What is a Conservative?

[velvetpage]

Other than, "not me?"

merlyn4441 posted a link to a site that actually defines the five principles of conservatism, and proves that pretty much none of the current republicans in Washington meet any of them. I find them interesting, and I'm sure there are other rebuttals from a liberal point of view out there, but I'm going to post mine anyway, because that's what a blog is for. :)

So, the itemized list:

-The first necessary ingredient for a conservative is a belief in smaller government. Particularly at the federal level. Statism is Leftism--an all-powerful, centralized government. Conservatives oppose this, embracing state's rights and a smaller, less centralized federal government. This is the foundational cornerstone of conservatism.

Okay, I'm off to a bad start. I believe in efficiency. I want things done in such a way that we spend minimal resources on administering the job and maximal resources on actually doing it. I abhor waste, especially when it comes in the form of back-room payouts for services never rendered. Thus far, I do actually agree with most conservatives. However, I don't believe that government is always the wrong way to go about efficiently doing the job. If a large segment of the population needs a service, and the service is such that many people would be unable to afford it if it were not public, and if private, for-profit provision of that service will serve shareholders better than customers (for example, in the insurance industry, particularly heath insurance) then perhaps the government is the right organization to provide the service. Also, it is sometimes easier to hold a government accountable for their actions than an individual company.

-The second necessary ingredient for a conservative is a belief in national sovereignty and isolationism. Conservatives do not believe in foreign aid or foreign entanglements. They revere American sovereignty. Yes, conservatives do believe in a strong national defense--but national defense as mandated by the Constitution and the Monroe Doctrine. An invasive military empire is not mandated. Therein lies a crucial difference.

I don't like invasive military empires. I'm also not particularly crazy about isolationism. I believe in the UN - or rather, I believe in what it stands for, not in what it is currently capable of doing. So, I want a happy medium on this one.

-The third necessary ingredient is a belief in the Rule of Law---beginning with the Constitution of the United States. The Bill of Rights is essentially sacrosanct. A conservative does not believe in a "living Constitution".

This is one of the ones where I agree, in a Canadian context, of course. Naturally, that muddies the waters: our Charter of Rights and Freedoms is younger than I am and created by the most liberal of the Liberal Prime Ministers, Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

-A fourth necessary ingredient to conservatism is a belief in traditional values. It is here that politics over such things as Roy Moore's Ten Commandments come into play. However, traditional values, are, by their very nature, regressive. It is true that there is no constitutional separation of church and state, as commonly stated, but there is also Freedom of Worship, and a generalized restriction of government authority. Therefore no allowances exist for the federal government to dabble in the religion business one way or the other. Real conservatives, being strict constructionists, would protect the religious rights of the individual without exploiting Christianity for seizure of power.

I think this one needs more explanation, but I have a feeling I'd disagree with it. In the words of the same great liberal mentioned above, "The State does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation." As far as I'm concerned, consenting adults can do whatever they want so long as it doesn't impinge on anyone else's freedom to do whatever THEY want. My personal values are fairly traditional, but they don't necessarily spill over into the political sphere, nor is there any reason why they should.

So, I'm not sure if I disagree or not. I can see points of agreement there, but I frame them differently.

-The fifth necessary ingredient to conservatism is adherence to principle. The stubborn instinct to stand firm on issues, rejecting political expediency, in other words. Conservatism cannot exist without an ideological backbone, because one of the most basic philosophies behind conservatism is preservation of tradition. Traditions cannot survive in the absence of principles.

Aside from a knee-jerk reaction based, I think, in the anthropology and psychology I've studied, (which say that tradition can certainly exist in the absence of principles and that principles are usually justifications for existing traditions rather than reasons for them - at the very best, there's a serious chicken-or-the-egg question inherent in that statement) I mostly agree here. I try hard to be consistent in my beliefs, though I've certainly been known to change them, usually because someone convinced me through reasoned and respectful debate.

So, basically, two out of five. That settles it, then. I'm more liberal than conservative.

Comments

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

A lot of those points sounds very libertarian (of the right-wing variety) to me. The only real exception would be #4.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That's why most libertarians lean to the right - there's a great deal of overlap between libertarianism and conservatism.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Please forgive the earlier comment. As soon as I calmed down a little I deleted the darn thing; you don't deserve me being this angry in your journal, it's not you I'm angry at.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Conservative and liberal ideologies are both bunk, actually. Goals derive from values held dearly by the society. Government is society's means to implement those goals. That means there are times when it's right to be conservative in the physical sense. In other words, there are times when change should be reigned in or resisted. In other words some circumstances require a conservative approach. In times of challenge, change is necessary and a progressive approach to achieving societal goals is called for. To my mind true conservatism is something like negative feedback. Postive feedback produce action towards a goal while negative feedback corrects for overreach. You run into a lot of trouble when try to apply the same method towards every problem.

What we call conservatismm right now in the US is manifestation of a collection of national fears. One such fear is that the US is fragmenting. That's a very valid fear. Already in the post civil rights era, culture formed cracks in the national identity which short sighted politicians exploited to their immediate benefit. Thirty years of that and we now speak of the Fly Over Country and the Bicoastal Republic. The second great fear stems from the fact that the working class has rapidly lost ground economically since the mid 1970s. The working class feels really shafted because liberals largely sold them out by embracing globalism early on. For the record, I see globalism as an unstoppable force that can only be steered. Problem was that no one really tried to steer it. The resulting economic upheavals have scared people who were used to a stable and generous income along with aspirations of brighter futures for their children. The educated classes have realized those brighter futures, but the displaced auto worker in Michigan feels, rightfully so, sold out. Also, fortunes have varied by region. The coasts are doing pretty good invested as they are in trade. The interior of the country is in pretty bad shape becuse they were invested in the production which shifted overseas. Now, how does this play into conservative politics and religious politcs? First people under economic stress are scared and they are scared of people who are different. I saw this in th 1980s in LA when all the aircraft plants in my area closed overnight. Racism blew up fast and hot. So you see politicians talking about isolationism, rolling back Civil Rights(which benefit those brown people taking their constituents tax dollars for welfare), and militaristic foreign policies to fight the hordes over there before they can come here. Also, a lot of people are looking for the trappings of the time when things worked. So they embrace religions which offer hard and fast answers to every question and scape goats to blame problems on. What we have in the US is not in any way, shape or form Conservatism, it's politics o f fear mixed with a nostalgia for an idealized, mythic past. In other words, Facism.

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

The author of that article thinks that fascism is a left-wing phenomenon.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Probably on the grounds that fascism is BAD, and anything that's BAD must be LIBERAL. /cheap shot

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

I responded to the person who posted the article before realizing that you had made a separate post. Figured I'd post here as well, since the article (http://www.etherzone.com/2004/tuma122004.shtml) makes some rather ridiculous assertions.

"Fascism is not conservatism. It is left-wing socialism with bombs and machine guns."

Fascism is left-wing? Umm... does the author of that piece also have trouble figuring out which shoe to put on which foot? Wow. I'm sure all the leftists who have been murdered by fascist governments throughout the years would be very interested to hear that.

"Statism is Leftism"

Wow, somebody better go tell the anarchists!

"The second necessary ingredient for a conservative is a belief in national sovereignty and isolationism"

National sovereignty kind of steps outside the whole liberal vs. conservative divide, I think. It's certainly not owned by conservatives, which is obvious to anyone who has studied Canadian politics, especially in recent years. Quite the opposite, really.

"Yes, conservatives do believe in a strong national defense--but national defense as mandated by the Constitution and the Monroe Doctrine. An invasive military empire is not mandated. Therein lies a crucial difference."

The Monroe Doctrine has been used as a method of expanding the American empire, actually. National defense has had little to do with it, though it has given the American govt. a convenient excuse to invade their neighbours.

"There is a large anarchist wing within the libertarian movement"

Um, no. Most anarchists can't stand libertarians, actually, due to their slavish devotion to capitalism and their hypocritical relationship with the state (especially w.r.t. propping up capitalism). I don't think the author actually knows what an anarchist is, mind you.

Despite the egregious errors above, the rest of his idea of what conservatism is -- traditional conservatism, anyway -- seems pretty accurate. There is also the distinction between fiscal and social conservatism, which is important, I think. Most Canadians have some respect for the former and very little for the latter, in my experience.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

I haven't really tried to articulate my beliefs, but I'm also much more of a "happy medium" type of person, too. Restrained Capitalism and equally restrained liberal socialism is about as good as we can get, given the realities of human nature. It's also the most Christian form of government, when it comes down to brass tacks — encouraging the best in people while giving a leg up to those who just can't quite make it by themselves. Unfortunately, people tend to concentrate on one to the detriment of the other, which leads to seriously sucky governments.