We have returned to the imperial presidency," he said. "We have an unchecked presidency."

More than three decades ago, the 67-year-old Dean was a young White House lawyer when he warned President Richard M. Nixon that the cover-up of a break-in at Democratic national headquarters in Washington's Watergate complex was "a cancer growing on the presidency."

Dean, who later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, went on to become the star witness at the congressional Watergate hearings, implicating several high-ranking administration officials.

An authoritarian party
His book is anchored to a discussion of authoritarianism, a school of thought that, in the simplest terms, tries to explain why some people lead and others follow. The classic authoritarian personality ?- mostly found in men ?- thirsts for power, is exploitive, cheats to win, opposes equality, intimidates and is mean-spirited.

This headstrong leadership style marks the current Republican right in varying degrees, he says, starting with President Bush and moving on down through the leadership ranks. The Bush White House, Dean says, has "given authoritarianism a new legitimacy," the same legitimacy he says it enjoyed before Nixon's presidency unraveled.

Authoritarian thinking, Dean writes, "was the principal force behind almost everything that went wrong with Nixon's presidency."

For anyone familiar with Dean's writing, the sharp stabs at the Bush administration will come as no surprise. His latest book is a sequel of sorts to his 2004 best seller, "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush."

Dean's current book has been steadily climbing best-seller lists, with publisher Viking ordering a second run for a total of 180,000 copies.

Booksellers pointed to Dean's prominence and his engaging writing style for the book's success despite a flood of political commentaries in recent years.

"Books like this one, whether they be on one side or the other, there is a lot of interest from consumers," said Bill Nasshan, senior vice president of books for Borders Group, Inc.

Booksellers also are not concerned about oversaturation in the current events section.

"We expect a lot more of these books to be published. With the coming midterm election, the country is more divided than it's ever been," said Bob Wietrak, vice president of merchandising at Barnes & Noble Inc.

In "Conservatives Without Conscience," Dean pays Bush a backhanded compliment, saying that while the president is "not a puppet" it is Vice President Dick Cheney who is the White House's dominant authoritarian.

"Cheney has swallowed the presidency," Dean says.

While his journey from Nixon White House insider to Bush administration antagonist has evolved over the years, Dean told the AP that his politics haven't changed drastically during that time. He still sees himself as a defender of the conservative values championed by the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Republican icon to whom his latest book is dedicated.

But Dean says his version of Republicanism doesn't square with the authoritarians who have dominated his former party in recent years, from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to White House strategist Karl Rove.

He sees them drifting from traditional conservative values, citing, among other examples, deficit spending and the federal budget debt.

"My views have changed very little over the last 40 years," Dean said. "The Republican Party and conservatism have moved so far to the right that I'm now left of center.

"This country works best as a centrist nation. I think, basically, the electorate is centrist. You have the debate being set by the extremes."