DAMON LINKER SEPTEMBER 24, 2009
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One of the best lines in Sam Tanenhaus’s wonderful little book on The Death of Conservatism comes in its opening chapter. Surveying intellectual life on the right in the opening months of the Obama administration, Tanenhaus concludes that too many conservative intellectuals “recognize no distinction between analysis and advocacy, or between the competition of ideas and the naked struggle for power.” Quite so, as one can see from the response (or non-response) of the right to Tanenhaus’s own book.
Tanenhaus is a tough critic of the conservative movement, but he is also a deeply informed one. He knows its history and shows considerable sympathy for some of its ideas. To be sure, his vision of conservatism—like Andrew Sullivan’s—is by contemporary American standards quite heterodox. Tanenhaus believes, for example, that the best and most truly conservative presidents of the modern era are Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton. That hardly places Tanenhaus in the mainstream of conservative thought today.
And yet Tanenhaus makes his counter-intuitive case with elegance and rigor, drawing on the ideas and policies of dozens of writers and public figures—including Edmund Burke, James Burnham, Whittaker Chamber, William F. Buckley, and Michael Oakeshott—whose conservative credentials are unimpeachable. An intellectually serious conservatism would jump at the chance to engage with an author who uses its leading lights to argue that the movement has gone seriously astray. But that’s not what contemporary conservatives are doing. When they aren’t ignoring Tanenhaus’s book, they’re doing what they do best: policing orthodoxy.
Take Peter Wehner’s representative remarks about the book, published on Contentions, Commentary’s group blog. A former assistant to Karl Rove in the Bush White House, Wehner is a master of deploying the rhetorical trick that contemporary conservatives use to convince themselves that they’re always right. At bottom, it amounts to a high-minded version of the old Pee-Wee Herman taunt, “I know you are, but what am I?” There are countless examples. A handful of liberals stupidly describe conservatives as fascists, so Jonah Goldberg responds by writing several hundred pages about the threat of liberal fascism. (Get it?) Liberal Jews frequently congratulate themselves for their secularism, so Norman Podhoretz produces a book in which he claims that Jews treat liberalism as a religion. (Clever!) And Sam Tanenhaus defends a moderate version of conservatism against the ideological thinking that dominates the right and Wehner responds by saying that “Tanenhaus is precisely what he condemns in his book—an ideologue, a man of dogmatic fixity, a person of knee-jerk liberal reflexes.” Oh, what a wily man you are, Peter Wehner, turning the tables on him like that and relieving yourself of the burden of self-examination. That was a close one! (Liberals, meanwhile, will be quite understandably perplexed by Wehner’s suggestion that a man who generously praises Nixon’s pre-Watergate domestic and foreign policy, as Tanenhaus does, is actually a liberal “through and through.”)
None of which is meant to suggest that Tanenhaus’s book is without problems. Far from it. But it’s very much worth reading and pondering, and for precisely the reason that the ideological right wants to dismiss it. By taking conservatism seriously while also passing severe judgment on its contemporary manifestation, the book helps us to raise our sights from the ideological battles of the present moment to achieve the critical distance that makes dispassionate understanding possible. Terrified that self-criticism will weaken its will to combat an ever-lengthening list of enemies, the right now views critical distance as a danger to be avoided at all costs. The rest of us, thankfully, need accept no such practical restrictions on our thinking.
Now to some of those problems. To begin with, Tanenhaus’s aversion to ideology is so complete that he comes close to rejecting the very distinction between left and right. In its place, he substitutes a measure of intensity: there are ideologues of various stripes, including movement conservatives, who embrace and promulgate orthodoxies (bad); and then there are liberal and conservative pragmatists who respond to the challenges of the moment by building consensus for measured reform (good). Tanenhaus favors moderation, in other words, and has little interest in, and is even a little suspicious of, principled arguments about the proper scope of government, which is the major ideological fault-line in our politics. When conservatives seek to temper the excesses of ideological liberalism and pursue modest public projects of their own, Tanenhaus admires them. But when they set out on right-wing ideological crusades, as they did under Bush II, he criticizes them harshly.
This is a defensible position—indeed, it is close to my own. (I prefer to call it liberalism, but perhaps this is a distinction without a difference, since such a moderate version of liberalism might be indistinguishable from an equally moderate version of conservatism.) And yet the two-fold task Tanenhaus has set for himself—not only telling the story of the death of (ideological) conservatism, but also making a case for another (temperamental) form of conservatism that actually existing conservatism has only rarely exemplified—sometimes produces a terminological and conceptual muddle. In Tanenhaus’s universe—unlike the one inhabited by the rest of us—Eisenhower, the pre-Watergate Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and Barack Obama are genuine conservatives. Meanwhile, the policies of the ideologue George W. Bush were somehow both the apotheosis of conservatism and its negation. The reader is left wondering whether it really makes sense to insist on using a single term to describe such a wide range of outlooks.
Still, we get the point. More problematic is Tanenhaus’s effort to defend the claim advanced by his title. Is (ideological) conservatism really dead? I submit that it’s supremely unconservative (in Tanenhaus’s temperamental sense) to presume that it is. Barack Obama won a significant victory in 2008. If he and his party succeed in enacting something like his proposed agenda and he wins re-election in 2012, then we might have good reason to suppose that the country has moved beyond the conservative disposition that so thoroughly dominated its politics from 1980 through 2008.
But the sobering fact is that it’s still possible that Obama and the Democratic Party will fail in their efforts to consolidate the realignment that began last November. If they do fail—if the country turns decisively against the president and his party in 2012—it will be in part because of the resilience of conservative ideology. Far from being dead, ideological conservatism will have proven its enduring capacity to express, provoke, and mobilize populist anger and resentments. That has been ideological conservatism’s great strength—and its path to political power—for over forty years now.
Liberals and temperamental conservatives like Sam Tanenhaus can and should be working to prevent the pattern from repeating itself. But before they can do that, they must resist the temptation to engage in wishful thinking. Ideological conservatism remains very much alive on cable news and talk radio, and among significant numbers of citizens in the South, Midwest, and Intermountain West. As long as that remains the case, it will be poised for political resurrection at a moment’s notice.
33 comments
Oh yeah, conservatism is dead all right. Didn't you see Rush Limbaugh on Jay Leno last night? Leno crushed him!! And, yes, even though it was Limbaugh who actually crushed the whiffle balls Leno lobbed him out of the park over and again it couldn't have happened that way because, well, conservatism is dead!! [Iambiguous scratches his head, not so sure now...] Of course, just a couple of days ago Judis was predicting the DINOs in Obama administration were on the brink of collapse. Hmm... What if it is NOT dead? You know, like Ted Kennedy surely is. Bill Clinton, a conservative leader? Yes, along with me, Tennenhaus is a true genius for nailing that one! But what does that make Barack Obama then? He's far more conservative than Clinton, of course. But not quite approaching The Weekly Standard. Not Yet. Linker: A handful of liberals stupidly describe conservatives as fascists... george: Yeah, what dolts. But then not nearly as doltish as those liberals who naively assume an army of dittoheads can't be rounded up if it ever becomes necessary to go down that route. The death of that census taker is certainly far, far removed from BeckWorld and the entertainment empire of Rush Limbaugh. Isn't it? It simply can't happen here! After all, what would happen to all the intellectuals?!! Linker: Tanenhaus favors moderation, in other words, and has little interest in, and is even a little suspicious of, principled arguments about the proper scope of government, which is the major ideological fault-line in our politics. george: For those who do not concur that pragmatism is the way to go, chose a contentious moral or political issue and note some "principled" liberal and conservative arguments. Note how these principles can approach the issue and devise legislation that is not heavily invested in moderation, negociation and compromise. How about "the proper scope of government" and Wall Street? Or abortion? Linker: In Tanenhaus’s universe—unlike the one inhabited by the rest of us—Eisenhower, the pre-Watergate Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and Barack Obama are genuine conservatives. george: Here is what that means: All of the presidents above were adamently committed to preserving the power of Wall Street at home and abroad. And yes they still are. But how much difference does it make to the folks on Main Street that they are not "ideological" in this commitment? What makes Obama stand out, of course, is how flagrant his lies were out on the campaign trail. Gary Wills in the 10/8/09 edition of the New York Review of Books: At his confirmation hearing to be head of the CIA, Leon Panetta said that "extraordinary rendition"—the practice of sending prisoners to foreign countries—was a tool he meant to retain. Obama's nominee for solicitor general, Elena Kagan, told Congress that she agreed with John Yoo's claim that a terrorist captured anywhere should be subject to "battlefield law." On the first opportunity to abort trial proceedings by invoking "state secrets"—the policy based on the faulty Reynolds case—Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, did so. Obama refused to release photographs of "enhanced interrogation." The CIA had earlier (illegally) destroyed ninety-two videotapes of such interrogations—and Obama refused to release documents describing the tapes. The President said that past official crimes would not be investigated—certainly not for prosecution, and not even by an impartial "truth commission" just trying to establish a record. He said, on the contrary, that detainees might be tried in "military tribunals." [snip] Perhaps it should come as no surprise that turning around the huge secret empire built by the National Security State is a hard, perhaps impossible, task. After most of the wars in US history there was a return to the constitutional condition of the pre-war world. But after those wars there was no lasting institutional security apparatus of the sort that was laboriously assembled in the 1940s and 1950s. After World War I, for instance, there was no CIA, no NSA, no mountain of secret documents to be guarded from unauthorized readers, no atomic bomb to guard, develop, deploy, and maintain in readiness on land, in the air, and on (or in) the sea. Now a new president quickly becomes aware of the vast empire that is largely invisible to the citizenry. The United States maintains an estimated one thousand military bases in other countries. I say "estimated" because the exact number, location, and size of the bases are either partly or entirely cloaked in secrecy, among other things to protect nuclear installations. george: Oh, Obama is quite the conservative alright. But no more or no less than he has to be to insure the enormous gap between what intellectuals in publications like this one describe American foreign and economic policy as and what it really is instead doesn't change substantively Great job, fellas. george walton
- iambiguous
September 25, 2009 at 3:38am
Conservatism going back to Burke and Wilberforce has a core ideology which Clinton and Sullivan do not hold. 1. The limits of human reason. There is more knowledge in the combination of institutions, social norms, and common law than in pointed headed intellectuals. See also: the law of unintended consequences. In fairness, may liberals are starting to embrace this point. 2. The sanctity of life. This is a sneer to the left, but it has been an essential part of the conservative movement and it is why conservatives like Wilberforce (and the Republicans in the US) ended slavery. It is also why they are opposed to abortion today. 3. Personal responsibility. Conservatives have never believed that poverty is primarily caused by structural factors. Many times you can get liberals to at least pay lip-service to this point. And Clinton did sign Welfare Reform into law (after vetoing it two or three times, and after advisers told him it may cost him reelection, and after two members of his own cabinet resigned). But when push comes to shove liberals retreat to the "structural causes" argument. 4. The Sinful Nature of Man. Conservatives do not trust government not because of Milton Friedman's arguments in favor of markets, but because self-interest is an essential part of human nature and power corrupts. Edmund Burke made this point forcefully and his prediction about the future course of the French Revolution was prescient. I think this lesson was salient up through World War II but in fairness, I do not see it being much of an issue in the 21st century (although I wouldn't dismiss it either). Is Rush the most sophisticated defender of these points? No. I also think that the right has been partially captured by libertarians who have their own utopian visions of human nature. But on balance I think conservative ideologues are the largest identifiable group in America championing these positions.
- jibaholic
September 25, 2009 at 9:45am
So, where does the death penalty fit in to this "sanctity of life thing" jib? Liberals don't sneer at Burkean principles, they sneer at the five alarm hypocrisy and situational ethics of the Republican Party.
- WandreyCer
September 25, 2009 at 11:20am
Here is David Oderberg's definition of the sanctity of life: it is a grave moral wrong to intentionally take the life of an innocent human being. (Moral Theory p.147) Here is the bible's: Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. (Genesis 9:6).
- jibaholic
September 25, 2009 at 12:10pm
I think it's ridiculous to lump Buckley and Burke in the same camp. Burke defended the American revolutionaries, sought to protect the Catholics and impeached Warren Hastings for crimes committed in India (the impeachment speech could be re-written by Noam Chomsky about the US in Iraq and he would hardly need to change a word). The calumny against Burke - his being called the father of Conservatism, and the constant association of him and consevative movements - arises principally out of his trenchant critiques of Rousseau and the French Revolution, his defence of the established order versus the chaos of "abstract innovation" and his lament of the death of manly virtue when Marie Antoinnette was arrested and not a single man rose to defend her. Well, now that we are beyond the 60s and the stranglehold of Marxism on the Left has been relaxed, is it not time to let go of this childishness and to look at the real Burke - and thereby, understand that "conservatism" may not save face by linking itself to someone like Burke, and that in the way it has been advocated since Goldwater, it is, if not dead, then deadly, both intellectually and morally.
- icarusr
September 25, 2009 at 12:10pm
Damon Linker "The Death (and Life) of Conservatism" "I prefer to call it liberalism, but perhaps this is a distinction without a difference, since such a moderate version of liberalism might be indistinguishable from an equally moderate version of conservatism." I am looking forward to hearing a talk by Mr. Tanenhaus at the Cooper Union's Great Hall on September 30th. Perhaps I'll be motivated to read his book after I hear his talk. The fashion today on the conservative side is to accuse every Liberal, Progressive and Democratic President and one Republican President (Teddy Roosevelt) of fascism: identifying them as economic corporatists; plagiarizers of the ideas of Mussolini and Hitler, and euthenizers of the elderly and of those for whom "life is not worth living." Jonah Goldberg's work, "Liberal Fascism" goes to great lengths to make these connections. Last I checked, Mr. Goldberg's position was contributing editor of the flagship conservative journal, "National Review." Mr. Linker states, "I prefer to call it liberalism, but perhaps this is a distinction without a difference, since such a moderate version of liberalism might be indistinguishable from an equally moderate version of conservatism." This sentence resurrects Gov. George C. Wallace's famous campaign slogan: "There is not a dime's worth of difference....." It was Richard Nixon that enjoyed using phrase "a distinction without a difference.." I certainly hope Mr. Tanenhaus does a better job presenting his views than Mr. Linker does reviewing his book. Can the book review staff please come back down to earth?
- LawrenceGulotta
September 25, 2009 at 12:26pm
"we are beyond the 60s and the stranglehold of Marxism on the Left has been relaxed" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's grant that it is true. The fact remains that the wacky left remains both far more wacky and utopian than the wacky right. Where are the earnest calls for the left to disown Michael Moore, Maureen Dowd, and Keith Olbermann? The "death of conservatism" stuff is pure situational hypocrisy.
- jibaholic
September 25, 2009 at 12:34pm
Very handy jib - so jury's aren't fallible? Since when? That biblical quote seems quite clear to me that only God decides who is that guilty, not men. The situational ethics of the Republican Party are everywhere and why they have so little credibility. I still laugh thinking of Tom Delay ushering his majority party through the process of creating the most expensive new entitlement in generations in an attempt to buy a new voting block - and baldfaced lying about the cost. How about the 200 billion farm bill, gravy to corporate pig famers - seeing as how they were struggling so? That was Bush's first act, three months in to office. The fact is that this whole "mistrust of big government" hooey is just that - hooey. They are just words used in either a utilitarian or utopian manner, whichever suits the immediate needs of Republicans trying to acquire or maintain power. I was a neocon since back when they called us liberals, so the whole notion of mistrust of government being at the base of conservative thought is even more ridiculous to me. When the Republicans had all the levers of power, the government exploded in power and size in an unprecedented manner. Uncle Sam can now pick up any citizen off the street he likes and jail them indefinately. Mistrust? Where was the one example of mistrust of government during eight years of full Republican power? Let's be honest, the reality is "mistrust unless I'm in charge." Bush had little, if any, resistence to any of his inititives during his entire reign - from either the party or its voters - who overwhelmingly re-elected the man. How'd that mistrust work out for you in economic theory? Still hanging in there that no regulation is the best? That the glories of the marketplace are perfect? The "wacky left"- whoever they are - is a straw man. They have no voice, no power, no one on Capitol Hill who is remotely interested in what they have to say. The truthers couldn't even get a hearing on DailyKos, let alone the Senate. Republican Senators question Obama's birth certificate, demonize the census and census workers - Rick Perry (a Govenor) threatens to leave the union regularly.
- WandreyCer
September 25, 2009 at 1:04pm
Concerning the difference between moderate liberalism and moderate conservatism, Clinton called himself a "new Democrat". It occurred to me that this was hardly different from being an "old Republican", of say the Rockefeller mold. Let's be honest and admit that both parties have been taken over recently by their extremes. Rockefeller was too liberal for the Republicans and Clinton was to conservative for the Democrats. Moderates, having no authentic voice in either party, have been forced to vote for the lesser of the rwo evils. This was not always the case. It started in the 60's by the left and it was brought to a crescendo by the right, leading to the Bush disaster, followed by the present Obama disaster. Liberals are blaming the far right for the current unease and are fanning the flame by saying it is motivated by racism. But, in my opinion the real problem is that moderates, having pinned their hopes on a new face leading them in a new direction, feel betrayed by having helped to bring an even more radical ideology into power.
- r.ennis
September 25, 2009 at 1:17pm
Also - I'm not sure Burkeans use biblical quotes to literally form policy, but I do know that Americans do not by design.
- WandreyCer
September 25, 2009 at 1:17pm
"The fact remains that the wacky left remains both far more wacky and utopian than the wacky right." --- On which planet? Where I live the ordinary run-of-the-mill right winger is less informed, more given to passing off pat but empty catchphrases as analysis, and more inclined to dump civility and demonize those they disagree with, than is the loopiest leftist I know. As for utopianism - yeah, the left is a bit more into this. But that's because the right is distopian at it's wacky core. The right wing-nuts on the planet I inhabit are still reading the Turner Diaries, and arming themselves in isolated compounds for Armageddon.
- sdemuth
September 25, 2009 at 1:18pm
jib: 1 is too vague and contingent on particular circumstances to be a general principle. Sometimes groups of people are ignorant or stupid. Sometimes experts know what they're talking about. Anyone can have excessive confidence, whether that person is an overreaching smarty-pants or an overreaching moron. The real argument is not against intellect or reason -- which is absurd -- but against overreach. To the extent intellectuals go too far, it's not because they're *too* intellectual but because they haven't been intellectual enough. Excessive confidence in one's theory is a failure of intellect, not a symptom of it. Anyway, your 1 does not play out in the real world as a call to humility or sage caution about unintended consequences. Rather, it manifests itself as naked, ugly, willfully ignorant, and anything-but-humble anti-intellectualism. Conservative outlets such as Fox News and Limbaugh's show do not counsel against overreach. No, they encourage it. At best, they urge replacing the excessively confident smarty-pants with the excessively confident moron. The smarty-pants might be too smart for his own good, but at least he knows what he's talking about. The celebration of ignorance, disdain for thoughtfulness, and indifference toward the simple fact of the matter are, it seems to me, more likely to result in major blunders. The great irony is that if you are looking around in American politics for overreaching intellectuals -- smarty pants intoxicated by grand, all-encompassing ideas -- the place to look isn't among liberals but among conservatives. Laissez-faire economic policy and radically "originalist" jurisprudence are two examples. Libertarian moral attitudes toward taxes, government involvement in the economy, and so forth -- these are odd, eccentric ideas. Ayn Rand is a model of intellectual overreach. Your 3 has a nice weasel word -- "primarily." This is a factual claim that may or may not be true form time to time; it's not a question of "belief." In any case, it depends on the person. We all know that there are lazy people who are unwilling to work. We all know that some welfare systems can create perverse incentives. But we also know that there are many people, especially today, who play by the rules but who nonetheless face serious, legitimate hardship not of their own making. We know that there is such a thing as the "working poor" in this country. Simply refusing to believe that that category exists is morally obtuse. Deciding, based on a questionable "belief," that a large portion of your citizenry is justifiably written off by the rest is morally repugnant, and anything but Christian. Insisting that there must be a great many losers in the economic game, and that they deserve to lose, while the winners deserve every dime of their millions, is just being a douchebag. Once again, today's conservatives have far outrun your sensible framing of the position -- a suspicion of welfare as we knew it, an urge to emphasize personal responsibility. They've gone well into the realm of blatant and perversely self-satisfied selfishness and callous disregard of others. I don't know quite what to make of 4. One would think that it would lead to equal -- perhaps greater -- mistrust of large corporations. In any event, I fail to see how this notion sheds light on any contemporary policy debate.
- jhildner1
September 25, 2009 at 1:25pm
it is good to see some of the old posters back. long time no see jib. Nice summation of Conservative principles, though I don't agree with some of them. 1. there might be limits to reason, but what is the alternative? Pretty much every institution, law, and social norm is radically different than in the Middle ages, and this is due to the age of Reason. 2. The sanctity of life. Wandrey has a point. Jesus himself said that which you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me. He was obviously for prisons since he explicitly states the importance of visiting prisoners in jail. I don't see the value in visiting their gravesite. I would have more respect for Conservatism if they did truly believe in the sanctity of life. The Pope has come down pretty strongly against it, short of issuing an edict. 3. Personal responsibility. Is a bit of a straw man, since Liberals have always believed in it as well. Liberals have erred on tempering justice with mercy, but they never advocated doing away with justice. As to poverty, Jesus said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Being poor is not irresponsible so I don't know what your point is there, unless you believe Jesus was wrong. 4. The Sinful Nature of Man. It is funny, but I hear Liberals far more use the term evil than I do Republicans. Anything that has humanity involved can be tainted by human evil. Walmart is one of the most evil corporations in the US, exploiting Chinese workers, American workers, etc. all to save money and gain market share. I don't think Walmart should be abolished, just reformed so they no longer employ slave labor and pay their workers human wages. Sure power corrupts, but that is what Democracy and a free press is for. Businessmen are far more likely to be corrupted, which is where government has its place. I am also not sure how providing free public education, or health care for the elderly and children is all that corrupting.
- blackton
September 25, 2009 at 1:39pm
No engagement? I listened to Hugh Hewitt talk with Tanenhaus for two hours, respectfully though the areas of agreement were limited. One nugget: Tanenhaus says he's never voted for a Republican in nine presidential elections.
- rhough
September 25, 2009 at 2:48pm
Hiya Blackton, thanks for the welcome back. The comment system was truly horrific for a while so I gave up on TNR. But I still think it has some of the internet's smartest progressives. 1. If you can handle the ponderous writing I would recommend 'Rationality in Economics' by Vernon Smith. He has an extensive discussion of this principle with a great emphasis on how modern economics supports Hume and Hayek. The recommendations basically boil down to (1) humility, (2) use a series of incremental changes whenever possible, (3) copy the successful approaches of others, (4) test in laboratories. Smith contrasts ecological rationality, which is the wisdom embedded in institutions and social norms with constructive rationality, or as Enlightenment figures call it, Reason. Ultimately you have to use Reason to make changes but the goal is to lean on ecological rationality as much as possible. 2. I think Wandry's point is the weakest of all the responses. There are only two consistent ways to apply "turn the other cheek'. One is to be like the Amish and have no punishment other than a public repentance. The other is to forgive and love the wrongdoers in one's heart while still providing earthly punishment. There is no logical way to apply 'turn the other cheek' as a reason to to avoid executing someone, but while still locking people up for theft. 3. Personal responsibility is emphatically not a strawman. A large portion of the debates that conservatives have with progressives comes down to the old 'structure versus culture' debate. Progressive overwhelmingly hold that poverty is caused by structural factors and invest massive amounts of time and energy bolstering that belief. Think about (1) debates over welfare reform, (2) William Julius Wilson's argument that out of wedlock childbirths increased because of "unmarriageable men" rather than a change in social norms, (3) economic development. Jeffrey Sachs argued for poverty traps rather than cultural norms and interpersonal trust. (4) education. Jonothan Kozol and numerous progressives argue that blacks get a worse education because of under-funded schools rather than the lack of a culture of learning. Why did a generation of conservative intellectuals like Thomas Sowell have to dedicate their entire careers to documenting the role of culture - and get vilified for it? Are there progressives who recognize the need for culture. Sure. Patrick Moynihan, William Galston, and others. But they were a decided minority. 4. That is 'capitalism is evil'. If progressive believed that people in general were evil they'd have demonstrated a more robust skepticism of government power. ========================================== Wandryceyr, 1. Wow, surely you aren't still playing the "Bush is a reckless spender" card after 8 months of Obama? Bush's structural deficits are nothing in comparison. Moreover, conservatives very early on learned to do the "Bush is reckless spender, but better than a Democrat" two-step. I've yet to see anything similar from Democrats on Obama. 2. I've don't argue that markets are perfect. I'm a conservative, not a libertarian. My general position is that except in cases of high transaction costs, the incentives of markets are generally better than the incentives of government. The government has an important role establishing property rights, regulating externalities, and creating the terms on which private firms compete. It also has a normative role in providing social insurance although I see that proper role being much smaller than progressives. On the other hand, the government is structurally more susceptible to corruption by insider interests than private firms. That's a structural problem, not a "Republican problem." That is why Obama's advisors also have their questionable ties to industry and why many purported progressive triumphs of government have led to welfare reducing outcomes (e.g. the ICC's regulation of trains and trucking). 3. The wacky left has plenty of power. I'm not a birther, but please don't create a false equivalence between birthers and truthers. The government killing thousands of its own citizens is a vastly more heinous belief than that a politician would lie for personal gain. Moreover, the birther movement was started by Obama's own grandmother. She said he was born in Kenya. Here is my definition of the wacky left: (1) good intentions are a sound basis for social policy, (2) human behavior is inelastic*, (3) incentives don't matter unless the intention of the policy is to distort incentives (e.g. a gas tax), (4) the rich are ATM's and we can withdraw from them without making tradeoffs in jobs or productivity growth, (5) government is uncorruptable and thus the mere fact that a good regulation will improve welfare means we should have it (even if a bad regulation would significantly reduce welfare). Members of the wacky left wouldn't recognize this jargon - if they did then they would no longer belong to the wacky left. But that accurately describes much of the progressive movement. Heck, we're talking about a movement that as recently as the 1970's wanted a guaranteed minimum income. You don't get much wackier than that. * they simultaneously hold that belief with the belief that humans are a blank slate and thus infinitely malleable. I do not think that the wacky left is coherent, only wacky.
- jibaholic
September 25, 2009 at 4:18pm
jib: Conservatism going back to Burke... george: Uh, Beck, Limbaugh, Palin and Fox News going back to Burke? I don't think so. Quite the opposite with their shrill totalitarian approach to authority. Their own, for example. Or are you referring instead to the next generation of Irving Kristols and Bill Buckleys. The intellectual conservatives? The limits of human reason. It never even approaches God's does it? And though we may not quite be able to reconcile God's reasons with, say, the Holocaust, tsunamis and HIV, conservatives easily reconcile them with God. Their own God, in particular. The sanctity of life. Oh, the conservatives have always embraced the sanctity of life. Especially if the life is well-bred, cultured and never has to work in either denim or blue collars. Well, at least the George Will, David Brooks conservatives. Personal responsibility. And it helps considerably of course if you are born with silver spoons sticking out of every orifice. Unlike, say, the folks who occupy the world of The Wire. Silver spoons, connections and access to the ruling class notwithstanding they have no one to blame but themselves for their plight. Especially the children. The sinful nature of man. Conservatives, of course, have their own list of sins. Like altruism. And even though virtually every human culture has always been intertwined in the enormously complex relationships between "I" and "we", conservatives just know that Self-Interest tops them all. Sure it does. george walton d/a
- iambiguous
September 25, 2009 at 4:19pm
jib: Here is David Oderberg's definition of the sanctity of life: it is a grave moral wrong to intentionally take the life of an innocent human being. (Moral Theory p.147) george: The key word, of course, being "intentionally"? So, when they dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, their intention was to stop the Japanese from intentionally taking the life of our innocents. We can take their innocent lives though because that's the sort of collateral damage we can comfortably live with. How ghoulish it can be listening to reactionaries rationalize their own acts of barbarism. They do so by insisting that, to a third party, the acts might seem ghoulish, but they are not because their intention was only to stop the ghoulish acts of our enemies. jib: Here is the bible's: Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. (Genesis 9:6). george: God, the author of The Great Pogroms in The Old Testament. I wonder if Hitler and Stalin read the Bible to pick up some tactical advice from The Master? And maybe when abortionists end the life of fetuses they are emulating the Lord when he takes the lives of fetuses. You know, miscarriages and the like. george
- iambiguous
September 25, 2009 at 4:36pm
Jib - you dodged. All I'm looking for is consistency - this Burkean bluster just has no takers in the real world of the Republican Party, never has. Why take on Obama for the sins that Bush actually commited? I can't imagine how Republicans think they have any credibility until they do, ala Frum. Suddenly spending is an outrage? Come on. Obama has spent money cleaning up five alarm emergenices as far as I can tell. Maybe you can list your economic policy alternatives for what Obama was handed on November 20th? Maybe you can tell us what Paulson could have done differently? Do you think letting the car industry go belly up would have been good or bad for the economy right then? You may think healthcare isn't necessary, and that's your ideological right. Most of America disagrees. My premiums (with the best healthcare out there) are going up 20% this year. How are yours?
- WandreyCer
September 25, 2009 at 5:57pm
iamambiguous, David Oderberg, and more famously, Elizabeth Anscombe before him, and natural rights philosophers in general opposed Hiroshima. If you get into political philosophy you will find that liberal egalitarians use Hiroshima as an argument against natural rights morality. The rest of your posts show no ability to stay on topic. This is for your own benefit. If the topic of discussion is "can the death penalized by harmonized with the sanctity of life" then arguments about the purported incoherence of biblical morality are irrelevant. ============================================================ Wandrey, I wrote long and thoughtful responses to a variety of points. I think you are being disingenuous to accuse me of dodging simply because I did not address one particular point. For what it is worth, I addressed those that challenged my own thinking and skipped those I found to be weak. But now that you have specifically raised the issue I'm happy to respond. First, I don't think Burke is the end-all be-all of conservatism. I do like the counter-Enlightenment figures like John Wesley, but I don't hang my hat on any historical scholars. There is progress in philosophy. I think the Christian Right as a group does a good job of cleaving to the four principles I listed at the start of the discussion. Your argument seems to be "Obama is better than Bush, therefore the Republican Party has lost the ability to follow its core principles." But (1) conservatives distanced themselves from Bush's spending, (2) Al Gore promised a larger and more expensive prescription drug plan. (3) The "Obama inherited Bush's deficit" argument is wrong because his (a) his budget has structural deficits that vastly exceed Bush's deficits going ten years into the future. We're not talking about a 1 or 2 year spike as we get out of recession. Moreover, those estimates are based on already falsifed predictions of rapid economic recovery. (b) The one year spike was because of TARP and the stimulus, but we all know where the ideological lines were drawn on both of those. The conservative base opposed them both. (4) you have seen that CBO chart which has made the rounds of the internet, right? I don't think I can use HTML but projected deficits are much higher under Obama, and again, that is years out in the future. And without health care added in, which has its own funny accounting (the bulk of the effects don't kick in for a while to make the average yearly cost seem lower). And yes, we absolutely should have let GM and Chrysler fail. There were strong monetary arguments for TARP but those simply do not apply to the auto makers. There is a difference between credit and high opportunity cost multiplier effects. Really, I thought being honest about the crummyness of unions was one of the ways that progressive signal their non-wackyness.
- jibaholic
September 25, 2009 at 10:03pm
Wandrey That's very close to my take on it as well. I'd only add that there are many in the Progressive mold that believe Obama actually responded like a Republican by largely letting big business, in this case the banks, off way too easily for the havoc they have unleashed on an economy already burdened by a disastrous and unnecessary war coupled with irresponsible tax cuts to the wealthy. To the majority of people I keep in touch with that voted, donated, or volunteered for Obama, the only negative feedback I have heard is that he's wasted too much time reaching out to Republicans. I don't know if Conservatism is "dead" as a movement or collection of ideas, but I do think it is on life support after the two terms of George W. Bush and it dies a little more each day when idiots that receive Medicare show up at town hall meetings trying intentionally to disrupt or derail anyone else advocating for a similar government option plan. In the age of mass media in a country where minorities are a growing proportion of the electorate, a movement really needs a face that can appeal to more than just whites and evangelicals. The Republicans most often seen or heard? Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann. Those are the wrong faces to be putting out there especially in light of what nonsense the four of them are usually talking about. Conservatism needs a face that people can at least take seriously before any of it's ideas can be at least thought over, much less accepted or even embraced.
- fultimr
September 25, 2009 at 11:14pm
Great thread, wonderful to see a lot of familiar posters again. As usual, time zone and being busy at work mean I am very late to all this, but it made for an enjoyable read. I'll just respond to one of many points: jibaholic: "(1) conservatives distanced themselves from Bush's spending" I call BS on this -- "conservatives" happily voted for Bush's spending and tax cuts, and his enormous off-budget spending on a war of choice in Iraq, even when in some cases it meant prevailing on Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote after a party-line draw. They distanced themselves from Bush starting about 2006, when Bush's popularity had made its decisive and permanent move down the toilet. More like rats leaving a sinking ship than any kind of principled objection. And when it comes to deficits, you cannot compare Bush and Obama without counting in Bush's enormous off-budget spending. Bush's foolish, ill-considered, and fraudulently justified war of choice in Iraq, lustily applauded by conservatives, has cost us the better part of a trillion dollars in direct spending, minimum, and well over a trillion if you count the long-term costs of caring for the wounded (perhaps trillions if you count indirect costs). The guy didn't double the national debt in 8 years by sticking to the budget. But Bush's spending became an issue for the Republican party and mainstream conservatives only when Bush himself had become radioactive -- unless you count voting to support his priorities and arguing in favor of them to be evidence of distancing.
- JEFF FREY
September 26, 2009 at 12:59am
It is good to see some of the old dialogue back, though The Plank seems to be a total dead zone, which they really need to fix. To back up Jeff, I'd also add that the circumstances of the economy they're working in are vastly different. Obama's current large deficits are a combination of two things, both affiliated with the current Great Recession. First, more than anything else, the recession has absolutely crippled government revenue intakes on the state, local and the federal governments. Every single one has faced a massive drop off, to the tune of 25% or more. Even if spending never changed, deficits would have exploded because of this fact. However, as state and local governments can't build up huge shortfalls without running out of money and nuking their bond ratings, the sheer size and scope of the down turn has necessitated a vast amount of emergency spending by the spender of last resort, the federal government, to prevent states and municipalities from creating a downhill spiral in the economy from massive reactionary fiscal policy on the state and local level. Beyond that, the government, as spender of last resort, has in the face of the recession taken the appropriate action to counteract the drop off in consumption and investment in the private economy. Through the multiplier, it has acted to mitigate the drop in addition to mitigating the contraction of state and local govt. The point here is both contract with Bush policy in the relatively lush years. In times of economic growth, Bush and the Republican congress pushed not just to spend, and spend for wars, corporate subsidies and other things, but also through regressive tax cuts to shrink the country's revenue base. The deficit spending in boom times was tremendously irresponsible as it was not needed and seemed designed to benefit interest groups instead of rebounding for the country. The shocking, willful ignorance of Republicans to this fact is one more sign of their intellectual downfall.
- Crock1701
September 26, 2009 at 3:14am
jib: David Oderberg, and more famously, Elizabeth Anscombe before him, and natural rights philosophers in general opposed Hiroshima. If you get into political philosophy you will find that liberal egalitarians use Hiroshima as an argument against natural rights morality. george: Natural rights? WHAT natural rights?! Name them. And demonstrate epistemologically how these rights are embedded in...what? Our DNA? Our God? Our enlightened constitution? Our mores, folkways, customs, conventional wisdom? We don't have any "universal" natural rights. There are no deontological agendas we can impose on particular human behaviors other than through laws, through moral persuasion, through shunning, through punishments and rewards. After all, there have been hundreds of vast and varied cultures throughout recorded human history that practiced enormously conflicting and contradictory sets of prescriptive and proscriptive social, political and economic behaviors. Are we expected to believe that John Locke came along and reduced that all down to the most enlightened "natural" rights of all? It's simple: No God [i.e., no omniscient and omnipotent point of view] and all things are permitted. We just come up with different rationalizations to justify them...or to justify the punishment of those who don't share our own. Try this: Pick a particular human behavior that revolves around a particular ethical conflict [abortion, conscription, homosexuality etc] and delineate our "natural rights" with respect to them. Then I will respond to it. jib: The rest of your posts show no ability to stay on topic. This is for your own benefit. If the topic of discussion is "can the death penalized by harmonized with the sanctity of life" then arguments about the purported incoherence of biblical morality are irrelevant. george: YOU don't see them as on topic because YOU don't make the same sort of connections I do between, say, political philosophy and human identity, existential valuations, Wittgenstein and language, moral relativism, emotional and psychological reactions, political economy, ideology and the MassThink that goes on and between pundits in the mainstream media. I don't pretend that my so-called tangential approach to discussions like this are always on the mark. But they are certainly not irrelevant. For example, you say, "[i]f the topic of discussion is 'can the death penal[ty] by harmonized with the sanctity of life' then arguments about the purported incoherence of biblical morality are irrelevant." george: On the contrary, if our moral, political and legal prescriptions...with respect to the alleged relationship between life and death...are said to spring in part [and for some in large part] from our judeo-christian roots how could a discussion of this topic NOT include references to that? We obviously don't think about these things in the same way. But over and again I make the point that much of what motivates me in TNR is to introduce existential perspectives not often explored in here. They are new to many so they tend to back off. Fine. That is their perogative. But I can't respond to others' opinions other than as I do. Other than as it seems to make sense to. Anything else would be ludicrous. george walton
- iambiguous
September 26, 2009 at 3:33am
- I don't believe "Ideological conservatism ...on cable news and talk radio, and among significant numbers of citizens in the South, Midwest, and Intermountain West." is ideological or conservative in the traditional right-left divide. It's a shrinking group of people who are nostalgic for a culture that is gone. Both the media representation and the public consumption of this brand is more reactionary or contrary, their 'ideal' closer to fanaticism than conservatism. There is a long list of conservatives who have been savaged by entertainers from the right because it's nearly impossible to win their favor and sustain national appeal. General Powell & McCain ended up on their enemies list, I'd be wary if I was a Republican hoping for a lasting bond. Hitching a movement to their ego is both foolish and dangerous. Foolish because their goal is narrow: Dominate a genre in broadcasting. A talk show or program can 'win' a target demographic with a tiny share of the total audience. That is dangerous: Their negatives with every demo the right needs to become a winner make them an poison partner. And what is appealing to these "citizens in the South, Midwest, and Intermountain West."? They question Obama's birth status, the seniors don't want "government health care" [?!] and the GOP's minuscule number of younger voters feel threatened by gay marriage and national public service? Give them an attack dog, a carbine and fives years of dehydrated food and send them to the mountains and they'll be just as happy as if Candidate X is elected. Yet the GOP seeks to build a party with people who wish to leave The Union? They may not be dead but it sounds like a path to suicide. Obama and Democrats face challenges and along with more complicated problems is the burden of producing less than perfect solutions. But we have yet to see a candidate who espouses this current brand of rejectionism from popular culture and make a case on the national stage. -
- michael
September 26, 2009 at 1:38pm
OK jib - you have been decent, please do pardon my absolute inability to take Republicans seriously in their sudden disdain for spending. Facts do speak for themselves though, and I don't need to be rude. I don't remember one Republican in any position of power voting against one spending priority in eight years except Jeff Flake, who I loved (even though he's a bedroom sniffer and a bible thumper, he was at least honest) a first term congressman who screamed bloody murder about spending and was treated like scum by his party. Bush personally loathed the guy and made that well known. I personally don't count as sincere protest grumbling in right wing think tanks and editorial pages - like Jeff said, around 2006 - only once Republicans started losing elections left and right, as any sort of principled push back on spending. No one on the Hill bothered. Where were the tea baggers in Medicare D? 500 billion bucks and counting? The 2002 Farm Bill says it all as well. Please tell me how I'm supposed to believe that anti-government rhetoric is anything other than totally utilitarian rhetoric, a way to preen with self regard about how principled one is, when history shows us that its just a fit to get power back, a simple understandable framework to blame the worlds problems on arther than taking in the messy, boring job of responsibly governing? The whole conservative movement is utterly divorced from what they have actually done. How can I respect that? As our parents always say, actions speak louder than words. The right seems unable to face how little credibility they have these days, I'm almost embarrassed for them - they look so foolish. I do have a soft spot for Michael Steele (who is so silly he's great fun) because he actually said it once, that no one has any reason to believe his party that they actually care about spending.
- WandreyCer
September 26, 2009 at 4:14pm
- I echo Wandrey, but my earlier post clearly wasn't as clear. -
- michael
September 26, 2009 at 4:59pm
by the way, a few years back jib and I had a long and interesting conversation about deficit spending, supply side economics, etc. I came out hard against the deficits Bush was bringing about and iirc jib was taking the position that the deficit spending was stoking job creation. Interesting how the times have changed. Every time a Republican talks against deficits then every Democrat should repeat Cheney's line that Reagan proved deficits don't matter.
- blackton
September 26, 2009 at 7:45pm
The deficit spending of one's own party doesn't matter, because it is to good purpose. The deficit spending of the opposing party is gong to ruin the nation!
- JEFF FREY
September 27, 2009 at 12:35am
I think the more realistic question has always been "Was Conservatism Ever Anything Other Than Preening Utopian Hooey?" Conservatism can't be dead because it never lived.
- WandreyCer
September 27, 2009 at 1:52pm
Moreover, the birther movement was started by Obama's own grandmother. She said he was born in Kenya. That horrible metallic noise you are hearing is the sound of jibaholic energetically scraping the emptiest barrel in the yard for an argument.
- ironyroad
September 27, 2009 at 9:17pm
I assumed this thread died over the weekend but it looks like it has kept going. Blackton, I remember that discussion. I defended the Bush tax cuts on the grounds of productivity growth and job creation. And that is an emprically true point. I was opposed to Iraq and the Medicare prescription drug entitlement. I would also point out that Gore wanted an even bigger and more expensive entitlement. However, you claimed to be a deficit hawk. Is that still true? What spending of Obama's have you opposed? Iamambiguous, It is nice to see an atheist honest about the fact that if there were no God all would be permitted. But with God that is not true. Natural rights are merely an attempt to harmonize the various moral teachings of the bible into a moral theory. I would love to debate the larger issues of biblical versus atheistic morality. Why don't you go to my blog and we'll have a dedicated thread to the purpose so we won't go astray here. http://www.thefaithheuristic.com Wandrey, Selective citation. I just did a quick google on "Heritage foundation bush spending" and the first hit was a 2004 article called "The $pree of the Union". Conservative pundits, think tanks, and economists bemoaned Bush's spending. It comforts you to think otherwise but that belief is simply wrong. And have you forgotten the CBO's graph? The size of the deficits shot up dramatically with Obama and remained in place structurally for a decade. It was not merely a response to the fiscal crisis. And let me ask you: what spending of Obama's have you opposed?
- jibaholic
September 29, 2009 at 3:34pm
hey jib. I am a deficit hawk under normal cases, but thanks to Bush's (and to a certain degree Clinton's) economic meltdown/onset of depression extraordinary things needed to be done. Boom times, or even average times, you balance the budget. Bush gave us a lost decade, my stock portfolio is worth less than 10 years ago. I think it is pretty obvious that the deficit spending of Obama's saved us from catastrophe (I would even put Bush's actions at the onset of it). Of course, none of this had to be. If Republicans didn't get rid of Glass-Steagal, and go off on the whole "ownership society" crap line, allowing banks to go on wild risk taking at zero risk, we would have been much better off. In fact, not a single job outside of the public sector was created during the 8 years of Bush, there were as many private sector jobs in 2000 as in 2008. So I am sorry but Bush was an absolute disaster.
- blackton
September 29, 2009 at 8:20pm
Blackton, that's a huge cop-out. You claim to be a deficit hawk, but you haven't distanced yourself from a single piece of Obama's spending, even the large structural deficits his budgets have put into place ten or more years out. Look, if you want to say "Obama had to rack up a couple trillion in added deficits in order to get through the fiscal crisis" then I might buy it. That doesn't excuse the large structural deficits predicted ten years into the future. Moreover, that attitude is not one of a deficit hawk, but rather of a pragmatist.
- jibaholic
September 30, 2009 at 10:25am