I find the concept that the core of conservatism is restriction of government puzzling, because it leads to the conclusion (which you reason out but don't explicitly acknowledge) that proper conservatism is not meaningfully different from libertarianism, lacking any ability to push back against progressive ideas or aim to conserve anything through the political system. You say that "real conservatives support a small government that does not go any further than it needs to", but as far as government needs to go is an entirely arbitrary and subjective measure.
Even if we grant that conservatism in its proper state is just libertarianism by a different name, it is worth noting that one of the biggest internal debates in libertarianism is abortion. The reason for this is simple; if abortion really is murder then it is the most clearly justified exercise of government power imaginable. Likewise religious conservatives oppose euthanasia because we believe that killing an innocent person is murder per se, regardless of the circumstances that surround it.
With that said, I can tell that your response will be that that is my moral code and I am not a real conservative if I want to force it on others. The problem there is that literally every law consists in forcing a moral code on others who may disagree with it, and the concept of any law doing otherwise is an absurdity that is founded in the conceit of assuming that the prevailing morality of the society today is a representation of neutral reality and any departure from that is a moral opinion that seeks to be forced on to others. To genuinely believe this would be a baseless "I agree with the majority", the very antithesis of actually having beliefs and principles. Discarding that notion, if we suppose that forcing morals on others is not genuine conservatism, then the only ideology that could be considered compatible with genuine conservatism is anarchism.
"Small government" is not real conservatism. And even if it was, you'd still hate it. You are describing liberalism.
Yeah, you're not the only one who's said that 'small government' is more classic liberalism than conservatism. I guess, as OSR also said, it's semantics.
And social conservatives would make the same argument in reverse that policies that break up traditional norms due to pro growth policies are not conservative either . Anyway this is all semantics as everyone knows that what is defined as a conservative here is a coalition of different types of conservatives and not a single brand of it and all 3 contradict each other in some ways and did even in the “3 legged stool” era of Conservatism .
Economic Conservatives: They are for low taxes , less regulation, less spending , generally pro business policies and also “small government”.
National Security Conservatives: They are for maintaining American Hegemony which means a strong national defense , tougher stance against adversaries , and intervening to promote our interests and to shape the world in our image
Social conservatives: They are for promoting traditional “family values and norms” , are very religious etc
So yes all have naturally contradictory beliefs .
Economic and National Security: Flies right into the fact of economic conservatives that spending should be cut and visa versa
Economic and Social Conservatives: Can contradict small government belief of economic conservatives and promoting traditional values of social conservatives
National Security and Social : Many times goals of nationals security conservatives can push other nations to become more socially liberal.
The job of a political party is to put all these things together and what the GOP generally has done is by choosing the ones that contradict the least from each and dropping the others. So what each has chosen is:
Economic Conservatives: Low Taxes and Less Regulations
National Security Conservatives: More Military Spending and tougher stance against adversaries(Of course what the main adversary is has also changed with time)
Social Conservatives: Anti Abortion and defending norms that have at least 40% support from the nation.
My main point is that you hear the GOP hark about smaller, less authoritarian government while at the same time supporting laws brutally attacking the LGBT and a woman's right to choose, complain about the deficit while at the same time supporting big tax cuts for the rich and a bloated military industrial-complex. It's hypocrisy and self-contradictory. However, my mistake, it appears, was in assuming that conservatism necessarily equals a smaller government (economic conservatism) rather than supporting tradition and norms (social conservatism). But I nonetheless get what you're saying - it's about coalitions and balancing the different interests and priorities of the 3 types of 'conservatives' (in quotation marks because they have different meanings and do run contrary to each other in many ways...and because you have war hawks and deficit hawks and religious right-wingers all claim to be the real conservatives).
Also citing Barry Goldwater is lol given the guy was very much in support of Federalism and generally was not a fan of the Federal Government getting involved in social policy even if it was a law he would support.
Like I am sure Goldwater would be pro choice but pro Dobbs at the same time
Interesting. I thought about it more in terms of how he was socially libertarian and how he was against the religious right, and would probably oppose, say, DOMA and the Federal Marriage Amendment. I didn't really consider the other side of the coin, and your point is interesting - the same way he'd oppose a federal law restricting SSM, he'd probably oppose a federal law allowing it too (and thus oppose Obergefell) and would favour it going to the states, and the same for abortion (so although he'd oppose any law that sought to ban abortion on a national level, he'd oppose something allowing it nationally too, and though he might personally disagree with AL-type laws banning abortion altogether, he'd still support states choosing abortion laws rather than the nation).
I find the concept that the core of conservatism is restriction of government puzzling, because it leads to the conclusion (which you reason out but don't explicitly acknowledge) that proper conservatism is not meaningfully different from libertarianism, lacking any ability to push back against progressive ideas or aim to conserve anything through the political system. You say that "real conservatives support a small government that does not go any further than it needs to", but as far as government needs to go is an entirely arbitrary and subjective measure.
Even if we grant that conservatism in its proper state is just libertarianism by a different name, it is worth noting that one of the biggest internal debates in libertarianism is abortion. The reason for this is simple; if abortion really is murder then it is the most clearly justified exercise of government power imaginable. Likewise religious conservatives oppose euthanasia because we believe that killing an innocent person is murder per se, regardless of the circumstances that surround it.
With that said, I can tell that your response will be that that is my moral code and I am not a real conservative if I want to force it on others. The problem there is that literally every law consists in forcing a moral code on others who may disagree with it, and the concept of any law doing otherwise is an absurdity that is founded in the conceit of assuming that the prevailing morality of the society today is a representation of neutral reality and any departure from that is a moral opinion that seeks to be forced on to others. To genuinely believe this would be a baseless "I agree with the majority", the very antithesis of actually having beliefs and principles. Discarding that notion, if we suppose that forcing morals on others is not genuine conservatism, then the only ideology that could be considered compatible with genuine conservatism is anarchism.
You are correct. Again, I suppose I was thinking of and defining 'conservative' in a way that's apparently not as common as I thought it was. I did consider conservatism to be quite similar to libertarianism. So you're right, and if I didn't say it explicitly until now, yes, I was under the impression that 'true conservatism' (itself a very subjective phrase that, as you and OSR touched upon, different people define differently) would function very similarly to libertarianism, and that the ideals of 'true conservatism' would be more conducive to the Libertarians than to the Republicans.
To the next paragraph, what you said about abortion is indeed true. It is why I'm not altogether unsympathetic to the radically pro-life argument, because if you do think fetuses are babies or unborn babies, and consider abortion baby murder or infanticide, you'd naturally consider that (even as someone who's really quite libertarian) to be a place for the government to intervene in. With that said, I think euthanasia (and doctor-assisted suicide) really isn't murder if the patient in question has a 'living will' or can otherwise ascertain that they do, in fact, not want to live anymore and want to be euthanised.
To that third one, very interesting. I tend to consider forcing your moral code upon others limited almost always to social issues such as abortion and LGBT issues and euthanasia and the death penalty. But it is true that in a way, all public policy consists of some moral code being enforced - for instance, supporting any war or defence spending could be said to be inflicting the moral code of non-pacifists and war-hawks upon pacifists (who'd oppose it), and taxing anybody would go agains the moral code of those who principally oppose all taxation.
Anyway, thank you for this discussion. I can say that what you three said has evolved my opinion on this and made me think of it in a different, more nuanced, perceptive.
