At The Atlantic, Megan McArdle asks, “Are conservatives out of ideas?” Her answer, unsurprisingly (to me, anyway) is “yes,” though she adds:
There is, however, a nascent optimism in the conservative and libertarian policy worlds. The last five years have been pretty demoralizing. Now I’m seeing more and more people who are actually looking forward to going into the wilderness for a little while, where they can get their heads together without having to worry about the intellectual compromises of actual politics. There’s disgust at certain policies that they can’t stop, like the revolting farm bill. But people are kind of excited about figuring out what the next big thing is.
Professor Bainbridge replies – with some merit – that this last notion makes him recoil:
I can’t think of anything more contrary to the spirit of Burkean conservatism than a seach for the “next big thing.†Indeed, I would argue that a large part of the problem with modern conservatism is that Bush and the K Street Gang were more concerned with finding something big to do than with standing athwart history shouting stop.
I say his point has “some” merit primarily because it leaves the status quo untouched (and I think the Prof. would not be happy with that, if asked). There is some sentiment among McArdle’s commenters that they would be happy with a GOP that embraces the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal-tarian” model, though as is usually the case with such people, no thought seems to have been given to who picks up the tab for that social liberalism.
Ezra Klein argues that the question is wrong:
Ideas, first, should be recast as “solutions.” Conservatives like to argue that politics is about ideas, and to them, and many of the people who write about them, it is. But those ideas are politically useless unless they’re understood by the electorate as solutions. Solutions, however, require problems. And that’s what the GOP is lacking at the moment.
At least, the GOP lacks solutions for the standard list of problems upon which the Left focuses its attention — 47 million Americans without health insurance, a failing invasion, “high gas prices, or a credit and mortgage crisis, or a dawning recognition that we’re ruining the only planet we have.” Per usual, Klein’s premises are highly debatable. But he does better than Matthew Yglesias, who is content to unironically diagnose the problem as conservatives being “fundamentally malign.”
All of this discussion apparently follows from George Packer’s piece in The New Yorker, which is amusing when one considers that Packer is relying on Bill Kristol, David Brooks and Pat Buchanan for guidance on the issue.
The Hound of the Baskervilles has yet to bark in this discussion, so allow me to ask, “Are progressives out of ideas?”
After all, their proposals are generally variations on a small set of core ideas.  Clinton and Obama both favor a much larger government role in the delivery of healthcare. Clinton’s current proposal is much like that offered by Sen. John Chaffee as a counter-offer to the 1994 model of Hillarycare. Obama likes to compare his plan to the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program — the expansion or universalization of which is also not a new idea. Obama’s speech last weekend was a recycling of Carter-era hair-sweater wearing malaiseyness.  His foreign and defense policies are largely Carter-esque with a dash of pure Utopianism, except when challenged, he ends up sounding a lot like George W. Bush.  The economic stimulus package passed by Congress this year looked remarkably like the last one they passed, even though control changed parties. And so on.
Indeed, the Democratic candidates, their Congressional leaders and their allies in the media are quietly doubtful they can make any big changes regarding healthcare or Iraq, even with a Democrat in the White House.
Moreover, as often noted here, both Obama and John McCain appeal to the current public demand for hopeyness and changitude, which is expressed in polls as the desires for bipartisan cooperation and the elimination of “special interests†in Washington, DC, as opposed to changes in domestic or foreign policy.
Klein does come close to stumbling into something, however.  To the extent the Democrats win this fall (as they likely will in Congress, and perhaps the presidency also), it will be because voters see the economy as weak, the Iraq mission as a mistake and gasoline as too costly, and the Democrats are promising something different. If McCain beats Obama, it will be mostly because voters see him as too untested and too unserious in a time of war, and too eager to reach into their pockets in the midst of a weak economy. If the GOP can hold onto enough seats in Congress to slow or block Democrats, it will be mostly because voters see the unchecked desire to raise taxes and control your healthcare as too risky (much as the 1994 GOP landslide was a reaction against the unchecked liberal impulses that imploded with Hillarycare). Policy — at least in the sense that wonks and blog readers think of it — will have next to nothing to do with it. In that sense, the question of whether conservatives or progressives are out of ideas is the wrong one.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Update: HotAir-lanche!
Update x2: Insta-lanche!
It always amuses me when people that are normally not intellectually capable of even describing a conservative position accurately, feel they have some kind of insight into their way of thinking.
free health care! raise taxes! surrender! Nothing new there.
The fact is, conservatives shouldn’t really have too many new ideas, since they are supposed to keep the government as small as possible. Any new ideas should involve restoring as much personal freedom and personal wealth as they can. So they aren’t new ideas as much as rolling back intrusive old ideas.
“Are (fill-in-the-blank-here) out of ideas?”
Name me one original idea over, ohhhh, say, the last 50 years that originated on the reactionary left.
It’s not ideas that are lacking so much in the GOP these days as principles.
It’s also worth mentioning that “conservative” and “Republican” are not identical sets — there’s a fairly large intersection, but the two are not the same.
Democratic Party “Progressives” failed to enact their programs, and continue to fail, because the Democrats who replaced Republicans in 2006 were representative of the people who voted for them, who had not been converted overnight by the Moonbat Ray. That will happen also in 2008, I believe.
This election is looking more and more like 1852 to me. In that election, the Whig party was essentially destroyed and the Democrats elected a President so bad he’s used for horror stories in Government classes. Democrats who aren’t surrendercrats and don’t necessarily believe in taxing everything that moves have essentially no representation among their Party leadership, but they still exist; I think it at least possible that the Republicans will go away as an organization, replaced by what Orrin Judd calls a “Third Way” party composed of center-right Republicans and Blue Dogs.
As for “ideas” — yeah, that’s the wrong way to cast it, and I’ve thought so for some time now. What we conservatives need to start doing is throwing left-liberal “solutions” back in their faces — the measures they propose demonstrably fail to achieve the goals they state (which is true) and in many, perhaps most, cases actually achieve the opposite result. Examples are legion, and I think it worthwhile to collect and codify them rather than simply opposing the proposals knee-jerk fashion.
Regards,
Ric
I think the principle that you must constantly come up with new ideas to be viable presupposes that progressivism is the ideal goal, that nothing old suffices and everything new is better. In other word, she’s asking “is conservatism sufficiently leftist?” which is obviously answered “no.”
D.C. fake-libertarians (who’ll soon have the real ones no longer using the word, out of embarrassment at its increasing association with them) only and always mean “policy” when they say “idea.” They don’t know what an idea is, or they’d know that there’s no such thing as a new one.
The place where the conservative and libertarian ideas meet is somewhere in the neighborhood of “Planning is immoral and/or inefficient.” And “policy” is planning. There’s no point flappin’ jaw at people who call themselves libertarians and don’t know that, or who pretend that they don’t. They’re concern trolls.
I agree with you Ric, but there are just so many bad “solutions” that have been inflicted upon us by an overreaching Federal government that it would take a very long time to list them all. Plus, so many “solutions” seem to involve transfer payments that eliminating them would cause way too many subjects citizens have become dependent on them. Still, we have to start somewhere.
My strike-through on “subjects” got ignored. *sigh*
– In some ways this election cycle is a ho-hum moment, echoing some of the things Ric has already enumerated. If McDinosaur gets the nod you’ll see a lot of dust and noise, and basically continued partisan gridlock. If the Dems stumble, fall, bounce, trip and manage to gain the WH, regardless of which candidate wins, you’ll see the same dust and noise, and then things will settle into the politics of the “doable”, again with the same partisan gridlock, only the names of the failed bills, or the bills that should fail if they don’t will change.
– The “changiness” will be, for the most part, superficial, regardless of who wins, and I say that because a number of the “problems” are basically unsolvable in any meaningful way without creating even more problems in their stead. This is not always because of the problems themselves as much as the partisan habit by both sides of making sure they limit the oppositions success. That may sound rather cynical, but look around at the results of the last 50 years as Ric suggests, and calculate a list of instances where that hasn’t proven to be the case. A more pessimistic citizen might even agree with whatever pol who said back some years ago that “…we’re becoming a nation of the ungovernable…”.
– That our election cycles are becoming more and more contentious which each outing, while the problems seem to fester and never get addressed, may amplify that idea. Either way, both sides need to deal with issues pragmatically using the politics of the possible if they expect any sort of success in this day and age. The Left, for their part, bring useless self-primping nuance to the party, creating yet more confusion, and lending nothing to the solutions.
cranky-d, this blog runs on old-fashioned HTML instead of XTML. <s> doesn’t work; you have to spell it out: <strike>
strike-out</strike>Regards,
Ric
BBH, the only quibble I have with that is to say that we have always been “a Nation of the ungovernable. Dammit, it’s why our ancestors came here in the first place!
Chatting with friends in a foreign country some time ago, I had an insight: when I was a boy, dealing with the Federal Government was something you did at tax time, got it over with as soon as possible, and essentially forgot about them for the rest of the year, unless you were in one of a very few businesses or professions. Nowadays we can hardly walk down the street without paying attention to Federal regulations and Federal bureaucrats, and we haven’t adjusted to the change (!) I’m not sure we will any time soon, either.
Regards,
Ric
Ric,
In ’94, Gingrich used to say about Hillarycare that it was the German model, which worked in Germany only because Germany was filled with Germans. If the Bundestag imposed a speed limit on the Autobahn, Germans would observe it, and replace the government with the “no speed limit” party at the next election.
In contrast, an American’s first response to the German system would be, “So, how do I get around this?” He would note that the US was a nation that had a speed limit, but viewed it as a benchmark of opportunity. He would ask his audiences to consider — without a show of hands — whether they might have exceeded the speed limit. Recently. Always got a laugh.
Unfortunately for me, I relied on google for my html needs. I hang my head in shame.
contested primaries I think and also don’t be Lindsey Graham cause he’s narsty
no my first name ain’t baby it’s Lindsey… Miss Lindsey if you’re narsty
Lohan?
old-fashioned HTML instead of XTML. “” doesn’t work
That IS old fashioned HTML. The new stuff uses pointlessly long div and style tags.
– At the risk of boring the PW readers, I’ll spin a simple recent example.
– It took 8 phone calls to national SS centers, 4 trips to the local office (during which I had to transverse a 5 mile round trip walk each time due to a lack of public transportation in a city of 2 million), and the preparation of the same set of forms, including the high schools registrars co-entries, twice. Each trip would elicit a “new” requirement, which beget more activity, focusing on myself as having to do the actual work.
– I finally achieved success by dragging my son into the local office on the last trip so they could ask him a number of questions face to face, all of which were answered on the forms, both the one they lost, and the one I handed to them so they wouldn’t lose it.
– What was the issue in contention you ask? The Social Security people had his HS graduation date entered 6 months to early. Things I learned with this oversize, (I thought I already knew all the horrors of dealing with the Fed after 60+ years of doing same):
– Local offices do not have an automatic phone system like the national offices do. This makes it effectively impossible to call them, since the line is always busy, or you get a message to the effect that they are out and you can call them back tomorrow, This made the proffered “personal call” to my son to “confirm” certain pieces of information basically impossible.
– The SS department assumes that you are guilty until proven innocent in any dispute, a rather interesting approach to doing business. As a result, once they make any mistake it is incumbent on you, regardless of cost or inconvenienced to be proactive until the mistake gets corrected. Read “until they run out of rules they can pull out of their ass”.
– The reason I bring all this up is that in retrospect I was musing to myself after this “project”, knowing that the issue was simply a clerical error, the following. Just what the hell do people do if its a truly difficult problem?
= I can’t imagine, and I have no confusion, watching this madhouse act, just why our taxers might as well be burned in our back yards.
The SS department assumes that you are guilty until proven innocent in any dispute, a rather interesting approach to doing business
The SS isn’t a business. There are no customers, only annoying people who make them do boring paperwork. And those annoying people can’t go elsewhere to get what they want. And if you don’t do your job, your organization won’t disappear, and if you spend all day downloading porn or if you start your computer in the AM, leave for 8 hours, then shut it off in the PM, you won’t lose your job.
However the insurance companies also take the guilty until proven innocent tack as well. But because they all do it, you can’t solve the problem by going elsewhere. Bastards.
SS is unionized though. That’s so pitiful. Like hey let’s make a career of this. Whatever. Losers.
Who I like is that Bobby Jindal. He’s good people. Let’s put him in charge.
– A few footnotes.
– My son came of age and had to be questioned because they took so long on the simple error, it dragged into the month of his 18th birthday, two months to be exact. Nice. They generate new problems where none existed before.
– The entire issue could have been handled by a single phone call to the HS registrar. I won’t evn venture a guess at what the alternative cost.
– Every time a moonbat screeches the usual talking points I immediately imagine some Federal bureaucracy along the same lines of the typical SS office, handling our entire Health care system, and I just fucking shudder.
– They are truly mad.
“Lohan?”
He’d have to butch up a little.
[…] Protein Wisdom – Are (fill-in-the-blank-here) out of ideas? [Karl] […]
Comment by Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) on 5/21 @ 5:09 pm #
You think that bad?
Get in the bad graces of the IRS.
Fine, I made a mistake, but 6 fucking years later, everything has been “accepted”, everything has been straightend out, and still no action to finish up.
We will probably get back more than we ariginally owed.
Dern! What planet is McCardle living on? As a conservative/libertarian, American dude, I think everything is coming up roses.
Let’s see, we’ve got Iran’s skinny ol’ neck in a noose (thanks to “W”), taxes are low, the Fed’s rate-adjustments are taking effect, and the economy’s chugging along at full employment…
…We’ve stifled the UN’s anti-American conferencing in Durban and the like, we consumers are getting more savvy about our energy usage, and, pace NAFTA, our cultural and economic unification with Mexico is continuing apace, leaving the Left awash and agog.
To wind this up, I’ll cast a positive, appreciative gaze West to China: her old Commies have been watching Bush while he weathers every wave and crisis since 2000 (remember the EP-3 incident?). And the Octagenarians have been taking notes.
One of the CCP’s historic objections to enacting for China’s citizens the rights of free inquiry, freedom of publication and association always has been the mistaken assertion that these rights pose a threat to social order. But now, after watching a Republican politician named George W. Bush ride this “Freedom Tiger” twice around the track without getting bucked off, even China’s most diehard Maoists are giving pause.
I’m optimistic. China, by having once adopted the “Soviet Model,” and also by having demonstrated her rationality by dumping the model once its flaws became apparent (exchanged, it was, for Deng’s “Socialism with a Chinese Face.”) China looks to be ready to formally adopt the “American model” this decade.
I expect McCain’s administration will preside over the peaceful reunion of Taiwan with China’s mainland (or ‘Da Lu’), including the creation of an American-style two-party system that recognizes the Guo Min Dang as one of China’s “National Parties.”
Life’s good, but Megan’s still whining. Geez!
Yay! I’m gonna read that one again when I get home.
Ric Locke and Big Bang Hunter(PYU)-
I agree with Ric about the similarity to 1852. We face three choices (I’ve not even begun to write off Mrs. Clinton yet) and not a one of them begins to be equipped to face what is coming… which is where I respectfully but vehemently disagree with Hunter.
Have you ever seen a highly technological hyper power experience a currency collapse? No?
Come up here, and watch with me.
There is nothing work-a-day about what we are about to experience. Nothing beyond the utter incompetence and lack of principle that defines our government branches and agencies.
The intent and structure of the Constitution was to preserve individual liberty first, while providing the minimum mechanism of a nation state. We have allowed our representatives and the courts to shift to a managerial function vice a custodial function… and some decades ago the point of no return where an organization commits to itself over its mission was passed.
The Democrats, for my entire life, have treated the execution of office as a game. They have lately been joined by most of the Republicans, and the media, well, the media has been selling popcorn and tossing random markers on the board since assisting in the loss of the Vietnam war.
I work in an industry that begins with consumer confidence, executes with heavy equipment, skilled labor, and massive amounts of expensive commodities, and is sustained by the belief that people really do rate their own American dream.
Not much room for confidence when food triples in price, you can’t afford to commute to your job that only runs three days on a good week, and the oncoming nannystaters are promising to gut business, tax everybody else except those that don’t pay taxes at all, and the war we’ve spent seven years getting close to making pay is going to be abandoned.
I am crushed. And done commenting or posting for a bit. I have chores that I can do.
– Absolutely. Lots of jobs out there for whoever wants one. Now if oil doesn’t get to the point where none of us can afford to drive to them, we’ll be all set.
a failing invasion ?
Is illegal immigration now under control ?
Happy,
I’m bullish on America, damnit, and I get carried away sometimes!
Still, given that the GOP’s opposition this year ‘hates’ America, “Patriotic Bullishness” could be the only idea the GOP needs to win. I likes it.
Neo,
If democracy doesn’t take in Iraq, it suggests something exceptional about America, doesn’t it?
We’re pretty cool, huh?
No – for real me too, steve. TMJ I will make a smoothie for you with apricots and pineapple and some yogurt and just a little cinnamon. All Republicans have to do to win is to not be gay and do stuff like not vote for the agriculture bill. It’s easy.
Oh. I don’t think that’s very clear. Do-over. All Republicans have to do to win is to not be gay and also do stuff like not vote for the agriculture bill.
It’s easy!
“Every time a moonbat screeches the usual talking points I immediately imagine some Federal bureaucracy along the same lines of the typical SS office, handling our entire Health care system, and I just fucking shudder.
– They are truly mad.”
Right on, but I happen to think that the people who will “manage” our healthcare will be the absolutely braindead, arrogant, stupid, illiterate losers that give out parking tickets in New York City. Locally known as “Brownies”.
NO ONE in the government can be held responsible for what they do, even for fucking citizens up the butt. Way to go, unions! Any misfit who can’t get a job anywhere else can always work for the government, and be protected by their union anytime they want to destroy someone’s life. AND THEY DO IT ALL THE TIME! INDISCRIMANANTTLY!
Here is a caution. DO NOT piss off any one of these zombie assholes after they are put in charge of your doctor’s medical decisions. You will get plenty of bureaucratic bullshit, but no medical assistance for a long, long time. Our government is actually run by dickhead vindictive morons, better known as “Bureaucrats”. Congress could give a shit after they have patted themselves on the back for passing another “busy-work” piece of shit “law”.
And, BTW, when did it become a “given” that government health care MUST happen?
Could it be because the drive by’s made the decision for us?
TmjUtah – I hate to say it, but I think you have nailed it. Who the fuck are these morons that have maneuvered themselves into owning and cowing the population of this country? And, geez, do you think the braindead lefties had anything to do with this? And even better, we on the right have a choice of a fucking childish moron who takes responsibility for nothing, or a man who loves to give Ted Kennedy blow jobs.
Assholes. One and all. The constitution is on life support.
“America is well and truly fucked”
My blender is large.
Well, if it’s that large, have one for me
I will make a special smoothie of happiness.
don’t think I won’t
McArdle’s a self-described Libertarian who’s voting for Obama.
Enough said.
– Your support of the unruly ruffians has been duly noted Feets. “We’ll” be keeping an eye on you and your “large” blender.
No smoothie for Megan. Not even when I get my stealth blender. Mr. Reynolds has been linking her for awhile. She’s tedious but really she’s the only one except for that dippy Kudlow person that anyone links that really writes about economics. Except for that nice Greek kid. More of him please I think except he works for a bunch of wankers.
Mmmmmmm. Cinnamon.
And I just watched a dream come true – David COOK takes the prize, season seven American Idol.
Fine job, that man!
America is never out; sometimes down, sometimes staggered, but never out.
I will not be a part of out.
Oh. But for real watching American Idol isn’t exactly being part of the solution. That’s just something I feel inside. It’s true even if I can’t say why.
Sitting with the wife of TMj and the two goddesses, enjoying a rootbeer float, watching the only episode of AI I’ve ever seen, AND crafting my plan for the coming end of the economy as we know it..
Sounds perfectly American to me, pard.
TmjUtah – I hate to say it, but I think you have nailed it. Who the fuck are these morons that have maneuvered themselves into owning and cowing the population of this country?
Parasites, er, Progressives?Btw, just today I drove a straight three blocks to my very local N.W. Les Swhwab, tire, brake, shock, alignment, Center, when my brakes began to “grab” somewhat uncontrollably. In the process of the analysis, which revealed a rear axle seal leak, one guy working there came out of the shop to get some free popcorn, which he really liked, and he tried to get me to have some. I declined, but i’d had already smelled it, so I then got some.
At the conclusion of the process, this guy came out to apologize for my misfortune. I said, “That’s just reality.” He said, “It’s amazing that not many people know that.” I said, “Yes, I’ve noticed it, too.” I hesitated, then said, “They call themselves ‘Progressives’.”
He said, “I’m married to one.” We both knew exactly what we were talking about. Something’s gonna’ give.
Les Schwab
Oh. That sounds idyllic. Well idyllic yet somewhat gothic. Carry on then.
” I will make a special smoothie of happiness.”
And, my friend, I think it’s pretty obvious that I could really use one of those tonight!
Some days are diamonds, some days are stone.
Which reminds me. Did you know that John Denver was the best known alkie in Aspen? And that his plane crashed because he ran out of gas? Just like Lynyrd Skynard (or however the hell you spell it). Who, BTW, was (I think) the Van Zandt’s gym teacher.
The Hound of the Baskervilles has yet to bark in this discussion…
I have no doubt I am missing some subtle and amusing point while painfully stating the obvious, but – the Hound of the Baskervilles was not the famous non-barking dog; the curious incident of the dog in the night was from Silver Blaze.
Hmm. Does that answer the question of whether I, at least, am out of ideas?
Oh. The point I think is the dog didn’t bark. I’m not sure what we can do to fix that. Dog don’t wanna bark dog’s not gonna bark. It might could be cause it was a figurative dog. These are the only kind my apartment allows unless I go blind and give them a $5,000 deposit. No kidding. That’s got to be like anti-blind or something you’d think, but I imagine they’re hard on the carpet.
I’m more than a little dissapointed in McArdle voting for Obama. I mean she knows economics, history, politics, even some pop culture. All except the
pop culture, Obama is lacking in. I mean not knowing about 20th century history (Munich, the Vienna summit,
the Cold War in general)economics; re
health care, oil industry, profit motive in general, Simple geography,
Illinois’s proximity to Kentucky, ’57
states. Problems with simple
chronologies; like putting Sadat in Jerusalem, five years after the meeting and a year after he was murdered. Barry is offering warmed over Carterism; which he didn’t even
offer when he was running. Actually he sounds like the fictional liberal president Lockhart in Charles Murray’s
prophetic novel “The Better Angels”.
This novel written almost thirty years
ago, predicted a world, where a former and prospective businessman as president, is running against a down home liberal; adored by the partisan media headed by a lefty Yalie; whose some cross between Keith Obermann and David Gregory. At the outset, the aforem mentioned liberal idol was forced by a corporate, non official successor to the CIA to order the assassination of an Arab prince, who
directs a suicidal terrorist group who
had threatened to detonate nuclear weapons. Years later, the plot is uncovered by that same journalist, yet the focus is directed at the bete noire former incumbent. The establishment endeavors to fix the
election by computer; which they do
provoking a constitutional/electoral impeachment that spins horribly out out of control.That could never happen here. Besides the obvious topicality, the speeches of the liberal incumbent, are so disturbingly like Obama’s self flagellation tour as to be a little disturbing.
To address the points in order; This phase in conservatism ended up more Bismarkian than one would like because of two factors; the demagoguery employed against the ’94/95 Congress (dialed up to eleventy)which taught those survivors there was no gain in even restricting the rate of growth in government programs; and Gingrich’s extracurricular failing in focusing on the operation. The incoming Republican administration offered ‘compassionate conservatism’ as a solution; which was too fabian for liberals, too heretical for conservatives. Actual important
initiatives like expanding oil production; solving social security’s solvency died due to the same demagoguery. The seemingly glacial pace of the various fronts on the war on terror, along with the ‘supposed’
betrayal on immigration, ineficiencies in New Orleans etc; undermined the coalition. Ironically, our current nominee was at one point, opposed to practically all the positive initiatives under consideration
?
Charles McCarry?
Charles Murray is a conservative intellectual of some standing but not the novelist. Mr. Murray’s life seems a little novel though. My future bro-in-law is married to a Thai too and is considering moving back there as the culture is more to his liking too. (at this point)
sounds like your prescriptions for Conservatism is to turn back to the other height of it’s influence: the 1820s and 30s…and 40s…yupp leading to massive die-backs of workers, peasants in Germany, Ireland, England, and millions upon millions in China, India, Latin America, Africa…probably a 100 million dead and obscured by history….the rivers of Asia were filled with corpses and the monarchists and Bourgeoisie totally ignored it…. and the colonization of Africa led to the depopulation of the Congo, the forcing of subsistance laborers unto plantations through out the later called “third world” and passed more laws to take land away from peasants even in jolly England leading to millions leaving to America’s shores leaving quiet graves for the remainder. (one part of my ancestors had only one survivor our of a family of seven ariving on safe shores in America) The monarchists and their codependents, the Business class consolidated power after the failed French experiment and asserted class warfare from above upon the working class… and thus after A million starved to death each in Ireland, Germany, Italy, and England relatively quietly and sadly… the consequences of Berkian Conservatism was the Revolution of 1848 (mostly a failure) and the other extreme of Communism as a theory. As Dickens noted in his archetype of the 1800s Conservative: Scrooge: “aren’t there prisons enough?” (A hard stick is all that the Conservatives then offered and it’s no different now…as the latest proposal from Republicans is ‘forced labor’ for food stamp recipients…new ideas…..? hardly)
sounds like McCarry got lucky in his possibilties and prophecy…but that could have happened to any futurist. Probably the rest of his fiction fizzled as Amazon seems to have a problem selling ’em. (of course Seven Days in May is also another alternative that isn’t kept on shelves…but that’s conservatism’s other alternative Military Coup leading to ideological dictatorship.. and Jim Webb seems intelligently concerned that could happen…as he says: our military class has never been more politically active and one-sided and singularly Republican as it has now..(about 8 to 1 Conservative) and Senator Webb’s concerned with good reason…http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0000CLN2U/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211456091&sr=1-1
even more scary and possibly prophetic… and seemingly suppressed. Why can’t I find that book???? (it was a major movie plot so where’d the book go? )
So able-bodied people shouldn’t have to work for their daily bread?
Bullshit.
What I see here is that you fully understand that your programs and “solutions” won’t work, and even have some inkling of what the actual consequences will be — but have adopted the Stalinist approach: there are no failures, only “sabotage”; there are no accidents, only “wrecking”. You insist that the Sun must rise all around the horizon on different days, so no one must consistently have it in their eyes every morning; that’s “fair”. When sunrise stubbornly continues to be in the East, you go out searching for Class Enemies to purge.
In actual fact, it is conservatives who have absorbed the new and “progressives” who are stuck in the antedeluvian past. The central fact of modern civilization is that wealth must be produced, and that the means of production must also be produced, which in turn requires taking some fraction of existing wealth out of the system to produce those means. You and the Left proceed from the assumption that wealth exists a priori without human intervention; it must at most be found, and the central question is how it should be distributed. The conservatives who serve as your boogeymen worked from that paradigm as well, which is why the held on so fiercely — they, too, saw the world as zero-sum, and meant to have their own comfort, necessarily at the expense of others. By sticking stubbornly to a picture of the world that hasn’t been valid for two centuries — possibly ever — you are working to re-create the very conditions you claim to fear.
People in Pennsylvania have lost their well-paying factory jobs and are hurting as a result. Democrats promise to solve the problem by seeing to it that nobody will ever again have the wherewithal to build a factory where they might be employed, and all cheer: Huzzah for Progressivism and fairness! Say whut?
Regards,
Ric
Datadave,
Can I recommend a book as a fix? Try “The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 Europe, America, and the Third World” by Robert William Fogel
Perhaps it’ll help you repair your broken worldview.
Ah, Dave, there is a reason why his whole oevre has been issued by Overlook press; most recently Better Angels. It is eerily realistic in popping the bubble of liberal pretenses
consequently you want to ignore it. Besides the fact, that most early Ludlum, most current Baldacci,are recycling that plot line of the military coup d’etat. There was a
weak tea remake of SDM called “The Enemy Within” with Jason Robards,
Forest Whitaker & Sam Waterson reprising the Lancaster,Douglas & March. It was woefully not ‘up to snuff. For starters, it had this crazy assumption that the US military was too large to handle crisis say in the Middle East, and it assumed Russia would be taking the cabal’s side. But I’ll bite, the original pondered a world; where we had fought a long drawn up civil war in Persia rather than Vietnam; with the stalemate and an attendant military/civilian crisis. As the Harkin dustup with McCain proves; liberals are back to loathing the military. Both sides in the
confrontation were naive in their suppositions. The liberal president
for assuming Good faith on the part
of the Soviets (why does that sound
familiar in the current day!)And Gen. Scott, for assuming he could change the outcome by force of arms. With PMC, black sites, etc; you could probably write a ripping good reprise.
The latest example, with a poor Halliburton standin, doing the deed was laughable
Now you’re not going to make me take up the brief for the Belgian Empire’s
conquest of Africa; their arrogance anf hypocrisy knows no bounds; witness
their role in the ammunition cartel behind the Iran/Iraq War. Napoleon, and his successor, by the way sounds more like your mass preferred political leader or my faction. When the toll of ethanol substitution is finally tallied; will the corn laws rank worst? Was there any 19th century equivalent of Rwanda (yes I know the Belgians had a role, but they did themselves, in large measure)Cambodia, Darfur, the Congo. That wasn’t Western
interference my friend. That was good old fashioned third world independence and postcolonialism.
You and the Left proceed from the assumption that wealth exists a priori without human intervention; it must at most be found, and the central question is how it should be distributed.
It is naturally distributed totally at random, Ric. Some are lucky enough to get more than their fair share, and it is only right that they be forced help the less fortunate.
B Moe,
Yup. It is the worldview of a band of gatherers, scavengers, and occasional hunters; its prevalence is a good part of what convinces me that calling such a group “hunter/gatherers” is self-congratulation. Food is where you find it; the question is who gets to eat. To call such a philosophy “progressive” is asinine. It doesn’t just reject industrialization and its inevitable concomitant, capitalism; it rejects agriculture by insisting that anyone trying to hold on to the seed-corn is selfish. The children must eat!
Regards,
Ric
Thanks Ric. Just as I was jamming a Dr. J-sized handful of popcorn in my mouth, you drizzled rich-buttery guilt all over it.
Instalanche
That the left still believes the world is full of problems that can only be and must be, solved by government should be enough evidence that they are out of ideas. So they look for “solutions” instead. No need to start with principles or ideas – these will slow you down. In fact a good idea might require that you treat people fairly, even malign conservatives.
BTW,
Tom Maguire is of course correct about the Hound, but I went with the popular misconception to be relatable.
Play it again, Sam…
When ideas need money to go anywhere and public transit is flush out of money .. they stay home.
You can blame this all on FDR. He invented Social Security.
Social Security now has liabilities of $66 trillion, while all the assets in the US (everything) are worth $59 trillion, so even the federal government won’t be able to tax their way out of the mess that’s comming. Within 10 years, the deficit in Social Security outlays will have to go “on budget” and it will grow ever year thereafter for at least 2 decades.
To get an idea how big this is .. the total monetary cost of the Iraq war is still less than a trillion. Now imagine having to come up with 60x or 80x just to break even.
What this also means is that when “universal healthcare” comes .. you won’t like it .. because the chief reason for it’s creation will be to cut costs .. the costs of your senior care.
Yup. It’s all about managing demand, which means managing people, which means force, which any revolutionary/progressive is fine with. The only difference is the former do it themselves, and the latter sit comfortably back and have the office/administration/agency do it for them.
Managing supply? Then you have to actually know how to MAKE something…
If you want to know why conservatism is dead intellectually and what can be done to restore the ideas of individual rights, limited government, and laissez-faire capitalism, I would recommend that you read this essay on “The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism,” which just about says it all:
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-fall/decline-fall-american-conservatism.asp
There is no tab for social liberalism, at least the libertarian version. While the left thinks social entitlements, libertarians think ending the drug war and regulating drugs like alcohol (big net savings). Letting people decide who they want to marry – cousins, multiple partners, same sex (no cost).