A riff on "redefining conservatism"
[A "riff" is a loose, free-form essay but it's not a "rant" which is also free-form but it's angry.]
I was listening to Rush in the car on the way into the office this morning. He was talking about how certain people (specifically McCain and Huckabee) are trying to "redefine conservatism." If you think of Rush as one of those who have defined modern conservatism over the past 20 odd years, then yes, he is entitled to accuse Mack and Huck of redefining it. But he is not the only definer of conservatism.
The definers of "conservatism" have written hundreds of books about it. My favorite is Barry Goldwater's 1960 The Conscience of a Conservative but I doubt many self-proclaimed conservatives nowadays would regard Goldwater a conservative. I have a hunch that some of those who voted for Huckabee would not even regard Reagan as a conservative if they simply considered his record without knowing who it referred to.
Fred Thompson made it very clear from the start of his campaign that he was a Goldwater conservative. He told how he had read The Conscience of a Conservative in college and how valuable that had been for him. Maybe that's why modern conservatives rejected Thompson in favor of Huckabee. The unintellectual populist Huckabites probably don't even know who Goldwater was and those who do know also know that Goldwater was a vocal opponent of the religious right on issues such as abortion and gay rights.
When I Googled The Conscience of a Conservative to confirm what year it was published, I found that Goldwater had given a speech at the 1960 GOP convention when party conservatives rebelled against Nixon, accusing him of being a liberal on too many issues. Goldwater told the GOP: “Let’s grow up, conservatives! If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work.” Of course he had to wait for 20 years before Reagan won.
I think he'd say the same thing today but, sadly, the small government/federalist "conservatism" that Goldwater was talking about is now out of fashion. Conservatism nowadays seems to be more about trying to turn back the clock to an imaginary Reagan Utopia.
I agree that McCain is not a conservative as defined by Rush Limbaugh. But McCain is no Goldwater either. He's an older kind of Republican - in the style of Eisenhower and Nixon. Neither is Huckabee a Goldwater conservative and yet more modern conservatives voted for Huckabee than for Thompson, the only Goldwaterite in the race. So were conservatives in the early primaries not listening to Rush when he said Huck was not a true conservative? Maybe.
Supposedly there are about 25 million Republicans and I've heard people say that half of them are conservatives because 12 to 13 million tune into Rush every day but maybe not all of them are Dittoheads. I listen occassionally but I'm not a big Rush fan. I also know liberals who listen to him in order to get their adrenaline rush. So maybe not all Republicans are true-blue Limbaughite conservatives.
I've known quite a lot of different kinds of Republicans - liberal, moderate, conservative and reactionary. I have no idea what the proportions are. All I know is that there are a lot of people who are Republicans because of what they do not want more than what they do want. They do not like the unpatriotic "blame America" Democratic Party or its racial identity politics or its class-warfare rhetoric or its sabotage of self-reliance and personal responsibility through wealth distribution and entitlements.
The thing that all Republicans have in common is a desire to conserve/preserve the traditional American way of life and resist the progressives' headlong rush into European-style statism/socialism. We can never turn the clock back. All we can do is slow it down slightly. So we are agreed on what we don't want but we're not in complete agreement about what we do want.
Some of us would like to see a nation united under Christian principles. Others prefer a secular society - not a free-for-all anarchy but a classical liberal republic as envisaged by the Founders. Some want to be isolationist and not get entangled in unholy alliances. Others believe in realpolitik. Some want to see government limited and curtailed as much as possible. Others, like the neocons, believe that we need a large, strong central government in keeping with our "national greatness." Some want to legislate morality. Others want to be left alone.
I can live with all these different factions within the GOP as long as we all agree on what we don't want: higher taxes, socialism, Big Brother, a politically correct but racially divided "multiculti" society, moral and cultural relativism and weakness in the face of threats from the barbarians at the gate.
I was listening to Rush in the car on the way into the office this morning. He was talking about how certain people (specifically McCain and Huckabee) are trying to "redefine conservatism." If you think of Rush as one of those who have defined modern conservatism over the past 20 odd years, then yes, he is entitled to accuse Mack and Huck of redefining it. But he is not the only definer of conservatism.
The definers of "conservatism" have written hundreds of books about it. My favorite is Barry Goldwater's 1960 The Conscience of a Conservative but I doubt many self-proclaimed conservatives nowadays would regard Goldwater a conservative. I have a hunch that some of those who voted for Huckabee would not even regard Reagan as a conservative if they simply considered his record without knowing who it referred to.
Fred Thompson made it very clear from the start of his campaign that he was a Goldwater conservative. He told how he had read The Conscience of a Conservative in college and how valuable that had been for him. Maybe that's why modern conservatives rejected Thompson in favor of Huckabee. The unintellectual populist Huckabites probably don't even know who Goldwater was and those who do know also know that Goldwater was a vocal opponent of the religious right on issues such as abortion and gay rights.
When I Googled The Conscience of a Conservative to confirm what year it was published, I found that Goldwater had given a speech at the 1960 GOP convention when party conservatives rebelled against Nixon, accusing him of being a liberal on too many issues. Goldwater told the GOP: “Let’s grow up, conservatives! If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work.” Of course he had to wait for 20 years before Reagan won.
I think he'd say the same thing today but, sadly, the small government/federalist "conservatism" that Goldwater was talking about is now out of fashion. Conservatism nowadays seems to be more about trying to turn back the clock to an imaginary Reagan Utopia.
I agree that McCain is not a conservative as defined by Rush Limbaugh. But McCain is no Goldwater either. He's an older kind of Republican - in the style of Eisenhower and Nixon. Neither is Huckabee a Goldwater conservative and yet more modern conservatives voted for Huckabee than for Thompson, the only Goldwaterite in the race. So were conservatives in the early primaries not listening to Rush when he said Huck was not a true conservative? Maybe.
Supposedly there are about 25 million Republicans and I've heard people say that half of them are conservatives because 12 to 13 million tune into Rush every day but maybe not all of them are Dittoheads. I listen occassionally but I'm not a big Rush fan. I also know liberals who listen to him in order to get their adrenaline rush. So maybe not all Republicans are true-blue Limbaughite conservatives.
I've known quite a lot of different kinds of Republicans - liberal, moderate, conservative and reactionary. I have no idea what the proportions are. All I know is that there are a lot of people who are Republicans because of what they do not want more than what they do want. They do not like the unpatriotic "blame America" Democratic Party or its racial identity politics or its class-warfare rhetoric or its sabotage of self-reliance and personal responsibility through wealth distribution and entitlements.
The thing that all Republicans have in common is a desire to conserve/preserve the traditional American way of life and resist the progressives' headlong rush into European-style statism/socialism. We can never turn the clock back. All we can do is slow it down slightly. So we are agreed on what we don't want but we're not in complete agreement about what we do want.
Some of us would like to see a nation united under Christian principles. Others prefer a secular society - not a free-for-all anarchy but a classical liberal republic as envisaged by the Founders. Some want to be isolationist and not get entangled in unholy alliances. Others believe in realpolitik. Some want to see government limited and curtailed as much as possible. Others, like the neocons, believe that we need a large, strong central government in keeping with our "national greatness." Some want to legislate morality. Others want to be left alone.
I can live with all these different factions within the GOP as long as we all agree on what we don't want: higher taxes, socialism, Big Brother, a politically correct but racially divided "multiculti" society, moral and cultural relativism and weakness in the face of threats from the barbarians at the gate.
posted by Joubert at 2:35 PM
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