I have conservative friends who argue that it’s unfair of the left to paint them all as a bunch of tea-party-attending, Glen-Beck-listening yahoos. They argue that conservatism has a rich intellectual foundation, and that by cherry picking their worst-sounding supporters, we willfully ignore the writers today who uphold that intellectual foundation.
Writers like the folks at The National Review.
Writers like John Derbyshire1.
Why do I bring this up? Well, its just that as Faiz Shakir points out over at Think Progress, John Derbyshire went on Alan Colmes’ radio show yesterday and took a stand against female suffrage.
DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.
COLMES: We’d be a better country if women didn’t vote?
DERBYSHIRE: Probably. Don’t you think so?
COLMES: No, I do not think so whatsoever.
DERBYSHIRE: Come on Alan. Come clean here [laughing].
COLMES: We would be a better country? John Derbyshire making the statement, we would be a better country if women did not vote.
DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, probably.
Okay, so that’s bad enough, but Alan Colmes, rightly gobsmacked by this, next asked
COLMES: What’s next, you want to bring back slavery?
DERBYSHIRE: No. No, I’m in favor of freedom, personally.
COLMES: But women shouldn’t have the freedom to vote?
DERBYSHIRE: Well, they didn’t and we got on along ok.
He goes on to argue against The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Of course.
Anyhow, all this illustrates two things for me.
First, it really perfectly encapsulates the strange sort of doublethink you see in conservative political philosophy all the time.
“We believe in individualism! (Just so long as you don’t have sex in ways we disapprove of.)”
“We believe in freedom! (As long as people who disagree with us are not allowed to vote.)”
“We believe in free speech! (But people who criticize the (Republican) president should watch their goddamn mouths.)”
You see this a lot in discussions about economics, where the argument is that government intervention and collective solutions are illegitimate (not just wrong, mind you), no matter how much of the electorate is in favor of them. You see it in the faux-troversies about President Obama’s legitimacy. You see it in Glenn Beck’s rhetoric about how ‘real Americans’ are opposed to President Obama, despite him having won the presidency by an overwhelming majority 2. You see it in the analysis we hear every election about how “if it weren’t for the African-American vote, Democrats would be a permanent minority party3 ”
The central idea is this: If you disagree with them, you ought not be allowed to participate in the democratic process in the first place. I contrast this with the way the liberal ACLU operates, fighting for the free speech rights of white supremacists and the religious rights of fundamentalists, both groups who are not (to put it mildly) their ‘core constituency’.
‘Rights for all,’ versus ‘rights for the people who agree with me.’ That’s the difference.
Hell, John Derbyshire makes no bones about it! He says outright, “The conservative case against [female suffrage] is that women lean hard to the left.” That’s not an argument. That’s thuggery.
Anyhow, that’s the first thing I took from it.
The second thing I took away is that when people talk about the rich intellectual tradition of Conservatism, it’s guys like John Derbyshire they’re talking about, so … jeez … maybe they mean something different by ‘intellectual?’
Please do not comment unless you accept the basic dignity, equality, and inherent worth of all people
- Who, as Andrew Sullivan ably documents, continues to believe that gay people are all child molesters. Or at least enough where we shouldn’t let them around our children, best to be safe, etc, etc, etc. [↩]
- And the Democrats having won both houses! [↩]
- Hey look, here’s an example or two from a while back. [↩]
Myca,
I don’t know any conservatives who, in speaking of their rich intellectual tradition, have John Derbyshire in mind. When I think of the conservative intellectual tradition, I think of Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott, F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and in a more recent and popular vein, Irving Kristol, William F. Buckley, Charles Krauthammer, George Will. For libertarians, J.S. Mill and Robert Nozick. Certainly some very controversial folks — Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, for example — but not a parade of clowns read by mouth-breathers whose brains would explode if they tried to grasp Friedman’s theories of monetary policy.
Jonah Goldberg, FYI, is not part of the intellectual right. Even Republicans I know who are fond of Goldberg concede that he is at best a poor man’s P.J. O’Rourke. (O’Rourke himself, admittedly, is growing increasingly addled; he recently insulted poor Burke by referring to the ‘Burkean proclivities’ of ‘”birthers,” “anti-tax tea-partiers,” and “town hall hecklers.”‘)
The intellectual tradition of conservatism is by its very nature also conservative in temperament and tends to evaluate things by looking at people’s real lives and behavior:
That sort of thing — acknowledging a limited role for the state in specific situations, while remaining on guard against expansion beyond that role — is well beyond the intellectual capacity of your average GOP governor. Then again, I wouldn’t swear that the average Democratic governor would grasp what was worthwhile in J.M. Keynes, either.
Who, as Andrew Sullivan ably documents, continues to believe that gay people are all child molesters. Or at least enough where we shouldn’t let them around our children, best to be safe, etc, etc, etc.
Considering Derbyshire’s sentiments on the sexual attractiveness of teenagers (women’s bodies are attractive “only from about 15 to 20”), this might just be projection on his part.
There may be a rich intellectual tradition of conservatives, but they seem to have been pushed to the back of public discourse. They are no longer household names like Buckley and Safire. I can’t even think of living men on the public stage who would be considered both conservative and intellectual, outside of the halls of justice.
Krauthammer really jumps out at me from that list. Much as I’ve found George Will to be willing to lie and to be outright wrong on many of his facts and conclusions, at least there is a genuine intellectual curiosity in a lot of his writing. Krauthammer not so much. Granted, Krauthammer is oodles beyond the likes of Derbyshire, but part of an intellectual tradition? He really never struck me that way.
Oh, certainly … my gripe isn’t with the idea that the right has an intellectual foundation in the first place, it’s more that the places I’m told this intellectual foundation resides currently seem to all be pretty stupid.
I mean, maybe I’m wrong in believing that The National Review is a place where ‘the smart conservatives’ are, but then … where is that place?
—Myca
The National Review has been a wingnut paper for as long as I’ve been old enough to glance at it. I don’t know what the current bastion of rational conservative thought is, but the NR isn’t it… I’d honestly suggest the WSJ before the National Review, and even WSJ has long since fallen in with modern neoconservativism.
What the heck does that leave? Paglia?
Also, PG, your quoting Hayek on health care made me want to quote Adam Smith on progressive taxation:
What a freaking socialist.
—Myca
Jake,
Krauthammer I put on the list because he seems to be one of the few intelligent conservatives who the right wing of the blogosphere also pays attention to. They had to toss George Will because he looked at Palin and went, “Yeesh.”
I could put the Chicago law trifecta on the list — Posner, Easterbrook, Epstein — but that’s getting too far into my own sub-specialty; the average conservative hasn’t even heard of Easterbrook, and anyway Posner is suspicious because he’s really a pragmatist.
Myca,
I’m not sure I could point to a single publication as being “where the smart liberals are,” but also I think liberalism is having its moment of maturity, whereas the 20th century folks I named for conservatives are senior citizens or recently deceased. I think the conservative wave had its ascendancy in the late 1970s and early 1980s pushing back against some of the excesses of modern liberalism (e.g. as manifested Nixon’s (?!) wage and price controls). Oakeshott, Hayek, Friedman, Nozick, Buckley and Kristol have all died since 1990.
We may be in the liberal wave that’s going to push against some of the excesses of modern conservatism (market worship, culture wars). I think there are some quite young conservatives who seem promising, like Conor Friedersdorf, but I suppose they’ll have their day in the sun about 20 years from now when liberalism needs a corrective.
Speaking of National Review.
If only he’d read that magazine, perhaps we could’ve avoided this.
Manju, do you believe that you meet the guidelines to post in this thread?
—Myca
Yes
Fair enough. You’re welcome to comment in my posts, then.
As a note, try to stay on topic.
—Myca
At the risk of sounding pithy: If they were intellectuals, they wouldn’t be conservatives. Also, Derbyshire’s channeling Ann Coulter and Phyllis Schlafly, which is just sad.
The old Right used to have “some” reasonable people in it. Eisenhower comes to mind, even if he did put the word “God” on our money and funded Operation Ajax. Certainly the people on the right were not nearly as crazy as they have become now. The Right “used” to be about individual rights, small government and yes, horribly, “commie-bashing”. There was also a healthy amount of misogyny too.
The present day right has kept the “commie-bashing” mantra, but has swelled to include, amongst other things, Religious fanaticism, a die hard hatred of science, gay bashing, minority bashing, and Glenn Beck. I have no doubt in my mind that if Einsenhower, with all his failings, was alive today, he would be repelled by what the Right has become.
The Right have never really been that good for any nation, due to their love of hanging on to the past (which is never a good thing). But they didn’t used to be THIS crazy. This craziness started in the 70’s and only ramped up with Reagan.
I know one person who would call themselves “right wing” (even though we don’t really have right or left wing here in Australia). He is an atheist, supporter of gay marriage and a supporter of the Iraq War and against welfare for poor people. I do believe his support of the Iraq war is logically flawed, but he isn’t a raving Glenn-Beck watching, tin-foil hat wearing lunatic.
What do you define as “right” or “left” anyway? There are some trends on the left (PETA for example) which scare the hell out of me, just as there are some on the right (Glenn Beck) which scare the hell out of me. The Right has its lunatics and I generally disagree with them a whole bunch, but the Left is just as crazy on many things – for example, the Right are crazy for denying evolution, yet many people I know on the left have an incredible fear and paranoia of GM-food, despite no scientific evidence showing that it can cause serious harm. Sure some on the Right say that Obama was born in Kenya, but what about those on the Left who believe or believed that Bush was behind 9/11, that Business controls who is elected, or that government planes are spraying “chem trails” to control our minds?
The extreme, far right are the most vocal in voicing their opinions, so naturally they take up the most screen time. Most “right wingers” I know do not hate Obama, even though they disagree with him. Most newspapers/magazines that I read, like “The Australian” (which is well known for its right wing tilt) or “The Washington Post” or “The Economist”, which aren’t exactly on the left side of things, don’t share the paranoia or the hatred displayed by the far right.
Of course it is alarming that you have a bunch of really scared, really angry, really ignorant people raving on about Obama’s “death panels”, but most people who are center-right or moderately right do not share those opinions. The people who are holding up racist placards and signs never would have voted for Obama anyway, and they are unlikely to gain new recruits (due to how insane they are). Craziness appeals to crazy people, but is unlikely to spread. Remember those 9/11 “Truthers”? They did not succeed in signing up many to their cause – only paranoids listen to other paranoids.
Even though I hope the Secret Service is investigating these crazy right wing groups, I would not fear losing the whole of the US to them. Their time has passed.
PG: Regardless of what their thought may be called, I don’t really think that one can talk of Burke or Oakshotte as being “conservatives” in relation to conservatism in the U.S., nor can one talk about them being part of the same intellectual tradition, because they patently are not. This, quite frankly, is one of my biggest problems with Mr. Sullivan; the philosophical and political orientations of 17th and 18th century Europe do not apply, and have never applied, to political philosophy in the United States. To put it simply, the conservative movement in the U.S. has, since its earliest days among the Southern Planters, been rigorously opposed to many of the basic tenets of Liberalism. The “Conservative” philosophical tradition, the father of which Burke is often seen as, is deeply part of the Liberalism; in fact it is Liberalism, just approached from a stance of caution instead of one of radicalization. There is nothing inherently Republican about it, and in fact, if one acknowledges that the political conservatives of the U.S. have always been opposed to the expansion of civil rights (as they still are), always been champions of the radical economic utilization of resources (as they still are), and always opposed to any measure by the state or nation government to place impositions before the will of the mighty and rich (as they still are), one can easily see that these “conservatives” have always been opposed, in their actions, to anything resembling Burkean ideals, regardless of what they claim.
The longer it takes for sane conservatives, like Mr. Sullivan, to admit that they’ve spent their lives championing causes which they find morally reprehensible, while ignoring and making excuses for the barbarous insanity of those whom they sided with solely to gain electoral advantage, the longer it will take for the Republican party to heal.
O’Rourke himself, admittedly, is growing increasingly addled;
Or maybe he’s just going full circle, he started out as a lefty. Incidentally, I’ve wondered at times what effect neo cons have had on the right’s consciousness, have they hollowed it out in some way?
Anyhow I can’t agree with @14, I just can’t believe that being right wing in itself is incompatible with intellectual inquiry because of the way tradition and history informs the present and future. Also, individualism can put a person ahead of their time.
Embracing a reactive and rigid conservative pose probably doesn’t go with an enquiring mind though.
Suggest rewording this somewhat. It doesn’t differentiate between Democratic and Republican presidents.
The Nation and specifically Christopher Hayes. His views quite often run contrary to the general progressive views due to his strong civil libertarian streak. I do not always agree with him but I respect his writing more than any other writer in politics.
Great comment, Julian. I had a lot of trouble deciding how much of it to quote, since it’s all quoteworthy, really.
Actually: Hey everyone, go read Julian’s comment. It’s #16, and was just approved this morning, so you may have missed it.
Ah-HA! Trick question. They don’t recognize Democratic presidents in the first place.
Naah, that’s probably unfair … I’ll add something in to clarify.
—Myca
Who, exactly, does he mean by “we”?
/rhetorical question
whats this in reference to?
Manju, you’re kidding, right? Or did you sleep through the 8 years of the Bush Presidency, where every time anyone criticized anything Bush and his crew did*, we got called traitors who lined up to spit on the flag, not to mention the graves of the 9/11 victims, firefighters, the Troops, and little sweet kittens?
*These things would include involving us in a useless war, authorizing torture, rolling back EPA regulations, allowing Creationist texts to be sold in National Park bookstores — shall I go on? Believe me, I could.
great, since it was so common it should be no problem for you or myca to provide the source you’re referencing.
I just mentally add “for people like us” to those sort of statements…
That’s what struck me as well. At least about present day “conservatives”*, who seem to boast such bloody-mindedness that one is hard pressed to believe that any form of rational discourse will sway them…
To be a so-called intellectual requires a certain minimum of intellectual honesty and curiosity. One could argue that this honesty is only really possible in progressive thought and on the extremes, such as libertarianism, the various flavors of anarcho-capitalism, and of course communism, just to name some isms.
I’m not going to bet my lot on the free market purists being right, for instance, but I have respect for ideologues who at least attempt to be consistent and try to carry through the consequences of their premises to their full conclusions.
*as opposed to older school conservatives, many of whom were pragmatists.
My favorite recent example: the Virginia chapter of the ACLU informs a high school that it has to allow students to exercise their 1st Amendment right to protest the ACLU at a football game. The students want to protest because the ACLU previously informed the school that sectarian prayers over the loudspeaker at a public high school’s football game violate the 1st Amendment.
Julian @16,
I think you might be conflating Classical Liberalism (what today most closely approximates libertarianism) with contemporary liberalism. Also, it seems ahistorical to claim that those labeling themselves Republicans have always opposed the expansion of civil rights — what about the 19th century, when Southerners were Democrats and the abolitionist party was Republican? Even conservatism, aside from party labels, was not solely a Southern planter phenomenon; the Whig party of New Englander Daniel Webster identified itself as “conservative,” for example.
great, since it was so common it should be no problem for you or myca to provide the source you�re referencing.
Bush’s spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking of Bill Maher: “they’re reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.”
A Traitor List for those who criticized Bush, which was then the subject of a Libel suit (treason is one of the few crimes specifically mentioned in the Constitution as punishable by death — falsely accusing someone of a crime is per se libel).
More.
New York Post columnist beginning with, “IT IS amazing how liberals, whom I regard as traitors in this time of crisis, like to quote the Constitution.”
I can’t believe the idea that liberals were being told to watch what they say, that they were traitors and committing treason, that they mustn’t criticize the president or his policy in a time of war, is even under dispute. How quickly some people like to forget what is uncomfortable — even if it’s easily findable through Google.
I thought this is what Myca was referring to so that’s why I asked. Its a little convoluted, but taken In context, Fleischer was actually telling the American people to not say bigoted things in light of 911, or to watch what one says in terms of unhinged rhetoric (Bill Maher comment), a warning this blog makes routinely. Criticism of heated speech, especially bigotry, is hardly tantamount to silenceing.
Christopher Hitchens explains.
The government’s telling people to “watch what they say” is indeed silencing. (The government being, after all, the entity that can actually violate the First Amendment.) It’s one thing to criticize a specific remark that you’ve actually heard or read — something Fleischer admitted he hadn’t with regard to Maher’s remarks — it’s another to make a blanket statement that people ought to “watch what they say.”
Hitchens’s explanation is part of Fleischer’s attempt, since he left the White House, to alter the impression that his statement made at the time he said it.
Even if you accept Hitchens’s account, Fleischer was at best comparing a Congressman’s advocacy of turban-profiling to a comedian’s judgment of what is and isn’t cowardly. There is good reason for the president’s spokesman to tell members of the federal government, which includes Congress, that they ought to be mindful of Americans’ concerns about being treated unjustly by the … wait for it … government. This is particularly true when the president and the Congressman are of the same party and the president is anxious that the Congressman’s words might be misinterpreted as being the president’s views as well.
There is no good reason for the president’s spokesman to be telling a private individual what opinions he’s allowed to voice. There is no fear that anyone would interpret a comedian’s views as those of the president; there is no fear that anyone would interpret them as government policy or having anything to do with the state at all. The White House spokesman’s telling Bill Maher to watch what he says is silencing and intimidating.
ETA: If we consider Slate columnists to be authoritative sources, Timothy Noah thinks Fleischer’s post-White House explanations of what he really meant are BS.
After all the time we’ve spent together here on Alas does this really sound like me? I’m right-wing but you do know I’m a Barack Obama supporter, have been thoroughly enjoying the implosion of the conservative movement (not unlike andrew sullivan has) and have linked you in the past to me whacking the righties for fighting straw men and not confronting the hate within their own movement just like i routinley do here.
My presence here should tell you I enjoy getting out of my ideological comfort zone because thats where politics gets really challenging. If you stay within the confines of safespaces you end up with a bizarrely twisted view of reality where “being told to watch what they say, that they were traitors and committing treason, that they mustn’t criticize the president or his policy in a time of war” is somehow indicative of a great difference between the two parties (not sure if this your view, but it appears to be Myca’s). because this never happened:
1. Video: Pelosi calls House GOP “unpatriotic”
2. The Day Bush Was ‘Defined’ as a Traitor, a Coward and a Creep
3. Open Letter to Republican Traitors
Government officials have freedom of speech and therefore criticize or tell people they shouldn’t have said what they did many times. For example, i haven’t looked it up, but as you say its “easily findable through Google” so i’m sure we can find govt officials who criticized some of the unhinged rhetoric coming from the teabaggers.
Ari was criticizing Cooksey and Mahler’s specific remarks , having heard Cooksey’s and going from 2nd hand reports of Mahler’s :”I’m aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right.”
So given this context, i fail to see how he was making a “blanket statement that people ought to “watch what they say.””, nevermend attempting to raise the spectre of government censorship of people who criticize the president.
there are a lot of good reasons. i have no prob with govt officials saying the teabaggers shouldnt compare the Prez to a Nazi, a monkey, or a commie or even a socialist–the rhetoric is unhelpful to say the least. indeed, thats constuionally protected pseech. given the context, ari comments were very innocuous–he didn’t make threats, didn’t use hyperbole or dehmanize or call into question the patriotism of the speaker– hardly a threat of real government censorship.
As you would know if you read the Timothy Noah piece I linked, Fleischer at one point claimed, “My remarks urged tolerance and openness and were addressed to those who made statements and threatened actions against Muslims or Sikhs in America” — something clearly not including Maher’s statement. So how could he have been addressing Maher’s remark specifically and knowledgeably?
i have no prob with govt officials saying the teabaggers shouldnt compare the Prez to a Nazi, a monkey, or a commie or even a socialist
Note that Fleischer’s counterpart, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, has not used his platform to tell tea-partiers what they should and shouldn’t say about the president. The White House spokesman at a White House press conference is not supposed to be mouthing off his own opinions; he’s supposed to be giving the official White House line. That’s why Gibbs, whatever his own opinion may be, has been scrupulously distancing the White House from Jimmy Carter’s claims that Joe Wilson and those like him are motivated by racism. A White House spokesman who thinks his job is to exercise his freedom of speech is out of a job very quickly.
because he’s probably full of shit when he says he was only addressing the bigots statements, though not as full of shit as those who detach the bigots statements from his remarks alltogether. ari was telling a half-truth, although it possible thats where his mind wandered. stuck me as an off the cuff answer, not a premeditated threat.
but pelosi has used her platform to criticize the speech. i have no prob with that. good for her. if righties feel their freedom of speech is being threatened by the speaker they’re a bunch of whiny victim mentality wimps as far as i’m concerned. having your speech criticized is not a violation of your freedom of speech.
because he’s probably full of shit when he says he was only addressing the bigots statements
And how is it you figure out when Ari Fleischer is full of shit and when he’s being honest? By whether it accords with your interpretation?
stuck me as an off the cuff answer, not a premeditated threat.
Good for you, person-who-isn’t-Bill-Maher, for not perceiving any threat.
having your speech criticized is not a violation of your freedom of speech.
No, but having the government categorically tell you that you should “watch what you say, watch what you do” has a chilling effect. What is it supposed to mean for the White House (and again, Fleischer’s job is to speak for the White House, not to spout his beliefs) to tell Americans, in response to a question about a TV comedian’s stating the opinion that the terrorists were not cowards, that “they need to watch what they say, watch what they do”? He doesn’t tie it to “we owe each other some kindness” or “we should be courteous and respectful of one another” or anything like that. He just said Americans “need to watch what they say, watch what they do.”
Maybe you’ve always heard that phrase differently, but whenever I’ve been told. “You need to watch what you do,” the point is that what I’m doing at the moment will get me in trouble if I continue. It’s certainly different from being told “I disagree with your doing that” or even “I don’t think you should do that.” I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone tell me “you need to watch what you do” who didn’t have a position of authority over me (parents were especially fond of that phrase).
I am allowing you to comment in my threads despite your tendency towards bizarre and unjustified threadjacks out of the kindness of my heart, Manju.
If you put words in my mouth that I did not say, that kindness will evaporate.
Though I would rather than politicians did not toss about accusations of ‘unpatritotic’ willy-nilly, it’s not something I brought up, even obliquely, in my original post.
Though I would rather than politicians did not toss about accusations of ‘cowardace’ willy-nilly, it’s not something I brought up, even obliquely, in my original post.
Though I would rather than politicians did not toss about accusations of ‘treason’ willy-nilly, it’s not something I brought up, even obliquely, in my original post.
Not one of those links, as near as I can tell, argue that critics of president Obama ought not criticize him during a time of war, or that policy criticisms are somehow ‘bad’.
Now discuss the post or get out.
My thread will not be your tu quoque playground.
—Myca
The transcript indicates he’s speaking of both Cooksey and Maher, so I take his assertion that he meant only Cooksey with a grain of pepper…though I leave room for the possiblity that he’s telling the truth. Judgement call.
In the transcript he says in response to the question of about Maher’s comment: “I have not discussed it with the President” so apparently he was spouting his own beliefs in violation of the protocal PG thinks is cast in stone. Some of us like to go rogue every once in a while, not rouge (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Notice what’s missing from PG’s narrative:
1. that Ari’s comments were a reaction to these comments “If I see someone come in and he’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt around that diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over and checked.”
2. and a reaction to Maher’s comments calling our military cowards. From the very question asked to Ari (via transcript): “…his announcement that members of our armed forces who deal with missiles are cowards…”
No, PG contextualizes Ari’s comments exclusively within Maher’s calling the terrorists “not cowards.” Once again, dealing with an argument from the weakest possible construction. Though I’l give you credit, you did a better job than the excitable Paul Krugman, who managed to interpret Ari’s words as this: “Patriotic citizens were supposed to accept the administration’s version of events, not ask awkward questions.”
Did it ever occur to you that your words may get someone else in trouble, that words have consequences as Myca himself has warned us many times on this very blog? If you went around spouting crap like “wearing a diaper on his head” or “we have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly” I ‘d hope someone, the government or your parents, would call you out on it.
Do we not live in a world whereSikhs are beaten unconscious by bigots because they’re mistaken for terrorists? Do we not live in a world where anti-semites target out military personnel for political violence?
I think Ari and for that matter Pelosi got it just right, you fight these asshats who make thse asshole comments with free speech. if the asshats whine that they feel silenced, fuck ’em. feeling silenced is not the same as being.
In the transcript he says in response to the question of about Maher’s comment: “I have not discussed it with the President” so apparently he was spouting his own beliefs in violation of the protocal PG thinks is cast in stone. Some of us like to go rogue every once in a while
The White House message is not composed solely by the president. The White House spokesman is expected to be speaking on behalf of the White House/ Executive Branch, and if he answers a question without having explicitly discussed the subject with the president, he’s supposed to answer based on what he thinks the president and his senior staff (top policy advisers, chief of staff, et al) would want him to say, not based on what he personally thinks. We’ve actually seen this distinction when spokespeople have gone on to write memoirs where they say “I didn’t think this was right but it was the White House message.”
Gibbs is even more cautious and will try to avoid answering questions where he hasn’t heard what the message is supposed to be. Again, people who like to go “rogue” shouldn’t be White House spokespeople (or indeed any kind of spokespeople — if my employer’s PR guy decided to answer press questions based on his personal opinions instead of our interests, he’d be fired immediately. Spokespeople are hired to be mouthpieces, not to have opinions.)
his announcement that members of our armed forces who deal with missiles are cowards
Except, of course, that Maher didn’t say that. He said, “We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.” Since Maher isn’t a member of the armed forces, his “we” clearly refers to Americans as a whole who have, through our choice of leadership in a democracy, opted for strategies that avoid putting our people in danger while imposing significant casualties on other countries. Such a strategy is of course in our rational self-interest, but rational self-interest =/= courage or bravery.
Do we not live in a world where Sikhs are beaten unconscious by bigots because they’re mistaken for terrorists?
I heart how all of the concern is about Sikhs getting confused with Muslims. Go ahead and assume the Muslims are terrorists and beat the crap out of them, but God forbid that Sikhs get caught up in that due to Americans’ ignorance of world religions and assumption that anyone in a turban is a Muslim.
I saw this cowardly willingness to sacrifice Muslims in the wake of 9/11 among some non-Muslim South Asians and Middle Easterners; I despised it then and I despise it now. As a brown person, trying to escape a beating by saying, “But I’m not a Muslim” is bullshit. We need to stand together against bigotry, not accept it and just try to ensure it’s not fact-mistakenly directed against us. As Colin Powell might say, in point of fact a Sikh is not a Muslim — but even if a Sikh were, “is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?”
Do we not live in a world where anti-semites target out military personnel for political violence?
And anti-Semites do this because they think military personnel are cowardly? Here I thought it was because they think Jews are bad. Shows what I know about anti-Semitism, I guess.
if the asshats whine that they feel silenced, fuck ‘em. feeling silenced is not the same as being.
I’ve already said that this type of statement by government officials has a chilling effect. No, it doesn’t literally silence people. Neither does the FBI’s infiltrating anti-war groups or interrogating their members or putting their members on no-fly lists. Hey, they can still speak, no one is silencing them!
Once again, PG takes on an argument by addressing its worst possible interpretation. this is the most egregious example because you assigned bigotry for the selfserving purpose of knocking down a strawman.
“Go ahead and assume the Muslims are terrorists” : what disgusting bigotry to introduce into a conversation to win debating points.
Yes, it has a chilling effect, or more specifically, is intended to have a chilling effect. I don’t think it actually does chill because the American people are more than aware of their first amendment rights and go right on calling people all sorts of vile names.
but those who try to make these people chill via the method of speech are fine by me. taken in context, ari’s words were meant as a call for civility and didn’t reflect any desire to silence criticism of the president. ditto for Nancy.
“Go ahead and assume the Muslims are terrorists” : what disgusting bigotry to introduce into a conversation to win debating points.
Then why were you repeatedly stressing the OH NOES of having Sikhs mistaken for Muslims, when the Congressman wasn’t even talking about Sikhs (and probably was too ignorant to know anyone besides Muslims wears turbans)? Why was your focus on the Sikhs rather than on how it’s bigoted to target anyone, Muslim or otherwise, based on a turban? Why did you link an article where the victim’s reaction was “We are different religion, different country”?
I don’t think it actually does chill because the American people are more than aware of their first amendment rights and go right on calling people all sorts of vile names.
One of my friends who opposed the war in Iraq worked for the federal government in a job that required a security clearance, and specifically decided not to attend an antiwar protest with me (prior to the war’s beginning) because she feared repercussions. Given the attitude of the Bush Administration, I think her fear was reasonable.
To return to the actual subject of this post (I’ll let Manju have the last word on the derail), y’all might be interested in this Slate conversation about conservative intellectualism wherein one of the participants is Reihan Salam, who is of that rising younger generation of conservatives I’d mentioned.
Assume positive intent, Manju. Personally attacking PG here is unacceptable, especially considering:
IF you bring up bigotry (as you did), THEN do not be surprised when other people make reference to bigotry (as PG did).
—Myca
Thanks, PG. Getting back to the actual topic is good.
Great article, actually. As much as I oppose conservatism, I am very interested in seeing a resurgence of conservative intellectualism, since I think that neither one-party states nor embracing brain-dead thuggery are positive things, and with the current state of the Republican party, we kind of have to choose between them.
Specifically, I’d love to see a conservatism that aggressively rejects racial and sexual discrimination, and even offers some solutions to these problems, rather than either embracing them (as too many on the right have done) or rejecting them but offering a half-hearted “so sorry, but there’s nothing we can/should do,” as the vast majority have done.
I think that there are actual, legitimate disagreements between the right and the left, and that those disagreements deserve vigorous debate … and I don’t believe that folks who disagree with me on tax policy or the virtues of the free market are evil … but the people who believe that gay people cannot be trusted around children? They need to be treated like Klansmen.
My hope is that when the smoke clears the ‘new right’ with have more of the former and less of the latter.
—Myca
i’m “repeatedly stressing the OH NOES of having Sikhs mistaken for Muslims?” thats just bizaare. I mentioned sikhs once and never said they were mistaken for Muslims (though i’m sure they were) rather terrorists.
the congressman’s statement about guys with diapers on their heads needing to be pulled over immediately reminded me of sikhs, not Muslims, since male sikhs are the ones most likely to wear headgear bigots think look like diapers. the muslim males i know don’t wear headgear, except perhaps some inconspicuus skullcap when they go to the mosque.
Sikhs are more conspicuous and as far as i can tell more likely to be the target of this particular stereotype.
as far as the victims reaction i didn’t catch that nor is that the reaction i have when i’m mistaken for a Muslim. i do an instant conversion unless i think the dudes are packing.
so given this danger, i appreciate the presidents warnings.
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Manju, just so that you understand, that was your very last post on the derail. Considering that I told you to cut it out ten posts ago, if this happens again, you will be banned.
—Myca
Julian @16:
I waited until PG responded b/c her words have more weight than mine, and I’m glad she hit the ahistorical point regarding southern plantation owners, but allow me to expand….
Locke and Montesquieu and the Enlightenment thinkers didn’t influence the founders?
I guess, if PG’s right, you’re talking about modern liberalism here—which admittedly Burke would be more sympathetic to given a his sense of european noblesse oblige as well as a desire for stability (by making sure all people are taken care off) but surely you see influxes of classic liberalism within the conservative movements free market, limited government , and anti-communist wings…the latter along with fascism being the major threat to liberalism during the 20th century. Think Francis fukuyama, for example.
I think you will also find Burke within the works of Leo Straus and Allan Bloom, two thinkers associated with neoconservatism. But frankly, the reason I think you don’t see his name bandied around conservative circles too much is for the precise opposite reason you state: like machiavelli, his anti-liberalism and elitism make him problematic. the movement since Goldwater has become more populist, more ideological in its outlook—strident anti-communism and abstract free market fundamentalism for example–overturning the Rockefeller wing of the party and behaving in ways (Reagan Revolution!) that Burke famously warned liberals of his day was too disturbing to the status quo.
also, you’ll find Burke influence in the very southern plantation owners you classify as the anti-Burkian, which probably set back his reputation as well. wiki offers a little insight on John C. Calhoun:
This is the ahistorical part. Obviously the democrats wanted to expand slavery, including it in their platform 6 times, while the republicans wanted to end it. They created jim crow laws and the kkk in order to terrorize blacks and republicans and opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1875. This lasted thru the progressive era with prez woodrow wilson segregating the federal government. labor and child welfare laws, Social Security and FDR’s New Deal were created as the result of an agreement to ignore segregation and the lynching. the election of Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson and FDR were dependent on similar deal to ignore lynching and segregation.
so to make the southern plantation owners part of the conservative movement is a stretch. even if we were to try to make them part of a conservative philosophy later finding its way into the republican party your narrative of them opposing attempts to “place impositions before the will of the mighty and rich” is not borne out by history. during the most fierce days of American racism post civil war, they were deeply entwined with the party that attempted to do just that.
Myca, if they gave up discrimination they’d be liberals. That, Jeebus, and guns is all they’ve got. (For those Christians out there: I actually don’t have a beef with Jesus, but his followers scare me.)
You know … I don’t actually agree with this. I think that conservatism has a lot to say about tradition, community, and economics that is neither discriminatory, religious, or firearms-based.
Now, granted, even there, I disagree with a lot of it, but I don’t think conservatism utterly lacks value.
—Myca
Post evidence, from a non right wing source, showing this ‘agreement’. Your phrasing implies an active connection and active collusion, so the evidence should support that.
If you post something else instead, or if you ignore this post, as you have ignored my past few warnings, you will not be posting here any longer.
—Myca
Myca- you’re probably right about the economic principles, but as I understand the basic conservative economic principle is “give money to the rich ’cause they deserve it and the poor don’t.” I’m probably oversimplifying, but that seems to have been true through most of my lifetime. As for tradition: yes there are a few worthy traditions, but that of “the happy ’50s family” needs to die. Traditional families aren’t really healthy for women and kids. And unless your name is Phyllis Schlafly or Ann Coulter, I don’t think any woman wants to give up her right to vote.
Well, in terms of effects, I agree that conservative programs tend to concentrate wealth in the already well-off, and I (of course) don’t think that that’s a good thing.
I don’t think that that’s their principle, though, and I think that their actual principle, “minimal (or no) government interference in private actions,” isn’t necessarily a bad principle. My gripes with the principle don’t have to do with the principle itself, but rather 1) situations in which following it leads to a bad result (widespread inequality, pollution, underfunded social programs) and conservatives don’t seem to care, or 2) areas (like issues of sexual behavior, wiretapping, & etc) where they blithely abandon that principle as long as the people affected aren’t people ‘like them.’
—Myca
To expand on this a little, something I’ve said many, many, many times, here and elsewhere, is “your theory is never more important than actual people’s actual lives.” This is true whether you’re radfem or sex-positive, true whether you’re conservative or liberal, true whether you’re collectivist or libertarian.
If you want to convince me that your theory is awesome, you must show me that it makes people’s lives better. As far as I’m concerned, there is no such thing as a theory that is worthwhile and also fucks up everyone’s life.
This is one of the places that a lot of conservative philosophy falls down for me historically, but over the past 10 or so years, it’s become especially pronounced.
—Myca
Myca, I’m not quite sure what you’re disputing, the fact that progressives were in cahoots with racists, or that the description of this relationship–specifically passing progressive legislation like the New Deal in exchange for looking the other way in regards to lynching, etc– as an “agreement”, or as you say “active connection and active collusion” is inaccurate. If it’s the former–as i fear it might be given your endorsement of Julian@16 bizarre narrative–there’s really nothing I can do about that, as its well settled history. If its the latter, allow me to cite non-rightwing descriptions of events and we can allow Alas readers to decide if there was indeed an “active connection and active collusion.”
Allow me to first set the general context. I don’t think its controversial to say the Progressive Era was a time of vicious, state-sponsored racism–giving us Jim Crow laws, segreagation, lynching and thus making it arguably the worst period since Emancipation for Black Americans. But more importantly for our purposes, this –as Westminster College historian David W. Southern wites in “The Progressive Era and Race: Reform and Reaction, 1900-1917” — “went hand-in-hand with the most advanced forms of southern progressivism.” “The ideas of race and color were powerful, controlling elements in progressive social and political thinking… and this fixation on race explains how democratic reform and racism went hand-in-hand.”
The product description of the aformentioned book on Amazon elaborates: “In this comprehensive, unflinching account, David W. Southern persuasively argues that race was the primary blind spot of the Progressive Movement. Based on the voluminous secondary works produced over the last forty years and his own primary research, Southernâ��s synthesis vividly portrays the ruthless exploitation, brutality, and violence that whites inflicted on African Americans in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In the former Confederate states, where almost 90 percent of blacks resided, white progressives followed the lead of racist demagogues such as “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman and James Vardaman by consolidating the Jim Crow system of legal segregation and the disfranchisement of blacks, resulting in the emergence of the one-party Democratic South. When legal discrimination did not sufficiently subordinate blacks, southern whites resorted liberally to fraud, intimidation, and violenceâ��most notably in ghastly lynchings and urban race riots. Yet! , most northern progressives were either indifferent to the fate of southern blacks or actively supported the social system in the South. Yankee reformers obsessed over the concept of race and became ensnared in a web of “scientific racism” that convinced them that blacks belonged to an inferior breed of human beings. The tenures of both Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote more about race than any other American president, and Woodrow Wilson, who was reared in the Deep South, proved disastrous for African Americans, who reached their “nadir” even as Wilson led the United States on a crusade to make the world safe for democracy.Southern goes on to persuasively reveal that African Americans courageously fought to change the implacably racist system in which they lived, against overwhelming odds.”
With that in mind, lets look at the specific relationship between the New Deal and lynching. FDR condoned segregation to keep the Democratic establishment on his side, as the New Deal depended heavily on support from the Southern bloc, who were committed to White Supremacy and Jim Crow Laws. His failure to support federal anti-lynching legislation illustrates this.
Tsahai Tafari notes on pbs.org: “The administration of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) was initially a continuation of the “gentleman’s agreement” within the Democratic party that Northern Democrats would not interfere in race issues on the behalf of black Americans.” Isabelle Whelan in “The Politics of Federal Anti-lynching Legislation in the New Deal Era” notes “A number of scholars point to Rooseveltâ��s failure ever to endorse any federal anti-lynching bill as the reason the various bills were never enacted.”
Jean Edward Smith, in her fawaning biography of FDR, concludes: “In private conversation FDR said he thought the antilynching bill was uncoansituional, but the fact is he did not want to endanger what remined of with his ties to the south–especially to the southern oligarchs who controlled Congress.”
The collusion continued. Whelan notes, “The need to attract the support of southern senators resulted in discriminatory clauses being written into much of the legislation enacted during the New Deal.” Writing in the Nation, Adolp Reed (who like to call republicans protofascists) notes: “But the fact is, most New Deal programs were anything but race-neutral–or, for that matter, gender-neutral–in their impact. Some, like the initial Social Security old-age pension program, were established on a racially invidious, albeit officially race-neutral, basis by excluding from coverage agricultural and domestic workers, the categories that included nearly 90 percent of black workers at the time. Others, like the CCC, operated on Jim Crow principles. Roosevelt’s housing policy put the weight of federal support behind creating and reproducing an overtly racially exclusive residential housing industry. ”
If I could conclude with a rightwinger, Reason Mag confirms Reed thesis: “While such compulsory unionism is routinely celebrated as a milestone for the American worker, many African Americans saw things differently. The NAACP’s publication The Crisis, for example, decried the monopoly powers granted to racist unions by the NRA, noting in 1934 that “union labor strategy seems to be to obtain the right to bargain with the employees as the sole representative of labor, and then close the union to black workers.” Members of the black press had something of a field day attacking the NRA, rechristening it the “Negro Removal Act,” “Negroes Robbed Again,” “Negro Run Around,” and “No Roosevelt Again.”
My apologies for the superlong post. I know its bad form but since I’m on the verge of being banned I thought I’d leave no stone unturned regarding the agreement, active connection, and active collusion of which I spoke.
You are on the verge of being banned, Manju, and you’re on the verge because you consistently ignore moderation (specifically mine), threadjack posts, and argue in bad faith. You’ve been warned more than once, and you continue to do it. Nobody is making you do these things, and when I allowed you into this thread, I asked you specifically not to do them.
You often contribute things of interest to Alas, (which is why I wanted to give you a shot to join in on this thread) but it’s unfortunately difficult to sift through the made-up logical fallacies, distortions, and half-truths to locate them.
Now, to the meat of your argument.
Your use of the phrase ‘as the result of an agreement’ implies something official, formal, or at the very least something other than default.
With that in mind, let’s look at FDR’s words:
Now, it’s interesting … if you check the wikipedia page for Walter White, (of the NAACP, who FDR spoke with in the above section), you’ll see that:
I think that calling either FDR’s actions or Walter White’s actions an ‘agreement’ is misleading at best. Both were attempting to deal with the reality of attempting to pursue their goals in the face of political domination by extremely powerful southern white conservatives. Which is pretty much outright what they both said. That is not active collusion.
In other words, white southerners, then as now, were the problem. There were a lot of socially conservative (though often economically liberal) southern Democrats in positions of power, and there wasn’t a lot FDR could do about that. That seems less an ‘agreement’ to me than a recognition of the way the reality of our political system works.
The section immediately following your quote?
And, see, Manju, this is what I mean by half-truth. It’s not that FDR didn’t do some things that were discriminatory towards African Americans … of course he did … but the effort to paint the Democratic party of the era as the primary force for racism in America ignores the huge north/south split, which is crucial to understanding party identification in the 1940’s.
It also ignores FDR’s mixed record on Civil Rights:
He also established the Fair Employment Practice Commission, prohibiting discrimination by any government agency, including the armed forces. And, of course, took the African American vote in each of his elections.
Since I do think that you bring some value to Alas, I don’t want to ban you outright, so here’s the deal:
1) From now on, don’t threadjack.
One thing this means specifically in your case, is, “unless the thread is about the history of the Democratic party, do not discuss the history of the Democratic party.” I understand why you want to talk about this, and it’s worth talking about, but you make every thread about it and it needs to stop. You do this as a way to link modern Democrats and liberalism in general to the racist southern white Democrats of the 1800’s and early 1900’s, and that’s unfair.
2) When you are moderated, acknowledge and accept it.
This mean that when someone tells you to knock off obnoxious, sidetracking behavior, say, “Ah, right, sorry,” and then actually stop.
—Myca
Incidentally, Manju, if you wanted to do that … recognize the moderation and stop sidetracking, Politicalguineapig and I are having an interesting discussion about conservative political principles and how much the Republican party could reject their bigoted elements while still remaining conservative. I would certainly welcome your participation there.
—Myca
?
*Bows to Myca* Well, that’s a difficult one as I really don’t think they can. Conservatism means they have a resistance to change, and a resistance to seeing others (women, GLBT, and minorities) as fully human.
How do you think this would be accomplished? Or do we wait out the current crop?
Well, since Conservatism is naturally backwards looking (in principle), it tends to support the prejudices of the existing power structure, so if that power structure is not homophobic (for example), neither will conservatism be. Matt Yglesias has written some about this in his recent visit to Germany.
Now … how do we do it here? Fucked if I know.
I mean, I think that to some degree this will take care of itself. The population of the US is changing, and the Republican party simply cannot afford to cling to prejudices that turn the stomachs of an increasing number of citizens.
On the other hand, right now, a huge component of their power structure is made up of those same conservative white southerners I mentioned earlier … and the Republican party can’t really afford to alienate them either. Which is just what embracing women, black people, and gay people would do.
Actually, a great example of this tension happened just recently, with their attempted outreach to the Hispanic community … which was torpedoed by racist anti-immigrant factions within their own party. They need both groups to win, but (especially in the modern era) there’s no way to be the party of both groups. You can’t be the party of racists and anti-racists at the same time. They don’t make tents that big anymore.
So yeah. I just don’t know.
I think that what the Republican party really needs right now is an LBJ. Someone who’s willing to make the choice to ‘lose the south for a generation‘ in order to take his party to a less fucked up place.
I hope they find one.
Like I said, I don’t mind disagreeing with them, but I’d rather not hate them, and as long as they embrace prejudice and discrimination, I’m not sure how to do otherwise.
—Myca
Now that’s an interesting thought: I had to mull it over for a day or two. I can see that the Republican party might have to lose the South, but having the fundamentalists unorganized worries me. Historically, I know that third parties don’t do well, but with that base to draw on, a third party might have a fighting chance. Unfortunately, most of the third parties lack stability, and if the wrong group win, the South might actually try to secede again. (But then again, that might not be a bad thing.)
Myca, you might be interested in an exchange I had at David Schraub’s blog when he had an infestation of Mark Steyn fans (the fans’ comments are italicized):
If we are looking for a definition of common sense, I would put forward that common sense is the ability to make choices or be an advocate for, policies that improve society.
Except there is an ongoing debate about what constitutes improvement. Personally, I believe a policy under which children are not dumped into orphanages (Gingrich’s substitute for welfare) or left to starve is an improvement in society. I believe a policy under which schools endeavor to teach children who don’t speak English as a first language, or who have mental or physical disabilities, also is an improvement in society. I believe taking a person who is unconscious, bleeding in the street, to the emergency room without first ascertaining whether she is a citizen of the U.S. is an improvement on a society where we provide basic decency only to those we are absolutely sure are our fellow citizens.
PG,
This is the point in the argument where the rubber really hits the road.
You think that the right, in the micro, wants to ask the bleeding, illegal immigrant for proof of citizenship prior to giving them life saving, medical care.
What is wrong with the left? Do you actually think that I get up every morning and wish harm on another human? That you have some inate, higher morality than I do? That comment is representative of the definitive belief of the left. That the right is hateful and evil.
We don’t belive that of you. Even though we believe that you advocate for policies that damage humanity, we just think, while good intended, you’re wrong, not evil.
It astounds me to think that the left thinks that the right (a predominantly, Christian, caring group…someone circle the square for me that the most charitable people on earth, somehow are indifferent to leaving their fellow humans dying in the streetes over citizenship issues)doesn’t have the same good intentions that they do.
We just believe that, in the macro, our policies are going to better mitigate the chance of someone dying in the street.
The charge the left so recklessy makes of the right as less than honorable, caring humans is despicable. And frankly, were’re sick of it.
And again, facts and “common sense” show otherwise. We consistently give more of our time, our wealth and personal empathy to people in need. We just don’t write abstract, book driven, psuedo intellectual op-eds about how to improve the world. Yes, we show it in our actions.
I have seen several people on the right suggest that we should revoke the EMTALA, which requires emergency services to be provided to all, because it allows illegal immigrants to use emergency services. If I am found lying bleeding and unconscious in the street, how is anyone to know whether I am an illegal immigrant or not? I’m brown, which is a strike against my entitlement to ER resources right there.
Thankfully, people with such a mindset are the minority.
Anonymous @ 6:24PM seems to believe I’m saying people on the right are hateful and evil and not advocating their policies because they believe it will serve society as a whole.
That’s not what I’m saying at all. As I would have thought my comment @ 5:59PM indicated, people can support different policies, each believing that his preference is for the overall betterment of society. With regard to the provision of emergency services to illegal immigrants, I’m sure people on the right believe that our society is better served by conserving our scarce resources for those who are not lawbreakers and by creating ever-greater disincentives for people to engage in law-breaking in the first place. People just have different ideas about how much short term human suffering is acceptable in order to reach a long term societal goal.
FOR EXAMPLE, someone on the right might say that we shouldn’t provide welfare services and free public education, which we currently do out of concern for children who otherwise couldn’t afford these basic needs, because that just incentivizes parental irresponsibility. In particular, the existence of welfare, and policies that allow unwed mothers to stay in school, create an incentive for unwed motherhood. Conservatives believe the short-term human suffering that results is outweighed by the long-term improvement in our society. I disagree, but I don’t say that makes conservatives evil.
Some conservatives evidently just feel evil themselves when they have to think about how certain policy proposals might play out in real life, as with the idea of refusing emergency services to people who haven’t documented that they’re not illegal immigrants.
Yes, PG, I’m sure there are people on the right who want to enact policy that denies care to illegal immigrants.
But, our belief, is you have to set policy that causes a change in the macro, in people’s actions. That dosen’t mean we lack the desire and the compassion to help those in dire need.
To change behavior, we have to start somewhere, and yes, that means not being afraid to be criticized for making the hard choices. Because, we believe, it will ultimately result in a better outcome for all.
Sorry to make the same family analogy but it hurts to discipline your child when you really just want to hug him/her…but it is the best thing to do to make them a better, more responsible member of society.
The point is, we must preach principles in the macro while showing compassion and care in the micro.
This is not a conflicting comment. We teach our children (and consequently, society)that we expect responsibility and accountability but when mistakes are made (and please, I don’t think being poor and migrant is a mistake…just a choice of words), you provide compassion and assistance.
I struggle to believe, human nature being what it is, that offering unbridled assistance will change behavior. How can it?
If you grew up in an environment that tought you that you could get the necessities of existence without effort, why make the effort. Unless, of course, you wanted grander things.
And the people that want grander things work hard, innovate, risk capital, etc. And those are all good things. They cause employment, ideas and the further advancement of our society.
With regard to the future of the GOP, to the extent that the Democratic Party is abandoning some of the moderate economic positions that allowed Clinton to win (focus on balanced budgets, free trade, welfare reform), I think the Republican Party could do well by picking those back up. They’re already running TV ads about OMG OBAMA IS BANKRUPTING OUR CHILDREN (I saw two of these just while I was flipping channels on a recent JetBlue flight). They just need to wait another year for the American electorate to forget that the bank bailout was under Bush and that we’re carrying a huge load of debt thanks to Bush’s war in Iraq. Going back to their paleocon isolationist roots also might help — I don’t think that neocon foreign policy, post-Cold War, is a winning political strategy.
The GOP could rebuild without their racist base if they begin appealing to voters on issues of economics and competence in governance. They could win elections in some major cities by pointing out how unions have overreached and are impeding both government functions (public schools and transportation) and the private sector (auto industry).
On the relationship between American and European conservatism: