The current state of the Conservative Movement

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Just please remember that it wasn't fiscal conservatism, social liberalism, and small government that the Republican party uses in its sales pitch to get votes from suckers.

Fixed.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: cwjerome
I think at its base Conservatism stands on three basic principles: lower taxes, limited government, and free markets. That said, President Bush has certainly set the conservative movement back by at least the number of years he's been in office.

The religious right, an awkward strain of conservatism, plays an integral role in electing conservatives, and only therefore holds a place at the table. HOWEVER, one of the problems as I see it is the RR has morphed the movement itself and has started replacing some of the traditional and intellectual base of Conservatism with its own breed of ideas.

As a deeply conservative person, yet fairly nonpolitical in many respects, it's an understatement to say I'm a conservative before I'm a republican. People like me have thought of the republican party merely as the vehicle to use to get ideas across. A lot of conservatives may have thought they took over the republican party... but in many respects, the party has taken over the movement.

The scrappy intellectuals are being replaced with tv and radio pundits. The energetic movement that sought reform in the 80s and 90s (and did a fairly decent job) has turned on itself and I'm afraid the movement is moving from small-government conservatism to big-government conservatism.

The conservative label will rebound like it did after Nixon. But one of the first things that needs to be addressed currently is how the term conservative is becoming to mean -in many people's eyes- a mean spirited attitude, as opposed to self-reliance, independence, and limited government. If there isn't some change, "Conservative" could take on a negative connotation just like Liberal did.

:thumbsup:

 

[cwjerome]

Craig, consider this my last post to you. Lower taxes, limited government, and free markets are only catch-phrases to a one-dimensional partisan tool as yourself. You are about the most inflexible, one sided, and outrageously partisan hack around, so you lecturing me about anything philosophical sorta makes me laugh. You really have no business being in this topic because you have nothing to add... you have made it perfectly clear in your barrage of longwinded and tiresome posts that democrats and the left are milk and honey while reps and the right (there really is no difference to you) are pure evil. I have had many very good discussions with opposing viewpoints on this board, but it's mainly with reasonable people with no political axe to grind... no such discussion can occur with you. Being willing to make incredibly long posts quickly does not make you correct... merely so fantatsically propagandized that someone like me will not devote the time and effort to argue.

But going back to your post, it's predictably silly. A principle is an abstract, something larger and contextual. By arguing that one I laid out is "amorphous" you are revealing you have no understanding of principles... which doesn't surprise me. You may constantly bicker over trivial concretes while betraying all its major values. I properly start with a fundamental that all other specifics are derived. This is basic rationality. Then first one you decide to take so absurdly literally a Bible-thumper would blush. Lower 'could' mean zero? That's your argument? Why are you wasting your time with this nonsense? And of course the third objection is to say the Founding Fathers would disagree... which is wholly debatable because of one pesky fact- this is not the same country as it was 200 years ago, so comparisons like the one you mentioned are basically speculation. Besides, I find it insincere of you to use THAT argument, since I'm sure you would disagree with a great many things the Founding Fathers believed. Why pick and choose?

I posted this with the hope of getting some semi-thoughtful, intellectually honest discussion going, and so far we've had a few of the regular politically motivated spokespeople chime in with their obvious regurgitated material... but I still have some hope.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: cwjerome
Craig, consider this my last post to you. Lower taxes, limited government, and free markets are only catch-phrases to a one-dimensional partisan tool as yourself. You are about the most inflexible, one sided, and outrageously partisan hack around, so you lecturing me about anything philosophical sorta makes me laugh. You really have no business being in this topic because you have nothing to add... you have made it perfectly clear in your barrage of longwinded and tiresome posts that democrats and the left are milk and honey while reps and the right (there really is no difference to you) are pure evil. I have had many very good discussions with opposing viewpoints on this board, but it's mainly with reasonable people with no political axe to grind... no such discussion can occur with you. Being willing to make incredibly long posts quickly does not make you correct... merely so fantatsically propagandized that someone like me will not devote the time and effort to argue.

But going back to your post, it's predictably silly. A principle is an abstract, something larger and contextual. By arguing that one I laid out is "amorphous" you are revealing you have no understanding of principles... which doesn't surprise me. You may constantly bicker over trivial concretes while betraying all its major values. I properly start with a fundamental that all other specifics are derived. This is basic rationality. Then first one you decide to take so absurdly literally a Bible-thumper would blush. Lower 'could' mean zero? That's your argument? Why are you wasting your time with this nonsense? And of course the third objection is to say the Founding Fathers would disagree... which is wholly debatable because of one pesky fact- this is not the same country as it was 200 years ago, so comparisons like the one you mentioned are basically speculation. Besides, I find it insincere of you to use THAT argument, since I'm sure you would disagree with a great many things the Founding Fathers believed. Why pick and choose?

I posted this with the hope of getting some semi-thoughtful, intellectually honest discussion going, and so far we've had a few of the regular politically motivated spokespeople chime in with their obvious regurgitated material... but I still have some hope.

For your last post, too bad you lost my reading it in the first line. You clearly have no clue about the concept of political principles, nor conservatism, nor civil discussion.

 

[Ozoned]

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Conservative means backward because that is what it is used to preserve. It's the party of Neanderthals terrified to enter the world advanced humans will create.

lol, you are something special

Moonbeam is a typical Elitist Liberal. Wanting and yearning to live in the world that Moonbeam wants to live in, but not willing to wake up in the morning and live in the world that is, and work towards changing it. JMHO

 

[BMW540I6speed]

Republican/conservative movement devolved into a giant shell game. Despite their rhetoric, the Republicans of today know better than anyone that their policies didnt work, but they can't admit it without losing power, an unthinkable result for modern conservatives. The Republicans and the conservative movement may once have stood for something other than maintaining political power at all costs.

Bush has used Conservatism as a convenient jumping off point for his near-Stalinist perversion of a necessary and important part of the American political machinery. To say that Bush is conservitive or that Conservatism is not what it once was is the same as saying liberalism is defined by its most inept and misguided adherents. Does John Kerry define Liberalism?, no. And the current Republican Administration no more represents, speaks for nor embodies true Conservatism than, Hirohito.

I vehemently condemn our President, those around him who pass themselves off as Conservatives, and all anti-Americans who have attempted to pervert this ongoing American Revolution and discredit true protoconservatives such as Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower and, yes, even Jack Kerouac, none of whom could even get invited to today's White House.

We are all a lot more conservative than we realize, even those who reflexively label themselves as Liberal. Both parties are currently in thrall to the corporate robber barons who really run this trainwreck. Hurling invective at ideologies which are essentially joined at the hip, which need each other, and which we all need in order to keep the ship of state on an even keel, is nothing but moronic schoolyard yammering, while the real gang of bullies runs amok under our noses and we pretend not to notice because we have become weak, spineless and complacent

The movement has always been intellectually fractured, riven by contradictory beliefs. As George Nash pointed out in his classic "The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America," from the beginning modern American conservatism has been divided between traditionalists and libertarians. Libertarians regard individual freedom as the highest good, support the free market, and oppose coercive government policies. Traditionalists regard virtue, not freedom, as the highest good, believe in a transcendental moral order and are wary of unfettered individualism. Despite attempts to "fuse" them, the two worldviews are fundamentally incompatible - you either believe in surrendering to God and tradition or you don't. Time and again, conservative attempts to implement policies that do justice to both the movement's "freedom" and "virtue" wings have failed.

Something like the near-death of American conservatism is a very complex phenomenon with many causes. There are many things to mention in explaining how conservatism abandoned its principles, but I am still left wondering, there are good things about conservatism such as respect for individual liberty against the power of the government, why would conservatives give that up under Bush?. We've got what we deserve and only we can throw it off. It is not Conservative in nature. It is merely criminal.

 

[Genx87]

One thing we need to realize is conservatism doesnt have a true identity. What we call conservatives today was liberal at some point. And at some point that turned to centrist to conservative. The goal posts continue to move. And move to the left due to the progressive nature of the left within this country. All conservatism really represents is a resist to change.

What i worry about is when will the ideals of liberalism(small govt, low taxes, free markets) be progressive again? I hope it doesnt require a socialist state to achieve this. I doubt I will live long enough to see such a transformation.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Conservative means backward because that is what it is used to preserve. It's the party of Neanderthals terrified to enter the world advanced humans will create.

While clearly sarcastic, this is actaully what many young people believe - it is certainly what I believed when I was sixteen. What young man, who loves drinking and fighting and chasing girls, would ever vote for a 'conservative' party? It sounds about as cool as a tweed jacket with three ballpoint pens in the top pocket.

 

[cwjerome]

Originally posted by: BMW540I6speed
Republican/conservative movement devolved into a giant shell game. Despite their rhetoric, the Republicans of today know better than anyone that their policies didnt work, but they can't admit it without losing power, an unthinkable result for modern conservatives. The Republicans and the conservative movement may once have stood for something other than maintaining political power at all costs.

Bush has used Conservatism as a convenient jumping off point for his near-Stalinist perversion of a necessary and important part of the American political machinery. To say that Bush is conservitive or that Conservatism is not what it once was is the same as saying liberalism is defined by its most inept and misguided adherents. Does John Kerry define Liberalism?, no. And the current Republican Administration no more represents, speaks for nor embodies true Conservatism than, Hirohito.

I vehemently condemn our President, those around him who pass themselves off as Conservatives, and all anti-Americans who have attempted to pervert this ongoing American Revolution and discredit true protoconservatives such as Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower and, yes, even Jack Kerouac, none of whom could even get invited to today's White House.

We are all a lot more conservative than we realize, even those who reflexively label themselves as Liberal. Both parties are currently in thrall to the corporate robber barons who really run this trainwreck. Hurling invective at ideologies which are essentially joined at the hip, which need each other, and which we all need in order to keep the ship of state on an even keel, is nothing but moronic schoolyard yammering, while the real gang of bullies runs amok under our noses and we pretend not to notice because we have become weak, spineless and complacent

The movement has always been intellectually fractured, riven by contradictory beliefs. As George Nash pointed out in his classic "The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America," from the beginning modern American conservatism has been divided between traditionalists and libertarians. Libertarians regard individual freedom as the highest good, support the free market, and oppose coercive government policies. Traditionalists regard virtue, not freedom, as the highest good, believe in a transcendental moral order and are wary of unfettered individualism. Despite attempts to "fuse" them, the two worldviews are fundamentally incompatible - you either believe in surrendering to God and tradition or you don't. Time and again, conservative attempts to implement policies that do justice to both the movement's "freedom" and "virtue" wings have failed.

Something like the near-death of American conservatism is a very complex phenomenon with many causes. There are many things to mention in explaining how conservatism abandoned its principles, but I am still left wondering, there are good things about conservatism such as respect for individual liberty against the power of the government, why would conservatives give that up under Bush?. We've got what we deserve and only we can throw it off. It is not Conservative in nature. It is merely criminal.

I disagree that losing power is an unthinkable result for modern conservatives. It's just too broad and too extreme a statement. While I'm sure there are those within the movement that may cling somewhat, I think what you may be referring to are the die hard Republicans, who by their nature are more partisan and more likely to engage in political pragmaticism than die hard conservatives who tend to be more devoted to a principled ideology.

When you look at history (like Ross Perot) and contemporary (like Ron Paul) there are plenty of people who are conservative yet don't toe party lines... just look at all the conservatives who say they're voting for Obama. So it's a cheap shortcut to mix the two (conservatives and republicans) and make far-reaching conclusions, because they'll most likely be false.

Plus, the fact that you mention "true" conservatism sort of reveals you don't have an understanding of the subject... because of course there is no and never has been one true conservatism. Don't feel badly, a lot of conservatives make that same mistake. But as strongly conservative as I am (who believes my flavor of conservatism is the best), I would never presume to say my conservatism is the one, true brand... there simply is no such thing. Conservatism -as a concept- does not allow for such thing as one definition. All conservatism is is a snapshot in time of the various factions that make it up.

You are correct to say the movement has always been intellectually fractured... like early on in the 50s you had not two but three basic groups: the anti-communists, the traditional conservatives, and the libertarian/economic conservatives. Actually they didn't even really see themselves as a movement but little by little as the 60s wore on they fused into a movement. The one big thing they all agreed on is they didn't like liberals. That's basically the common, albeit tenuous, bond found in the factions today.

To make a long story short, I believe what happened is conservatives allowed to much influence from the religious right... suckered in a bit by the sheer voting potential they brought, but in the long run sacrificing some very basic ideas and inevitably doing more harm than good to the movement in the long run. We became a bit too pragmatic and a little too willing to take a political shortcut. I don't think this course was really planned or well understood, but with 20-20 hindsight to help, I believe it just sort of happened that way.

To say that American conservatism is near-death though is not just premature, it's outright silly. Many people tend to make the present far too important, not quite realizing plenty of things happened in the past and plenty more will happen in the future. It's just one election folks. I'll repeat what I said that the movement has certainly been set back, however, things do tend to become stagnant and need a fresh self-correcting tune up now and then.

 

[cwjerome]

BUMP!