A Question for the Conservatives

[khirkhib]

Saw an interesting article in the NY times an because I know their are more active conservatives on this board than us liberals I wanted to see what type of conservatives you all were.  Pick one, the priority, the definitions are in the article.

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Inside a Republican Brain  

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: July 21, 2004

What holds the five Republican factions together? To find out, I depth-polled my own brain.

The economic conservative (I'm in the supply-side division) opposes the enforced redistribution of wealth, advocating lower taxes for all to stimulate growth with productivity, thereby to cut the deficit. Government should downhold nondefense spending, stop the litigation drain and reduce regulation but protect consumers from media and other monopolies.

My social conservative instinct wants to denounce the movie-and-TV treatment of violence and porno-sadism as entertainment; repeal state-sponsored gambling; slow the rush to same-sex marriage; oppose partial-birth abortion; resist genetic manipulation that goes beyond therapy. However, this conflicts with -

My libertarian impulse, which is pro-choice and anti-compulsion, wants to protect the right to counsel of all suspects and the right to privacy of the rest of us, likes quiet cars in trains and vouchers for education, and wants snoops out of bedrooms and fundamentalists out of schoolrooms.

The idealistic calling grabs me when it comes to America's historic mission of extending freedom in the world. This brand of thinking is often called neoconservative . In defense against terror, I'm pre-emptive and unilateral rather than belated and musclebound, and would rather be ad hoc in forming alliances than permanently in hock to global bureaucrats.

Also rattling around my Republican mind is the cultural conservative . In today's ever-fiercer kulturkampf, I identify with art forms more traditional than avant-garde, and language usage more standard than common. I prefer the canon to the fireworks and a speech that appeals to the brain's reasoning facilities to a demidocumentary film arousing the amygdala.

Do these different streams of conservatism flow gently together to form a grand Republican river inside the head? "Do I contradict myself?" asked Walt Whitman, singing of himself and answering, "Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

If these different strains of thought were held by discrete groups of single-minded people, we would have a Republican Party of five warring bands. Social conservatives would fight libertarians over sex, who in turn would savage neocons over pre-emption, who in turn would hoot at the objections of economic conservatives (traditional division) to huge deficits.

But think of these internecine battles not as tugs of war among single-minded groups; instead, think of them as often-conflicting ideas held within the brain of an individual Republican. What goes on is "cognitive dissonance," the jangling of competing inclinations, with the owner of the brain having to work out trade-offs, suppressions and compromises until he or she achieves a kind of puzzled tranquillity within.

What helps me work out that continual internal skirmishing is a mind-set. That brings us to those "values" that every candidate talks about. My values include self-reliance over community dependence, intervention over isolation, self-discipline over society's regulation, finding pleasure in work rather than working to find pleasure. Principles like those help me gel a mind-set that reduces the loudest dissonances among my fistful of clanging conservatisms.

Another aid to resolve the dissonance is every partisan's need for a political home. Independence is fine for the occasionally involved, but if influence as a participant or commentator is desired, one political side or the other must be taken.

The political brain doesn't have to go all the way to conform to either side because each side - Republican and its loyal opposition - contains this conglomeration of nonconformity. I'm a right-winger who is hot for gun control, dismaying all but the wishy-washies called "moderates," but that specific dissent is made inside my Republican home. And home has been defined as the place where - when you have to go there - they have to take you in.

Finally, the dissonance inside my head will be forced into harmony by the need to choose one leader who reflects the preponderance of my views and my judgment of his character.

I will take my teeming noggin to both conventions, watch all the debates and cast my vote - careful, in the tradition of Times columnists, not to endorse anyone. But now you know how one Republican mind will be made up. I presume the liberal brain works the same way.


E-mail: safire@nytimes.com

[MODU]

Tough call.  I'm pretty much a hodge podge of all, with less Libertarian and more economic conservative.  I could list all the conservative aspects which I believe in, but that would take up way too much space.  And then to be fair, I'd have to list all the liberal stances as well.

[Mort from NewYawk]

I'm not a Republican, but I'll vote for Bush because of my neoconservative position in foreign affairs.

It was the Democrats who were the first "neoconservatives" - certainly Truman and Kennedy were strongly interventionist abroad, while progressive with regard to individual and minority rights at home. Senator Henry Jackson of Washington carried this philosophy into the 70's - Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were associated with his Presidential campaign before jumping parties to join Ronald Reagan (another original neoconservative Democrat).

Today, conservative Democrats (neo or otherwise) have been pushed to the fringes of the party, even though the only successful Democratic presidential campaigns since the post-Vietnam re-definition of "conservative" and "liberal" have come from the "conservative" wing of the party.

[JohnFKennedy]

I'm not a Republican, but I'll vote for Bush because of my neoconservative position in foreign affairs.

It was the Democrats who were the first "neoconservatives" - certainly Truman and Kennedy were strongly interventionist abroad, while progressive with regard to individual and minority rights at home. Senator Henry Jackson of Washington carried this philosophy into the 70's - Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were associated with his Presidential campaign before jumping parties to join Ronald Reagan (another original neoconservative Democrat).

Today, conservative Democrats (neo or otherwise) have been pushed to the fringes of the party, even though the only successful Democratic presidential campaigns since the post-Vietnam re-definition of "conservative" and "liberal" have come from the "conservative" wing of the party.

Here here Mort!

Weren't the original Neo-Conservatives in fact a group of Jewish Senators (I think it was Senators) who were very hawkish and very progressive socially. They eventually split from the Democrats. I think at least they were the first to call themselves Neo-Conservatives.

[Mort from NewYawk]

I read recently about a professor of Greek philosophy (can't remember his name now) who wrote books advocating a consistent moral stance in a nation's foreign affairs, a la Socratic philosophy. He was apparantly mentor to the first neo-conservative Presidential advisors, who were charting out an activist American role following the Vietnam experience.

Many of these advisors were Jewish, but Lieberman is the only Jewish senator that I would consider neo-con in foreign affairs. The early neo-con Senators were Henry Jackson, and perhaps Gary Hart (before the philosophy went Republican with Reagan).

I believe Ford has some insights into the origin and politics of neo-conservatism.

[MODU]

Well, you can extend that back some to include James Monroe and the Monroe Doctrine, to pre-emptively keep out Spain and the rest of Europe from our "neutrality" and our dominance over the Western Hemisphere.  Due to that, we have constantly worked within these nations under the "American umbrella" to force out leaders who were against our views of freedom and democracy.  I guess you could say we were trying to impose our Moral stance/compass/beliefs on them as well.