This is catnip to the likes of Your Working Boy. Dan McCarthy at The American Conservative's swell new group blog draws attention to an argument for why Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul will likely be a lot more central to conservatism's future than you might think today.
Dan:
The next several years will be a very interesting time to be a conservative. I think we’ll see some shake-ups on the Right, and more creativity than we’ve seen since the heyday of the Goldwater movement.
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. John McCain might win this fall, and if so, he'll still be the end of an era. The arguments the right has over the next four years will chart the course of conservatism for the coming decades.
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"I may not understand conservativism, but 90% of 'conservatives' don't either."
The number's probably more like 50%, but be that as it may...
When I used to tutor high school students in algebra and trig, there was a certain type of student who just didn't get it, and there was another type who claimed he didn't get it because he just didn't want to get it. You remind me greatly of the latter. You seem to want to be spoon-fed, yet even spoon-feeding will accomplish zilch if you don't open your mouth.
Huh? I 'get it' to the extent that I need to. See, I don't actually need to understand it, as I'm not running around claiming to be a conservative and asserting it's 'conservative' to randomly invade countries. Go educate those people first and maybe you can save the Republican party. Don't worry about what us Democrats think.
I don't really care about your anti-change philosophy that no party actually follows or has ever followed, anymore than I can care about nihilism or royalism as a political philosophy. Although I do try to be somewhat nice about it on this site and don't generally go attacking things because they aren't 'conservative'.
I was just curious if anyone could state the goals. And I got two people quoting other people...with two entirely different concepts.
You guys talk about moral truths that don't change and whatnot, which is nice and fun for philosophies, but doesn't actually translate into running a government or setting goals. The only goal you can come up with is 'Whatever the other guy doesn't want, or what he wants but not now.'. Or 'We're like liberals, but do things really slowly'. (Of course, you have to call them 'classic liberals' as you demonized 'liberals'.) You claim a firm foundation by having a dozen metaphysical statements, which can be used to justify almost any government action or inaction. It's actually somewhat absurd.
"Go educate those people first and maybe you can save the Republican party."
Personally, I don't give a rat's ass about the Republican Party. As numerous conservative writers have pointed out, the GOP is no longer conservative -- maybe a good crash-and-burn is what it needs.
"You claim a firm foundation by having a dozen metaphysical statements, which can be used to justify almost any government action or inaction. It's actually somewhat absurd."
Conservatives work forward from principle; liberals/progressives work backwards from goals. Conservatives say, "Here are our principles; how do we work them out practically?" Liberals say, "Here is our goal; how do we get to it?"
That's about as simple as I can make it. No one is blinder than he who will not see.
Conservatives work forward from principle; liberals/progressives work backwards from goals.
Oddly enough, I don't entirely disagree that that is how it works in principle, except that liberals/progressives aren't working backwards...their goals are based on principles too (Ask John Locke and John Rawls.), they just calculated their goals a long time ago and they have remained fixed, whereas conservatives are calculating new goals from principles all the time.
The conservative method actually sounds better, but in practice, what that means is that your goal are decided semi-randomly and inconsistently and half the time solely decided because 'the other side' wants the opposite, and you can pick up voters, or, more often, business support by opposing it. (For example, why exactly are you for selling off natural resources? I'm sure there's some logical way that can fit in the conservative philosophy, despite being almost directly opposed to 'keeping things how they were and slowly and carefully changing them when needed'.)
"why exactly are you for selling off natural resources? I'm sure there's some logical way that can fit in the conservative philosophy, despite being almost directly opposed to 'keeping things how they were and slowly and carefully changing them when needed'."
I see nothing conservative about the selling off of natural resources. What seems to be happening here is a lack of awareness on your part of the difference between so called 'neo-conservatism' and the rest of the conservative movement (trads, paleos, crunchies, etc.)
When you hear 'conservative' on talk radio, on Fox, from mainstream GOP'ers, etc., with very few exceptions you're going to get the neo-con view.
Basically, there are two broad streams of 'conservative' thought in the U.S., the Russell Kirk/ISI/Chronicles stream, and the Kristol/Weekly Standard/Fox stream. The former includes the paleos and trads, the latter are the neo-cons, and there are some rather glaring differences between them. Thing is, since the neos pretty much own the conservative media outlets, it is they who, over the past 10-20 years, have defined conservatism and have determined its shibboleths. Therefore, when trads and paleos protest against neo-con ideas, we are told we're not really 'conservative.' This is because many neos, included those in the media, are completely unschooled about the older, authentic conservative movement. I doubt if Hannity, Limbaugh, or most of the talking heads on Fox have ever read Kirk, or 'Modern Age' or any of the other older conservative authors/resources.
Criticize Wal-Mart? You're not conservative. Weigh environmental concerns vs. business expansion? You're not conservative. Have problems with unrestrained capitalism? You're not conservative. Have an issue with spreading democratic capitalism in the Middle East militarily? You're not conservative. It's all b.s., but that's what you're going to hear from the neo-cons.
This piece by Andrew Bacevich sums it up nicely. While I disagree with him on voting for Obama, the rest of what he says makes a heck of a lot of sense to me, and I'm in agreement with almost all of it. Needless to say, this is not what you're going to hear on Hannity or Limbaugh...
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_03_24/article.html
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