What is a conservative?
Political definitions are tricky. The words we use are convenient shorthand for a host of characteristics, and not every person using them means the same thing by them.
When I call myself “a conservative,” for example, what do I mean? Not necessarily the same thing someone else means. And the word means something different when used as a noun to mean a person who belongs to a particular political category (“I’m a conservative”) than when used as an adjective in the general and less-political sense (“He’s a conservative person in his private life”).
Used as a noun to describe myself, I mean that I’m a small-government classical liberal conservative. Yes, throwing “liberal” in there is confusing to most people, but you political junkies know what I mean. When I describe myself that way I also am indicating a relatively strict adherence to the Constitution, and a tremendous devotion to liberty.
I would say those things unite most conservatives today, although some social conservatives (not all by any means, but some) are not averse to big government if it would effect the social changes they’re looking for.
When I was in school, we were taught that the definition of “conservative” was a person who wanted the country to return to a previous way of being–in other words, to turn back the clock—or at the very least to preserve the status quo and stop change. Today, of course, many conservatives are fairly radical in their desire for a very sweeping change—“throw the bums out”—only they say that the change they want is in the interests of getting back to certain basic principles that made our country great. So one could say that some political conservatives are somewhat or even quite radical in their methods.
Conservatives of that type, for example, disliked Romney in 2012 for two main reasons: they felt he was insufficiently conservative in his principles, and they felt that his methods were also too polite and too business-as-usual. With Trump in 2016, on the other hand, they brush away as unimportant the fact that he is deficient in his support of many conservative principles, because they perceive him as both strong in his support for one big principle (that of opposition to illegal immigration) and because he seems to them to offer a radical solution and to not be averse to radical methods.
its confusing, in part, because it was created by the other side. Progressives called people they didn’t agree with conservatives.
For me, and probably others, being “conservative” depends upon the subject matter. One can be conservative on issues such as fiscal responsibility, national security, and immigration; but libertarian or even liberal on others issues.
Conservatives, as I mentioned before, also have a different outlook on life and politics. Leftists, progressives..etc. have politics consume their very being I think.
Just a quick bit of data from my facebook: 70% of the postings on FB from my FB liberal friends concern politics and expressing the usual party line. the conservatives respond, but hardly ever are their original posts of a political nature. They are usually of the type: here’s what’s going on in my family, here’s our vacation, etc. The liberals just have to cram their views down everyone’s throats.
It would be much easier to define a liberal, then say of conservatism — the opposite of that. Start simple, for example”
” Liberals] too ready to embrace the “subjectivity” of the future, and too often have a “cultural aversion to learning from the past”. — Rupert Darwall
Conservatism: opposite of that.
Another significant difference is alluded to by Mr Darwall. The past is where it’s at for conservatives , there you may learn what has worked well over the course of millennia; there you will learns valuable lessons of hubris and nemesis; there you will learn of the connectivity of past generations — you will come to see it as an umbilical cord through which the present is fortified. The terms ‘past’ and ‘future’ define as well as a five thousand word thesis the terms ‘conservative’ and ‘libera’l (not Classical — LibProgLeft liberal).
One more quote:
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”
God, just about now, I believe, must ROFLOL.
I am among those conservatives you are trying to pin as a Trump supporter. And, for my part, you are getting it, and several other things, wrong.
First, what is called conservative in America, and more the West these days, is actually called liberal in the rest of the world. Modern Western socialists/communists/statists of other sorts(including nobility based governments, actually) stole the name “liberal”, because at one time it meant just the opposite. So, I am a classic liberal.
As for my social conservativism, I think you have that backwards as well. I do not want the government to support socially “conservative” ideals (Christian ideals, really). I simply do not want it supporting the opposite. “Legalizing” gay marriage is the start to mandating it. If you can’t see that sometimes only one or the other can be allowed or supported, and that one is better or worse, I can’t help you there. Gay marriage, abortion, and many other problems, of a social nature, will bring the nation down. They have to.
As for supporting Trump in spite of his flaws? Show me a single politician in the slate who could be believed to do the right thing, or even knows what the right thing is. Before Trump, was there a single GOPper who was for ending unsustainable immigration? Not that I heard. As for the rest of Trumps menu, it really isn’t that different from the rest. Besides, if the immigration war is lost, the whole game is over. If illegals can invade, and eventually just become citizens, and vote as they have been shown to vote, the rest of the slate is done.
I am surprised you can’t, or won’t, see that. Trump isn’t just a rebuttal, but a potential answer to having no other real voice. If he can be trusted. Which, in truth, he can’t. He will renege so fast heads would spin. Billionaires don’t get rich by paying for legal citizen workers. He NEEDS illegals for every single one of his enterprises. And every man in his billionaire club needs them.
I will probably not vote again. Still, I will give Trump a chance to prove he isn’t a politician and could be trusted. It’ll depend on who he chooses for his advisors and allies. So far it looks like men from his money club, not a good thing, not to be trusted, on that score, so far.
Doom:
I have written many times about the importance—the vital, all-important importance—of the immigration question and what the liberal endgame is.
I’m surprised that you don’t see that I see it—and have seen it for a long long time, and certainly way before Trump came on the scene.
I don’t believe he’s the solution. He’s certainly not the only one who’s speaking out forcefully against it, and not even the only candidate who is, and who was doing it even before he came on the scene.
I have written posts on that subject, as well, especially about Fiorina. Cruz has also been quite strong on the subject, and he’s shown a propensity to stand up to the GOP on many many matters. Your idea that there is no other voice but Trump is oft-repeated by Trump supporters, but it is not true.
Leftists=zombie cannonfodder stormtroopers that obey any and all evil orders from their authorities, which also includes segments of rapists, child killers, child rapists, sociopaths, serial killers, corrupt thieves, etc.
Conservatives= patriots, humans, true believers.
Demoncrats=enemies of humanity, Leftists.
The liberals just have to cram their views down everyone’s throats.
It’s a religious death cult, what did you expect? Fanatical missionaries are always like that. Don’t they accuse Christian Missionaries of being the same? Where the hell do you think they got the idea from?
Tricky? Yes, I can’t even politically define myself. For the most part I am anti-progressive, but maybe I am really anti-status quo because the progressives are in charge, especially here in California.
When I think of the strong statements some of the Republican candidates have made about the Planned Parenthood fiasco, they aren’t classically liberal regarding the doctor-patient relationship.
Trump is really taking a strong stand on one my most important issues. Yet, avoiding tyranny emerges as even more important to me. Also, I fear that Trump will damage the image of the anti-progressives such that we get another awful Democrat in 2016.
Trump is what happens when Americans, desperate in the election game, want a Hero King to save them, like Reagan.
They have become pathetic wretches of a once brave nation, descendants and inheritors of a “freedom” they sold off for some merchandise at a mall.
Of course, the reason they are pathetic wretches is when being pushed to the limits of desperation and defeat in this nation, they still hold to this idealistic clue/hope that elections will save them. That it will save the nation. After all this time, education and knowledge did not make them better at maintaining or crafting freedom.
They still believe. And once their beliefs is burned completely away, what will remain?
I used to identify with the Frank Meyer “fusionist” conservatives but eventually gave up trying to fit into mainstream conservatism after attending a summer seminar held by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. ISI was originally the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, founded by libertarian and tax rebel Frank Chodorov. By the time I came along it had gotten away from its libertarian roots (hence the name change, I suppose), and at the seminar I attended, all the big-name conservative panelists there were what one might call “statist conservatives.” They all loved Nixon, and even defended Nixon’s wage-and-price controls. One of them, Ernst van den Haag, even said, “The State has the right to do anything it wants to.” That was when I decided to just go with “libertarian.”
neo-neocon writes, “With Trump in 2016, on the other hand, they brush away as unimportant the fact that he is deficient in his support of many conservative principles, because they perceive him as both strong in his support for one big principle (that of opposition to illegal immigration) . . .”
One other big principle is smashing politics-as-usual, and Trump is almost unique in his ability to not need the mother’s milk of politics — money, for any LIVs out there — to get things done. Done his way . . . which leads to a big problem. Donald Trump is beholden to no one but Donald Trump, and that implies that when he is elected, he gets to do whatever he g#dd#mn pleases. Sound like any president we know and detest?
Still . . .
We have many choices before us, and we have to combine (1) doing what is in the interest of our country (including the principle of limited governmment) and (2) electability. And (3), risking that once in office, the new president does what the statists and USA-haters have gotten most Republicans to do, which capitulate to the statist steamroller.
From Bush and Christie to Fiorina and Cruz, we have a spectrum of probabilities that the one elected knuckles under to the statists to one degree or another. We all know that we can’t go by what they say, but by what they’ll eventually do. Too often, it’s all a freakin’ crapshoot. (See Roberts, John; also see 2010 and 2014 promises made by Republicans running for Congress.)
I’m not sure where in the probability spectrum Trump lies, especially since his views appear to be so fluid — but I think he’s high on the electability scale. I claim that he is electable because I do believe that many people will vote for Trump who would not otherwise vote for anyone.
He is offering a certain faint glimmer of light to what was once Richard Nixon’s Silent Majority in the hopes of giving it one last Hail Mary pass to the end zone. Otherwise, what have we got to lose? The anti-USA statists are winning anyway, and there seems to be little *realistic* hope that even Fiorina or Cruz (forget Bush or Christie) can stem the tide.
And that’s why I’m giving Trump a hard look, even though I did not initially want to do so, and even though I concur with virtually all of neo’s criticisms of Trump (so friend neo, there’s no need to rebut; you’re already right).
American conservatives are conservationists. For example, when a #CecileTheAbortionist escapes into the wild, they want to prevent her from running amuck and indiscriminately terminating millions of human lives for profit and control. But, generally, American conservatives are established by The Declaration of Independence (i.e. national charter) and The Constitution (i.e. national contract and bylaws), that have a noticeably Judaeo-Christian orientation. American conservatism represent the latest effort to reconcile individual dignity, intrinsic value, and natural imperatives.
American conservatives are classical liberals (e.g. libertarian) tempered by Judaeo-Christian religious/moral philosophy.
To my mind, the very best answer to the question was penned by Russell Kirk in this short essay:
http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/ten-conservative-principles/
It encompasses many of the opinions expressed by Neo and other commenters on this thread,
A bit off topic, but this should be interesting — Megyn vs. The Donald continues: Jorge Ramos will talk Trump with Fox’s Megyn Kelly tonight on Fox News at 9 p.m. EST
” He’s certainly not the only one who’s speaking out forcefully against it, and not even the only candidate who is, and who was doing it even before he came on the scene.” neo @ 3:48
Ricard Fernandez commenting on the Trump/Ramos brouhaha, “The real news was not in the words exchanged, but in the picture of Jorge Ramos being escorted out. It was not even borne by that picture, but embedded [in] the emotional calculus of the act. Everyone who thinks Obama was an Alinsky disciple should watch Trump in action. He understands [intuitively] the Alinsky principle that public events are not about bandying words. They are about creating opportunities for transgressing certain emotional boundaries. It’s about “empowering the powerless”.
Ironic as it may sound, there’s a widespread impression that mainstream Americans are not supposed to answer back when men like Ramos take the stage. It’s verboten. Not too long ago a public figure would have been terrified to confront Jorge Ramos. There’s was no real intellectual content to Trump’s performance at the press conference. What there is a dangerous, but powerful spectacle of “wow. He’s telling Univision off! Wow!”
It’s William Tell knocking Gessler’s Hat off the pole. It’s the Injuns throwing Tea into Boston Harbor. It’s Donald Trump facing off a sacred cow. It’s dynamite. Other people, especially Ted Cruz, may be better at words than Donald Trump. But it’s not about words. Trumps words don’t actually mean as much as the fact that he’s saying them to the ruling elite’s face.”
I was in sales for over 30 years and 3/4 of people do NOT make a rationale buying decision. They buy through emotion NOT intellect. To some extent we all do it.
Cruz? A foreigner. And she is just a she. You may truly believe that women are equal, but they simply aren’t. I don’t know where you get your notions about her and business, but she was a ruinous disaster. Sure, she got rich off the deal. Probably just a muppet for the board to enrich themselves while savaging the company.
As to the others? None of them were offering anything close to serious. More seeming like Rubio’s original middle ground notion than anything. None of them were for fencing, none of them were for repatriation, none of them were for ending anchor baby status. Not one of them was doing anything but double-talking. As for you? What I saw was quite mild. A “let’s have a discussion”. Not a substantive objection with a bold plan to end the problem. Talking is useless. Decrying, without holding people’s feet to the fire is useless. And the GOPpers I have seen and heard were all trying to make promises they wouldn’t keep. Just like the GOP promising to end… stop… or do… anything after the last election. No trust left.
Geoffrey Britain:
I didn’t see at all what Fernandez saw in that encounter. I saw instead a small man being told to “go back to Univision” by an unattractive large man who then had a huge bouncer-type guy escort the small man out of the room.
I think the Trump people must have realized that impression was made — why else did Trump bring him back in later and engage in dialogue with him?
Roy Lofquist,
Thanks for the Kirk link. That certainly describes my attitude, although I never could have expressed it so well. Today’s world has so many new things we must adapt to: the internet being just one. It seems especially dangerous to try to disband all our social norms at the same time. Many parents have given into to the cell phone life of their kids and forgotten that there are many other things the kids should be getting from them.
Thank you Roy Lofquist and n.n. I can’t add to that. I am happy to be able to say that our 3 children (33, 31, and 26) are all college-educated and sober-thinking, hard-working conservatives.
Ann,
When was the last time you saw a politician have a journalist, acting obstreperously, escorted out of a room?
Security personnel are generally big in order to avoid physical confrontations. Had someone of Ramos physical stature moved to escort him out of the room, there’s an excellent chance that he would have physically resisted.
“why else did Trump bring him back in later and engage in dialogue with him?” Ann
To confront Ramos’ (and other liberal’s) assumptions. Once Trump had established who was in charge, he brought back Ramos in order to expose his assumptions. Thus,
TRUMP: “The one thing we’re going to start with immediately are the gangs, and the real bad up ones. And you do agree there are some bad ones. Do you agree or do you think everyone is just perfect? No. I asked you a question. Do you agree with that? We have tremendous crime, we have tremendous problems — I can’t deal with this.
Listen, we have tremendous crime, we have tremendously, we have some very bad ones and I you would agree with that, right? There’s a lot of bad ones. Real bad ones. Excuse me. They looked at some of the gangs in Baltimore, they looked at some of the gangs in Chicago, they looked even in Ferguson. They got some rough, illegal immigrants in those gangs.
They’re getting out. You mind if i send them out? Now, if they come from Mexico, do you mind if I send them back to Mexico. No, no, do you mind if I send them back to Mexico? Okay. Those people are out. They’ll be out so fast your head will spin.”
Trump put Ramos on the defensive by exposing his assumptions and biased questions.
BTW, I’m no fan of Trump either, I’ve stated before here that IMO, he’s a blowhard and a liberal. I’m in agreement with neo as to his inability to deliver too but that’s irrelevant to his stand on illegal immigration. Irrelevant to his “taking off the kid gloves” and ‘speaking truth’ to the power structure.
Nicely put Neo. You certainly captured the meaning of Conservatism in the traditional, political sense. At least when I describe myself as a Conservative, that is what I am thinking.
Either because of lazy thinking, or by design, labels have become very distorted. Because of that I usually find it convenient to use a relatively new one, Statist, to define those who advocate for over active government. Of course even that is a blurred concept, because many who profess to desire small government, actually want the government to be very active in their own causes.
I may adopt new and simplified categories and labels for judging candidates; Constitutionalist for those who adhere to founding principles, and Anti-Constitutionalist for those who would circumvent or weaken them. If I know where a candidate falls on that spectrum, I then have a framework to evaluate proposed polices on specific issues. I expect that I will disagree with most candidates on one or more specifics. Although that dirty word, “compromise”, may rear its head, that is called politics.
A little off topic, but I continue to find it ironic, considering the hyperbole now, that the Icon of Conservatism, Ronald Reagan, punted the ball down the field on illegal immigrants and set up the present mess with his 1986 amnesty policy.
I don’t know where you get your notions about her and business, but she was a ruinous disaster. Sure, she got rich off the deal. Probably just a muppet for the board to enrich themselves while savaging the company.
And your intel, Doom, comes from where? Leftist business associates, family members in HP, if not that where?
There are no foreigners concerning America. There’s only loyalists and patriots, vs everybody else. Which means a person that has American values in China is better than the slave owning Democrat families of Deep South US that were big on their Margaret Sanger type eugenics.
I posted some thoughts on this question several years ago:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11127.html
Free market conservatives are strong proponents of change. Unfettered capitalism is the greatest agent of change in all of human history. So, the popular image [propounded by Progressives] that conservatives want to turn the clock back or are resistant to change is completely bogus. For far too long they have milked the image of conservatives as reactionaries, clinging bitterly to the verities of the past.
I often refer to myself as a conservative, but in reality I am a conservo-libertarian. Or maybe a small “l” libertarian.
A short summary of my beliefs:
The Federal government should do national defense, national law enforcement, diplomacy with other nations, and regulate interstate commerce. All other activities of the Feds are extra-constitutional. Thus, if the people accept those activities (and we have, though grudgingly by conservatives) they are legal, but wasteful because the government is hard pressed to be efficient, (The norm in bureaucracies.) and they decrease our freedom.
I believe taxes are a necessary evil to pay for national defense and the other Constitutionally aggregated powers. All citizens and their representatives should recognize that taxes are evil and, when overdone, can destroy a nation. And the same is true of government debt.
The government at all levels; Federal, State, and local; should zealously protect private property rights and the right to trial by a jury of peers. Those rights are the source of much of our freedom and wealth.
Social issues (gay marriage, abortion, drug use, social welfare, etc.) are contentious issues that cannot and should not be resolved at the national level. Letting states address these issues as their populations desire provides more freedom for more people most of the time.
IMO, we humans are on a journey from tribalism to a condition where individuals are provided with the most possible freedom to pursue life, liberty, and property. The USA has progressed furthest along that path to date, but progress on that journey so far in history has been slow and uncertain. A great percentage of the world is still governed by tribal norms. Many people don’t recognize the path and the benefits of freedom and prefer tribalism.
Communism/socialism/dictatorship are tribal systems. Representative democracy coupled with free enterprise is a mix of individualism and the good parts of tribalism. (Common defense and internal law and order.)
About ten years ago I wrote down all my political beliefs and an explanation of why I held them. A lengthy essay – too long to put on neo’s blog or I would have just pasted it in here. It was a good exercise and helped me understand where I stand.
One thing I have learned in 49 years of following politics. (I didn’t start until I was 33) I’m never going to find a candidate who agrees with me on everything. But I will support the candidates who come as close as possible.
Doom:
There’s plenty of information about Carly Fiorina and business all around if you look for it, both pro and con. It’s not at all hard to find. I’ve read plenty of it, and I don’t have a problem with her tenure at HP, for the most part. Take a look at this, for example.
And as for Fiorina being “just a she,” did you ever hear of a “she” named Margaret Thatcher?
I happen to look at people, men and women, as people, and evaluate them on what I see as their merits. That is how I evaluate Fiorina, and every other candidate. The only way in which gender comes into play is that I believe that Fiorina would be a good counter against Clinton in the psychological sense, and in terms of those voters who might otherwise prefer Clinton because she’s a she. It levels that playing field.
How in the world could Ymarsarkar work the demonic slave owners of 150 years ago in the South into the discussion; and then to compare them to fictional Chinese who share American values? You really went off the deep end there.
By the way, since Margaret Sanger was born in 1879, I doubt that she influenced the thinking of southern slave owners, any more than she did the thinking of ancient Egyptian and Roman slave owners; or more recently, African slave owners. Holding slaves is purely an economic decision, or a means of demonstrating dominance over an enemy.
This article from American Thinker about how the far left took over the Democrat party describes the division between those who think fundamental political principles are fixed and those who want to perfect society by a chain of “progress,” those who accept human nature as it is and those who want it perfected. It is also a nice summation of the strategic march through the institutions.
Giving away my age here, but my take on conservatism was formed as a child watching the 1956 Republican convention in black and white on live TV. A long forgotten Senator from Nebraska, Roman Hruska, was asked what was the difference between conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. I will never forget his answer.
He boiled it down to a basic outlook on life. For him freedom was the over arching principle that guided his life. He would rather live in a sod hut on the prairie and die a pauper than give up his personal freedom for security and comfort. He acknowledged the liberal view and defined it as placing equality and security ahead of personal freedom. And then he referenced Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. He emphatically denied that it had anything to do with equality. It was all about freeing slaves from bondage, securing their freedom.
I’ve carried Hruska’s remarks in my head for close to 60 years. His simple definition of personal autonomy defines my conservatism. Live Free Or Die.
I would say I was a libertarian but all the major liberatarian sites and thinkers seem to have a stick up their butt about the “tyrant Lincoln” and the “War of Northern Aggression”. Anyone that can’t grok the fact that the Confederacy was an expansionist militaristic society lead by a warmonger and a mortal enemy of freedom has rocks in their heads.
Anyone that has spent 30 years in corporate America probably has a pretty low opinion of most corporatists. Sorry Carly.
Yikes,
Don’t post from an iPad mini at 3:00AM if grammar and spelling are not your strong suit. Lead, led, whatever.
Roy Lofquist @ 4:42 PM:
Another thanks for the Kirk link.
A way to express what Kirk says is that conservatism is concerned with humanity and humans as they actually are, a far more complex perspective, requiring far more insight and understanding, than the perspective of those who are concerned with humanity and humans as they actually are not.
Or, the rejection of ideology versus ideology.
The relevance of Shakespeare and Tolstoy are far different from the relevance of Marx and Lenin.
I was re-reading the Chang biography of Mao and came across a detail which had not registered before. Mao bitterly criticized Stalin for embracing Russian classical culture.
And when you think about it, Mao was right to do so. Stalin could not let go of his pride in Russian cultural accomplishments, although they were in fact a standing contradiction to the transformation of society he desired.
Mao correctly understood that Confucius (for instance) needed to be rooted out and destroyed from Chinese culture because Confucius was an impediment to the desired transformation from a society which recognized and encouraged individual consciousness and conscience adhering to a standard of morality and ethics.
To Mao, it was precisely this recognition of any person’s humanity which was the great impediment to communist utopia.
I have also re-read Bastiat’s The Law recently and recommend it highly to those who have not read it or read it a long time ago.
Bastiat beautifully describes aspects of conservatism found in the Kirk essay Roy Lofquist linked (specifically property and freedom).
But he also describes the opposite of conservatism in his psychological analysis of “socialists”. In short, he says that socialists fundamentally are determined to deny and destroy the humanity in each of us.
And interestingly, at the very top of the ideological ladder, wherever and whenever, is always to be found a deeply evil person, surrounded by layers of other deeply evil people, all of whom seem to have sold their soul.
Sharon W @ 6:42 PM:
The older I get the more I can see what a great good blessing it is to have children you are justifiably happy to call your own.
Here is something that certain people are circulating on FB this morning:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/326998637503749/permalink/436979499838995/
…assertion is that Naziism was the creation of “conservative Christians.” Actually, of course, Naziism was a blend of radicalism and reaction and was fundamentally hostile to Christianity, although this was often masked.
This is such an interesting, informative & thought provoking thread that I m paralyzed (lol) coming up with a response !
All the comments are spot on, bravo guys !
Maybe I ll respond like Scarlett, “I don t want to think about it now, I ll think about that tomorrow”
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Yep, labels are tricky.
I used to consider myself a “liberal”; since I was more or less taught in school that liberal was “good” and “conservative” was bad. But I was never the type of liberal who wanted the government to solve every problem. So, I realized that label didn’t fit.
Now, I sort of consider myself a “conservative.” But, I have no problem with gay marriage and other so called liberal positions. So that label doesn’t quite fit either.
And, I do find it somewhat annoying when someone says “that’s not a true conservative way of thinking”. As if their thinking is the only true conservative viewpoint. I also find it annoying when liberals think their viewpoint is the only logical viewpoint. See both the left and the right when going to their extremes really are the same – my way or the highway!”
Now, I’ve just come to the conclusion that labels are often just other’s way of trying to pigeon hole you; and, therefore, I don’t care anymore.
I use the term “postliberal” for myself. It describes my history as a liberal and my eventual disgust with their methods, their weak premises, and their general dishonesty.
I suppose it also bespeaks a reluctance to fully embrace a conservative label, which is also true. There are varieties of conservative, and I like something of all of them. Yet they have their own myths as well.
I noticed years ago that liberal politicians say they will fight for you and conservative ones say they will work for you. This points up why Trump supporters are not very persuasive to me. They like him because he looks like he would fight, and especially, because he would fight on the issue of immigration. That is an illogical, emotional response as far as I can see, more liberal than conservative. He just happens to have hit a conservative button. People enjoy watching him express their anger. That’s not worth much, in my book.
They think he’s not beholden, he won’t back down, he’ll really give it to ’em, etc. Nonsense. His goal is to be seen as a fighter, not to actually fight. He will find whatever keeps him in the limelight, and drop your favorite issue for a younger wife. People are seeing what’s not there.
As they did with Obama, with Clinton, with Kennedy.
Or AVI, people could be coming from a place that the “tried and true” brought us to where we are. We are handing off a bag of rocks to our children, having plundered their future with unsustainable debt, etc. As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. When we’ve come to a place where the Constitution has been trampled under foot resulting in Obamacare passed as “not a tax” and approved by the SC as “a tax”, etc etc, it’s time to rethink the next years where the real payment for this administration’s malfeasance will come due. Based on the last years (including Bush’s “bail-out” that enriched the bankers et al), I have very little confidence in the Republican party or any party.
For most of my life I just identified as a William F. Buckley conservative; National Review, Commentary magazine etc.
More recently I’d identify myself as a founders principles, constitutional conservative. That would make me a social, religious, political, military conservative. I also believe that the US is required in order to maintain a stable world order.
This election cycle conservatives should push candidates to commit to ONE, just ONE big thing that they are going to actually accomplish in the first term, nothing more.
Dale Light Says:
“Free market conservatives are strong proponents of change. Unfettered capitalism is the greatest agent of change in all of human history.”
yep; I’m open to the chaos of the free market. Socialists want it controlled and managed. Cowboy Capitalism is what some euro socialists call it.
ADDENDUM:
Also an economic conservative, free markets.
I believe this piece by Stella Morabito at The Federalist site is worth a read:
10 Key Ways To Break The Mass Delusion Machine (Here’s how to resist the Left’s culture control, one conversation at a time)
It even ties into the concept of a “preference cascade” as was brought up by T the other day, only this author uses the term “opinion cascade” in discussing how propaganda works on us and how it can be resisted.
I’ve never been more aware of how much propaganda is being beamed at us, and it seems to have gotten worse and worse ever since the Bush v. Gore affair and 9-11-2001. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone (but then again, I may just be imagining it!).
This is one of the best discussions I have seen on the internet. Thanks, Neo, for initiating it.
SLR: “Socialists want it controlled and managed.” I’d put that in the active voice, “Socialists want to control and manage it,” and agree with you.
As we all go through this analytical exercise, i find it really instructive to go back to the original thinkers and their struggles with the design of this new polity as a reaction to what they had left behind. (Just knowing that Obama considers our Constitution an outdated document written by white men tells you most of what you need to know concerning the left’s political and economic philosophy today.)
If we were designing a government right now, how would we do it? Finish that intellectual exercise and you will know whether you are a liberal or a conservative, even though neither label might be a perfect fit.
Which brings me to my final thought: maybe it is time for us to do away with our traditional labels and come up with some new ones that more accurately describe who we are and what we want from government.
Neo:
“With Trump in 2016, on the other hand, they brush away as unimportant the fact that he is deficient in his support of many conservative principles, because … he seems to them to offer a radical solution and to not be averse to radical methods.”
Sharon W:
“Or AVI, people could be coming from a place that the “tried and true” brought us to where we are. … As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.”
F:
“As we all go through this analytical exercise, i find it really instructive to go back to the original thinkers and their struggles with the design of this new polity as a reaction to what they had left behind.”
“What they had left behind”?
That glosses over the competitive creative destructive actions by the “original thinkers” in order to forcibly seize the colonies from the King, including the property of their law-abiding neighbors.
Our nation wasn’t founded by the “original thinkers” winning 1st prize in a government design contest. Our nation was founded by revolutionaries – let alone radicals – who applied a radical solution with radical methods more severe than employed by current-day Left activists.
Disaffected conservatives like Sharon W merely want the Right to live up to the competitive radicalism that is deeper than the American birthright we’re taught in school, that is the real creative source of the American conception.
“If we were designing a government right now, how would we do it?”
“Designing a government” was fairly far down the to-do list for the Founders. Whether Washington would be a neo-monarch came later.
The first question is not about natural rights. It is whether conservatives will compete for real and for keeps, zealously and pragmatically, like the “original thinkers” who mutually pledged to each other their lives, their Fortunes, & their sacred Honor.
Any conservative who will not apply radical methods as needed and, instead, chooses to depend on the GOP like British loyalists depended on the Crown, is not an inheritor of the “original thinkers”. He is actually an inheritor of the British American subjects who were unwilling to match the Founders’ radical methods and thus chose to lose the activist game that gave birth to our nation.
We’ve already seen the internecine contest decided on the other side of the aisle – in the internecine contest between Trump-supporting conservatives and GOP-loyal conservatives, guess which side holds the advantage between the side that’s radical and the side that isn’t.
Priorities. Whatever design of government or definition of conservative you revise for yourself, the question is intellectually interesting but practically moot if you’re not radical enough to reify your preference socially.
Neo’s OP refers to “radical solution” and “radical methods” as though there’s a viable alternative. But the activist game is the only social cultural/political game there is. It’s real competition with the “chaos of the free market”.
physicsguy: “Leftists, progressives..etc. have politics consume their very being I think. … The liberals just have to cram their views down everyone’s throats.”
They understand it for what it is: real competition with zero-sum spoils to be won.
Like any real competition for real stakes, if you’re not willing to match an obsessed competitor’s zeal and commitment to win, he’ll most likely take the prize and send you home empty-handed.
Eric:
I believe that Trump’s radical methods would include bypassing Congress and doing everything by executive order, much like Obama. I actually see him as very much resembling Obama in that and several other respects.
Trump is used to being the boss. He would consider himself the boss.
Conservatives have always considered methods and process to be as important as ends. Conservatives have always felt the ends don’t justify the means, because it leads constitutes tyranny.
That doesn’t mean that armed rebellion is forbidden. But not adhering to the Constitution is forbidden. I see Trump as a man who does not respect the Constitution and would use radical shortcuts in that sense. He is also in favor of lots of things that conservatives are against (see this and ths), and he would have no hesitation to accomplish them by executive fiat if he can get away with it
If the ends completely justify the means, the person is not a conservative.
You really went off the deep end there.
I think you lost the point of the issue some time ago. But that’s not really my problem.
Ymarsakar:
For the sake of clarity, you should specify the “you” whom you’re addressing.
Holding slaves is purely an economic decision, or a means of demonstrating dominance over an enemy.
Sanger was born after the South had already created a eugenics program and justified it using a quasi religious idea that black beasts are born for the field and white land owning aristocrats could own poor whites, women, and blacks with equal finesse.
The idea that Slavery 2.0 was something Southerners had that was equal to Slavery 1.0 in the Bible or other economic necessities, is the propaganda you were born to believe, Old. But that’s not what really happened back then in the US. Slavery 2.0 was a modification and an advancement, made by Democrat ancestors. Are you perhaps offended that Democrat ancestors are mentioned now and again, when you thought they won Reconstruction after the war, perhaps that’s the real issue you want to talk about and not this issue you lost sight of long ago.
I’m addressing the author of the comment there
http://neoneocon.com/2015/08/26/what-is-a-conservative/#comment-916658
that likes to think he doesn’t need to read my comments and then thinks he can debate the merits or demerits of stuff he doesn’t understand because he never read them, but that’s a different issue.
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2015/08/10/video-how-important-was-the-souths-peculiar-institution-to-the-civil-war-and-why-does-it-still-matter-today/
More background on what slavery had to do with this topic of foreigners and traitors. Democrats=traitors
Democrats=Slavery 2.0 justified under eugenics
Eugenics leads to Sanger. Sanger leads to Planned Profit. PP leads to Slavery 3.0 and the Leftist alliance.
Got to make it simple for some people.
This is encouraging — Hey, Conservatives, You Won, The College Board’s about-face on U.S. history is a significant political event:
SLR: “Cowboy Capitalism is what some euro socialists call it.”
Cowboy Capitalism. No doubt they mean that as a slur. ha! The jokes on them – I think it is a great term and will be using to myself.
Cowboys work hard, respect others who work harder, have no time for “dudes” or others who don’t pull their own weight.
Cowboys were men like the Lone Ranger or Marshall Dillon; cowboys drop their own work to help form a posse when the need arises. When they fight, they fight to right a wrong and fight so they won’t have to again. (of course, sometimes they fight in the saloon on a Saturday night just for the hell of it – nobody’s perfect)
Yet, cowboys will tip their hat to you, cowboys will be tender with a newborn calf, cowboys will do what’s best for the herd.
Skip the Weinersnitchel and the Parisian escargot; Cowboy coffee and cowboy stew with sourdough biscuits are some of the finest foods after a long day in the saddle. Oh, and real chili is made with beef – not beans!
Do they know that 1 in 3 U.S. cowboys were either Black or Mexican? On the trail color didn’t matter – content of character did. Legend has it that the best badge a cowboy could wear was honesty.
Yep, although I’m not a cowboy (not even close) I rather like that term – cowboy capitalism.
“Do they know that 1 in 3 U.S. cowboys were either Black or Mexican?”
Can you cite a source on that? I have no information to dispute it, but I keep reading these increasingly inflated figures on what percentage of cowboys were Black; the last I read (besides yours) was that half the cowboys were Black. I don’t know who back then was keeping count. I’ve read a lot of first hand accounts of cowboys and trail driving, and these figures do not seem confirmed by what I’ve read.
David Dary in his COWBOY CULTURE–which seems pretty well researched–says that no one can really say what percentage of cowboys in the Old West were ANYTHING, because no one has a verifiable count of how many cowboys there were in toto, especially in the early days.