Redefining Conservatism

I'm not pro-Life, but I am for Ron Paul. Apparently a few Huckabee supporters in the media are saying the Ron Paul is pro-abortion because, get this, he supports a policy that would make it legal for states to legalize abortion. It is called overturning ''Roe v. Wade'', but I guess the hope is that Huckabee supporters are dumb enough not to understand the implications of overturning ''Roe v. Wade'', which has been part of the conservative agenda for 35 years. This includes both social conservatives and even pro-choice conservatives who believe in the plain meaning of the constitution. Lynn Swann and Fred Thompson never appeared to understand this, so it wouldn't surprise me if most people who consider themselves conservatives fall for this line.

Despite the spin and what essentially amounts to telling a big lie against Ron Paul, there is, I think, a fundamental question at stake here that may split the conservative vote even more than it already has been. For most of the nation's history, issues of health, safety, welfare, and morals were reserved to the states under the plain language of the federal constitution and the 10th Amendment. However, following WWII, a series of cases, of which ''Roe'' was a part, vaulted these issues into the realm of the federal government. This meant that these issues now became federal issues whether or not people were willing to accept this power grab by the Supreme Court and Congress.

And while the issues of safety regulation and others related to commerce have been just as integral to the destruction of the federal Constitution, it is really on moral issues that conservatives may reach a total split. The question is this: (a) do conservatives fight to put these issues back at the state level where they belong in accordance with the plain language of the Constitution; or (b) do conservatives deal with the fact that these are now federal issues by using Congress, the federal courts, and amendments to the federal Constitution to legislate what are primarily moral issues?

I fully believe that now that the GOP has become populist rather than conservative, we will continue to see morality issues such as abortion, gay rights, marriage, divorce, school prayer, church-state separation, and whole host of other issues handled at the federal level rather than by the states. Liberals and activist liberal judges went out of there way to destroy the plain meaning of the constitution when it suited their needs. They may be about to reap the reward of the destruction they have sown by seeing the federal government used to enforce one particular segment of society's morality upon the rest of us. Traditionally this has happened at the state level, but theoretically at the state level, people would have a greater say in what they wanted for their morality-based legislation. This also would theoretically allow for greater diversity among opinions. Diversity is supposed to be unquestionably good, right?

More importantly, however, is that the constitution says these should not be federal issues. We should be very reluctant to change that document without some overwhelming reason besides satisfying the latest controversial issue ''du jour''. Unfortunately, that has already happened without changing a single word in the document.

Take Away Cal Thomas's Crackpipe

Redefining conservatism

I don't even know where to begin on this one. I would say that this is just a suggestion piece, but Cal Thomas really appears to believe that relabeling interventionist polities as conservative policies, the conservative movement can be revived?

Rhetorically he asks if Reagan were 100% conservative. The answer is, of course, no. No politician is ever 100% conservative. No human being can follow all of the principles of conservatism 100% of the time and politicians have it even worse because they need to compromise in reaching political solutions. I can't believe somewhat like Cal Thomas would not understand that if something that is not 100% in line with conservative principles happens during a politicians term in office it doesn't necessarily mean that they have compromised their ''principles''.

And that is at the root of my frustration with his proposal and apparently that of David Frum which he summarizes. Conservative principles (or rather classical liberal principles) have existed for a long time in Western ideology. Conservatism nowadays is more closely aligned with social conservatism and as a result fiscal conservatism has taken a beating with people who might otherwise be inclined toward free market capitalism. That aside, abandoning conservative principles of small, limited government simply because they are what Reagan claimed to believe in doesn't mean that the early 80s were the only time they were ever exercised or anyone ever believed in them. Can someone who has been around as long as Cal Thomas not understand that conservative principles have been around for several hundred years?

So what is the propose alternative? Create more government programs and interference in the market but "engage in better story telling" by telling voters that this is perfectly in line with conservative principles. He even makes the laughable remark that these programs will help reaffirm conservative principles by reducing people's dependence on government programs. Given that there is no such thing as a government program that has ever gone away or been eliminated and bureaucrats primary motivation is self-preservation, does he really anticipate that any new program "designed to reduce dependence on government" will actually ever be declared successful. Government programs to reduce dependence on government programs is as ironic as any suggestion I have ever heard coming from a so-called conservative.

Here is the main problem though. The main point of the conservative movement in the realm of economics is that government interference never solves a problem. All it does it interfere with the natural mechanism of economics and create moral hazards and perverse incentives that take a bad problem and make it worse. This then requires more government interference to deal with the unintended consequences created in the first place by the government interference. The other main point of the conservative movement it that government interference may or may not always pick the best solution, but when it picks the wrong one, there are no market forces to correct their bad decisions. Furthermore, by taking capital out of the market through the taxes used to create the bureaucracy to administer the government program, there is less money available in the market to find and invest in the best solution. The money goes where the bureaucracy directs either through mandates or perverse economic incentives, right or wrong.

Here are some of Frum's proposals:

* Universally available health insurance, but offered through the private sector
* Lower taxes to encourage savings and investment
* Higher taxes on energy and pollution to promote conservation
* Conservative environmentalism that promotes nuclear power to reduce our need for oil and coal
* Federal policies to encourage larger families
* Major reductions in unskilled immigration
* A campaign for prison reform
* A campaign against obesity
* Higher ethical standards inside the conservative movement and Republican Party
* Renewed commitment to expand and rebuild the armed forces in order to crush terrorism and prepare for the coming challenge from China.
* Micro-loan program to help the poor out of poverty, rather than more government programs that subsidize the poor in their poverty and offer no hope for the future. (Cal's own suggestion)

I will take these apart of the next few days unless something else comes up. The conservative approach to solving problems in this country is dead. Cal is now transitioning himself to join McCain's "March to Mediocrity" in government.

The End of Fiscal Conservatism

The only party that has represented economic conservatism in the U.S. in the 20th century has been the GOP. At least they've always talked about it. Quite often, they have done something different.

With McCain's win in Florida, the fate of the party has now been sealed so that fiscal conservatism and conservatism in general are now the outcast extremist views of the party. This could have been predicted based on the original field of candidates and how they were being received in polls, but now the remainder of the primary season has been spelled out.

Rudy will leave and almost all of his votes will go to McCain. Huckabee has no money, but he will do well is several states on Super Tuesday. When he drops, his supporters will also go to McCain. That will leave Romney and Ron Paul. Paul is in for the long haul since he has the money and enthusiastic supporters like me. He will not get more than 15% nationally when all is said and done though. Romney, on the other hand, is doomed now.

A Florida win would have been enough to convince the three minutes before you enter the poll booth crowd to vote for Romney and given him a serious boost for Super Tuesday. The problem now though is that with the 2nd place finish, he is facing races in Super Tuesday where he is mostly 2nd or 3rd behind the McCain and either Huchabee or Giuliani. The Giuliani votes will now go to McCain in significant numbers which will likely mean overwhelming victories for McCain in nearly all of the Super Tuesday states. At that point, Romney will have to drop out.

I would not vote for Romney now under any circumstances based on the closer look that I've taken at him this past week, but he was the closest thing to sounding like a conservative of the four remaining candidates who had the big numbers. When the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and George will are essentially screaming from the hills that McCain and Huckabee are not conservatives and no one is listening, then we know that the conservative movement in the GOP is now officially dead. Politics has always been a personality contest. Genuine conservatives got to be in the limelight from 1981 to 2001 because the personalities in charge at least paid lip service to conservatism. Now we still have the lip service, but the platforms being called conservative are the exact opposite of what they stood for 20 years ago.

The Litte Green Book

One of the biggest crimes with our education system - especially in history and social studies - is the lack of explanation about what could be called basic conservatism and basic capitalism. Instead, our history is mostly taught around personalities, not principles. This might be because younger minds do not understand such abstract concepts or see their application to the world. It could also be that we are lazy and prefer to make history into fun stories.

What I would define as true conservatism is perhaps more like libertarianism. It is the idea that the focus on individual rights and freedoms should be the foundation of society. This train of thought is apparently fundamental in the Federalist Papers and perhaps more so the Anti-Federalist Papers. The idea is that the founder fathers, when forming a new government, decided to make the individual the focus rather than the state or someone who represented the state. This was a fundamental change in Western Thought, which, although based on earlier philosophers (Locke, Hume, and Hobbes), was tried for the first time in practice with the United States.

I call this idea of the focus on the individual true conservatism for two reasons: (1) it hearkens back to the philosophical origins of the nation and (2) it repeats the sentiments in Goldwaters's Conscience of a Conservative.

Dovetailing into this is the capitalism propounded by Adam Smith which could also be accurately characterized as philosophy focusing on the individual. Pure capitalism, however, has taken much of a beating in the 20th Century in the form of the welfare state, the creation of the Federal Reserve, Social Security, and the advent of Keynesian Economics. What we have now is the freedom to engage in capitalism within the confines of a welfare state that takes a substantial portion of our earnings no matter how we choose to earn a living. This does not prevent some from amassing great fortunes, but many of those fortunes are made on the back of the masses in the form of coerced spending from the government (such as military spending) or monopoly created by government fiat (such as cable TV companies).

But here is my point. Conservatism and Capitalism, as I have defined them above, based on the focus on the individual, appear to have a tough time making converts in the U.S. The democratic party, has more or less become hostile to the free market in every form decrying every problem that occurs as a result of the "excesses of capitalism". The Republican party claims to be for both of these items, but in recent years has done the exact opposite on nearly all fronts. What's more, is that many regular people registered as Republicans do not understand the ideals of capitalism or conservatism as anything more than a platitude. The Republican party has, in reality, become the party that professes to keep taxes low and to support the pro-life movement. It does nothing else to forward the ideals of capitalism and conservatism, and often acts against these interests to steal issues from the democrats by either expanding government programs or bringing home government pork.

What struck me most recently about all of this is that my sentiments are neither new nor original nor recent. What is written above is basically a paraphrase of the opening of Conscience of a Conservative by Goldwater (or his ghostwriter actually). These sentiments are repeated today in the Ron Paul campaign as well as by the Austrian School of Economics with its emphasis on individual behavior and pure capitalism. These sentiments are also found in Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. To my great misfortune, I have only starting to embrace the ideals contained in the books recently. To my horror I realized that most people in the U.S. have no real concept of any of these ideas, even the few that are informed about them, because the ideals of conservatism are either loathed because of the label, or not understood by their supposed supporters.

As much as I have enjoyed reading portions of these works, I have to admit that they can be tough reading. They are written with passion but they are not passionate reads. Even Atlas Shrugged, which attempted to turn these ideals into a more enjoyable novel format, was not something I was able to finish - and I have read Moby Dick at least three times. In my mind, the problems is perhaps one of formatting. Essays to a great job of explaining how you reach your points, but the essayist often forgets to concisely summarize these points, obviating the need to constantly reread these works to try and understand their conclusions.

I would propose that modern capitalism and conservatism really need a sort of new "little green book" or something similar to a short Bible to help spread the message. The message has to be one of simple, short sentences, organized by topic or along some other lines that clearly expose the basic tenants of modern conservatism. Perhaps literary stories or actual history could be used to illustrate points. The point is that we need a work that either gives basic principles to help define modern conservatism and also to help shape arguments whenever a question arises as to "what is best" for a particular situation. A work that can be quoted as chapter and verse - even if only guidelines. In addition, it is probably a good idea to have a work of literature that is really enjoyable and relatively short that exemplifies these tenants. It can be an historical novel. It could be pure history. Both these philosophical/economic and literary works could even be combined just as the Bible combines Genesis with the laws of Leviticus. There may be such a book out there that explains conservatism so succinctly, but I have not seen it.