12 Şubat 2008 Salı

The Problem with Conservatism?

A lot has been made about whether John McCain is a "true" Conservative, and most of the Republican debates so far have been largely about who was most devoted to Ronald Reagan. And yet, all of this jockeying for "true Conservative credentials" has not produced any real excitement from the base, who largely is trying to decide whether to compromise their beliefs by voting for McCain or to compromise their power by sitting out the election. A new commentary by Cal Thomas suggests the real problem is a movement which has stopped looking ahead, and is obsessed with the past in the form of Reagan.
Reagan engaged in an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. As president, Reagan seldom went to church, unlike his evangelical base. If conservatives knew in advance these things about Reagan, would they have voted for him in such numbers?

Contemporary conservatism has mostly been about saying "no" to the liberal agenda. Suppose conservatives instead begin to circumvent liberals by applying better ideas to achieve ends liberals and conservatives claim to seek?
I tend to think that Thomas is right, and much of the problem in the air now is that Conservatives have allowed GWB and the War in Iraq to eat up all of their creative energies. Where are the people who lead the Contact With America which promised bold new ideas? Where are the people who championed school choice, true reform for Medicare, and voluntary term limits for Congressmen? It is not enough to say you are "optimistic" and stand for "change." You have to present ideas which show a forward-looking vision. Obama, at least, can always fall back on the fact that his very election is forward-looking, by apparently realizing Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream.

3 yorum:

  1. I tend to agree. One of my biggest issues with this election cycle on the GOP side has been how everybody was trying to suck up to the Reagan bandwagon. There's nothing wrong with Reagan and he was a great president, but that was then and this is now. It has kind of irritated me listening to everybody say that they are in the mold of Ronald Reagan - heck I think even Ron Paul said it.

    As for the question of where all the leaders of the party have gone, I don't have many answers other than we know where Newt has gone. He's out leading his American Solutions organization. If you really want to be forward looking you should take a gander at the Platform of the American People that he's pushing. I think that it's something that we could all agree on AND that it could be the next Contract with America.

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  2. And Newt was the author and driving force of the Contract with America!

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  3. The problem with conservatism is the same as the problem with liberalism. Its issue bundling at a rediculous level.

    As examples, consider these political stances:

    - Homosexuals should not be allowed to marry.
    - Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is not a necessicary action.
    - Abortion should be allowed rarely, if ever.
    - Continued military occupation of Iraq is justified for the long-term future.
    - The US government should recognise Christianity as a prefered religion.

    These are all 'conservative' political positions.
    They are also all completly unrelated. It takes great effort to establish even the most tenuous of lines.

    Conservatism assocates all those issues, and perhaps hundreds more, and its an entirely arbitary grouping. Forcing people to pick liberal or conservative just limits their options, making it impossible to consider any issue in isolation.

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