Note: The / Conservatism / page on this site is much newer than most of the others (see below).
Many pages should have links to this page but don't yet. I'm adding them as I see them.
-- Assuming that I have some idea what Kipling is saying here, and I think that I do, this is surely one of the more succinct defenses of conservative principles.
Notes:
- One of Francis Bacon's four famous "idols" which obstruct clear thinking was the Idol of the Marketplace;
this does not seem to correspond exactly with Kipling's Gods of the Market-Place.
- "All is not Gold that Glitters"All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
- "Two and Two make Four"."One of (George Orwell's) most common words was 'decent'. What mattered most, he reckoned, were 'the great decencies', of which the greatest were the unalterable truths (2+2=4) from which all argument started and whose denial or alteration spelled the end of argument."
By George, they've got it
by Paul Foot
The Observer, 01 JUN 2003
- "Brave new world""O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t!"
The Tempest,
by William Shakespeare, 1611
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1931
- And note that this was written just after World War I aka the Great War when, after a half-century of more of increasing confidence in the ideals of permanent and increasing civilization and progress, the Gods of the Copybook Headings had returned and pretty well kicked those ideals' asses right around the block.
- And a page on this site on / The Reality-Based Community /
"Modernity is not adequate to reality. (Generally speaking, I disagree with this. The basic purpose of this website is to explore and advocate modernism / modernity in the service of humanity.) ...-- Pages on this site on / Modernism and Modernity /, / Political Catholicism /
Stripped-down knowledge leads to a stripped-down understanding of reality, and consequently a way of life that is defective to the point of malfunction.
Conservatism therefore rejects the modernist view of knowledge and existence, and insists on a broader understanding of things that includes tradition and faith as necessary constituent elements. It cannot give up that insistence without destroying what it has to say. Since modernity has won, at least in the public sphere, conservatism must become radical to remain what it is. It can no longer be an attempt to hang onto things that seem threatened, but must look to the return of things that have been destroyed or profoundly weakened. It must be traditionalist rather than traditional. In a sense, it can no longer be conservative."
"I have not the slightest doubt that I am a conservative by thought, feeling and instinct, yet on a lot of the issues that define American conservatism, I barely move the needle from the zero mark on the dial. ...
So -- What kind of conservative am I? ... I think the answer is: I'm a metropolitan conservative.
Of all the ways humanity can be divided into two distinct subspecies, one of the oldest and most persistent is the metropolitan-provincial divide. ...
I dislike modern American liberalism very much, and believe it to be poisonous and destructive; yet I am at ease in a roomful of New York liberals in a way that, to be truthful about it, I am not in a gathering of red-state evangelicals."
"The Reverend Jim Wallis, leader of Call to Renewal, a network of churches that fight poverty, told the New York Times that shortly after his election, Bush had said to him, 'I don't understand how poor people think', and had described himself as a 'white Republican guy who doesn't get it, but I'd like to'. What's annoying about Bush is when this obtuseness, the blinkeredness of his life, weighs so heavily on others, as it has increasingly as he has acquired more power. ...
I have known George W. Bush slightly since we were both in high school, and I studied him closely as governor. He is neither mean nor stupid. What we have here is a man shaped by three intertwining strands of Texas culture, combined with huge blinkers of class.
The three Texas themes are religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and machismo."
"... Ryan Sager says in his indispensable recent book (The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party): '[T]he number of crimes against conservatism committed by Republicans during the Bush administration is almost too many to list.' (Sager none the less goes on to list them. It takes him three pages.)
... Republican president and Republican congress have been two hearts beating as one. They have worked together to lead the nation in the direction they think it should go.
And that direction has been away from conservatism, whose very heart and essence is the understanding that individual liberty waxes when government wanes, and vice versa."
"Well, I use the terms loosely and carelessly (pace David Hume) to refer to:-- Links are mine -- ed.
Paleos- Suspicious of state power
- Determined to restrain the growth of the state
- Fearful for the ancient liberties (This term apparently refers to the personal rights advocated by the Enlightenment philosophers and Founders of the USA. At the time, some sought to give such rights legitimacy by seeing an ancient pedigree for them in English and Germanic tradition, but such was apparently largely a pious fiction) under increased state power
- Inclined to anthropomorphize the state, imagining it to be a beast with a will of its own, seeking to extend its reach, sometimes by trickery, e.g. staging wars just so it can grab more power over citizens' lives
- Inclined not to believe that the US really needs any serious involvement with other nations
- Inclined to think that when such involvements occur, they do so as a result of rich & powerful groups (Foreign-policy elites, business interests, Jews) seeking to further enrich or empower themselves at the expense of poor Americans ("trade follows the flag")
- Sustained, fundamentally, by an image of national self-sufficiency
- Believe that if you hit a rattlesnake, he'll bite you
- Believing in American goodness and in the beauty of the American vision, but wishing it to be only "a light unto the gentiles," which other nations can emulate or disdain as they please
Neos (Neo Conservatives; Weekly Standard)- Suspicious of state power
- Determined to restrain the growth of the state
- Fearful for the ancient liberties under increased state power
- Inclined to see the state as a loose collection of human beings, many with different interests & agendas, who can be appealed to individually with effect
- Inclined to believe that the US has no choice but to be involved with other nations, and determined to derive maximum advantage for the US from all such involvements
- Inclined to think that such involvements are a natural consequence of commercial activity and sometimes need defending militarily to preserve US prosperity ("the flag follows trade")
- Believe that if you hit a rattlesnake and he bites you, you didn't hit him hard enough
- Believes that national self-sufficiency is a pleasant fantasy
- Believing in American goodness and in the beauty of the American vision, and that the world will be safer and more prosperous, the more nations catch on to those things; and that judicious activities to promote that process are justified.
The first three points make us all conservatives. The rest we can discuss.
"(This off the top of my head.)
...this was some off-the-cuff "talking points" to serve as the basis of a discussion, not any part of a carefully-crafted essay.
I see I didn't even mention immigration, for e.g., which tends to be a strong "marker" for the neo-paleo split. Not an infallible one, though: I consider myself a firm neo, favor US intervention & even take-over of failed states ... but I am a strong immigration restrictionist. So are most of the NR (National Review) crowd (main exception Larry Kudlow)."
"A young Canadian neoconservative, Michael Taube, has just published an essay on North American conservative factions (Calgary Herald, August 26) that is notable both for its strengths and for its weakness. Taube has to explain the conservative scene to ideologically-deprived Canadian readers, so the clarity of his analysis blazes a useful trail for Americans."
"In politics, ideology means everything. It doesn't matter whether you are a conservative, liberal or socialist -- if you don't fully understand the mechanics behind a political philosophy, it is nearly impossible to become a true member of a respective political group.See also pages on this site on / Libertarianism / and
... neoconservatism was a phrase coined by the American socialist author Michael Harrington in his book The Other America (1962) to solely define his former left-wing allies. This small group of New York intellectuals, primarily Jewish, started off as young Trotskyists or socialists. Early members included the likes of Irving Kristol and his wife, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and Norman Podhoretz and his wife, Midge Decter. ...
Over time, as the Democrats moved further and further to the left, many of these neocons gravitated to the Republican Party during the 1970s and 1980s. ...
(Within) the theory of social conservatism .... There are two larger camps that have evolved within this powerful movement in the last decade -- paleoconservatives and what I like to call free market-oriented social conservatives."
"The following is the ACU's Statement of Principles, adopted in December 1964:-- Links are mine -- ed.
- We believe that the Constitution of the United States is the best political charter yet created by men (sic) for governing themselves. It is our belief that the Constitution is designed to guarantee the free exercise of the inherent rights of the individual through strictly limiting the power of government.
- We reaffirm our belief in the Declaration of Independence, and in particular the belief that our inherent rights are endowed by the Creator. We further believe that our liberties can remain secure only if government is so limited that it cannot infringe upon those rights.
- We believe that capitalism is the only economic system of our time that is compatible with political liberty. It has not only brought a higher standard of living to a greater number of people than any other economic system in the history of mankind; more important, it has been a decisive instrument in preserving freedom through maintaining private control of economic power and thus limiting the power of government.
- We believe that collectivism and capitalism are incompatible, and that when government competes with capitalism, it jeopardizes the natural economic growth of our society and the well-being and freedom of the citizenry.
- We believe that it is the responsibility of the individual citizen, whenever his inherent rights are threatened from within or without, to join together with other individuals to protect these rights, or, when they have been temporarily lost, to regain them.
- We believe that any responsible conservative organization must conduct itself within the framework of the Constitution; in pursuance of this belief we refuse to countenance any actions which conflict in any way with the traditions of the American political system.
- The American Conservative Union is created to realize these ends through the cooperation in responsible political action, of all Americans who cherish the principles upon which the Republic was founded.
The American Conservative Union will welcome all Americans who are prepared to fight for the realization and preservation of these principles through political action at the local, state and national level.
"The first statement of principles of the modern conservative movement, adopted at the home of early ACU supporter William F. Buckley, Jr., and authored by former ACU Chairman M. Stanton Evans.
Adopted in conference at Sharon, Connecticut, on 11 September 1960.
In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths.
We, as young conservatives, believe:
- That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;
- That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;
- That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;
- That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;
- That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;
- That the genius of the Constitution -- the division of powers -- is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;
- That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;
- That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man (sic) to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;
- That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies;
- That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;
- That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistance with, this menace; and
- That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?
"In the United States and western Europe, conservatism is generally associated with the following views,Links are mine -- ed.
as noted by Russell Kirk in his The Conservative Mind:
1. "Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience."
2. "Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems;"
3. "Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a 'classless society'."
4. "Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possession, and the Leviathan becomes master of all."
5. "Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters, calculators, and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs."
6. "Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress."
"John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, in The Right Nation, tick off the six fundamentals of classical, Burkean, Anglo-Saxon conservatism:
- A deep suspicion of the power of the state.
- A preference for liberty over equality.
- Patriotism.
- A belief in established institutions and hierarchies.
- Skepticism about the idea of progress.
- Elitism.
...
There are two main strands of politically significant religiosity in this country: evangelical Protestants, and devout Roman Catholics. Evangelical Protestantism is theologically conservative by definition (My understanding is that, although this is the way that Evangelicals/Pentcostals/"Fundamentalists" frame their theology, this is not necessarily the case.)(And indeed, religionists of all sects regard their beliefs as being the One True example of fidelity to their Founder's intent, or to God's.); but as NR’s own Jeffrey Hart has noted, it is under no necessity to be conservative on any of the Burkean points, and historically has not been. (Try grading William Jennings Bryan on the Burke scale.) Evangelicanism is, in fact, too intellectually flimsy to sustain any coherent political position outside a narrow subset of “social issues.” As Prof. Hart concludes:'The Bush presidency often is called conservative. That is a mistake. It is populist and radical, and its principal energies have roots in American history, and these roots are not conservative'. "
- A deep suspicion of the power of the state. I have this. A page on this site on / "Minarchy" /.
- A preference for liberty over equality. Umm, I think I'd say that they have to be "in balance", and roughly "equal" -- "My right to swing my fist stops at the end of your nose."
- Patriotism. I think that the word "patriotism" is often used to describe or justify obnoxious or inhumane behavior.
- A belief in established institutions and hierarchies. Well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, fix it.
- Skepticism about the idea of progress.If we mean "skepticism about" in the sense of "firm rejection of" (a definition which I think is plainly wrong but not uncommon), then I am not "skeptical" about the idea of progress.
- Elitism. According to the American Heritage Dictionary elitism is"1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. 2.a. The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class. b. Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class."I think that most people would agree that some people "deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority" in some specific situations -- we want our air traffic control towers staffed by competent air traffic controllers, our violin solos played by competent violinists, our brain surgeries performed by competent brain surgeons. In addition, most people have clear tastes in music, films, food, etc, along with an admittedly irrational but hard-to-shake conviction that those tastes are objectively right, and further prefer to associate with people who largely share their tastes.
"Because Evangelicalism is sustained by no structure of ideas, and, beyond that, has no institutional support in a continuing church, it flares up in repeated "Awakenings," and then subsides as the emotion dissipates. Because it is populist and homemade, its assertions tend often to be ridiculous, the easy targets for the latest version of H.L. Mencken.
If we recall Leo Strauss's formulation that "Athens and Jerusalem" -- science and spiritual aspiration -- are the core of Western civilization, American Evangelicalism is a threat to both, through ignorance of both.
Except for that major qualification, Evangelicalism would not matter much if it were a private superstition, a sort of hobby, except that the Evangelicalism of the Bush variety has real and often dangerous effects on the world in which the rest of us, and even they, live."
"President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years. His 2006 budget doesn’t cut enough spending to change his place in history, either.It's important to note this GOP support for government spending, because they frequently accuse the Democrats of supporting it while claiming that they themselves oppose it. Also, paleoconservatives, though formerly an important part of the GOP, oppose such "big spending".
Total government spending grew by 33 percent during Bush’s first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton’s last day in office to 20.3 percent by the end of Bush’s first term. ...
The GOP establishment in Washington today has become a defender of big government."
"A federal budget that will spend more money in a single year than the entire GDP of France and three times what it cost to fight World War II can hardly be disparaged as inadequate or celebrated as tight-fisted. Uncle Sam, Inc., will spend more money in just this year than it spent combined between 1787 and 1900 — even after adjusting for inflation. (!!! True?) Ironically enough, we are now celebrating the ten-year anniversary of Newt Gingrich's bold declaration that 'we Republicans will make government smaller and smarter.' It didn't exactly turn out that way, given that the budget is now nearly $1 trillion larger than it was when the Republican revolution was launched.Author Moore is "president of the Club for Growth and a senior fellow in economics at the Cato Institute."
But the truth is that, in recent decades, neither political party has been a particularly good steward of taxpayer resources. Government ingests about four-to-five-times more of America's national output today than in 1900. The government's share of everything we produce and earn has about doubled since the end of World War II. ...
Even with the recent increases in the military budget in the new age of terrorism, a smaller share of federal spending is devoted to national defense -- ironically, the one area of the budget where Congress has a clear constitutional authority to spend money -- than at just about any other time in U.S. history. Traditionally, about one-third to one-half of all federal expenditures were for national security. Now that percentage is down to less than one-fifth. (True?)
Almost all of the growth of government in this past fifty years has been a result of increased civilian social-program spending. (A nice example of rhetorical framing here. What's "social-program spending"?)...
Dollar by trillion dollar we are voluntarily giving up our liberties for a government that promises us, in return, a blanket of protection from cradle to coffin. Republicans are steering us in the direction of the "workers' paradise" of a European socialist welfare state. The reply from the Democrats is faster, faster."
"Congress raised the limit on the governments credit card to $9 trillion Thursday and lawmakers immediately went on a charge-it spree.
The House approved $92 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for relief along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast.
The Senate adopted a $2.8 trillion budget blueprint that anticipates deficits greater than $350 billion for both this year and next. The spending blueprint, approved 51-49, little resembles President Bush's proposal last month for the budget year that begins October 1.
To the disappointment of budget hawks, the Senate's measure would break Bush's proposed caps on spending for programs such as education, low-income heating subsidies and health research. All told, senators endorsed more than $16 billion in increases above Bush's proposed $873 billion cap on spending appropriated by Congress each year."
"The Iraq War is going to cost the United States almost $3 trillion through 2017, assuming a modest level of 75,000 troops through that year, according to a new Congressional report. The report takes into account both the direct and indirect expenses of the war and says that the cost per family is going to be $36,900. The war has already put a burden of $16,500 on a family of four. (The report is available at the Congressional Joint Economic Committee’s website)Bold and links are mine - ed.
Predictably, the analysis has the Republicans crying foul. They allege that the Democrats in charge of the committee have played with the numbers. But this is the right way to measure the cost of that unnecessary conflict. The budgetary impact, as large as it is, captures only a fraction of the economic toll on this country.
The report details the multiple ways in which the war has been detrimental to the U.S. economy. Most obviously, the turmoil in Iraq has contributed to a diminished global oil production, making all of us pay higher prices at the pump. The report estimates that the Iraq fiasco has contributed at least $5 per barrel to the increase in oil prices.
And then there are several other costs, too. The government has had to spend borrowed money for the war, diverting spending from more productive uses and paying massive interest payments on its war profligacy."
"If there is a religious revival, which social conservatives say there is, apparently Generation Y -- those born between 1980 and 2000 -- didn't get the memo if a recent survey is to be believed. It found that 23 percent of Generation Yers, coming of age as social conservatism flourished, do not belong to a religious denomination or believe in God, twice the percentage of nonbelievers among the baby boomers who gave us the hedonistic '60s and the anarchic '70s."In 2005, people born between 1980 and 2000 are between 5 and 25 years old. Many of these people are too young to have informed ideas about religion, and many of them are going to "find religion" as they discover a faith that suits them, encounter serious life problems, have kids, or simply think things over.
"Conservatism isn't over. But it has rarely been as confused."
"A number of bloggers have embraced the charge that Bush is not part of the reality based community (Yglesias, TPM, Atrios, TAPPED). We agree that much of what Bush does is not reality based, but saying so does not give the listener an idea of what Bush is for.
A better charge, in our view, is calling the president 19th Century Bush. It's a snappy phrase (matches the well known "20th Century Fox") and it discribes where Bush is heading this country. Bush is trying to dismantle many of the developments that made the last hundred years The American Century.
We make our case below ..."
search keywords freeper freepers freep freeps
"As a conservative site, Free Republic is pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-Constitution, pro-Bill of Rights, pro-gun, pro-limited government, pro-private property rights, pro-limited taxes, pro-capitalism, pro-national defense, pro-freedom, and pro-America.
We oppose all forms of liberalism, socialism, fascism, pacifism, totalitarianism, anarchism, government enforced atheism, abortionism, feminism, homosexualism, racism, wacko environmentalism, judicial activism, etc.
We also oppose the United Nations or any other world government body that may attempt to impose its will or rule over our sovereign nation and sovereign people. We believe in defending our borders, our Constitution, and our national sovereignty."
I'm including this partly as an example of the kinds of hassles one encounters when one discusses political or social issues. As far as the CCC is concerned, they're a conservative organization. Many other conservative organizations would prefer not to be identified with them. Who's right, and how do we decide? It pretty much comes down to a list of each organization's (or person's) "likes and dislikes" |
"The Council of Conservative Citizens (abbreviated CCC or CofCC) is an American paleoconservative white separatist political organization that supports European, Southern, and caucasian heritage and opposes multiculturalism. It is an offshoot of the segregationist White Citizens Council of the 1950s."Links are mine and are not in the original Wikipedia article -- ed. "(1) We believe the United States is a Christian country. - We believe that the United States of America is a Christian country, that its people are a Christian people, and that its government and public leaders at all levels must reflect Christian beliefs and values.All links and emphasis are mine and quite possibly would not be approved by anyone from the Council of Conservative Citizens - ed. In general, I'm toward the opposite end of the poltical spectrum from the Council of Conservative Citizens, and I am very strongly opposed to some of these specific points. When racism is the issue, media are slow to dig - Includes "SIDEBAR:The CCC in Its Own Words" by Steve Rendall Extra! March/April 1999 -- FAIR "According to the Council of Conservative Citizens’ website (www.cofcc.org, 12/98), Abraham Lincoln was 'surely the most evil American in history,' while Martin Luther King was a 'depraved miscreant.' On the other hand, for the CCC’s Citizens Informer (Summer/94), former Georgia governor Lester Maddox, an unreconstructed racist, was the "Patriot of the Century".' "Since then-U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott got into political hot water in 1998 over his cozy relationship with the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), national politicians have generally avoided the white supremacist group like the plague. |
Roger Nygard, director of
Trekkies, Trekkies 2, Six Days In Roswell, etc.
Slashdot interview of 18 NOV 04
Cute, huh?
Of course it's also true that to a large extent,
people would prefer to still be living a Paleolithic lifestyle.
