What does conservative mean?
Conservative is tricky. I know what it used to mean. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan explained their rationale relatively well, and George Will perpetuates it. Excluding Will, however, leaves a vacuum for conservative though (when it’s not stealing libertarian economic thought, of course). It’s a terminal, artificial hybrid of libertarian economic policies, an appeal to tradition and a reliance on Christian thought put into practice by law. What this amounts to is a distrust of government authority unless it’s promoting conservative desire (or controlled by democratic officials), a vague deference to capitalism unless it upsets religious beliefs (abortion, drug use, gambling, etc.), an even vaguer promotion for “family values” and an unshakable belief in unlimited military spending and intervention. John Kasich, the Republican governor-elect of Ohio, simply has the following on his website under “What I Stand For:”
-lower taxes – Create a tax climate that allows Ohio to compete with other states to attract new businesses, foster job creation, and keep our precious, existing jobs here
-make government more efficient and effective – Skinny-down state bureaucracy to ensure taxpayers are getting their money’s worth, and reform state government into a 21st century partner with Ohio's job creators – not one that punishes business with outdated or unnecessary regulation;
-transform our education system – Help our kids achieve, compete and succeed to meet the workforce demands of tomorrow’s economy
-end the influence of special interests – Build common-sense solutions to our problems and kick out those who, for too long, have kept us from fixing all that is wrong in our state
What does that mean? Empty platitudes to perpetuate Republican control. Their “Pledge to America,” in its preamble, states:
We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored – particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense, and national economic prosperity.We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.
We pledge to make government more transparent in its actions, careful in its stewardship, and honest in its dealings.We pledge to uphold the purpose and promise of a better America, knowing that to whom much is given, much is expected and that the blessings of our liberty buoy the hopes of mankind.
We make this pledge bearing true faith and allegiance to the people we represent, and we invite fellow citizens and patriots to join us in forming a new governing agenda for America.
Honoring the Constitution is laughable; the only discussion of constitutional authority arises when a Democrat is in power. Policies promoting “greater liberty, wider opportunity…and national economic prosperity” did not come to fruition under 8 years of Bush and 6 years of Republican control in Congress, and it is doubtful the trend will alter. Rather than honoring families, traditional marriage, life, and private and faith-based organizations, they instead prevent any individuals outside their definition of family and marriage to live as they see fit. It is also hard to believe when the majority of their 2008 presidential hopefuls in the primary had divorced multiple times. Government transparency, honesty and concerned stewardship is laughable when reminded of Bush invoking executive privilege multiple times while infringing on civil liberties and raising taxation (and yes, deficit spending, like any spending, IS taxing).
True, the Republican Party doesn’t encompass conservatism completely. But few (if any) prominent conservatives disavow the Republican Party or encourage voting for a 3rd party or abstaining. The only correlation between conservative rhetoric and Republican governing is a dedication to robust military spending; I refrain from saying “defense spending” intentionally. The Tea Party can be a good indication of things to come (ignoring the mostly unfounded slams of it being nothing but a racist counter reaction); any movement demanding smaller government is refreshing. However, if they balk at scaling back military spending and medicare/social security, it is vacuous and intellectually dishonest. Cutting domestic programs is useful in campaigns, but the majority of spending is the conservative trinity: military spending, social security, and medicare/medicaid. Until I see those decline, I am skeptical of the Tea Party and especially the Republicans.
Maybe I’m seeing conservatives and Republicans in too narrow a light; that’s exactly my point. Post-war conservatism was vibrant, argumentative and, most important, principled. I can disagree with Buckley, Meyer, Nisbet, Kirk, Flynn, Chambers, Burnham, Bozell, Strauss and others, but it’s difficult to question their integrity or intellectual grounding (well, maybe Kirk). Where is the post-9/11 Buckley? The conservative movement has been coasting on the achievements of the right that coalesced as a conscious movement in reaction to the failure of liberalism and the rise of the New Left. Cheerleaders for the right exist: Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, Hannity, O’Reilly and others who will be forgotten in 15 years. Jonah Goldberg cannot advance the right; neither can Mark Levin or Dinesh D’Souza.
Conservatism has been reduced to a desire for an over-romanticized past that never existed with a theocratic Christian element. Eager to bring God into American law, they cannot consistently reject economic socialism because they encourage social socialism (as if individual rights can be severed into the social and economic). If the government can intervene in individual lives in the name of protecting and encouraging morality and virtue for the benefit of all, how can they reject government to economically benefit individuals? If government should help the individual spiritual state, surely they should help the individual economic state; improvement economically can at least be objectively measured, whereas improvement spiritually is necessarily subjective. I’ll ignore the fact that virtue can only be achieved by free choice; you are not making a moral decision when the government takes your money and gives it to a food bank. Whether you want to help or not, you have no choice; either you pay the tax or you are jailed and the money is confiscated. Were Adam and Eve moral without the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden? How could they be? It’s impossible to be moral or virtuous when the only option is to be good. God has my back on that one.
If the United States were not founded on classical liberal principles, fusionism would not (and probably could not) exist. This leads me to my conclusion: modern conservatism is dead and any conservative worthy of the name must desert the Republicans and the Right, joining with the libertarians. The Right has expanded government power to such an extent that it endangers the individuals who grew it. The power to expand Christian doctrine into American law is also the power to restrict the activities of Christians. The power to increase taxes and spending for the military is the power to tax and spend for anything deemed essential or necessary. The power to do good with the government is the power to do evil. Any conservative worthy of the name would recognize that as government increases, freedom and virtue decrease, no matter the justification.
http://www.kasichforohio.com/site/c.hpIJKWOCJqG/b.5280649/k.A1C8/What_I_Stand_For.htm
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/index.html
No comments:
Post a Comment