Conservatism: WTF? conference agenda

My suggestion is to drop the "WTF" from the title. It might sound cute, but it's offensive, even if Buckley suggested it.

Agenda item:

Leaving God out of the Equation: Defining and Defending a Non-Theistic Conservative Ontology

(Ontology might not be the right word, but I'm wondering/asking if Conservativism can be argued or established as the "right" and "best" way to live and order government without having to appeal at some point to a transcendant moral order or imperative. If not, then it seems to me that by definition or default, for Conservativism to be "right" it must then conform itself at every possible point to that transcendant imperative, or it will be sinful and in error, and hence something to be opposed or resisted at those points where it deviates from that imperative.)

Who put him [Buckley] in charge of conservatism?

Well, he still seems to be holding out for the hereditary principle.

Seriously, does Christo think he's invented conservative dissent. I mean, there's been plenty of outlets for conservative dissent for years: Chronicles and TAC have been more scathing of Bush than most liberal magazines.

You're doing something to make that conference idea a reality?

Good for you, Rod. Color me impressed!

In addition to the conference, can you endorse some candidates--for president, VP, congress, senate--well before the next election; and can you also make an effort in raising money for the candidate as well? It's nice to have ideas, but the ideas are useless without the practical politicking. More importantly, if you guys have a real investment in a candidate you will be less likely to bail out in hysterics if he/she has a bad Couric interview. Since the GOP will not have a realistic chance at either the presidency or a majority in the congress/senate for at least a decade, altcons will have plenty of time to experiment.

Guys, let's not let this thing get sidetracked over whether or not Chris Buckley is sufficiently conservative. Focus on the suggestion, not the person suggesting it. Let's trade some ideas.

"Just White Guys Talking?: Conservatism Outside the Majority."

Conservatism, WTF
Nov. 5th to Nov. 8th
Location TBD (But definitely NOT NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, D.C., San Francisco, Boston, or any place with durn libruls)

Nov. 5th - 9am - Magnolia Room: "We had the Presidency, Senate, and House. What happened?"

Nov. 5th - 11am - Cedar Room: "Barack Hussein Obama. How we let this 1st Term U.S. Senator with a funny name, horrible associations, liberal policies, kick our a**."

Nov. 5th - 1pm - Magnolia Room: "How McCain screwed it all up for us." - Mitt Romney, Featured speaker

Nov. 5th - 3pm - Cedar Room: "Teenage Pregnancy - Big Problem, or Small Bundle of Joy" - Jamie Lynn Spears, Bristol Palin, Featured Speakers

Nov. 5th - 6pm - Ballroom - 2012 Election Kickoff Dinner (Black Tie)

Nov. 5th - 10pm - Oak Bar - 2008 Post-Mortem Drinking Bash (There will be soft drinks for Mitt Romney's table)

Nov. 6th - 9am - Cedar Room: "How McCain screwed it all up for us." - Mike Huckabee, Featured speaker

Nov. 6th - 11am - Ballroom - "Family Values - A Bipartisian Panel Discussion" - Larry Craig (R-ID), Elliot Spitzer (D-NY), Tim Mahoney (D-FL), Mark Foley (D-FL) - Featured Speakers

Nov. 6th - 1pm - Magnolia Room - "The only good liberal is a ... Wait, there are no good liberals." - Rush Limbaugh, Featured Speaker

Nov. 6th - 3pm - Cedar Room - "Barack Obama and Satan, Separated at Birth?" - Sean Hannity, Featured Speaker

Nov. 6th - 5pm - Magnolia Room - "How McCain screwed it all up for us." - Senator Sam Brownback, Featured speaker

Nov. 6th - 8pm - Ballroom - "Conservative Singles Ball" - Featuring Music by Pat Boone, Hank Williams, Jr., The Right Bros, Lee Greenwood, and Martina McBride

Nov. 7th - 8am - Cedar Room - "How McCain screwed it all up for us." - Rep. Duncan Hunter, Featured speaker

Nov. 7th - 11am - Magnolia Room - "We didn't lose. It's not over yet!" - Hugh Hewitt, Featured Speaker

Nov. 7th - 1pm - Cedar Room - "We didn't lose. It's not over yet!" - Hugh Hewitt, Featured Speaker (additional program added due to requests from Michelle Malkin's group)

Nov. 7th - 3pm - Magnolia Room - "How McCain screwed it all up for us." - Rudy Guliani, Featured speaker

Nov. 7th - 5pm - Cedar Room - "How the liberal media screwed it all up for us" - Panel Discussion - Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Laura Ingraham, Featured Speakers

Nov. 8th - 9am - Magnolia Room - "Face it, dude. You blew it." - Panel Discussion - Peggy Noonan, David Frum, Ramesh Ponnuru, Daniel Larison, Ross Douthat, Rod Dreher, Featured Speakers

Nov. 8th - 11am - Cedar Room - "Mitt would have been better", Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, Featured Speaker

Nov. 8th - 1pm - Magnolia Room - "Let's strengthen Marriage, the GOP Way" - Panel Discussion - Newt Gingrich, Rudy Guliani, Rush Limbaugh, David Vitter, Featured Speakers

Nov. 8th - 3pm - Parking Lot - "I would have been better." - Ron Paul, Featured Speaker

Nov. 8th - 5pm - Cedar Room - "Not My Fault!", Sarah Palin, Featured Speaker

Nov. 8th - 8pm - Magnolia Room - "Suckers!!! I'm outta here!", George Bush, Featured Speaker

Wow! This is fun. I could come up with 100 sessions, but here are some of the better ones:

1. The Conservatives and the Corporations: Friends or Enemies?
2. Pro-Life or Merely Anti-Abortion: Bridging the Left-Right Gap.
3. The Financial Economy and the Real Economy: Real Things vs. Abstractions.
4. Monetary Reform: Goldbugs, Greenbacks, and "What to do with the Fed."
5. Is a New Federalism Possible: The Political and Economic Role of the Family, the Cities, and the States.
6. Enlightening "Enlightened Self-Interest": Self-interest vs. Self-respect.
7 (My Sacred Cow Session) Heterodox Economics as Models for the Right: Paleo-Libertarianism, Distributism, and Georgism.

To the Reganite: Have you read Rules for Radicals? A very useful book. Even (or especially) for Reganites.

EddieInCA for the win

Here is my suggestion:

"God isn't a Republican, He isn't even an American"

@EddieInCA: Brilliant agenda! But you can add John McCain (or at least, his first wife) to the "Let's strengthen Marriage, the GOP Way" panel.

1. Policing Our Own. - Addressing the intersection of race and ethnicity in policy. Subtopics include Katrina, the mortgage crisis, and immigration.
2. Toward A Regional Awareness - What policies should be pursued at the local, state, and superstate level so as to lessen the demand they be addressed nationally?
3. Distinguishing Between Hedonism and Individualism.
4. The Non-Ownership Society - What relevance does the conservative agenda have for the lower middle class and poor going forward? Particular emphasis on the large class of pensioners. Significant emphasis on child development including health care.
5.* After morality - Addressing the issues of a society that doesn't care about marriage or children.

To John Medaille: Ronald Reagan should be added to that panel about "Let's Strengthen Marriage the GOP Way".

1. The inevitability of gay marriage and universal health care -- do we accept and accommodate, or do we fight?

2. Government's moral obligations to poor black children growing up in unstable single-parent households.

3. Reconciling original sin with free-market dogma -- can it be done?

1) "A 'Shining City on a Hill' No More? What the Coarsening of American Culture Means for America's Foreign Policy"

2) "'Go East, Young Man': How the U.S. Will Cope When Skilled Professionals from Other Countries No Longer Want to Emigrate to the U.S."

3) "Do We Want to Lead? Can We? America's Self-Conception in the Changing Global Order"

How about

Property rights and the new conservative movement. Breakout sessions:

1) Regulation and enterprise-why and how does the new conservative intervene?
2) Agriculture and the environment - addressing conflict between competing objectives
3) Natural resources policy and the new conservative - how do we address "rational" development and use of scarce resources?

My sacred cow issue:

1) "The return of the city-state: is a too-big government a necessary evil in a too-big country?"

1) Civility in political discourse: Distinguishing between enemies and political opponents
2) The Border: a national issue but a state problem. Defining who does what
3) The imploding economy: Family and cultural safeguards
4) Ronald Reagan is dead … who’s next?
5) Needs vs wants: Selling an entitled world on the necessity of smaller government and less debt

Pakeha Tohunga
Then, abortion rights. Most honestly worded polls that I've read over the last 20 years indicate that an overwhelming majority of Americans don't want abortion to be legal for birth control. The want it available for the "hard cases" and (maybe) very, very early in pregnancies when a preborn child doesn't seem like a recognizable human being.

Which, um, makes them pro-choice. There are really only two categories: People in favor of outlawing abortion in (almost) all circumstances, and people who do not. The 'Abortion should always be legal up to five minutes before birth' group exists mainly in the imagination of the right, along with D&X abortion being used for voluntary procedures instead of life or death emergence.

These responses also make them very very confused, but that's understandable. It's an interesting fact that a good 75% of the population, when polled about abortion, will answer in internally inconsistent ways.

For example, being against abortion used for 'birth control', but not against it being done early enough even when the health of the mother isn't in danger...when it is hard to think of any reason except simply 'not wanting to have the child', aka, birth control, where that would happen.

In fact, all abortion except in cases where fetus death would occur before birth anyway is, technically speaking, birth control. It stops someone from being born. Duh. If it's not 'birth control', if the child cannot be born anyway, like in an endoscopic pregnancy...absolutely no one is against abortion in that case, even pro-life people, so it's not even in the debate!

Most people are, after 30 years of nonsense, unable to articulate a position on abortion, and thus will come up with complete nonsense, agreeing with random platitudes. The actual fact of the matter is that most people, maybe up to 80% of the population but certainly more than 60%, do not wish to outlaw first trimester abortion, or up to 20 weeks, letting women do it for any reason.

Even through they won't admit 'for any reason', and they'll, at the same time, agree to nonsense like not wanting it for 'birth control', as you pointed out, even though all non-health-reason abortion is for 'birth control'. That's the entire point!

Of course, the far-religious right wants a ban on abortion after conception except for the physical life of the mother. The far-left (not all people, of course, thinking of folks like Nat Hentoff), on the other hand, has never met an abortion it doesn't love, including D&X, and they are desperate to maintain Roe V. Wade so that abortion can't be reined in.

Is it worth pointing out that the 'pro-choice' movement is almost overwhelmingly made up of people who just don't want abortion outlawed in general, as the pro-life people keep promising?

Seriously, if you want a 'middle ground' feel free to create it...except you'll find the pro-choice people are already standing there. You're imagining two groups standing in the endzones of a football field and think the Republican party is at the 50 yard line.

No. The pro-life movement is in one endzone, and the pro-choice movement is covering the entire rest of the field. The pro-choice people don't think abortion should be almost always illegal, which, as I said, is actually about 80% of the population, although a good deal of misdirection has gone into keeping those people from realizing they are 'pro-choice' in the actual sense of the word.

Meanwhile, the Republican party is charging admission the pro-life endzone and boozing it up with the proceeds, but they themselves are not on the field at all, because they've duped the pro-life people into an impossible plan of very very very slowly replacing people with lifetime appointments, instead of slowly crawling across the country pushing marshmallows with their noses, which would be much faster and slightly more efficient at stopping a single abortion.

But, hey, don't let me stop you Republicans from rethinking abortion rights. Just don't end up surprised when you end up with the same position as Democrats...and then people ask why they should trust you over a party that's held that position the whole time.

With due respect Rod, the question posed by your post implies that you simply do not get it based on the sacred cow position. The only REAL sacred cows in the Republican Party are tax cuts, pro-big biz policies, and policies favoring the wealthy. Every social conservative issue is window dressing. Fine, put our issues on the table. Why would the establish Republicans put any thing on the table since they basically get just about everything they want from the party already.

We, social conservatives, need to pick up our toys and find another place to play (a third party).

This idea is actually a good one, but I am already sick of social conservatives taking the fall for the failures of the last eight years.

Stevereno: With due respect Rod, the question posed by your post implies that you simply do not get it based on the sacred cow position. The only REAL sacred cows in the Republican Party are tax cuts, pro-big biz policies, and policies favoring the wealthy.

Stevereno, I basically agree with you, but remember that the rule I established was that those who want to participate in the conference have to suggest (seriously) a session devoted to examining their sacred cow. I don't see much point in a conference dedicated only to pointing out how wrong everybody else is, without examining whether our particular faction might have gotten something wrong.

Don't forget some breakout sessions for people raised on pop culture liberalism who are begining to explore the idea of conservatism but have a lot of fundemental questions like:

"Is this just another fanciful ideology or something actually achievable?"
"As a Democrat, the more more I learn about actual conservatism the more I hate the both the Democratic and the Republican parties. What do I do?"
"Was Reagan really all that?"
etc.

Isn't Michelle Duggar the rightful owner of the . . . "barrel" in question?

Oh, I dunno if Jim Bob thinks it's a woman's place to speak in such a forum. :)

Stevereno

With due respect Rod, the question posed by your post implies that you simply do not get it based on the sacred cow position. The only REAL sacred cows in the Republican Party are tax cuts, pro-big biz policies, and policies favoring the wealthy. Every social conservative issue is window dressing. Fine, put our issues on the table. Why would the establish Republicans put any thing on the table since they basically get just about everything they want from the party already.

We, social conservatives, need to pick up our toys and find another place to play (a third party).

*clap* *clap* *clap*

And maybe you can join with us progressives on, you know, actually helping people out of poverty, and extending health care for more pregnant children and women, once you're not glued to a bunch of people who think taxes are immoral.(1)

Which will help reduce abortions, considering a goodly amount of abortions are due to financial issues.

But, anyway, this would work better than your current decades-long plan of slowly replacing the Supreme Court so it falls back to the states, most of whom wouldn't outlaw abortion anyway, which does not appear to be reducing abortions in the sense of 'causing less of them to happen'. It only appears to be reducing abortions if that means 'Gets Republicans elected'.

1) You know, there are a lot of people out there who bitch about having to support other people's children, who just need a good slap in the face, and I say that as someone who isn't violence. When you pay property taxes to support local schools, you don't pay for other people's children, you're paying back society for paying for your childhood education.

As a moderate, I'm not going to offer my own list, but I will ask a couple of questions. I like Rod's questions and those of other commenters.

If the conservative movement would actually ask itself these questions seriously, instead of reverting to the kind of tired politics that the McCain campaign has adopted, then I as a moderate would feel a lot better about supporting conservatives.

My question, which relates to one of Rod's is - how is it that the party of free enterprise and deregulation opened the way for "privatizing profits and socializing risk" on Wall Street? And, as a corollary, how dare the McCain campaign accuse Obama of being a closet socialist when the very policies McCain supports have brought us closer to an obnoxious form of state socialism than any policies Obama appears to support?

Sacred cow:

Is limited government out of the question now?

Reaganite: We need to get outside of our various cocoons (is that the plural form?) and actually spend time getting to know the people of this country better. Especially the younger voters (in their twenties and thirties) who are trending heavily towards Obama and the Democrats ...

Gay rights (especially gay marriage) are *the* defining civil rights issue for conservatives. How conservatives react on these points will determine how they will be seen (or ignored) for decades to come.

Many 20-somethings have gone to schools with "Gay/Straight Alliances;" have gay friends; have gay parents or siblings. They watch TV shows w/ gay characters. The mainstreaming of the gay experience *is nothing new or shocking to them.* Many look at older peoples' attitudes in either amusement or horror.

People my age grew up watching / reading about the civil rights movement; integration; George Wallace backing down to federal troops, etc. People my kids' ages don't remember any of that. As far as they are concerned, they *always* remember a time when they went to school with black children; when black people have had legal civil rights.

But they *are* aware of gay people being treated legally as "different" - and many do not approve. As long as conservatism is perceived as anti-gay, it will be very difficult to capture the "hearts and minds" of the "millenials" (or "Generation X-Box," as Wired magazine called them.) Many simply don't view gay people (again, many of whom are their friends) as evil, degenerate "Others."

'"I would like to see an intelligent conversation about Muslims and Islam in the USA, and what the conservative position is."'

"Its growth should be checked, its adherents encouraged to make there home in one of the, what, 45 - 50 countries."

Yes, because a controlling majority of a religious organization has worked SO well for those "other" countries. Why not apply fundamentalism-as-law over here? At least we'll be doing it with the "right" religion - right?

That conversation should just get redirected back to the constitution, where it plainly states that human beings of ALL faiths are welcome here to live in peace and fraternity.