Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

There are no conservatives here

By

Jay marvels at the breadth and reach of Obama's policy ambitions, and tries to get conservatives to ask the right questions in response:

My suggestion would be for conservatives to start asking this question: What is the proper role of government? Please, no pithy but ultimately meaningless answers like 'small government.' They need to ask themselves variations of this question on an almost agency-by-agency, program-by-program basis: What is the proper role of government in regulating the financial markets? What is the proper role of government in responding to natural disasters? Etc.

I'd like to suggest that Republican politicians at the national level (as distinguished from ordinary Republicans) simply do not support a philosophy at all. They say they do, but this is an obvious fig leaf, and maybe even self-deceit. Their dilemma is a result of which interests they serve, not which philosophies. 

From the Reagan era forward, Republicans have consistently favored looting the American taxpayer on behalf of their corporate paymasters. One cannot support a vastly wasteful military-industrial complex and be a “fiscal conservative.” One cannot support the outlandish corporate welfare of the Medicare drug benefit and the privatized Medicare Advantage, and call oneself a conservative. One cannot have supported an unnecessary war — including all of the outrageous waste by contractors working for us — and call oneself “conservative” in any sense of the word.

It would make no sense for a philosophical conservative to support any of those things. But the voting record is clear, as are the results. So maybe “philosophy” has had nothing at all to do with it whatsoever. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can serve two masters, i.e. corporate interests and the broad public. And the GOP didn't really try to balance them all that much; whenever these goals were in conflict, the corporate lobbyists won in a rout.

So maybe they should try serving the public interest — you know, like a public servant would. That would be a start. I'm not holding my breath.

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  1. This article on New Right called “The Joe-the-Plumberization of the GOP” was refreshing. For example, I haven’t read many conservatives willing to say:

    If you want to get a sense of how unserious and ungrounded most Americans think the Republican Party is, look no further than how conservatives elevate Joe the Plumber as a spokesman. The movement has become so gimmick-driven that Wurzelbacher will be a conservative hero long after people have forgotten what his legitimate policy beef with Obama was.

    Or in another article:

    Bobby Jindal is a Rhodes Scholar.  Among the Republcians left in governmental leadership, he is unquestionably one of its more brilliant minds.  He is a policy wonk, and seems extremely interested in policy details, often times rattling off his ideas so quickly his audience gets lost.  Tonight was his chance to showcase that brainpower, and that factory of ideas.

    What did we see instead?  Jindal intentionally spoke with more simplistic, provocative language meant to appeal to rural (conservative) America.  His accent seemed just a little bit thicker, and his rhetoric focused on what was upsetting voters, rather than why the Republican agenda is a better choice.

    • because John Kerry never famously pandered to the susceptible by talking about Red Sox player Manny Ortez, or his favorite Red Sox player of all time, Eddie Yost (who, um, never played for the Sox), or tried to influence anyone at all with that limp-wristed salute to open the DNC in ’04.

      <

      p>Lots of pom-pom waving here, but no real gravitas at all.

      • That’s possibly my fault because I always expect people to find my blockquotes so very tasty that they’ll be unable to keep from clicking on the links.

        <

        p>The New Right site is chock full of concern about Republicans not standing for anything other than bromides, platitudes, and “No”. They’re definitely not liberals over there, so I’m not quoting some kind of Republican moderate on his way to turning blue.

        <

        p>Whatever his many faults, Senator John Kerry has never expressed a disinterest in policy or an unwillingness to talk about it. In fact, that’s been his technical* weakness as a politician: too much nuance, too much vote counting and calculation of the politically possible, too little talk about values.

        * I chose this word carefully to avoid some bigger but irrelevant discussions.

  2. And investigated the BMG-esque conservative sites on the web, you may find that your dreaded enemies, conservatives, say the exact same things about you as you say about them.  Namely:

    <

    p>”I’d like to suggest that [Democrat] politicians at the national level (as distinguished from ordinary [Democrats]) simply do not support a philosophy at all. They say they do, but this is an obvious fig leaf, and maybe even self-deceit. Their dilemma is a result of which interests they serve, not which philosophies.”

    <

    p>They’d say Democrats don’t have a philosophy at all, but mainly serve the interests of a host of special interest groups, not limited to gays and lesbians, labor unions, socialists, big government nanny-state types, etc., etc., etc.  In other words, what do you dislike most about conservatives?  Well, look in the mirror, because that’s exactly what they don’t like about you.  And it all amounts to a childish “my team is better than your team” brand of rhetoric, not unlike the retail political version of Red Sox Nation versus the Evil Empire.

    <

    p>As a small (L) libertarian, and one of the lone conservatives on this site (and a true one at that), I would LOVE to have an open and honest dialog about the proper role of the government, or as I like to say it, the proper relationship between the government and the governed.  Honestly.  Have at it:  let’s do it right here, or start up a new thread.  Because retail politics is bullshit.  What really matters is philosophy.

      • can lob bombs all day at the GOP, but you’re going to take umbrage at a dropped “ic”?

        <

        p>Seriously?

          • Is that the present party in power isn’t bereft of childish insults, but has just adopted that they have been catching for the last decade.

          • Democrats, but to talk political ideology.

            <

            p>Heaven forbid I dropped the “ic”.  I did not mean to offend your tender sensibilities.

            <

            p>Still, all your responses have been tangential to the topic at hand.  You prefer to express your pique instead of anything of substance.

            <

            p>

          • perhaps you need a thicker skin.  No offense was meant.  That you took offense says more about you than it does about me . . . . lobbing bombs at your opposition and then whining when bombs are lobbed at you isn’t exactly rational, friend.

            • This is a classic Tom DeLay/George W. Bush tactic, though its roots go much further back than that.  It doesn’t matter whether “no offense was meant” (though frankly I find that a bit hard to believe).  I can’t discern what’s in your head.  All I can do is read the words you type, and those words have a lot of history behind them.

              <

              p>Why don’t you start over by, as Hoya suggests, starting a new thread.  All you have to do is click the “Write a new post” link in the “Menu” box on the left-hand sidebar.  And try to get the party names right.

              • ….to make unrebuked comments like these –

                <

                p>

                But that’s the Rethuglican narrative by – KBusch
                Posted on: Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 18:58:43 PM CST  

                Typical Rethuglican response by – KBusch
                Posted on: Sat Dec 15, 2007 at 15:12:19 PM CST  

                Rethuglican media by – bluestatedude
                Posted on: Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 00:56:18 AM CDT

                <

                p>Or, such scintillating commentary as this –

                <

                p>

                You mean (6.00 / 1)
                like back when Chimpy McFlightsuit signed up (but failed to report for duty) with the Texas Air NATIONAL GUARD?
                Like that, kinda? Just to give a random example.
                Because I doubt somehow that he would have signed up with the Guard if HIS Commander in Chief was sending them off to fight illegal wars. Maybe he would have pulled a Cheney and married and gotten his bride preggers, posthaste, instead.
                ______________________________________
                by: Sharoney @ Thu Oct 25, 2007 at 14:08:59 PM EST

                <

                p>And I assure you, these are just the top of the pile from a cursory search.

                <

                p>Try typing Democrat-ICK and see what happens….
                 

                • On the contrary, I come from the wing of the Party that was constantly critical of Clinton throughout his Presidency.

                  <

                  p>The taunt arose during the triumphalist period in Republican rhetoric. They’d have us know that the war in Iraq was absolutely essential. Doubters were unpatriotic or ninnies who would have allowed Hussein to blow up Albany. Arguments were often met with smug pointers to opinion polls or questions as to one’s masculinity or willingness to endorse masculinity (depending on gender).

                  <

                  p>These were thuggish arguments. They involved no understanding the Middle East and a breezy unconcern for the consequences of a military intervention that was more even expensive in lives lost than in treasure wasted.

                  <

                  p>The Bush Administration’s handling of the Middle East has been horrible in multiple dimensions. Republicans who were disinclined to be thuggish could have prevented the destruction of Fallujah or brought about the closing of Abu Ghraib or gotten the Administration to take Iraqi security seriously. Where were they? No where.  They were happier discomfiting liberals. This is a moral shame that the Republican Party carries and for which it has made no apologies.

                  <

                  p>And to what end?

                  <

                  p>At best, to install a stable pro-Iranian government in the Arab portion of the Middle East.

                • Just be aware that such nanny-nanny-noo-noosim detracts from your otherwise thoughtful commentary.

              • That the deliberate use of a misnomer such as this isn’t actually insulting.

                <

                p>After all, if he wanted to be insulting he would have used some word other than “Democrat.”

    • Have at it:  let’s do it right here, or start up a new thread.

      <

      p>OK, then why don’t you start up a new thread? I’d be genuinely interested in what you (as a libertarian-conservative) believe the proper role of government is.

      • I’m a newbie here, however, and I don’t know how I would start a new thread.  I’d be more than happy to figure it out and do so, however, if there was any genuine interest.

        <

        p>Food for thought in the meantime:  government’s primary role is to serve as the guarantor of rights.

        • government’s primary role is to serve as the guarantor of rights.

          <

          p>It’s hard to disagree with that statement when it’s at that level of abstraction, which is why you should expand upon it.

          <

          p>To start a new thread, you can click on “write a new post” link located on the menu on the left-hand side of the BMG page. The “Rules of the Road” and “Formatting Tips” links are also helpful to look at before posting.

          • Social conservatives might not cotton to the rights of “fags and queers,” but I would argue they aren’t true conservatives.  True conservatives believe that all men and women are created equal, and therefore have equal rights, no matter who they try to get in the wrapper.

            <

            p>Social conservatives, in my opinion, are really statists who seek to use government power to compel a certain societal viewpoint.  Much like some of the more government-happy people on your side of the aisle do.  Statist/non-statist, in fact, is the true differentiator, not conservative/liberal.

            • Yes and no. “Conservative” has not been defined well enough so that it excludes “statists”. One can define words empirically, by how others use them. Certainly, few people would suggest that neither Cheney nor Huckabee is a conservative.

              • not a conservative.  He was one of the most universally loathed candidates during the election cycle on http://www.freerepublic.com, which for better or worse, is a bellwether site for gauging conservatism in the US.

                <

                p>Back in 2000, most people had to swallow GWB with a huge dose of sugar, too . . . that is, until the neo-cons discovered the site and it became Bush pom-pom town.  Bush was no conservative, by the way.  Just a big government type with a different agenda than yours.  One of the five worst Presidents in US history, too.

                • do quite a large number of conservatives presently being villified by Rush Limbuagh et al.

    • I would expect that lots of conservatives would think that liberals lack core principles. A number of things seem to contribute to this:

      • Conservatives tend to be even more tribal than liberals. (I can point to some of the new thinking on cognitive morality to back this up, by the way.) So they tend to conflate all Democrats into one big lump without shading, difference, or nuance. That’s how Professor Churhill could become representative of liberals — to conservatives. If you lump all Democrats together, it’s very easy to conclude that liberals don’t stand for anything. A hilarious example of this is listening to conservatives rail about how liberal President Clinton was. Certainly a Democrat, Clinton was not a liberal Democrat. Not at least to any liberal I knew.
      • By contrast, the left blogosphere everywhere wonders about the tensions between libertarians and social conservatives, between paleo-conservatives and neo-cons. There’s an almost gleeful hoping that the Republican coalition will come apart.
      • Further, Lakoff’s Moral Politics suggests that the moral thinking that liberals and conservatives deploy is very different. My favorite example is happiness. Not only do liberals think that happiness is some kind of right, but liberals tend to think that people have a duty to be happy:  unhappy people do bad stuff, they can’t take care of others. Conservatives tend to think of happiness as a reward. Demanding to be happy when one hasn’t deserved it is self-indulgent. So lots of things liberals say sound self-indulgent to conservatives — hence not serious.

      • Happened this last election cycle.  Libertarians were very happy to sit home, vote third party, etc.  We did not support McCain.  We have been, more or less, drummed out of the big tent.  It was a split long, long, long overdue.

  3. That the supporters of the party in power in Washington spent their time cheering for their favored pundit-a-thon TV channel, offering helpful “advice” to their recently-defeated opposition that includes such helpful ideas as “Get a principle, you lowlife” and villifying that opposition with ridiculous hyperbole.

    <

    p>Why, it is like 2003 all over again!

  4. I am shocked, shocked to learn that Republicans are hypocrites.  Their entire domestic policy playbooks is basically big government for me, but not for thee.  They would rather piss money away through private sector subsidies (Medicare Part D, Medicare Advantage, student loans, defense contracting) than have the government run the program itself for far less money.  They realize that, for all the intellectual merits of a libertarian framework, a) the public consistently rejects it in individual circumstances (chimp pets or Chinese toys, e.g.) and b) adherents to this viewpoint will always be diffuse with relatively lower preferences (vs. “special interests” who can corral dollars, votes and political pressure more easily…. classic public choice theory).  That, combined with their desire to somehow create a majority for a set of policies opposed by most citizens, leads to a worldview that safeguards farm subsidies while railing against welfare.

  6. philosophy or had one. It’s always been an attitude. A resistance to change. A predilection for authority. A wishful espousal of simplicity.

    <

    p>Libertarians have a philosophy, crazy as it sometimes is, it is coherent. Christian dominionists have a philosophy, crazy as it always is, it is coherent. Conservatism is not coherent. It is the Everlasting Nay.

    <

    p>Liberalism is coherent. It identifies problems, such as inequality or poverty and believes that government can help fix them. It views the world as complex. The conservative program has never been more than a repudiation of liberalism.

    <

    p>The 2008 GOP Primary demonstrated that what was once termed conservatism is really no more than an attitude binding together different groups that shared a mutual interest in  acquiring power. Huckabee and Paul represented actual philosophies. The Glove represented the business class, which is merely self-interested, as demonstrated by his any-way-the-wind-blows candidacy.

    <

    p>I thought Clinton Rossiter’s Conservatism in America was a decent discussion of the political persuasion, though conservatives might beg to differ.

    • Itself doesn’t agree on what constitutes conservatism, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have a philosophy.  To wit:  

      <

      p>Some conservatives adhere to a snapshot of a moment in time, which they see as an idyllic time, and they seek to implement laws that make society conform to that particular point in time.  In other words, an affinity for some idyllic time is what drives their conservatism; the means to recapture or perpetuate that moment in time are irrelevant.  In this group you’ll find your typical social conservatives and neo-cons.

      <

      p>Other conservatives adhere to a snapshot of law which they see as idyllic.  Conservatives of this ilk, for instance, might see the US Constitution as perfect, or approaching perfect, and they look to preserve the spirit of adhering to the strictures of the Constitution in perpetuity, and that’s what drives their conservatism.  In this group you’ll find your paleo-conservatives and your strict constructionalists.

      • While your Snapshot Theory might be somewhat useful as a taxonomic or rhetorical device, I seriously doubt that the conservative movement is a collection of history buffs who long for the days of President McKinley.

        • You’d be shocked, and you really know nothing about conservatism other than that which you assume confronts and tries to negate your own closely-guarded political beliefs.

          <

          p>I have a feeling you’re more of a bomb-lobber around here.

          • The problem is that the GOP has co-opted the label conservative to such an extent that the definition and context varies person to person.

            <

            p>If you’ve got to claim that most self-labeled conservatives don’t pass the Ol’Scratch conservative test then it’s not clear how to even have a conversation about this.

            • You run into the same sort of dilemma.  Are you a social liberal, i.e., one who believes something like gay marriage is AOK?  Are you a fiscal liberal, i.e., someone who’s down with the government taxing people at a 65% rate?  I’d be shocked if all the self-professed liberals here could agree on what makes up a liberal, other than some sort of sweeping generality that what makes someone a liberal is that he or she isn’t a conservative.

              <

              p>Hang out on http://www.freerepublic.com for awhile, if you can stomach it.  I’ve been there since ’97, during the Clinton Impeachment years, when the site was fairly libertarian.  Since then, it’s become over-run with social conservatives and neo-cons, so much so that the former center of the site, libertarians, are now fairly loathed as . . . liberal commie tree hugging Ron Paul lovers.

              • Liberalism today is a political approach that emphasizes protecting and advancing the common good. We strive toward a society in which everyone’s potential is fulfilled, where innovation and culture flourish, and where misery is minimized.

                <

                p>We recognize that the causes of many social ills are systemic and must be met systematically. Government is an instrument for addressing such problems but not the only such instrument. Some problems, for example, are best met with by bringing about cultural change.

                <

                p>Contrasts with conservatives:

                • We don’t see the common good as some kind of simple sum of individuals.
                • We don’t try to resolve problems using punishment, charity, or imprecations alone.

              • yes and yes.  Gay marriage is AOK, and I would support a 65% tax bracket (say, $5,000,000+ a year or somesuch).

                <

                p>Next question.

          • I try to state my points with wit, but you have answered it with exactly the bomb lobbing you find and deplore in me. <Looks up at ceiling>

            <

            p>Your suggestion is easily tested. Yes, there is a movement among lawyers (Federalist Society and the Constitution in Exile folks) who explicitly refer to the past. But lawyers love precedent. Beyond that, I don’t see people saying FDR spoiled the US or the Progressive legislation of the early twentieth century is the cause of our woes. People’s political perspectives are more frequently expressed in the issues of the day and with some collection of abstract principles.

              • However, I don’t see a lot of it. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen any of the conservatives that appear here ever blame FDR. I don’t. I do read Red Mass Group fairly often. FDR infrequently makes appearances. I read RedState even less often, but still haven’t seen much about FDR except lately in the debates about fiscal stimulus. In fact, if we hadn’t had a recession, I’d be surprised if FDR were mentioned much at all on Reagan Hagiograhy right-wing sites.

                <

                p>Since the election, I’ve gotten more interested in how the Republican Party was planning to recover. So I’ve been more curious than before. However, it’s a guilty pleasure. I really feel I should be learning about the banking crisis.

          • KBusch is among the least likely to fit that description here, and the most willing to get past it, notwithstanding the snippets posted above.

      • I think you came close to the divide earlier.  Conservative value freedom at the expense of equality, liberals value equality at the expense of freedom.  

    • Interesting suggestion, Yellow Dog.

      <

      p>Would readers of W.F. Buckley or of Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative agree?

      <

      p>Among economists, there are definitely schools of thought that are on the right. Possibly that is true of other parts of academia. I’m curious though as to how close or far from the truth Y.D.’s very interesting explanation lies.

      <

      p>PS: Clinton Rossiter died in 1970!

      • read Goldwater or Buckley, I must admit. I read Burke back in college, but that was the 80s. I’m echoing Rossiter in my post, who was writing about the 50s, particularly Russell Kirk.

        <

        p>While what our itchy friend offers in response to my post is true, it hardly constitutes a philosophy.

        <

        p>BTW, I have a recent name change. Check my page and you might figure out who I was/am.

Archives