What's the worst thing conservatives have to fear?

Politics & Elections
101

Re: OP

I believe my basic political fear is of personal helplessness and insecurity. Kafkaesque/totalitarian “order” and anarchy mark the ends of a spectrum from order to disorder; I fear both. From this flows the fear of both obdurancy and radicalism, because both invite instability to threaten the balance of order and disorder. I call the fear of obdurancy “progressivism” and the fear of radicalism “conservatism”. From a fear-based analysis, these are really the core of my political persuasion - every political position I take should lead back to these. By extension, the worst thing I have to fear in politics is personal helplessness and insecurity.

It is ironic that your hypothetical presumes the absence of conservatives in government. Actual exclusion of a group from positions of power is perilously close to personal helplessness - no matter how the exclusion was achieved. It does not necessarily imply personal helplessness (liberal governance may very well empower/uplift conservatives into bona fide liberals/liberal-conservatives), but in a discussion of fears rather than facts, you’re already within an inch of my heart. Neither is it necessarily implied that conservatives will face personal insecurity at the hands of a liberal government; liberalism as commonly understood would not tolerate any such treatment.

To answer the titular question with my own opinion, the worst thing conservatives have to fear is personal helplessness and insecurity. To answer your specific question, the worst thing all conservatives as a group would have to fear from exclusively liberal governance is… well, possibly nothing. I’m not sure if that’s the answer you were looking for. I’m using a very broad and idiosyncratic definition of conservatism; ask any non-liberal conservative about their individual fears in such a scenario and you will receive a more specific answer. I’m sort of a liberal conservative so, there isn’t necessarily anything to fear from a liberal government. I do worry about the possibility that proper procedures are overlooked.

I don’t think all conservatives have the same degree of fear when it comes to abandoning due process. By that I mean ensuring that laws are properly enacted and enforced. I personally rank it very strong, sometimes and with hesitation even above the normal concept of justice. The reasoning - in a fear based analysis - goes back to the balance of order and disorder. Without laws you have anarchy, insecurity, helplessness. On the other hand too much legalism leads to a soulless, heartless bureaucratic machine doling out injustices, shattering false security, and again, causing helplessness.

I don’t have any religious or ideological objection to same-sex marriage or legal abortions. I have some thoughts about taxes and healthcare but I don’t think my principles there are far right. I have strong legal objections to specific mechanisms by which those liberal goals are achieved. For example, I don’t believe the Bill of Rights is incorporated against the states by the due process clause (not that it should or shouldn’t be, just that it isn’t). I have a very restrictive view of the commerce power as written. I don’t believe a great deal of New Deal era legislation is constitutional (read: the regulatory state), let alone Great Society (civil rights, welfare) or some of the things proposed/in place today. I think the federal government has little to no authority to regulate abortion, healthcare, marriage, drugs, or guns whatsoever.

I don’t necessarily want social progress repealed - and I do consider much of that social progress - but I do think the courts could and should rule against progressive policies when the proper procedure is not followed. If you’re going to do it, do it right. Pass a better law, or even a constitutional amendment when one is called for. I think we need quite a few additions to the constitution - normal people should be able to point to the text that shows why the government can do X. This includes prohibitions on the states. Many foreign constitutions, even our state constitutions, are much more explicit in this regard. I think the people are more secure in their knowledge of the laws and the role of government as a result.

~Max

102

Though I disagree with some of your thoughts – here and elsewhere – I always appreciate the thought you put into them and the clarity of your explanations.

Now, can you start working on the 99.9% of other Republicans?

103

A neighbor shared something I might consider a legitimate fear for conservatives: that the country will become more like our own state of Illinois!

We have higher taxes and a worse financial situation than our GOP-led neighbors Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa. It’s hardly apples-to-apples, of course, but you can make an objective case that those states are better run.

My response to the neighbor was that it’s been Illinois’ more corrupt culture, not anything specifically about Democrats, that’s to blame. He blames the too-cozy relationship between Democrats and public sector unions.

Without getting too deep into Illinois’ political history, is this a legit fear?

104

I don’t see how. Most blue states send more to the government than they get, so we’re doing well enough to take care of our own and to take care of the poorer red states. Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas spring immediately to mind as states that do very poorly on many measures of wealth and progress, such as school achievement and unemployment.

Also, I thought Wisconsin was relatively blue until maybe the last 10 years, right?

105

I have no doubt Illinois is a better place to live than states such as Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

Fiscally, however, our issues have little to do with the money we send to Washington and everything to do with our unsustainable pension debts and excess layers of government. Several of my coworkers live just over the border in Wisconsin and their taxes are enviously low, yet Wisconsin does not AFAICT have a much lower standard of living.

You may be right about Wisconsin being blue until recently, but critics point to their GOP-led* current government and say, “See?”

(*Which is only GOP-led by insane gerrymandering, but still.)

106

It’s not like the problems with pensions just showed up in the last few years. That’s a problem that has been building for years in Illinois.

So, what’s keeping you in Illinois? I live in one of the highest taxed states around, NJ, and I like the services I get and the proximity to NYC, with its tremendous job opportunities. It’s worth the ridiculous real estate taxes and income taxes I pay to have top-notch public schools and public transportation, and access to NYC.

My point is that it’s not really a reasonable fear – he can make the trade-off between taxes and services and decide where to live. And, some of the most conservative states are also the poorest with the crappiest standard of living.

107

Until this year, in-state tuition.

But now that Akaj Jr. is graduating? Hard to say. The schools don’t matter (directly) to us now, and we never take public transportation. We love our house and our community, and the money we might save in taxes isn’t enough motivation to move the few miles north to Wisconsin.

Long story short: I like living in Illinois – I just wish its fiscal mismanagement didn’t make it an easy target for Republicans.

108

Like Akaj, I admire your thought, clarity, and level of detail. I know from past experience I should keep my mouth shut, but one thing I am willing to address is the sentence I quoted. Personally I have a strong sense that explicit and strict (rules in any form but), especially in Constitutional settings always lead to unintended consequences.

I have been taught, and perhaps I rely upon that teaching to readily, that the flexibility built into our constitution is its strength. It means what we agree it means – it is a guideline, a rule of thumb rather than a mandate. There was always before a certain gentleman’s agreement that while everyone is expected to be at least a little greedy and self-serving, no one acts so to the determent of the whole. The whole must always be respected because any reasonable person can see that while an unfair arrangement might be handy while in power – it will be a deep burden when not in power. (I mean this in the sense we used as kids when we had to share a treat; whoever did NOT get to break the candy bar in half got first choice of halves. When you knew your kid brother was going to choose which half you received you broke the thing as close to half and half as possible.) A level of fairness and respect for the game came first (and only then is a little corruption abided).

I do not believe the most recent administration has acted as a principled entity the way we might all hope. Neither do I believe the senior senator from Kentucky has always treated his positions of authority with the highest degree of fairness and concern for those in the opposition. That might be common and date back to powdered wigs but we have not come this close to not being one nation since the Civil War in my opinion.

Okay much of your post is beyond any depth I want to dive into, but if your assertion above is correct, what do the words of the Preamble mean?? We the people … in order to form a more perfect Union … have little to no authority to regulate or address — Moral issues, health issues, social structures or how our citizens can define the term family, nationwide health concerns, lethal force??? In short we will concern ourselves with treaties and taxes exclusively. It seems like half or more of the things on your list of what is outside federal reach directly impact; providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, securing the blessings of liberty, establishing justice, and insuring domestic tranquility.

I am not trying to cause a problem or start a fight but I am really curious what you see as the role of the federal government?

109

The City University of New York was free. During the Depression tons of people got college educations who probably wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise, including many of the intellectuals of the 1950s and my mother and my aunts. An amazing bargain for society.

110

Last summer there was this thing going around on facebook about how people should roll up their windows because people were stealing babies out of car seats at red lights in Fresno!!!

I tried to point out that this was probably a bullshit story since it’s really not that easy to remove a kid from his car seat and very few people are rolling around with windows down in summer in Fresno because it’s always 120 degrees, but it just didn’t matter, some of my loved ones stubbornly believed it.

I gave up arguing before I became the main suspect in their mind.

111

You are correct with regards to detailed implementation of governance, which is best left to more temporal statutes. When it comes to delineating the limitations of federal authority, it is better to be explicit. The overarching doctrine with our constitution is that the federal government is one of limited powers - if there is no grant of power in the constitution, there is no federal authority. With state powers it is the opposite: if there is no prohibition on a state power (a power granted to a state by something other than the federal constitution, eg: in their own constitutions), the federal government cannot prevent the state government from exercising that power.

It has always been this way, look at Article I sections 8 through 10. Since the beginning, grants of federal powers and restrictions on state powers have been explicit.

The states which are a party to the federal constitution were so concerned about the possibility of federal overreach that they made this doctrine explicit, Amendment X (1791),

The 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.

Unlike the allegory of the children and the candy bar, which is a simple power-sharing agreement, the federal constitution creates a fiduciary to mediate disputes: the federal government. As such it is entirely appropriate to be explicit as to when each party must yield to the mediator - the last thing you and your brother want is to appoint me as a fiduciary only to see me eat the whole candy bar myself.

The Preamble to the federal constitution is not binding. Like all preambles, it acts as a statement of intent to the text which follows. That the rest of the constitution does not live up to its preamble, in modern times, only reinforces my conviction that we need more amendments.

I wish to re-emphasize that my legal opinions about the federal government do not necessarily reflect my ideals. While I believe the proper role of a national government includes maintaining an air force, I believe the U.S. Air Force is unconstitutional. (the constitution grants Congress limited powers to “raise and support Armies”, to “provide and maintain a Navy”, and to “make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces”). Therefore the constitution is flawed and should be amended. How could it not be so? The Wright Brothers didn’t fly until 1903, while the Constitution was written in the eighteenth century.

~Max

112

Do you figure the US Army Air Corps was okay before it split off into a separate US Air Force?

113

I’m not an expert on the history of the air force, but I would say very early operations could be covered by the necessary and proper clause as incident to the army forces. Thinks like early reconnaisance missions under direct command of army operations. But by the time the air force had its own chain of command, its own regulations, and its own line item on the federal budget, it was unconstitutional.

~Max

114

So you also are of the opinion that the Coast Guard and Space Force are also unconstitutional?

115

The space force, unconstitutional. The coast guard is considerably more complicated, I think it is consitutional. It originally pre-dates the navy (and was part of the treasury) and can be considered a naval force, but the modern incarnation actually operates as a service of the navy (like the marines) during wartime and a part of the dept. of homeland security otherwise.

~Max

116

This. As a life-long libertarian I can’t say that I’ve been enthusiastic about any President in my lifetime – that the first one I was fully aware of was Nixon was no help, I’m sure. However, no matter how much I objected to the policies of that President I never had the impression that he was not acting in what he conceived was the best path for this country and its citizens, however misguided that may be.

Until 45. He seemed to take delight in doing his level best to demolish long-standing institutions and set up the entire Federal government – all three branches – as his personal fiefdom and source of money into his pocket.

I used to say that both conservatives and liberals have a dream where their best friends are in power permanently and grant government power accordingly. Libertarians have a nightmare where their worst enemies are in power permanently – and grant government power accordingly.

Liberals have had a taste of what I meant for the past four years. I hope conservatives get a similar dose of the same medicine.

117

There were balloons. :grin:

118

I think the only American who considered the prospects of baloon warfare was Franklin. It didn’t make it into the constitution, but as I wrote above, early reconnaisance missions could be covered as incident to army operations.

~Max

119

Be that as it may, though, in today’s political climate, I don’t think conservatives would react to a liberal Trump-ish president by being introspective, “Well, we started this with Trump, so we’re getting a taste of our own stuff.” Rather, they would just think, “We’ve got to get back power somehow, and once we do, we must stamp the boot on and grind the neck of liberals twice as hard as before, so they can’t oppress us again.”

120

The Department of Homeland Security is in the Constitution? Or has an amendment added it to the Constitution?

If I had more time I might like to pursue your thoughts on this matter, I often enjoy pedantic minutia (and I mean that sincerely – getting down in the weeds and arguing ideas and concepts theoretically delights me -much to annoyance of my friends and especially my family). If I get lots done today I hope to discuss this further later on.

Given your stance on the US Air Force- do you believe the second amendment should apply to any “arms” that do not include single shot muzzle loading firearms (and swords of course) that were available when the constitution was written because that seems most consistent. Or do laser and high energy weapons apply?

One more thing-

It seems to me this is about the federal bench although you cannot prove it by me. You may be speaking about a federal agency that regulates the allocation of Hershey Bars far any who have not reached the age of majority. But if you are speaking about the courts they would be and have been as far as I know, quite fair about making fair and moral decisions based upon law and fact. I would not expect any judge to say leave the bar here and we will tell you our ruling tomorrow. I WOULD expect them to say: "You claim you tried to break it fairly but the damn thing splintered into a 65%-35% mess. You may have one more crack at breaking the larger piece to true up the totals in each pile but the decision still falls to the other sibling. (Now the court may have a bias for older children - - or younger children but they have no stake and no reason to appropriate any portion of the treasure. On the other hand- judges are usually lawyers and I can easily see one of those saying 35% of the prize will go to me, 35% will go to the dissenting justice, and you two may fight over what is left)

If you are not speaking of the federal bench I do understand your statement at all.