Second, there is the corrupting influence of teamism. Being a good conservative now means sticking together with other conservatives, not thinking new and adventurous thoughts. Those who stray from the reservation are accused of selling out to the mainstream media by the guardians of conservative correctness.
So says Brooks. Yglesias responds:
That said, why shouldn't "being a good conservative" mean "sticking together with other conservatives?" It seems to me that that's exactly what it ought to mean.
Well, because to go along with whatever most people who call themselves conservative are pushing in a given time or place can mean violating conservative principle. Were the conservatives who signed off on the crazy pork-barrel spending during the years when the presidency and the Congress were in putatively conservative hands being "good conservatives" -- or just team players? Or something that implicates me: when the conservative mainstream marched off rah-rah to war, and condemned conservatives who didn't agree with us as somehow false conservatives, were we really being true conservatives, or were we wielding the term "conservative" as a way to suppress thought?
Obviously I have a personal interest in this question, because I've tried to make the case for my sort of neotraditionalist conservatism based on conservative principles. Some critics, rather than argue the principles, have decided that because my ideas don't sound like the standard-gauge GOP line, especially on economics and culture, then they couldn't possibly be conservative. On the other side, a fellow I met at the Kirk conference recently, who said he was moving toward the left, wondered why I had to identify as a conservative at all. I told him that I was, or was striving to be, a Kirkian conservative. If that put me closer to Democratic Party policy on some matters, well, so be it. I don't see that that makes me a bad conservative, but it does make me not such a good Republican. I imagine pro-life Democrats who remain so out of liberal conviction that tells them the law should protect the most vulnerable human beings might feel the same way.
Point is, whether we're on the left or the right, we can't all be eclectic gadflies and get things accomplished in the political realm. But when any movement gets caught up in groupthink, and forgets first principles in favor of power politics, it runs the risk of ossifying. As Burke said, change is the method by which we will conserve that which most needs conserving. What we conservatives should be doing is seeking to reinterpret our principles in light of present circumstances, and figuring out how they might best be transformed into policy. I fail to see what is to be gained by treating conservatism as if it were a dogmatic religion.
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The GroupThink guys above have it spot on. And it's stupid reactionary GroupThink. I.e., I m against the other side s position, just because it s the other side. On the right it s things like gun control. If you don t support the absolute right to any and all (assault) weapons you re a traitor to the movement. You can t love Manhattan because the Blues live there, etc. And on the left. If you don t support any and all abortions (including the ones that cross over into infanticide) you re a traitor to the movement. And if you live in a fly-over state, you re an evangelical yokel, etc. A pox on both their houses.
"The worst example of current groupthink is this insane notion that our national security is somehow dependent on the compostition of the government of Iraq." Amen to that! Although, even if Bush and co. were alone in thinking this, and this was seen as "thinking outside the box," the Iraq war would still be a stupid idea. It's funny, in the past Republicans at least pretended commitment to time-honored conservative principles, some of which were "Kirkian" (or should I say Burkean?), but Rove and the Clever Men seem to view conservative principles as only fit for pansies and weaklings who don't know how to win elections. I guess there's a certain logic to this...as long as you ONLY want to win elections.
"to go along with whatever most people who call themselves conservative are pushing in a given time or place can mean violating conservative principle." True for us liberals as well. :-) I guess that's why I am finding myself escaping from using the labels. So much time seems to have to be spent figuring out their proper definitions. Yet I know what I value, and I try to live by it, regardless of what anyone calls it.
"...when the conservative mainstream marched off rah-rah to war, and condemned conservatives who didn't agree with us as somehow false conservatives..." Let's be honest, a lot of you guys did MUCH more that that. People who disagreed with the war were called un-American, unpatriotic, material supporters of Al-Qaeda. The word "treason" has been bandied about more in the last four years by conservatives than in the last 50. It's still used today. Hell, look at the last RNC, with all those beaming Republicans sporting Purple Heart band-aids, denigrating the service of a veteran who happened to disagree with them. I know this is supposed to be water under the bridge, but we cannot forget how many conservatives, when their side was in power, slandered so many of their fellow Americans.
And how many in the RNC have real Purple Hearts? When did conservative and chickenhawk become synonymous?
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