Of all your Canadian qualities, Sam, I most admire your droll wit. Someone else might miss that sly humor, might even think you were seriously proposing that Bush policies had brought us peace, prosperity, and a bright future, and that Obama was busily disrupting this blissful state. Alas! The American people are led astray from the sober probity of the Bush years by the seductive siren song of Obama.
But I must caution, not everyone is a sophisticated as I, some might think you serious, might think that you regard the catastrophic clusterfuck of the Bush debacle as a boon to a grateful nation.
I have lived amongst Minnesotans lo! these many years, and have developed an appreciation for the understated wit native to this land, a salient of Canada thrust into the rude and raucous center of America. So I can detect the subtle twinkle in your prose. The Rev. Swift ran the risk that English readers might toddle down to the shops to inquire about Irish babies dressed for roasting. You run the risk that sensible people will think you really mean it, and that Cognitive Dissonance has run riot in Canada.
Sensible people know that George Bush could fuck up a free meal, and reached his acme by fucking up a free country. If Obama can turn around the catastrophe visited upon us in only two terms, he will deserve a spot on Mt. Rushmore, he should be simultaneously nominated for the Nobel Prize and canonization.
Its interesting. There was that Gallup poll that said that 40% of the country considers themselves conservative. And many Republicans would say that no conservative would support Obama. Yet 22% of the Democratic party is made up of those who identify as conservative. Many of those conservatives support Obama. But they’re not true conservatives.
So who can claim that plurality of conservatives? Unfortunately they do not gel together. There are many who self-identify as conservatives but few who self-identify with each other. And the knives are out to kill off the pretenders.
There is no conservative movement; there is instead a label that is a cypher. At most “conservative” as a label is an “as if” personality disorder
Ah, but to take that analogy along, upon whom is the so-called movement most dependent right now? and upon whom are potential presidential nominee and party leaders most dependent? Not necessarily the same answer, you know.
Sam’s prescription, to move the GOP more towards a libertarian value articulation, may appeal to many of us Dopers, and might appeal in a general election, but it won’t win a primary battle and leadership that espouses it won’t last long.
Wow. Well, for once a political thread has not descended completely into mindless conservative-bashing.
Conservatives are generally divided into several large groups which overlap but don’t entirely meet. We’ll get to that in a moment.
Republicans first. Republicans are simialrly divided, but the divisions are starker but in different places. There are (Paleo) Cons, NeoCons, Libertarians, and Classical Liberals. Mostly, they do not go by those names in practice, which makes things really complicated. Paleocons tend to be old-right, extremely elitist, and often Progressive in that jerkish 1930’s manner. NeoCons are ususally not conservatives - they are actually Leftists who left the left when it was bending over for Communism in the 1970’s. Classical Liberals tend to be conservatives mostly by virtue of not supporting more regulation, although they would have been perfectly middle of the road until the New Deal. They tend to be somewhat socially conservative. Libertarians want vastly less regulation of the economy and everything else.
Ok, now that’s done, we need to understand that, as always in politics, the people who vote in primaries and the peple who vote in elections are not the same groups, and not the same as the people who get elected.
The primary divisions of popular conservativism are Popular Conservatives (my term), Generic-Libertarians, Values Voters, Conservative Intellectuals, and Northeast Elites.
Popular Conservatives are sort of the neutral. They feel a generic urge towards conservativism as an idea and probably dislike the Left more than the Right, and worry about the economy without understanding it.
Generic-Libertarians are, as most popular movements tend to be, both more and less radical than the leadership. That is, they are more radically Libertarian when anything general comes up, and much less so when it’s more specific.
Values Voters, which is not limited to religious voters, are usually misunderstood by the left. They are actually a fairly middle-of-the-road group socially speaking. They are mostly Protestant and middle-class, and not inclined to any major changes. However, they don’t like abortion and gay marriage. Overall, they tend not to be Falwell-types, and are not particularly “hard-Right”, whatever that means. However, along with Conservative Intellectuals, they tend to demand actual action, and have withheld votes when not satisfied.
Conservative Intellectuals (like moi) we tend to read Burke, Locke, Adam Smith*, de Tocqueville, and the ideas of John Adams. Sometimes, we read Marx so we can have parties where we toss back a shot whenever he says something stupid. We have very firm reasons for supporting capital-C Conservativism, and we tend to despise our arch-nemesese in the Liberal Camp, although they are fun to argue with. We have almost no power, although some of us do ge to hang around think-tanks and produce papers the politicians will never read.
*OK, we don’t read Adam Smith. Nobody sane reads Adam Smith, unless they are simply gluttons for punishment.
Northwest Elites are the final, and happily dying, form of Conservative. They tend to support the last few PaleoCons in te Northeast, are generally convinced of their superiority over all other forms of life, and would happily wreck the entire country as long as it didn’t result in worse martinis and country clubs for them. (No, it’s not personal, why do you ask? ) Decades ago, they were actually the Progressive Wing of the party, but over the years have been totally discredited within it (and mostly without it).
Our proud conservatives come from the Reagan tradition, with the mantra loudly proclaimed “deficits don’t matter”. Fiscal conservative and the idea that that is a Repub idea is a joke. “The foot of regulation must be taken off the neck of business” was another Reagan belief. Well time passed and they got their way. How did it work out? If you are in the upper echelon of American society, your fortune has been greatly enhanced. The rest of the country got hurt badly. So it was perfect. that is who they work for.
Granted. The situation is not the same this time around. But on the other hand, during the first ‘progressive’ domination, there was a lot more freedom to muck about with American economics, because there was little in the way of global competition, and the global free economy was in its infancy.
Today, there is far less room to implement ‘progressive’ policies, and economies react much faster to change. Capital flows easily across borders, and the flow of goods and services between countries can change almost overnight. I believe that this is seriously going to hamstring the ‘progressive’ impulse in the U.S., and if the Obama administration continues on its course, we’re going to see large negative effects fairly soon - soon enough to affect the 2012 election dramatically.
What happens to U.S. industry when corporate taxes are 40%, and companies have to buy carbon credits at auction - and Canadian corporate taxes are at 15%, and there are no carbon taxes in Canada? What happens to foreign investment in America when its regulatory structure becomes more burdensome than most other countries in the world, and when the U.S. is heavily in debt and American dollars lose their value?
The globalized economy of today is very different than the old industrial economy of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
I think you can read too much into that. High oil prices were certainly a cause, but don’t forget the big oil crisis was in 1973, and in 1985 oil was more than twice as expensive in constant dollars than it was in '73, and there was no inflation. The ultimate cause of inflation is a loose money supply. It took the tight monetary policy of Paul Volcker, and the political support of Ronald Reagan to allow a steep recession rather than maintain the currency bubble, to break the back of inflation.
Major difference - the unpopular war of the 1970’s came with a military draft. The Iraq war did not. Also, the Afghanistan war is turning into the ‘big’ war, and that was fully bipartisan and Obama was one of its biggest champions. He campaigned on the platform that the war in Afghanistan needed to be expanded, and was the ‘right’ war all the time. If there’s any traction left among the anti-war crowd, Obama should take more damage from it than should Republicans.
Can you be more specific? Are you talking about gay rights? Or abortion? Or what? Obama’s position on gay rights is indistinguishable from the Republican mainstream, and I don’t see abortion as being as big an issue today as it has been in the past.
Sure. But you’re talking about what happened last year. I’m talking about what’s going to happen four or eight years from now.
It doesn’t have to be completely libertarian. Notice I mentioned subsidies for laptops for kids. I also agree that regulations which correct for honest market failures, and taxes which correct externalities (Pigouvian taxes) can be a reasonable part of a Republican policy mix.
I disagree with the notion that there’s a tendency for free markets to accumulate and centralize wealth. Look at the internet: If anything, the control of giant companies like Microsoft seems to be waning because of the intensely competitive atmosphere. Internet Explorer is losing market share dramatically to browsers like Chrome and Firefox. Windows is under attack from several other operating systems, etc.
I have a good plan for a good health care compromise that I think is far superior to the Democrat’s version. I’ll post that in a subsequent message.
There’s some truth to this, but the Democrats are still totally bound to their old special interests (the unions, teachers, etc), which is seriously harming their ability to innovate. The Republicans have an opportunity to do an end-run around Democrats here.
I don’t quite agree with that. I think there’s a lot of traction among the public to be gained from an opposition to ‘old style democratic socialism’, because I see Democrats rejuvenating a lot of that.
As I said, there are actually a lot of new ideas on the conservative side of aisle - they’re just having a hard time being heard because the old power structure still exists. Economists like Kevin Murphy, Greg Mankiw, and Tyler Cowen have all sorts of radical new ideas and are certainly have more affinity for Republicans than Democrats. A lot of younger Republicans are breaking away from the ideas of the ‘old guard’. If you read National Review, you can see a lot of this struggle playing out in its pages. New voices like Ross Douthat and Andy McCarthy are trying to move the party in a new direction. Jonah Goldberg is moving more towards a Libertarian position, following in Bill Buckley’s footsteps. The fracturing of the Republican party has actually made organizations like Cato and AEI more influential, and they have a lot of radical ideas.
Which also heavily support Democrats. This gives the Republicans an opportunity to act as the voice of the common person, and it will be hard for Democrats to follow without alienating major sources of funding. The same is true of education reform.
I was involved with the internet from the very earliest days. While it’s true that Arpanet was funded by the government (and NSFNet and a few other pieces of basic infrastructure), there’s a very limited amount of credit the government shoudl get for the internet as it exists today. The internet in its vast complexity is almost entirely a function of bottom-up evolution and market forces. The fact that in its earliest days it was a communication backbone between research centers is almost completely irrelevant.
As an analogy, it is kind of like saying that the government should get the credit for the modern PC, because NASA funded some microchip research forty years ago.
I would go after the following issues:
The control of the teacher’s unions stifling educational innovation
The tenure system in university that prevents real reform of higher education
The textbook racket, in which professors force students to buy textbooks at insane prices, because the professors write textbooks.
The high price of college education, and the watering down of educational standards.
I’d create initiatives aimed at, for example, open online classrooms, open-source textbooks (even government subsidies to stimulate the creation of such textbooks), new institutions such as local ‘branch schools’ where high school students could be supervised by non-teachers, but who are engaged in learning over the internet using teleconferencing and other digital tools. I’d look into new forms of apprenticeship-style educations where kids could do class time on the internet (supervised, if need be), coupled with periods of on-the-job training and mentoring.
I’d heavily support community colleges, trade schools, junior colleges, and online degree granting institutions. There are lots of initiatives available here. If you look at the home schooling movement, they’ve been pioneering a lot of this (for example, organized sports leagues and field trips for home schooled kids so they can get the phys-ed they need and the socialization they need).
The Democrats would have a hard time countering without alienating major power blocs.
The major difference is that Republican initiatives should always be focused on moving power closer to the people. Local initiatives, decentralized control, smaller educational institutions, etc. Democrats are all about consolidating power in Washington, and doling it out to their special interests such as large unions and the NEA. All under the thumb of Washington.
Free information. Individual empowerment. Dynamism. Embracing change. Allowing society to move forward organically, from the bottom up. Local control. Reduction in the power of central authority. That’s a winning direction.
The problem with all this, Sam, is that while you talk a good Upbeat/Dynamist game, the GOP in the USA is not such a creature. You think the Dems are tied to their contributors & the unions? The GOP Congressmen are a largely unimaginative bunch with corruption problems. Give your pitch to my Congressman, former House GOP Whip Roy Blunt, & you’ll probably get something between a blank stare & “smile & nod.”
I think those who say so are emphasizing fiscal conservatism, of which the Bush Admin cannot be accused (cutting taxes at the start of a war?!).:eek:
The modern, post-Goldwater American conservative movement is ideologically very interesting. From The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, by conservative British journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge:
While I think this is a fair description of the mainstream, it papers over some major factional differences. I think the following separate groupings or tendencies can be broadly identified, and they don’t always see eye-to-eye on everything, even though there is some Boolean intersection between them:
Paleoconservatives: Nativist, anti-immigrant, economically protectionist, economically populist (hostile to Wall Street), socially/religiously conservative, foreign-policy/military isolationist. Acknowledged leader is Pat Buchanan, founder of the new America First Party.
Religious conservatives: Anti-abortion, pro-school-prayer, etc. Similar to paleocons (considerable overlap), mainly different in emphasis. Different on foreign policy – the religious conservative movement includes “Christian Zionists” who support Israel; paleocons are anti-Israel and anti- any military intervention abroad, including in Iraq. Also some religious and demographic differences – the religious-conservative movement is rooted in Evangelical Protestantism and Southern WASPs, while Buchanan is a conservative Catholic and appeals to white “ethnics.” Have their own Constitution Party. They used to be politically marginal, even avoiding politics on principle as an occasion of sin, until Jerry Falwell organized the Moral Majority in the 1970s.
Neoconservatives: Foreign-policy imperialists/hawks, solidly pro-Iraq-War, solidly pro-Israel, economically neoliberal/pro-globalization. Essentially an intellectual/policy-wonk movement with no mass base as such but considerable mass appeal on their issues (and considerable influence in the Bush Admin). Ideologically committed to spreading “democracy” and free-market capitalism throughout the world, with very heavy influence on the latter.
Libertarians: Socially liberal to the extent they want drugs legalized, abortion rights protected, etc. Hostile to biggummint in all forms, including the welfare state, a big military establishment and intervention abroad. Seem to be split on immigration – Ron Paul, current leader of the Lib faction within the Pubs (as distinct from the Libertarian Party), takes a hard line on immigration. Some Libs are committed to “open borders” as a form of “liberty.”
Business conservatives: Substantially bankroll the whole movement. Favor whatever is good for the corporations; distinguishable from the Libertarians, who are hostile to government regulation of business but equally hostile to government subsidization, bailouts, sweetheart contracts, and the military-industrial complex.
White supremacists/separatists/just plain racists: Marginal as such, but that just means most won’t publicly self-identify; hostile to welfare, which they see as mainly subsidizing the breeding of nonwhites; hostile to immigration; likely to support either paleocon or libertarian candidates if given the option.
Progressives: Not in the modern left-liberal sense of the word, but in the tradition of the early-20th-Century Progressive Era.John Anderson is a prominent modern Progressive. Anti-establishment, equally hostile to corrupt government and corrupt business interests. Traditionally favor a progressive, graduated income tax, hence their name. Not hostile to government as such, but to partisan-ideological government – “There is no Democratic or Republican way to pave a street.” Favor a technocratic-professional approach to government. They don’t want too much government regulation but they do want efficient, effective government service. Fiscal-conservative, very suspicious of deficit spending. Economically protectionist. The Reform Party was rather ideologically incoherent, and ultimately split up, because it was a coalition of Progressives and Paleocons. The Paleocons went on to form the America First Party (see above), the Progressives the Independence Party, which has had notable success only in Minnessota.
Now, these are the activist conservative groupings; of course, political activists are a minority in any society. For the grassroots groupings, see the Pew Political Typology, particularly the Enterprisers, Social Conservatives, Pro-Government Conservatives, and probably the Upbeats.
Up until recently, the conservative movement’s success has been based on most or all of these factions joining forces in a “no enemies to the right” strategy. But now, there are signs that the coalition is starting to fragment. Viz.this year’s flap between Rush Limbaugh and David Frum over the GOP’s future direction.
Warning, these thoughts based on anecdotal data and observation:
I think the biggest reason conservatives have a few more issues with the question of “true conservatism” is a matter of personalities rather than history.
In my experience with being both, conservatives are more comfortable in systems where the players are defined and identified. Definitions lead to people being, well, outside the definition. You can see this in debates about things like bi- or trans- sexuality (“if he was born a man, he’s a man”), linguistics (“that’s not a word”), gay marriage (“marriage is defined as between one man and one woman”), religious identification (“Mormons can’t be Christians because…”), ADHD (“So what’s to prevent a parent from just saying their kid has ADHD? It’s not a real disease”), abortion (“if it’s murder for me to kill your fetus, it’s murder for you to kill it”), etc. It’s the definition that matters. If something is ill-defined or ambiguously defined, it’s a problem. A flexible definition might be worse than none at all.
I have a lot of sympathy for this stance since I really like defining things, too. It leads to coherence and clarity, and really aids in philosophical pursuits when it makes it easier to see where X should or does equal Y.
Liberals often come at things from the other direction, changing definitions to suit the current need–which can lead to muddled, blurry thinking and, all-too-often, an “it doesn’t matter anyway” or the lovely “you can’t make me!” approach to philosophy and ideology.
There are huge upsides and downsides to either approach, and I’m talking huge generalities here. But if you hang out with large groups of self-proclaimed liberals or conservatives, patterns seem to emerge.
(I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on how conservatives and liberals keep house? I’m betting the former are better organized and way less inclined to clutter. Uh, not that I was organized and clutter-free as a conservative. :D)
So, who cares about what it means to be “conservative”? Conservatives. If you have a group of people for whom definitions are important, how they define themselves is going to be extra-super important.
Once upon a time I was a Rockefeller Republican. I saw the value the corporations could bring, but wanted to hem them in a bit because I also inderstood the politics of 19th-Century America.
American Conservatives of the Mid-1900s began to abandon that. In about 1980, they became the party of “the public be damned.” This was not a philosophy I could accept.
Since then what it means to be conservative is not only, “the public be damned,” but also a damnation of most of the fools who vote conservatives into power.
Just a couple of points, Sam. Minor points, perhaps, in the rather grand sweep of your vision. First off, a quibble: the word “radical”, which seems to salt your manifesto. If you would be so kind, get yer cotton-pickin’ mitts off our word! You’re a conservative, Sam, not a radical. Steal your own thunder.
Second, your choice of villains seems quaint for our times. Teachers? Unions? Reminds one of one’s childhood, when the caricature of the Labor Boss was daily fodder for the tighty righty editorial cartoonist. Swarthy, big knuckled, cigar chomping, vaguely ethnic. And teachers, well, good luck with that one. But, true enough, they are largely supportive of the progressive movement, and the Dems, on the rare occassion that they actually stand for it.
But you don’t seem to have much time to comment on who supports their opposition, who most wants the power of unions to be dissipated, and why? Why do you, for that matter? What is it that they seek that you find so distasteful? And what have you to offer them? If you look to undercut the power of the working class, you aim to empower the financial sector at their expense, the employer over the employee. Why shouldn’t they resist you with every fiber?
I can see what you have to offer financial firms and that ilk, long that back bone of the Republican Party, and its Precious. You appear to see a recovery that puts everyone back where they were, cozy and secure, those on top stay there, those below can mind their place.
Nothing radical about that Sam, thats downright reactionary. Not extreme reactionary, just mildly, just turning back the clock a few years rather than decades. You’re preaching change without change, a radical stasis. You won’t attract the progressives with any of that.
And the way you keep talking about radical change, the more likely the people you are trying to persuade will clutch their pearls and faint dead. But you’re giving that one back anyway, right? Still yours is a gospel of change, albeit mild and circumspect. Might as well be working the Kucinich booth at the gun show.
SO you have nothing to offer my side, and only change to offer yours, the side most averse to change. I fear yours will be a voice howling quite reasonably in the wilderness.
Conservatives have been trying to divorce themselves from their political proxies (the Republicans) since George bush lost in 2008. Now they are apparently trying to divorce themselves from themselves.
I see plenty of ways for Republicans to regain power but I don’t see any way your brand of conservatism (which i would probably vote for) will win any elections any time soon and until you actually make the commitment to reject the racists and the religious fanatics that you took into your fold with the southern strategy and the Reagan revolution, your “fiscal discipline” will always mean tax cuts without spending cuts and you will find yourself pandering to the religious right like McCain was forced to do.
Right, because things were going so well before Obama showed up. What exactly did Obama do that was so terrible that Bush didn’t do first? Because you are trying to say that a third term of Bush would have been better than a first term of Obama right?
I think Republicans can win, but the whole point to a re-alignment is to bring in people who currently aren’t in the party. There are a hell of a lot of young people out there who are generally skeptical of government, but who can’t stand the Republicans because of their positions on gay rights and religion in general, their anti-progress and anti-science religious right wing, and the general sense that Republicans are uncool, humorless, and in general people they don’t want to associate with.
So basically, you maintain the core of the party’s classical liberal belief system, but you change the emphasis and focus of the party and bring it into the 21st century. There are still plenty of issues to unite the old guard and the new, such as 2nd amendment rights, low taxes, fiscal conservatism, smaller government. If you look at the polls, Americans in general are still highly skeptical of big government. Obama is personally popular, but his policies are not. And the educational system that liberals support is failing young people in a big way, so I’d put big emphasis on education reform.
There’s a “core” of “classical liberal” beliefs in the Republican Party? Personified by which Republican leaders? Hell, for that matter, which Republicans, never mind leaders. Are these the people you expect to inspire with your anti-labor agenda? The people you expect will get all fired up to break the brutal tyranny of the teacher’s union?
For instance? Maybe just the top ten unpopular Obama policies. At your fingertips, no doubt.
And this:
Without specifics, you open yourself to the suspicion that what you’re most concerned about is the brutal indoctrination of the young to leftist political thinking. Assuming that isn’t it, what is? Given your hostility to organized teachers, who’s reforms are you going to advocate, if not the people who actually do the teaching? Is Big Government going to tell teachers how to do their jobs, regardless of their own opinions, opinions formed by actually doing, rather than theorizing?
A lot of this bold new approach sounds awfully familiar, Sam. Same old oatmeal, different box marked New! Improved! with more electrolytes!
I cheer, stomp, and applaud the purging of the religious right whackos. A splendid notion, but with the unfortunate effect of cutting away the motivated, contributing, and committed. You keep Tweedledum and cut away Tweedledumber, you end up with a rump party with a minority constituency, now in competition with the left and what used to be the right.
You know luci, Obama’s been president for six months now and he hasn’t started a single war of aggression against a nation that has fuck all to do with American security. Even worse, he’s not paying for his nonexistant war with ‘America’s credit card.’ Americans cannot be happy with that!
Latveria is still free, and it’s high time we beggar our future in order to change that!
Sort of like how the left wing and liberals have been able to repackage the same, tired old message as new and improved (with more Global Warming!), ehe? I love these pot/kettle comparisons.
Yes, I think the definition matters…it’s what defines the core of the political philosophy. Also, it’s useful to distract people from the fact that there is less difference between the practical, real-world differences between what Republican’s and Democrat’s actually DO when they are in office, than on the philosophical differences between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ political thought. Aside from who spends more money (something that both parties seem bound and determined to top when they are in power), I’m not seeing a lot of practical difference between when the Republican’s were in power to now that the Democrat’s are in power, so ISTM that focusing on the philosophical differences is key to distinguishing one from the other.
As for the side discussion on the factionalism of the Republican’s, this is going to happen with any big tent type party in our current system. Both of the major parties are basically made up of what would be separate parties in a multi-party system, but because of our own system are forced to meet together under one roof and to at least attempt to speak with a unified voice. When things are going well for a party (as they were for the Republican’s before their recent down fall), then it’s easier to sweep those differences under the rug, or to down play them. When things are going poorly for a party (as they were for the Dems before their recent elevation, and as they are now for the 'Pubs), then it magnifies those differences, because every faction thinks THEY have the answer to the parties problems and the solution to put them back on top again.
Of course, they are all wrong…none of them have the answer. It wasn’t the civil rights faction of the Dem’s, or the Green faction, or the gay rights faction, or even the anti-war faction that put them back on top…it was the Republican’s screwing the pooch until it howled that REALLY put the Dem’s back into the drivers seat. And it won’t be the loony right wing quasi-religious faction, or the economic conservatives faction, or any of the others that will eventually bring the Republican’s back on top…it will be the Dem’s fucking up by the numbers that will do so.
The pendulum is swinging left at the moment…it’s only a matter of time until it swings back to the right again. My only hope is that that amplitude of the swings becomes smaller and smaller over time, becoming more focused on the center. It’s a small hope, but what the hell…
) Decades ago, they were actually the Progressive Wing of the party, but over the years have been totally discredited within it (and mostly without it).
:eek:
I love these pot/kettle comparisons.