Vote Conservative--Vote Democrat

I've been telling some of my more skeptical readers that I see myself as a conservative. A conservative is not necessarily a man of the right. Rather the essence of the conservative is his understanding how fragile civilization is, that we're all walking through history on a thin sheet of ice which separates us from the barbarism that lies beneath. Occasionally a society breaks through the ice. We saw it in Germany in the thirties and the Balkans in the nineties. We saw it in Rwanda and Somalia. We saw a glimpse of it as parts of our society broke through in New Orleans. The best kind of conservative understands that you have to tread softly. That the ice is composed of religious, political, and economic traditions and institutions that keep barbarism walled out.

The barbarians aren't at the gates; they are us. We are all barbarians once the ice breaks and we plunge into what lies below. We won't think of ourselves that way, of course. We will think of ourselves as doing what it takes to survive, of protecting our property and our family. We're all potential Michael Corleones--idealists until our "interests" are threatened.

Conservatives tend to be pessimists about human nature. They see themselves as attuned to how precarious and insecure our civilized life is. They understand how important it is to shore up those traditions and institutions that prevent the awful rather than promote the good. Since they don't believe that politics can do much good, they are inclined to support only those policies that will do the least harm. Conservatives are profoundly distrustful of any top-down engineering projects. But they are not averse to modestly scaled progams that meet real needs. But they are allergic to an ambitioius Jacobinism that seeks to sweep away the old to make way for the new.

That's the substance of my argument against Libertarianism.  This idea that markets should rule is an idea that makes sense within a limited sphere but becomes perverse when made into an absolute.   With lots of things, maybe most things, the principle that those who use should pay makes sense. But it becomes perverse when it leads to the undermining of a health public spiritedness. The attitude that characterizes the mentality of older people once their kids are grown: Why should I approve the local school levy?  Let those with kids pay for the schools.  If people want to improve the county or city parks, public transportation, or the road system, let those who use them pay, and leave me out of it.   And God forbid that we should think of providing any kind of social safety net for those who are crushed by the market forces.  Why should I pay for that? It's every man and woman for him or herself--that's the kind of cranky America our country is evolving or devolving into under the influence of this Libertarian mentality.

Lots of ordinary Americans are seduced by the Libertarian logic, with the deregulation, privatization, and minimal tax policies that follow from it without understanding the implications.  They don't see how it contributes to the inevitable social stratification that will be defined by money.  The rich will live in their gated communities, their own private sanctuaries with first-class parks and roads and transportation that they will indeed pay for, but it will be for their own private use. 

Why shouldn't they? some might ask. Behind the question is the hope that everyone could have that for himself if they work hard enough to become rich enough to buy their way in. We assume that social mobility will always be a feature of American society. But the barriers between classes are going to rigidify.  They always do, and they are already.  It's in this sense that I and others are justified in saying that we are evolving or devolving into a Latin American- styled oligarchy. You can say that you don't believe that will happen, but what are the counterbalancing forces that will check this trend?

The curious thing about our present situation in America is that the Democrats are the conservatives and the Republicans are the Jacobins. The Liberals in the Democratic party are the stodgy party of stability, and the radicals in the Republican Party are doing everything they can to dismantle the domestic infrastructure established by the coordinated effort of both Democrats and Republicans in the last seventy years. And they are working to destabilize the multilateral international order that had been developing since the fall of the Soviet Union.

So the political choices that are available to us are, on the one hand, the stodgy conservative/liberalism of the Democrats, and on the other, the unhinged Jacobinism of the Republicans who are doing everything they can to jump up and down on the ice so that we will all have the pleasure of a plunge into the babarism below.

So it is to be hoped that Americans will come to their senses and in the Congressional elections vote conservatively for the Democrats. These Republicans are drunken good old boys who have driven the country off road and into the swamp. They are reckless fools, and they need to be reined in. That's the first order of business, but assuming we are able to push these guys out of the pickup truck of state and get the rig back on the highway, then what?

I would say then that the focus shifts from the political sphere to the cultural. I don't mind having stodgy, conservative leaders running the political shop--that's what the Democrats have become. I'm fine with its having the primary responsibility for keeping us from plunging through the ice or into the swamp. Where the important stuff needs to happen is in the culture, and politics will follow. And my quarrel with Liberalism is not for its role in shaping what happens in the political sphere--it's fine there. I think that it needs to be confronted in the cultural sphere.  Ultimately a healthy forward looking politics must grow from impulses that arise in the cultural sphere.  In the mean time it's enough to prevent the politicians from not making more of a mess of things. 

I've been telling some of my more skeptical readers that I see myself as a conservative. A conservative is not necessarily a man of the right. Rather the essence of the conservative is his understanding how fragile civilization is, that we're all walking through history on a thin sheet of ice which separates us from the barbarism that lies beneath. Occasionally a society breaks through the ice. We saw it in Germany in the thirties and the Balkans in the nineties. We saw it in Rwanda and Somalia. We saw a glimpse of it as parts of our society broke through in New Orleans. The best kind of conservative understands that you have to tread softly. That the ice is composed of religious, political, and economic traditions and institutions that keep barbarism walled out.

The barbarians aren't at the gates; they are us. We are all barbarians once the ice breaks and we plunge into what lies below. We won't think of ourselves that way, of course. We will think of ourselves as doing what it takes to survive, of protecting our property and our family. We're all potential Michael Corleones--idealists until our "interests" are threatened.

Conservatives tend to be pessimists about human nature. They see themselves as attuned to how precarious and insecure our civilized life is. They understand how important it is to shore up those traditions and institutions that prevent the awful rather than promote the good. Since they don't believe that politics can do much good, they are inclined to support only those policies that will do the least harm. Conservatives are profoundly distrustful of any top-down engineering projects. But they are not averse to modestly scaled progams that meet real needs. But they are allergic to an ambitioius Jacobinism that seeks to sweep away the old to make way for the new.

That's the substance of my argument against Libertarianism.  This idea that markets should rule is an idea that makes sense within a limited sphere but becomes perverse when made into an absolute.   With lots of things, maybe most things, the principle that those who use should pay makes sense. But it becomes perverse when it leads to the undermining of a health public spiritedness. The attitude that characterizes the mentality of older people once their kids are grown: Why should I approve the local school levy?  Let those with kids pay for the schools.  If people want to improve the county or city parks, public transportation, or the road system, let those who use them pay, and leave me out of it.   And God forbid that we should think of providing any kind of social safety net for those who are crushed by the market forces.  Why should I pay for that? It's every man and woman for him or herself--that's the kind of cranky America our country is evolving or devolving into under the influence of this Libertarian mentality.

Lots of ordinary Americans are seduced by the Libertarian logic, with the deregulation, privatization, and minimal tax policies that follow from it without understanding the implications.  They don't see how it contributes to the inevitable social stratification that will be defined by money.  The rich will live in their gated communities, their own private sanctuaries with first-class parks and roads and transportation that they will indeed pay for, but it will be for their own private use. 

Why shouldn't they? some might ask. Behind the question is the hope that everyone could have that for himself if they work hard enough to become rich enough to buy their way in. We assume that social mobility will always be a feature of American society. But the barriers between classes are going to rigidify.  They always do, and they are already.  It's in this sense that I and others are justified in saying that we are evolving or devolving into a Latin American- styled oligarchy. You can say that you don't believe that will happen, but what are the counterbalancing forces that will check this trend?

The curious thing about our present situation in America is that the Democrats are the conservatives and the Republicans are the Jacobins. The Liberals in the Democratic party are the stodgy party of stability, and the radicals in the Republican Party are doing everything they can to dismantle the domestic infrastructure established by the coordinated effort of both Democrats and Republicans in the last seventy years. And they are working to destabilize the multilateral international order that had been developing since the fall of the Soviet Union.

So the political choices that are available to us are, on the one hand, the stodgy conservative/liberalism of the Democrats, and on the other, the unhinged Jacobinism of the Republicans who are doing everything they can to jump up and down on the ice so that we will all have the pleasure of a plunge into the babarism below.

So it is to be hoped that Americans will come to their senses and in the Congressional elections vote conservatively for the Democrats. These Republicans are drunken good old boys who have driven the country off road and into the swamp. They are reckless fools, and they need to be reined in. That's the first order of business, but assuming we are able to push these guys out of the pickup truck of state and get the rig back on the highway, then what?

I would say then that the focus shifts from the political sphere to the cultural. I don't mind having stodgy, conservative leaders running the political shop--that's what the Democrats have become. I'm fine with its having the primary responsibility for keeping us from plunging through the ice or into the swamp. Where the important stuff needs to happen is in the culture, and politics will follow. And my quarrel with Liberalism is not for its role in shaping what happens in the political sphere--it's fine there. I think that it needs to be confronted in the cultural sphere.  Ultimately a healthy forward looking politics must grow from impulses that arise in the cultural sphere.  In the mean time it's enough to prevent the politicians from not making more of a mess of things. 

Comments

[Matt Zemek]

But what complicates this is something you've noted before: that in campaigns, Republicans are always the ones making the appeal to people who fear that something precious, meaning-based, and value-driven is being lost in our society, which is losing hold of important traditions and moral anchors.

Everything in terms of substance points to Republicans uprooting civilization, but everything in terms of tactics and political campaign narratives points toward Republicans speaking of preserving civilization.

[kim]

There's also the argument that excessive inequality is bad for society in general, including the prosperous. While poverty, declining quality of public space, or bad schools harm the poor much more, they can all affect the quality of life, property values, etc., of the wealthier people who don't want their funds to support the common good.

[realpc]

"Conservatives are profoundly distrustful of any top-down engineering projects."

That is true, and it is NOT AT ALL true of progressives.
The Democrats are considered the progressive party, in general, and the Republicans are generally conservative, as you know.
Extreme libertarianism is NOT dominating the Republicans. We still have a high progressive income tax, and many expensive social programs.

Moderate libertarians are, like yourself, distrustful of blueprints for an ideal, fair society.

You can't re-define conservatism to fit the Democratic party, when they include so many progressives. Progressives see no limit to human ingenuity and they deny human limits and shortcomings.

I agree with you that civilization balances on thin ice, and that human nature cannot be trusted.

We pool our resources to help the unfortunate, knowing that we are all vulnerable and that only the grace of God preserves our health and well-being.

But it is arrogance to think every citizen can be guaranteed health and prosperity. It cannot be done.

[realpc]

The Democrats are not the party of stability. Many different types of individuals and groups make up the Democrats, and it makes no sense to say they're all conservative.

In 2004, blue-state liberals, New Deal socialists, progressivves, and far left radicals all united against Bush and voted for Kerry. All of these groups can hardly be included under the label conservative.

You are playing with words.

You may be a traditionalist conservative yourself, and a Democrat at the same time, but that is not true of the party overall.

[Jack Whelan]

realpc--

It's all about where the power is. That's the thing I seem to have the hardest time making you see. It's not what people say. If they have no power, it doesn't matter what they say. Probably most Republicans would have votee against the Medicare Prescription Bill, but it was a Republican administration who pushed it through because it served the interestes of big pharma. Who cares what people say they stand for in the abstract if they use their power to accomplish things that have nothing to do with what they say? Don't you see that behind all the conservative propaganda fog, the Republicans are esentially running a crony capitalist shop? And that no matter what they say, they are destroying well established traditions and institutions.

Same thing is true in the Democratic Party--Sure there are some wacky fringe groups, but they don't have any power. The right-wing propaganda machine wants to make credulous people believe that's what the heart of the Dem party is.

It isn't. The power lies with the DLC Republican lite types like Clinton and Lieberman who have controlled the Dem agenda since Jimmy Carter's era. Don't tell me what some people who call themselves Democrats say, but tell me precisely how Dems have abused their power to do things in the last twenty years that you find particularly objectionable, and then match it up against the list of things that Republicans have done, and I bet even you, if you're honest about it, would find that the list is longer for the Republicans.

[realpc]

Jack,

You are playing the usual partisan game -- identify your opponent with its irrational fringe, identify your side with its sensible center.

"Don't you see that behind all the conservative propaganda fog, the Republicans are esentially running a crony capitalist shop?"

Seen through a partisan lens, it looks that way. But all parties practice cronyism. That's why we don't want one party to stay in power too long -- I agree the Republicans have been in too long. Too bad there is no attractive alternative.

"And that no matter what they say, they are destroying well established traditions and institutions."

How many of your beloved soclialist programs have been destroyed by the Bush administration? The public said we want to keep social security the way it is, so they left it alone. We still have Medicare and Medicaid. What did they succeed in destroying?

If you're having so much trouble making me see the Truth, maybe it's because I am not looking through your partisan lens.

[Jack Whelan]

realpc--

If you're going to dismiss everything I say a predictably partisan, I believe you're doing it because that's what makes you comfortable--to see everything in divided into a blue and red cliche bubble worlds. ("Beloved socialist programs"?! You gotta be kidding.) Anyway it's insulting diminishment of what I'm trying to do, and it's hard for me to see why there's any point in continuing the discussion.