The Ascendant New Conservatism
Frodo:
just to provide some perspective to the larger picture:
WELCOME TO THE NEW CONSERVATISM
Sat Feb 26, 7:58 PM ET
By David M. Shribman
President Bush's inaugural address wasn't the only important speech given in Washington this winter. The other one, delivered by Karl Rove at this month's annual Conservative Political Action Committee convention, drew scant attention -- but may be of equal significance.
Rove has long thought of himself as a political philosopher as much as a political consultant. And in his remarks the other day, the new White House chief of staff for policy argued that the new conservatism was a broad movement and not, like the conservatism of old, a narrow opposition to the prevailing liberalism of the time; forward-looking and not, like the conservatism of old, reactionary.
This tells us many vital things, among them: Today's conservatism thinks of itself as a creed of and for the common man, not as the creed merely of uncommon common sense. It thinks of itself as being on the offensive, not on the defensive. Today's conservatism operates as a mass movement of doers, not as an elite slice of thinkers. Most of all, the second movement of the conservative movement no longer defines itself as the reverse of liberalism.
Indeed, liberalism's crisis today is that it is in the awkward and completely unfamiliar position of defining itself as the opposition of this new conservatism: against President Bush's muscular foreign policy of pre-emption, against the president's determination to make his tax cuts permanent, against the White House's drive to create private investment accounts as a part of, and perhaps ultimately to replace, Social Security.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1316&ncid=1343&e=1&u=/ucds/20050227/cm_ucds/welcometothenewconservatism
dazzleman:
Generally speaking, whichever philosophy is considered progressive will be in the ascendency, and on the offensive, while the other is on the defensive.
For a long time, liberalism was in the ascendency, and on the offensive. Conservatism amounted to wanting to block liberal initiatives, or at least slow the pace at which liberal initiatives were implemented.
Conservatism began to become an offensive force under Ronald Reagan. Liberals ran out of ideas, and instead stubbornly defended those of their ideas which had not worked. Liberals still talked about their "progressive" policies, but it seemed to many people that "progressive" as defined by liberals meant higher taxes, higher crime, economic decline, failing schools, family breakdown, military weakness and foreign policy reverses that put our very national security in danger. To many people (including me), that is still what liberalism means, because that is my perception of what liberalism has produced.
Conservatism is now the philosophy of new ideas, whether you agree with them or not. Liberalism consists of defending the old way. Not in all cases, but many.
I believe there's a cycle to these things. What is once billed as the solution becomes eventually part of the problem. Welfare is a perfect example of this. It was created to solve a problem, and it became the problem. Public housing is another. So are unions, to a certain extent. Everything, including ideas, has a life cycle, and most ideas beyond the bedrock laws of human nature eventually need to be revamped and updated.
Liberals have proven resistant to do this, and this accounts for their political decline. They produce no new ideas to deal with today's issues. In some ways, they are a victim of their successes in certain areas, in other ways they are in trouble because they have stubbornly refused to acknowledge their failures. I consider 1965 to be the last year when liberals did anything good, or anything that turned out to be a success. It has been all downhill since, as far as I can tell.
TomC:
I agree with a lot of this, although some glosses over the fact that Bush is resisting changes or rolling back certain things such as environmental awareness and protection, some other consumer protections, certain rights, such as gay. I believe the foreign policy of the Bush administration is very much like the imperialism of the past, that has nice forward sounding rhetoric, but also the stench and international reputation of corporate self-interest. It's hard to prove promoting democracy is your goal when you give Halliburton the keys to the oilfields and new building projects. Let's give the gift of freedom without considerable economic advantage and I'll believe it's forward thinking. There's nothing new about looting conquered nations.
The GOP is progressive, looking to the future on a number of things. I'd argue, although I'm mixed on it (or I don't like the specifics of Bush's proposal) the conservatives are moving forward on market based retirement for all, tort reform, reduction of the welfare state. Abortion I can see either way, really, depending on your POV. Defending the rights of the unborn is an expansion of rights, and a progressive cause, but the abatement of women's rights over their own bodies is regressive, moving backwards.
The Dems aren't as forward thinking as they should be, or at least they don't fine tune the messsage, Kerry sure didn't, he was reactionary and that's why he lost. Where are Dems forward thinking? Gay rights, even if its not marriage, the basic right to equality of opportunity and not to be defined as wrong based on scripture. The move towards a right to health care is a progressive, forward thinking issue, although it conflicts with the welfare state mentality that is not that forward thinking, in today's terms. But I fully expect in the long term, access to health care will be considered more of a right, even if it means more govt control.
The Dems have made their biggest mistake in not being more populist- opening government up, making the system work for people, not just the Dems themselves. Voting rights??? That's why I don't want to hear any whining from Dems about Ohio. We knew the system was screwed and did virtually nothing to fix it. IT'S NOT AN EXCUSE, IT'S A PROBLEM WE NEED FIXED! Campaign finance and lobbyist reform! Making govt officials work for all and not just the well connected. The Dems will start winning again when they start standing up for people and not programs.
Erc:
The pendulum is swinging toward reactionism, my friends.
I'm glad to be on the right side of history, for once.
opebo:
Quote from: Erc on March 01, 2005, 12:17:38 AM
The pendulum is swinging toward reactionism, my friends.
I'm glad to be on the right side of history, for once.
Your movement contains within it the seeds of its own demise - impoverishment of the great majority.
It is mostly built upon 'values' - intolerance, hatred, xenophobia, and nationalism - that can and will be set aside when the stomach starts to grumble.
The only thing I'm afraid of is there is no reason to expect that the party of redistribution will always be the party of tolerance - just happens to be that way at the moment. I don't forsee any time in the future when the majority of americans are tolerant, however it is easy to see that soon enough the majority will be desperate.
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