SicEmBaylor
12/4/2009, 04:21 AM
I wrote this up on Facebook the other night. Thought I might as well post it here as well:
Most, if not all, of you will disagree with what I am about to say. Nonetheless, it is my opinion and what I believe to be true. Conservatism has been dead for a very long time. What we have today is the conservative movement which is little more than an artificial facsimile of natural conservatism that died out long ago.
Allow me to explain: For most of our nation's history, there was no such thing as a "conservative movement"; yet, America has always been a fairly conservative place. Natural conservatism did not need a political movement because the default position of most of the nation was the conservative position. Conservative principles were as innately American as baseball, apple pie, and John Philip Sousa marching music. For example, Calvin Coolidge was one of the great conservative Presidents of our time. And, yet, it can neither be claimed that Coolidge was a "movement" conservative (no such movement existed); nor, can you claim that Coolidge was an ideologue (he was not). Coolidge was the complete manifestation of natural conservatism. His positions and actions did not represent years of work by public policy think tanks or the positions laid out by leading conservative intellectuals -- they were the natural and default positions that represented the sentiment of most Americans at the time.
This natural conservatism served our nation very well until the FDR administration. This natural conservatism is today called the "old-right" or "paleoconservatism." It attempted to keep the government small, decentralized, emphasized states' rights, and attempted to keep us out of disastrous foreign wars and entanglements by emphasizing an "America first" policy. It is expressed best by Russell Kirk who would likely find little to love about the modern neo-conservative movement and its puppet party...the GOP. I often find it amusing when I see college students praising Russell Kirk one minute while reading The Weekly Standard the next.
As much fondness as I've had for William F. Buckley over the course of my life, I believe he did more to kill the old-right/natural conservatism than any other individual or organization. What Buckley did was take long established conservative positions and turn them into a movement with concrete policy goals. In effect, he politicized conservatism making it a direct-competitor to liberalism. Conservatism ceased to be an innate and natural position held by most Americans whether they realized it or not. Instead, it was dragged down from its lofty position and transformed into a viable political movement with set policy goals in direct opposition to other political movements with policy goals of their own. In short, conservatism became a movement that people could oppose rather than being a natural almost unspoken philosophy that transcended political bar fights.
Once conservatism became a movement with concrete policy goals, it became necessary to make that policy palatable to the general public and to the political party that would act as an engine driving those policy changes. The result is that conservatism became a set of policy goals that could be changed, manipulated, added-to, and subtracted-from in order to be viable to the electorate. The Republican Party adopted many of these policy goals, but all too often people mistake the Republican Party for an ideologically conservative party. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party are ideological parties. The only ideological parties in the United States are 3rd and 1-issue political parties. In short, conservatism lost its true identity.
Worse yet, since the George W. Bush administration, conservatism itself has been co-opted by the neoconservative movement. The basic tenants (as well as the origins of its leaders and founders) are so contrary to natural conservatism that one must bite their tongue when applying the "conservative" moniker after the "neo" prefix. I have no doubt that the Neocon principles of interventionism abroad and "big government" conservatism at home would have Calvin Coolidge rolling in his grave. Neoconservatism has been so successful that they have totally changed the identity of conservatism and what it means to be a Republican.
Conservatism today is, essentially, a major industry whose existence has more to do with money and winning elections than it does with upholding classic American values and principles. Conservatism has created an industry dependent upon book sales, TV shows with high ratings, radio, and personal appearances by movement "leaders." And who are those leaders? Is the utterly brain-dead Sean Hannity truly the best conservatism has to offer? Or what about the shrill Ann Coulter? What about Rush Limbaugh who always dismisses callers espousing the values of states' rights and non-interventionism? Are these people seriously the best the conservative movement has to offer? Even the once refreshing Sarah Palin has become stale and positively boring.
Today "movement conservatives" on college campuses put little or no thought into the proper origins of conservatism or exactly what kind of conservative they are. Talk radio, Fox News, poorly-written books by shrill authors, and an untold number of speeches by leading neocons have created an entire generation of college students who know virtually nothing about what it means to be a conservative. The unfortunate reality is that too many of them have become shock-troops for the neoconservative movement that demands a strong American presence abroad while systematically increasing the power of the central government at home. For example, you hear a lot of conservatives arguing against nationalized healthcare based on opposing policy, but how many times have you heard it argued that it's utterly unconstitutional for the government to have health insurance? Furthermore, where were these people when George W. Bush exponentially increased the size of government with NCLB, prescription medicare, the Patriot Act, etc.?
The sad truth is that the conservatism of today has little to do with the classic-conservatism of a bygone era. It's no longer an innate and natural philosophy that transcends politics itself. It's nothing more than an industry that is fueled by money and power. You can count me out of that.
Most, if not all, of you will disagree with what I am about to say. Nonetheless, it is my opinion and what I believe to be true. Conservatism has been dead for a very long time. What we have today is the conservative movement which is little more than an artificial facsimile of natural conservatism that died out long ago.
Allow me to explain: For most of our nation's history, there was no such thing as a "conservative movement"; yet, America has always been a fairly conservative place. Natural conservatism did not need a political movement because the default position of most of the nation was the conservative position. Conservative principles were as innately American as baseball, apple pie, and John Philip Sousa marching music. For example, Calvin Coolidge was one of the great conservative Presidents of our time. And, yet, it can neither be claimed that Coolidge was a "movement" conservative (no such movement existed); nor, can you claim that Coolidge was an ideologue (he was not). Coolidge was the complete manifestation of natural conservatism. His positions and actions did not represent years of work by public policy think tanks or the positions laid out by leading conservative intellectuals -- they were the natural and default positions that represented the sentiment of most Americans at the time.
This natural conservatism served our nation very well until the FDR administration. This natural conservatism is today called the "old-right" or "paleoconservatism." It attempted to keep the government small, decentralized, emphasized states' rights, and attempted to keep us out of disastrous foreign wars and entanglements by emphasizing an "America first" policy. It is expressed best by Russell Kirk who would likely find little to love about the modern neo-conservative movement and its puppet party...the GOP. I often find it amusing when I see college students praising Russell Kirk one minute while reading The Weekly Standard the next.
As much fondness as I've had for William F. Buckley over the course of my life, I believe he did more to kill the old-right/natural conservatism than any other individual or organization. What Buckley did was take long established conservative positions and turn them into a movement with concrete policy goals. In effect, he politicized conservatism making it a direct-competitor to liberalism. Conservatism ceased to be an innate and natural position held by most Americans whether they realized it or not. Instead, it was dragged down from its lofty position and transformed into a viable political movement with set policy goals in direct opposition to other political movements with policy goals of their own. In short, conservatism became a movement that people could oppose rather than being a natural almost unspoken philosophy that transcended political bar fights.
Once conservatism became a movement with concrete policy goals, it became necessary to make that policy palatable to the general public and to the political party that would act as an engine driving those policy changes. The result is that conservatism became a set of policy goals that could be changed, manipulated, added-to, and subtracted-from in order to be viable to the electorate. The Republican Party adopted many of these policy goals, but all too often people mistake the Republican Party for an ideologically conservative party. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party are ideological parties. The only ideological parties in the United States are 3rd and 1-issue political parties. In short, conservatism lost its true identity.
Worse yet, since the George W. Bush administration, conservatism itself has been co-opted by the neoconservative movement. The basic tenants (as well as the origins of its leaders and founders) are so contrary to natural conservatism that one must bite their tongue when applying the "conservative" moniker after the "neo" prefix. I have no doubt that the Neocon principles of interventionism abroad and "big government" conservatism at home would have Calvin Coolidge rolling in his grave. Neoconservatism has been so successful that they have totally changed the identity of conservatism and what it means to be a Republican.
Conservatism today is, essentially, a major industry whose existence has more to do with money and winning elections than it does with upholding classic American values and principles. Conservatism has created an industry dependent upon book sales, TV shows with high ratings, radio, and personal appearances by movement "leaders." And who are those leaders? Is the utterly brain-dead Sean Hannity truly the best conservatism has to offer? Or what about the shrill Ann Coulter? What about Rush Limbaugh who always dismisses callers espousing the values of states' rights and non-interventionism? Are these people seriously the best the conservative movement has to offer? Even the once refreshing Sarah Palin has become stale and positively boring.
Today "movement conservatives" on college campuses put little or no thought into the proper origins of conservatism or exactly what kind of conservative they are. Talk radio, Fox News, poorly-written books by shrill authors, and an untold number of speeches by leading neocons have created an entire generation of college students who know virtually nothing about what it means to be a conservative. The unfortunate reality is that too many of them have become shock-troops for the neoconservative movement that demands a strong American presence abroad while systematically increasing the power of the central government at home. For example, you hear a lot of conservatives arguing against nationalized healthcare based on opposing policy, but how many times have you heard it argued that it's utterly unconstitutional for the government to have health insurance? Furthermore, where were these people when George W. Bush exponentially increased the size of government with NCLB, prescription medicare, the Patriot Act, etc.?
The sad truth is that the conservatism of today has little to do with the classic-conservatism of a bygone era. It's no longer an innate and natural philosophy that transcends politics itself. It's nothing more than an industry that is fueled by money and power. You can count me out of that.