David Brooks' a "progressive conservatism?"

[anvi]

A recent article by David Brooks, summarizing his diagnosis of what has gone wrong during the Obama presidency:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23brooks.html?ref=opinion

led me to look for a more robust representation of Brooks' conception of "progressive conservatism."  The most detailed one I found dates from the 2004 reelection campaign of George W. Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/magazine/29REPUBLICANS.html?pagewanted=1

Opinions of Brooks' ideas of "progressive conservatism"?

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Idiotic.

Brooks is a neocon, not a "progressive conservative" or whatever he wants to call himself.

[Mint]

I'm confused, how is Brooks conservative?

[Mechaman]

"Progressive" is just a term pretentious people like to use to describe themselves.

Sure in 1924 it might've meant something but nowdays......hell anybody can call themselves a Progressive (insert word here) nowdays.

[Mint]

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Brooks is either lying or just doesn't get it. The Democrats are almost indistinguishable from the Republicans so far in anything other than the scope of their spending since 2007. Surveillance, the 'war on terror', stimulus, bail outs, trade, etc. are either direct continuations of Bush era policy or extremely similar in their reasoning. Even healthcare 'reform' (compulsory insurance) was largely based off of what Romney and co. were talking about despite all claims to the contrary about having no mandates less than three years ago.

[Mechaman]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Brooks is either lying or just doesn't get it. The Democrats are almost indistinguishable from the Republicans so far in anything other than the scope of their spending since 2007. Surveillance, the 'war on terror', stimulus, bail outs, trade, etc. are either direct continuations of Bush era policy or extremely similar in their reasoning to what the Republicans were talking about - if you can call it that. Even healthcare 'reform' (compulsory insurance) was largely based off of what Romney and co. were talking about despite all claims to the contrary about having no mandates less than three years ago.

Maybe he doesn't see it because people like him ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.
The great broad middle is getting screwed?  If anything the great broad middle (which is very laughable at that, it seems like the "middle" nowdays is probably more authoritarian than even the most left or right wing person) has been owning the political system for at least the past decade or so.  You know I used to think that being a moderate was a sign of sanity, but now after seeing the current crop of politicians who pass for "moderates" in this country I'm beginning to think that it is perhaps the sign of "insanity".  I had no idea that a "moderate" in American politics meant "moderately statist"?
I don't want to live in a country where my choices are Big Government Party A and Big Government Party B, I want an America where there is a political party who truly does give a damn about the prinicples of small government and civil liberties.  Sadly it doesn't seem like either party really cares, so it seems these days we must look towards individuals instead, individuals like Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Russ Feingold, and maybe even Bernie Motherf***ing Democratic Socialist Sanders for real true and honest government for the people and by the people.
The great broad middle needs to get it's head out of it's own ass and see what it's like in the real world.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

The middle sucks. The far left and far right are both preferable to the middle.


Not that the whole left-right spectrum is particularly meaningful to begin with.

[justW353]

So...a Neocon?

OK...

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Red Tory / One Nation Conservatism

[Beet]

Basically, this entire thread can be summed up as "things are going bad, so we are mad". The "center" and "big government" are both being used as proxies for the status quo, which is seen as undesirable because of the poor state of the economy. Note that the actual content of the status quo is not as important as it being the status quo.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Basically, this entire thread can be summed up as "things are going bad, so we are mad". The "center" and "big government" are both being used as proxies for the status quo, which is seen as undesirable because of the poor state of the economy. Note that the actual content of the status quo is not as important as it being the status quo.

Nope, its the actual content of the status quo that we're pissed about.

[Mint]

Red Tory / One Nation Conservatism

From what I understand that's generally a socially conservative philosophy though, something which Brooks is obviously not.

[anvi]

First of all, I do think Brooks is a conservative, in many respects, although, as mentioned above, a red-tory conservative.  He thinks government should be at the service of individual potential, he thinks the government should be supportive of traditional family structers, and he does not see, as far as I can tell, anything redeemable in any incarnation of the Democratic political platorm.

On a certain intuitive level, I find talk of "moderation" and "middle ground" appealing, since it implies that compromise, middle ground, needs to be found in balancing conflicting interests.  I think it's definitely true that, when we lose the ability to compromise with one another, our ability to govern ourselves in a democracy goes down the drain.  Compromise is a dirty word in politics now, and it shouldn't be, because without it, all human associations, most of all governing, go badly.  On the other hand, simply labeling a position or policy "middle" does not make it correct, any more than labelling a position "right" or "left" does.

I think the problem is in laying out a "governing philosophy" for ourselves in the first place.  Brooks sees "progressive conservatism" as a governing philosophy, as everyone sees their own preferred ideology.  But I often wish that America, the country that invented philosophical pragmatism, could embrace more political pragmatism too.  What I mean by that is that policy decisions should be thought of as, in a way, like chess positions.  In any given circumstance, you are faced with a specific problem, and you have a specific set of resources available to address it effectively.  There will always be some uncertainty involved in the formulation of solutions (Brooks emphasizes this in his Burkean rhetoric), but we can also, on the basis of our experience and reason, make many good appraisals of possible reactions, effects and results.  General rules often help, but there are also many times when the specifics of a situation override the general rules.  And that's why holding fast to a fixed political ideology in response to every given situation is so risky, because if it fails to meet the specifics of the issue, it will fail to solve the problem.  Brooks has his own preferred governing philosophy, as we all do, but often our rigid principles deny us the flexibility to deal with unique circumstnaces.

Finding some way to relieve ourselves of "right," "left" and "center" assumptions and polarizations might free up enough of our intelligence and creativity to deal with our problems more effectively.  But we are all, myself included, so stuck to our our own habitual frameworks, which are often not even of our own making, that we wouldn't know what to do without them.  So, we keep fighting one another by calling one another names, a poor use of anyone's energy and very limited time in the world. 

[Nym90]

Interesting that in that 2004 article, Brooks supported "Obamacare" in paragraph one of page 8. Wonder what made him change his mind.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

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Brooks is either lying or just doesn't get it. The Democrats are almost indistinguishable from the Republicans so far in anything other than the scope of their spending since 2007. Surveillance, the 'war on terror', stimulus, bail outs, trade, etc. are either direct continuations of Bush era policy or extremely similar in their reasoning. Even healthcare 'reform' (compulsory insurance) was largely based off of what Romney and co. were talking about despite all claims to the contrary about having no mandates less than three years ago.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Brooks is either lying or just doesn't get it. The Democrats are almost indistinguishable from the Republicans so far in anything other than the scope of their spending since 2007. Surveillance, the 'war on terror', stimulus, bail outs, trade, etc. are either direct continuations of Bush era policy or extremely similar in their reasoning. Even healthcare 'reform' (compulsory insurance) was largely based off of what Romney and co. were talking about despite all claims to the contrary about having no mandates less than three years ago.

It repersents a sign of progress when governments start to understand that creating a fisical stimulus is vital for job creation, and potentialy saving an economy from disaster. Thus sometimes both parties can agree on an issue, and this doesn't necessarly mean that it is a bad thing. The more important question is wether or not these policies worked, or helped our economy. Conservatives may have supported Romney care at one time,but it is more important to note that republicans never adopted this idea even when George Bush was in power, and that they would later oppose it

Suggesting that both parties are similar without mentioning the nuances is intellectually lazy and presumes their is a simple black&white political history that can accurately describe both parties. I on the other hand think that things are much too complicated to even suggest that both parties are the same. It is also important to point out that using a braud brush in order to catagorize both parties could potentially be intellectualy dishonest because it could easily be supported by circular logic.

Too often people think in nominal terms,but if one traces conservatism/liberalism back to its historical roots than it is possible looky beyond the cookie cutter generalizations that some like to make. For example one of the most important distinctions between liberals and conservatives is how do they address moral claims. Conservatives normally suggest that government should only enforce basic fundamental rights that were laid out many years ago, and they normally never legislate a moral claim unless they feel it is reclaiming a particular right. Thus a conservative president should never create a new right, or deviate from older moral claims. Liberals on the other hand think that already existing rights should not only be enforced,but also that new rights arrising from moral claims should be put into law. For example the issue of consumer soverinty was never addressed during the bush administration, and nothing new was added to the concept. On the other hand democrats are now suggesting the government pass new kinds of legislation in order to add on to consumer soverignty.

on a final note i am late to class,but i would like to mention that obama has been much more respectful towards the international community. The stragies in afghanistan and Iraq have changed, while the UN is actually receiving some respect.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

I just got done reading the first article and I found that david brooks is still using the vague terminology of "big government/small government". These two phrases are not only perspective based,but they almost are never mentioned in an objective, or measurable manner. Thus leaving me to ask "what is small/big government?", and "small/big government in relations to what?".

In any event the terms are highly misleading because even mentioning only one variable (i.e Big government" suggests that there is already a diametrically opposed variable (i.e small government). Thus not only are these terms vague, but by there very nature they constitute a false dilemma. Towards the End of the Article he attempts to show disapointment towards use of such an Axiom,but he indirectly implies it when he brings up Edmund Burke, and Alexander Hamilton in the beggening of the article(which is funny because he takes a dump on their legacy).

Thus David Brooks is trying ascend the polarization of our politics by constructing a political model built around polarizing terminology. Because of this i doubt anything substantially creative can come from such a dogmatic axiom, and thus i am inclined to believe that in order for anything new to come about one must first be able to not only look beyond the old axioms but also construct new ones. For me I think my creativity comes from trying to understand what should/are be the proper prerequisite for normative morals and ethics.(i.e for example in modern times justice is often consider fair only if it meets a particular criteria. For example things like torture, treatment of prisoners, and the death penalty often suggest that we should respect the victims humanity, and that they be humanly treated as much as we deem so necessary.). Things like justice,freedom, liberty, and equality are timeless values that need to be reproached, and considered in a manner that goes beyond thinking about the size of government.

One last thing that people need to be aware of when it comes to ethical considerations revolves around how they are applied(in terms of thinking), and considered. When it comes to application people will need to understand that a policy may be inefficient, but this does not mean we should do away with the policy. For example some people argue that we should pull our bases out of korea because it is a waist of money,but people need to understand that society may actually view spending on such bases as beneficial because the deterrent effect upholds our values of safety and peace. Thus even if something is seen as wasteful spending that does not necessarily mean it is a bad thing. After entertaining an example of how are values are included in the real world one must be also aware of how they are considered,or even if they are considered. For example when it comes to business most companies have to have some ethical code of conduct, but if managers are only practicing compliancy than it means they are really not entertaining any potential ethical considerations. From this we can conclude that if people substitute compliancy for ethical conduct than one must think about what would make society potentially uphold their mind to practicing,preaching, conjuring ethics. This may require that managers, CEO's, stockholders and maybe even business as a whole may have start looking beyond profit. While at the same time anyone involved in politics may have to look beyond dogmatic axioms of big government vs small government. After all what is the point of obtaining small/big government if it fails to uphold some of our most important values?What is the point of obtaining a higher profit margin if it is done through unethical means? What is the point of trying to be consistent with a political philosophy if it requires that ethics, and normative morals take a back seat?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Too often people think in nominal terms,but if one traces conservatism/liberalism back to its historical roots than it is possible looky beyond the cookie cutter generalizations that some like to make. For example one of the most important distinctions between liberals and conservatives is how do they address moral claims. Conservatives normally suggest that government should only enforce basic fundamental rights that were laid out many years ago, and they normally never legislate a moral claim unless they feel it is reclaiming a particular right. Thus a conservative president should never create a new right, or deviate from older moral claims. Liberals on the other hand think that already existing rights should not only be enforced,but also that new rights arrising from moral claims should be put into law.

yes, i think you are on to something there

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

Too often people think in nominal terms,but if one traces conservatism/liberalism back to its historical roots than it is possible looky beyond the cookie cutter generalizations that some like to make. For example one of the most important distinctions between liberals and conservatives is how do they address moral claims. Conservatives normally suggest that government should only enforce basic fundamental rights that were laid out many years ago, and they normally never legislate a moral claim unless they feel it is reclaiming a particular right. Thus a conservative president should never create a new right, or deviate from older moral claims. Liberals on the other hand think that already existing rights should not only be enforced,but also that new rights arrising from moral claims should be put into law.

yes, i think you are on to something there

These are only preliminary statements but if I find the time to read up on Edmund burkes reflections on the french revolution, and his musings on the british constitutional changes of 1760 than it will be alot easier for me to provide a complete picture that is rich and full of detail. The only thing I do not understand is that How can edmund burke be writing about the british constitution in 1760 if Britian really does not have a constitution? I thought the country only had parlimentary papers?

In any event the David Brooks article completely takes a dump on edmund burke, and in the end only highlights what is wrong with modern conservatism. This is because conservative principles have been replaced with the language of the status qou, and thus the axiom of big government vs small government have effectively destroyed many conservative philosophical foundations. Conservatives and liberals have their own ends, but when these ends are substituted by the size of government it completely distorts such principles. These principles do not have to be dogmatic either. For example in ethics I only consider the question "do the means justify the ends?" when it comes down to things like criminal justice.

In any event whenever I study an ideology I often am mindful of the intellectuals, and their writings. In fact I make it a routine to remeber some of their qoutes. Here is one of favorites:
I don't accept that much of use can be learned about policy in this way [well-structured deduction from metaphysical first principles.] When the world deviates from the principles, as it usually does, the simple lessons go astray. This is not a complaint against math. It is a complaint against indiscriminate application of the deductive method, sometimes called the Ricardian vice, to problems of human action. Mine is an old gripe against much of what professional economists do; not against science but against scientism, against the pretense of science. To combat it, I spend my research time wrestling with real-world data, and I spend much of my writing time warring against the policy ideas of aggressive, ahistorical deductivists. -
James K. Galbraith

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

Too often people think in nominal terms,but if one traces conservatism/liberalism back to its historical roots than it is possible looky beyond the cookie cutter generalizations that some like to make. For example one of the most important distinctions between liberals and conservatives is how do they address moral claims. Conservatives normally suggest that government should only enforce basic fundamental rights that were laid out many years ago, and they normally never legislate a moral claim unless they feel it is reclaiming a particular right. Thus a conservative president should never create a new right, or deviate from older moral claims. Liberals on the other hand think that already existing rights should not only be enforced,but also that new rights arrising from moral claims should be put into law.

yes, i think you are on to something there

I have been studying ethics, and moral considerations for years because i find them to be important. I also have my own terminology.
1)competitive value system
2)Heirchal value system
3)Value added/constructed value system
4)Value free/deconstructed value system.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Idiotic.

Brooks is a neocon, not a "progressive conservative" or whatever he wants to call himself.

While I can understand that you have your differences with neocons, calling Brooks a neocon is a disgusting slur.

Brooks lacks the integrity of a neocon, and is merely a lapdog for limosine liberals,

I short, he's what civilized people flush down the toilet.

[Nym90]

I agree with Brooks' ideology and the idea that government can and should enhance opportunity, rather than limiting freedom, wholeheartedly.

Problem is, the GOP hasn't really stood for this since Teddy Roosevelt, or at least since Dwight Eisenhower. Brooks is a bit overly optimistic to think that the GOP will return to a tradition that it largely discarded 100 years ago.

The Democratic party, flawed though it may be, has become the last best hope for this philosophy.

[CARLHAYDEN]

I agree with Brooks' ideology and the idea that government can and should enhance opportunity, rather than limiting freedom, wholeheartedly.

Problem is, the GOP hasn't really stood for this since Teddy Roosevelt, or at least since Dwight Eisenhower. Brooks is a bit overly optimistic to think that the GOP will return to a tradition that it largely discarded 100 years ago.

The Democratic party, flawed though it may be, has become the last best hope for this philosophy.

You don't understand Brooks 'ideology.'  He DOES want to limit freedom!

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

I have read more inspirational writings that have gone beyond the typical paradigm.

[anvi]

Too often people think in nominal terms,but if one traces conservatism/liberalism back to its historical roots than it is possible looky beyond the cookie cutter generalizations that some like to make. For example one of the most important distinctions between liberals and conservatives is how do they address moral claims. Conservatives normally suggest that government should only enforce basic fundamental rights that were laid out many years ago, and they normally never legislate a moral claim unless they feel it is reclaiming a particular right. Thus a conservative president should never create a new right, or deviate from older moral claims. Liberals on the other hand think that already existing rights should not only be enforced,but also that new rights arrising from moral claims should be put into law.

yes, i think you are on to something there

Well, this historically can be seen as rooted in the basic divergence between Anglo-American conceptions of rights, which are predominently "negative rights," and the continental-European conception of "positive rights."  So-called negative rights ensure individual liberty by restricting the government's power to infringe on a person's claims to life, freedoms of belief and expression, the ownership of property and other matters.  The paradaigm of positive rights is built around the notion that, in order to guarentee individuals the opportunity to prosper, the state must provide the conditions for such prospering, including institutions of education, health, public safety and general welfare.  American conservatives now generally identify with the government's role in protecting negative rights and liberals identify with promoting positive rights.

The thing is, I think American society is characterized politically by an uneasy mixture of committments to both kinds of rights.  On the one hand, it's not that American conservatives flatly deny all positive rights; they accept some positive rights (of citizens to education and public safety perhaps), but reject others (health care and some forms of general welfare).  Similarly, American liberals, often so supportive of as many positive rights as can be thought of, want to restrict government's powers of investigation and ensure that government does not officially endorse a favored or majority religious establishment, both in order to ensure a right to privacy, which, whether it exists in the American Constitution or not, is a prime example of a negative right.  Because of this uneasy mixture, both American political movements and individual American politicians often have difficulty locating where they are in the spectrum of these two different conceptions of rights and the government's role in ensuring them.

As far as Brooks is concerned, I think he mostly gestures towards an acknowledgment of positive rights (part of his larger argument that government should ensure opportunity), which is what irks conservatives about him.  But, he wants to promote positive rights by having government, instead of directly providing the institutions that would grant opportunity, pursue them indirectly by energizing as many free-market forces as possible, which is what irks liberals about him.  His basic stance, to me, is interesting, but in many cases vague and superficial.  And, when really pressed on a particular policy issue, Brooks always leans right, just enough of a lean for liberals to realize that he is right of them and for conservatives to notice he is not far enough right for their tastes.  From the 2004 article, it appears he believed George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" coincided pretty well with his own notion of "progressive conservatism."  In the long run, that course seems not to have worked out too well.

Which means, we're still struggling to figure out as a society, not whether to fully embrace only either negative or positive rights, but where, and in what perportions, we want to synthesize them.  One thing I can tell you is that I'd rather debate about negative rights vs. positive rights than about the cliched differences between "conservatives" and "liberals," because I think the rights vocabulary is better at getting to the heart of what our real disagreements are, as well as areas of plausible compromise.  The simplistic and artificial "conservative-liberal" dualism in American society has only become more acid, destructive, uninformaive and unhelpful.    

[anvi]

Interesting that in that 2004 article, Brooks supported "Obamacare" in paragraph one of page 8. Wonder what made him change his mind.

Yeah, the major features of so-called "Obamacare," exchanges, portability, and, I think, guarenteed issue in exchange for mandates, were things that Republicans largely supported when they offered their counter bill to "Clinton-care" in '93, and their support of some of these policies predates even that.  Brooks, in his early support of Obama's push for health care reform, even as recently as last year, stuck to that. I admired him for that, since most Republicans who were around in '93 adopted entirely hypocritical rhetoric; what was good enough for them to promote competition in '93 suddenly became a socialist government takeover in '09.  Brooks didn't go there, and I appreicated that.  From what I can tell from recent interviews, Brooks withdrew his support because he thought the bill ended up being too expensive, too "complicated," and didn't address rises in costs enough.  I do remember, in one interview, he said, after stating these objections: "But I understand why so many people support it, it does after all cover over 30 million more people."  But, in the end, he still opposed.

Those are the reasons he gave for his change of mind, as far as I understand them.