This will be a bit of mad ramble, I’m afraid – and probably go on to prove a larger point -but in a spare moment today, I read George Will’s op-ed in the WaPo on “The Case for Conservatism“:
Conservatism’s recovery of its intellectual equilibrium requires a confident explanation of why America has two parties and why the conservative one is preferable. Today’s political argument involves perennial themes that give it more seriousness than many participants understand. The argument, like Western political philosophy generally, is about the meaning of, and the proper adjustment of the tension between, two important political goals — freedom and equality.
Today conservatives tend to favor freedom, and consequently are inclined to be somewhat sanguine about inequalities of outcomes. Liberals are more concerned with equality, understood, they insist, primarily as equality of opportunity, not of outcome.
And so on, etc. Anyone who considers him or herself the least bit conservative will find little to disagree with in Will’s tacit evocation of the spirits of Hayek, Kirk and Strauss (Although Strauss a little less, this is George Will after all).
But, unsatisfied with merely buttressing my own prejudices, I ran about the blogosphere for a bit, looking for the thoughtful analysis from the other side. Trying to broaden my horizons, like.
In this, as usual, I was disappointed. Under a heading “Shorter Will,” Ms. Hardin Smith of Firedoglake summarizes thus:
“Ask what you can do to help yourself, and screw everyone else. Do unto others and grab as much as you can along the way, before they get around to doing unto you, that’s the conservative way.”
Oh-kayy…
I’d like to propose that henceforward, no matter how tight the timeline, everyone avoid the temptation to reduce a thoughtful and earnest essay – even one they disagree with – into a “Shorter (fill in the blank).” It’s not just hopelessly reductive, but the kind of people who’d agree with that sort of thing are no thinking person’s natural ally.
Yes, I know it’s hopeless. Still.
Then over to the TPMCafe – where, despite the instinctively oppositional slant on all things conservative, real thought is often found. “Mort” starts off by supplying us with a reasonably accurate recapitulation on the development of modern conservative thought in the post-World War II era. This treatment goes on for a goodly length – others might have called it self-indulgent, or even self-important – I have to admit that my own eyes did tend to skip ahead a verse or two, brother. All the moreso, since it seemed designed to serve not so much as a primer for the target audience – Behold, the American Conservative! – as a vehicle to Bush-bash for a bit.
Eventually Mort climbs down off the soap box and gets to the matter at hand:
I was eager to see how Will, a Reagan-era conservative aristocrat, would argue for returning to conservatism’s roots. I was disappointed, to put it lightly. This column reads as though it was written in 1979, when these ideas were somewhat fresh, not 2007, when those ideas have been totally discredited.
I don’t know about you, but to me it seems scarcely fair to flail at a conservative for the fact that his call to return to conservative roots is somehow insufficiently progressive. Nor is it remotely clear that the ideas themselves have been discredited, and Mort doesn’t bother trying – you either understand or you don’t, I guess.
Later in the same post Mort writes:
(S)cales have only fallen off the eyes of those whose allegiance was always to conservative puritanism; that is the ideals of the movement. They see that George W. Bush is not a conservative and has in fact done the opposite of what a pure conservative would do.
And then only a little later on:
Bush is the culmination of the conservative political movement and for Will to ignore that fact is effectively for him to deny it.
Which has a certain admirable consistency in inveterate animus, if not in rational thought: Not only is it difficult to believe that Mort honestly thinks both of those statements can be simultaneously true, Will never said a word about Bush anywhere in his article. Wasn’t what he was talking about. Not a particular fan.
Eighteen more months of “all Bush, all the time” and these folks are going to have to find a new schtick. You?
You’ll still have sea stories.
But you sigh, and you move along. This is the blogosphere, and time is at a premium, for those who write, for those who read. Over to “The BooMan Tribune” then, where the analysis focuses on the fact that Will is an idiot, apparently. Because of wire tapping and the war on drugs and stuff.
At this point I ran a little out of gas on my Quest for the Other, truth be told. Needing a bit of a bath, I headed over to Betsy’s Page, where Betsy – conservative that she is, the dear heart – could be counted on to agree with Will, even if she didn’t add much more to the substance of the discussion than, “These are good ideas.”
We all do that of course, “here’s a good read, give it a look.”
Not everyone agreed with her of course, and somehow the discussion broke down into one of the classic “politics of class envy” memes. In fact, one of the comments was nearly a word-for-word recitation of a discussion I had with a fellow godbotherer when we were down working on that clinic in Tijuana back in March.
I was talking to him about my theory of “found wealth,” and how it was nearly always a moral disaster for the societies that stumble on to it. Countries that have been propelled to sudden prominence through the export of oil, for example, enrich themselves at very little effort. Many of them depend on the assistance of foreigners to actually pull it from the ground for them, reaping the profit of happy circumstance with no social effort or industry. Everywhere I looked that did not already have robust democratic institutions, I said, such wealth seemed more of a curse than an advantage – regimes so enabled are free to act thuggishly, or spend precious intellectual capital on the pursuit of toxic philosophies, or to buy bread and circuses for an impoverished populace without respecting their political rights.
Yeah, my interlocutor replied, just like Paris Hilton.
Eh?
No, no, he continued. It’s exactly the same. She has all that money that she doesn’t work for, and look what she’s doing with it (ed. this was all before Ms. Hilton was remanded to custody, mind).
Now, I told my man that I had no particular love for Paris Hilton, nor her lifestyle either, but that we already had a system of inheritance tax in place, one that tends to afflict the merely comfortable – small business owners and family farmers, say – far more than it ever would the ultra-rich. Besides, wasn’t all of that commendable economic activity that Baron Hilton engaged in both taxable at the time it was earned, and socially useful for those it employed?
If he couldn’t have accumulated the wealth invested in trusts for his kids, I went on, mightn’t he have spent it more profligately – and less wisely – on personal consumption? Or, since no one could personally consume those kinds of sums, might he not even have forbore the risk and effort of making it at all? Would that have been better for the economy?
Too, I added, I just don’t much love the notion of the government telling you what to do with your property after you’ve earned it, or bureaucrats deciding how much of it you should get to pass on to your children when your time’s up. (And I’ll point out that this is purely disinterested policy, as my own children have very little to worry about on this particular score.)
OK, he said, but $100 million is an absurd sum. Take $90 million away, and leave her with $10 million – that should be enough for anyone.
Alright, said I – $90 million dollars for the rest of us! There are 300 million of us in the country: Having looted Ms. Hilton’s trust fund, what are you going to do with your 33 cents?
Let the record show that we rode home in separate cars.
You?
You’ll still have sea stories.
Well dear Captain, very little of them… oh how I long for the days of your youth…
LOL
I got a few good chuckles out of this post but the sea stories line was my favourite.
Its why I love ya, Cap’n.
Intellects and values firmly anchored in thin air, I’d say. Can’t engage them in a debate as they are incapable of critical thought, reject logic, and rely on fuzzy thinking. The ad hominum attack on Will is characteristic of the lot. Can’t engage on the same playing field of ideas. So they call him an idiot.
These self-rightious members of the bohemian prolitariat just can’t get by without trying to take Other People’s Money (OPM) because it doesn’t meet their personal standards of fairness. Bullshit. I come from a blue collar background on both sides. Large families that lived thru the Depression with barely a pot to piss in. Thirteen aunts and uncles who made comfortable middle to upper middle class lives for themselves and their families without OPM or entitlements.
Regarding wealth, if you or your family earn it, it is yours. Piss on the social(ist)pro(re)gressives and their ilk for their envy and conceit.
I’ve never quite looked foward to an election as I do ’08. Usually candidates have to tightwire down the middle of the political hot button issues, while gently holding the leash of their base. This time, against these candidates, HILLARY/obama, there is a great opportunity to restate and win with a conservative message. Unfortunately, the messengers are flawed. As are we all. Well, that’s what makes life interesting.
Hardin Smith; yup, stupid and annoying. Start up the chipper. Vote for Mike for World Dictator!
Just kidding! (and thinking evil fantastic thoughts)
What Miss Smith tries to describe is *not* conservatism, as we understand it in the USA. I don’t think what she wrote even describes the most hopeful fantasies of even the craziest Randroids.
She’s making stuff up.
What GEO6 said.
The idle rich are their own punishment. Anyone who has had to spend enforced time in their company soon wearies of it. All the money in the world won’t make them any happier.
Nor would the very same gold, if dispersed by the ‘bohemian proletariat’ make them any less petty, less vicious, orless of a threat to individual liberty.
Perhaps you might, if reengaged with your interlocutor on the same subject again, ask him how he might like to be on the receiving end of that 90% cut.
Seeing as he’s so rich compared to the rest of the world and all.
Some places, 33 cents buys dinner. Something tells me, though, that the initiative to redistribute the wealth of others will have rather less urgency when applied to his own self. Which, if I understand it correctly, is something conservatives seem to take as a given.
Your theory of found wealth looks a lot like an economic concept I learned in school: the oil curse. It’s a closely related concept to a similar issue, Dutch disease. The former explains some of the problem of found wealth; the latter, what happens when a country escapes becoming Nigeria or Saudi Arabia, and instead falls apart because all the resources get diverted to the one revenue stream.
Oh, and slightly related to your original point: John Miller at NRO’s The Corner points to Russell Kirk’s principles of conservatism, which I’m reading in between blog posts to get smarter about this conservatism thing. (See, Andrew Sullivan says he is one…) I doubt Kirk’s ten principles will prove to be progressive in nature, but of course it will prove it’s all the president’s fault.
[...] on his perception of how conservatism’s defined –Skippy, on the string of retired generals advocating [...]
Oh, yeah, found wealth. Or maybe easily conquered wealth like the Spanish got in the Americas.
I think the efffects were similar.
At least the Indians here put up more of a fight and made us, like, work for it a bit.
Chap,
My experience has been locally acquired. Seems the most virulent income redistributors (i.e. Lex’s interlocutor) are the trust fund babies for whom most of their wealth is tax sheltered and tax increases don’t bother them much so your proposal for those folks to take a 90% hit is an abstract idea. Wouldn’t strike the emotional-intellectual link required to sink in. Been there. The town I live in has approximately 40% of the residents (of a total about 2500 people) that do not have to work and their politics are well left of center. Engaging them in a political/economic discussion always leave me with a headache that moves south. Their god is government and no tax and social program is too good for your money.
And oh, CPTJ, they aren’t idle- they have taken over the politics from the town to the state level while the rest of us work for a living.
Oh, Lex, you didn’t happen to be channelling Andy Carnegie when you made that remark, did you?
There’s a famous story about some pernicious leveller bearding the old guy in his office, and demanding that Carnegie split up his money among everybody. Carnegie called in his math-wiz secretary, and asked how much money he had. Then he asked the secretary how many people existed.
Then he told him to divide the former number by the latter one. I don’t recall the size of the quotient, but it was definitely a very small part of a dollar.
Carnegie fished in his pocket change, found that amount of money, and handed it to the busybody.
He then said something like, “Ok, here is your share of my money. Now go away and leave me alone.
GEO6, I do take your point. The idle rich I was referring to have too many lifestyle distractions of their own to really meddle with the lives of other people. Dissipation is their full time job.
It is the truly the trust fund nitwits who have infested politics [at least where I live] with the Protestant work ethic from Hell. No cause is too absurd, no imagined outrage is too obscure to escape their compulsive attention.
They are the self-salaried mentally ill, non-profit Vandals without market forces to act as a check on their madness.
Just Robespierre-wannabees, waiting for their chance.
Concur, CPT J. If only they would amuse themselves by endowing spaceship constructors, or starting up firms making useful gizmos… Sigh.
Drones and bimbos, too many of them, they are.
When Burt Rutan was building his round-the-world airplane, he had absolutely no luck getting money from those people. All of his funds came from the moderately well-to-do.
.
JTG, “At least the Indians here put up more of a fight and made us, like, work for it a bit.” For shame! You are sentenced to a trip to the library to rent The Conquistadores. Cortez earned every nickle, of course the Crown did everything in their power to screw him out of his due, same thing happened to Columbus. There are always a pack of jackals in robes trying to steal the bread another man has toiled for. That’s why everyone hates lawyers.
JTG- The Conquistadors did the world a favor by destroying the bloody Aztec Culture- basically a bunch of devil worshippers who preyed on the other tribes and used them for human sacrifices.
As a conservative meself, I ain’t as optimistic as some here re Conservatism as a movement right now. No Costco, I AIN’T looking forward to the ’08 election. Seems like a lot o’conservatives I know are moving into that la-la land called Libertarianism..On the other hand, rarely do I see ‘em marching left.
P. Noonan puts all that anxiety I have in perspective a helluva lot better’n me:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010148
b2
badbob,
I found Peggy’s article to be rather enlightening as well. I commented on that at my own site.
Lex,
Oh, brave soul.
You may need to go scrub your eyes with a wire brush to rid yourself of all those toxins you partook of. I feel violated just reading the quotes.
Off to scrub my own eyeballs.
Alas, I’m afraid that you’ve entered that LaLaLand where you shall forever be referred to as BadBoob.
Costco, BadBoob…
Oh, the humanity.
Good one Cap’n
Or B2O2 for short. lmao
Do you prefer CaCa? I heard you tell the other guy to call ya CostCo..
Any handle with boob in it must be good!..I’ve been called helluva worse by Jars with blinders when my back was turned. I’m friggin bulletproof Junior. LOL.
I said some Conservatives I know are moving into Libertariansim is all, not me. Don’t like my message? E.S.A.D.
Lex- WTF is this “humanity” stuff? You know I’m beyond dat. I ain’t getting it. BTW- glad to see ya read the Noonan thang.
b2
Umm, Casca and GEO? I think Cortez and his boys couldn’t have done it without lots of help from the Aztecs’ neighbors, who were right tired of getting their hearts ripped out of their living bodies and being skinned for religious vestments.
I agree, It’s lots more complicated than I wrote above, but, hey, what I wrote above is a comment on somebody else’s blog!
The general, or agricultural-peon, population of Mexico back then was happy to exchange a crazy-mean set of masters for a more easygoing set. In North America, more of the natives were rowdy decentralized hunter-gatherer types.
I think this is why so many people are happy to have little brown brother from south of the border mow their lawns, etc.
I think there’s a perception that those guys are biddable and docile, and not troublemakers like those Irishmen who came over in the 1850s.
The perception may well be wrong, who knows
Oh, yeah; as far as I’m concerned, that Strauss guy was pure evil, and subversive of Western Civilization, and he was the Original Tranzi of the Frankfurt School.
I’ve been offline doing some dreaded maintenance of the system. I have been reading this post and the comments. As I read, I saw many admirable points, but they were partial and not complete. Lets try to boil down the debate to a single question. Here we go- When there is a conflict between “priniciples of conservatism” and the “Constitution of the United States of America”, which one rules? By the way, there are conflicts. I have read of the families and their history, it was admirable.
But now it is time for the “cranial-rectal extraction”. I want you to wash your face and then take a deep breath of fresh air, smell the coffee, in fact get yourself a cup. Watch out, I don’t want you to get an “oxygen high”. Now, as far as family history, maternal and paternal, we have been here, since before the Revolutionary War. We’ve been in just about every war, in either critical civilian role or military, including GWoT. Now, above all things, our family is constantly reminded from within, of our debt to this Great Nation.
Without this Great Nation, what do we have? Nothing, without that platform, all of the “rags to riches stories” are GONE. What’s even more important, they would have never even have happened. What are actions and values saying?
Thank you,
Grumpy
During this day, I have gone over my “Jun 3rd, 2007 at 7:50am” comment. I decided to go back to the comment and reexamine it very carefully. I came to the conclusion, there was an appearance that I was anti-conservative. This is not the case, I am an independent. As a citizen of this Great Nation, I believe we should TEND to stay near the center. I am not talking about walking an exact center line. I am talking more about flexibility. There is a wide area of grey between the black and white of extremes. This is my suggestion.
From One Grumpy Old Vet.