Conservatism is a recipe for failure every time!

Political conservative always claim that they are fighting to turn back the tide of liberalism and intrusive government. They say that, if only we could get back to the principals of the "Founding Fathers" and hold government to its Constitutional limits, then the era of Big Government would finally be over and freedom and prosperity would reign supreme in America.

They talk a good talk but, when it comes time to take action and roll back or repeal any of those liberal programs they constantly rail against, their track record has been abysmal.

Abandoning the “Conservative” Fairy Tale

One thing that most revolutionaries ken in their guts even if they lack the mental acuity to grasp intellectually is that people tend to be conservative. By that I do not mean that people tend to be against the regicide that marked the second stage of this revolution (the first was the Reformation). Nor do I mean that people tend to vote for political parties in Modern secular democracies that are to the right of the center of that nation's acceptable political alternatives. Rather, I mean that people tend to want to conserve whatever it is they find to be normative in their world.

That is the reason the cultural effects of even the most vicious revolutions, say the Anglo-Saxon Puritan and French, are preserved almost totally even when the specific revolution is tossed aside, its leaders humiliated if not punished. The English might have tired of the rule of Puritans and been willing to boot them from all significant power, but their conservative instincts led them to want to maintain the cultural effects of that successful revolution. After all, if the cultural effects of the Puritan Revolution were completely overturned, would that not spur many folks to demand to undo the entire Anglican revolution?

Political Puritanism was rendered impotent, but secularized cultural Puritanism not only survived but continued to mold the future of the English and the colonies they planted.

An old saw among culturally and morally conservative Southerners, one that also could be heard from old fashioned culturally and morally conservative Catholics living in other regions, is that the Republican Party, which began as and has never stopped being the party of the Yankee WASP elites, never conserved anything but the wealth and power of its movers and shakers.

The easy path for any political party in a democracy is to preserve yesterday's revolution. That is so because people tend to want to conserve at least last year's revolution as the known, 'safe' path. In practical terms, the Republican Party serves its own wealth by giving lip service to opposition to America's leftist revolutions while acting to conserve all but the most obviously horrible products of those revolutions. To actually oppose those revolutions, to strive to turn back their tide, would be to risk losing everything, perhaps becoming pariah in the new America that purports to tolerate everyone and everything.

The Remnant


How many times have we heard from TEA party folks screaming that they are overtaxed and that the government needs to cut back on all those social programs to get their financial house in order but, DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY SOCIAL SECURITY OR MEDICARE!!!

The truth is most all people are conservatives in that they wish to conserve the world the way it already is. Conservatives don't really want to give up their social safety nets or throw poor people out in the streets; they are just afraid of change and the unintended consequences of new government policies.

They don't want things to get any worse but, in their inability to stand up against existing policies that are dragging this country down the drain, they enable the progressives who know that, no matter how long it takes to get their policies into place, once they build their statist Utopia, no one will ever be able to tear it down.

reply to post by FortAnthem


You are confusing the neocons with true conservatives. It has been blatantly obvious to many of us for a long time that the donkey and the elephant have been working together to rape Uncle Sam for a long time. The reason why you don't see any change when you vote a different party into office, is because it's all a big scam to make you think that there are "liberals" and "conservatives", when in fact, there is only Big Government (controlled by various special interests) and a handful of true conservatives. One of whom is Dr. Ron Paul. While he might not have been able to do much as a congressman, as president, you can be assured that he would have far more power, and his 30 year track record speaks for itself on whether or not he would just be another puppet.

reply to post by Q:1984A:1776


The problem with conservatism is that it is nothing more than a holding action; trying to hold back the tide of liberal progressivism. Its about as effective as trying to hold back the ocean as the tide rolls in. Conservatism is an admission of defeat in that you are trying to hold on to what you have before even more is taken away.

The problem with conservatism is that it does not stand for anything. Conservatives stand against the policies of the liberal progressives but, as an alternative, they only offer a turn back to what was before. You cannot turn back time and you cannot turn back the tide of history. Holding actions have never won any wars. They have only postponed the inevitable.

The only way to win a war is to go on the offense; to offer an alternative path to the one put forward by the liberals and try to move toward that alternative. You cannot win by going backwards. Only by moving forward on a path of your own choosing can victory be accomplished. We have allowed the liberals to define the path forward for too long. We need an alternative path of our own if we ever hope to move the country in the right direction.

The only path to victory is to stand FOR something and try to move attitudes and events toward what you are fighting for. Ron Paul is doing this; he has a plan to move the country toward Libertarianism instead of trying to go back to the past. He wants to move the country in a new direction; one it has not tried before.

It may be successful or it may fail as bad as liberalism but, at least it is an alternative path to drive the country toward, rather than against. This is why so many people find hope in his message.

Me personally, I'd rather move the country toward Distributism but, the movement is not well enough known yet. Maybe our time will come someday. Perhaps after we have tried the libertarian road and discovered the limits of that path. Maybe then the the country, maybe even the world, will be ready to move things in the right direction.

Conservative ideas in practice have always failed the people and economy throughout history.

Conservatives, when peeled down to its core, are just one of two peoples:

1) the wealthy trying to CONserve the wealth from the people to allow MORE for them. To make them even more FAT and bloated than they already are at the expense of the rest of the country.

And...

2) the dummies who buy into the Conservative nonsense because they think that the CONservatives have their best interest at heart. They achieve this by lies, and my favorite, using buzzwords once in awhile like "god" and "freedom" to which their actions NEVER reflect their talk. Talk the talk but NEVER walk the walk... except when they are "walking" for the wealthy at the expense of the middle-class.

[color=gold]Conservatives = CON the people, and SERVE the wealthy and corporations at OUR expense. CON-SERVE-atives

Conservative approach is a fail for the people and middle-class.

reply to post by FortAnthem


But in that logic then Ron Paul will fail. He wants to restore what the constitution once stood for, going back in time. Progressives on both the left and the right want to change it to suit their respective agendas.

Originally posted by wardk28
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

But in that logic then Ron Paul will fail. He wants to restore what the constitution once stood for, going back in time. Progressives on both the left and the right want to change it to suit their respective agendas.

True free market libertarianism has never truly existed in America. Businessmen have always turned to government to protect them. They use protectionist policies to prevent competition from foreign markets and government granted monopolies to crush domestic competition. When all else fails, they turn to the government for subsidies or a bailout.

The free market would let businesses thrive or fail on their own merits without any hindrance or aid from the government. If a business model is strong and their product of high quality and desirability, a business needs no government assistance to succeed.

I guess I don't see conservatism the same way you guys are seeing it. You guys are thinking "Fox News right wing" conservative and I'm thinking a movement for smaller government and fiscal responsibility. I'm a conservative centralist. The role of government should be strictly defense, infrastructure, and protection from one another. It should not be involved in social issues as long as someone elses right are not being infringed upon. That is conservatism at its core but as like the Tea Party, it has been hijacked be neocons.

Originally posted by wardk28
I'm thinking a movement for smaller government and fiscal responsibility. I'm a conservative centralist. The role of government should be strictly defense, infrastructure, and protection from one another.

That is something worth moving toward.

The definition of conserve is to work to keep things the way they are. Defining yourself as conservative means that you are trying to hold on to what exists today; the form of government we have RIGHT NOW, not the ideal we hope to achieve.

By holding on to this terminology, we allow ourselves to be defeated. We stand against progress instead of standing FOR something.

We need to change the dynamic of what we stand for by redefining the movement. Instead of saying that we want to GO BACK to Constitutionally limited government, we need to say that we are moving toward a less intrusive government that respects individual liberty and stays within the bounds of the Constitution. We need to say that we are moving toward more individual freedom and less burdensome regulations in business.

When we say we seek to go to the past, we are branded as old fogies afraid of the future. When we say we want to move toward a more positive future, we take control of the discussion and show the world that we look forward to a bright future of our own design. We get to chose the path we wish to take the country towards rather than seeking to drag us backwards to a past that never really was.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I think free markets existed probably up until the Interstate Commerse Act of 1887. Thats when the government tried to stop monoplies in the railroad industry. So is it fair to let the government regulate monoplies? I don't know. On one hand if a company grows to a point that it swallows up its competition, that is free market based on the consumer. So how does a small business get a fair shake it a bigger company has a hugh edge? If a government is aloud to control monoplies, well then it is no longer a free market.

The Myth of Icarus is a tale of a man and his son imprisoned on an island where the only possible escape was by flight. Icarus' father Daedalus fashioned some wings out of feather, string, and wax. He taught himself and his son how to use the wings so they may successfully fly off the island and to safety. Daedalus gave dire warnings to Icarus about flying too high near the sun, warning the sun would melt the wax and his wings would fall apart.

However, upon flight, Icarus being the young brash and bold boy he was, could not resist soaring where only eagles dare. His liberal use of these wings drew him ever closer to the sun. His conservative father continued to warn his liberal son of the perils of such an action, but boys will be boys, and for this Icarus this meant ignoring his conservative fathers warnings and soaring ever higher.

Just as Daedalus warned, at some point the heat of the sun began to melt the wax of Icarus' wings and they fell apart. Icarus plummeted to his death while Daedalus flew around in a holding pattern watching in helpless despair as his son's own hubris brought about his tragic death.

Daedalus flew to safety and spent the remainder of his days mourning the loss of his son.

It is easy to understand Icarus' hubris. Who amongst us would not like to soar where eagles dare? Indeed, it was humanities destiny to do so, but human flight was ultimately accomplished by men who had the hearts of a liberal and the sound mind of a conservative. Humanities evolution of flight was accomplished by carefully constructing a vehicle that operated within the laws of aerodynamics, not by recklessly disregarding them.

Both liberalism and conservatism are just two sides of the same coin and it is pointless to hold one as better than the other or to dismiss one as not as effective as the other. Daedalus did not take a conservative stance with his son out of anything other than profound love for his only son. Icarus did not ignore his father out of spite but out of profound love for freedom and achievement. In the end, it was Daedalus, who designed and built the wings, who lived to celebrate his tragic achievement.

reply to post by wardk28


That is why I prefer Distributism to Libertarian free market economics. The free market would do nothing to prevent one big mega-business from swallowing up all the competition and forcing the public to deal only with itself for the products and services it controls.

Distributism would seek to break up companies that grow too large and promote employee ownership and local businesses. It has been done successfully in the past to turn Taiwan from a poor agrarian mess to one of the most successful industrial nations in the world.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


You make a good point; maybe conservatives and liberals shouldn't be enemies. They could accomplish much more if they learned to work together. Their differences compliment each other, much as the differences in the sexes compliment each other. When the two sexes work together, beautiful marriages and children are the result. The differences in temperament and ways of thinking will always mean that there will be some tension and disagreements but, by working together, compromising and reconciling those differences great things can happen and peaceful co-existence can be achieved.

The desire to always push for more and seek the next, best thing in liberals must be tempered by the cautious approach of the conservatives who weigh the pros and cons before making decisions. If the two sides would learn to work off of each other's strong points in order to come to wise, measured decisions the world would be a much better place.

There would always be friction, just like in a marriage, with the liberals impatient with the conservatives cautious and skeptical approach and the conservatives frustration at the liberal's tendency to always push the envelope and embrace new things, regardless of the consequences but, so long as they balance each other out and neither side tries to suppress the other, things will work out for the best.

I always thought government worked best when no one party held to much sway in the various branches of the government. This forced them to debate all policies fiercely in order to come to a compromise all could live with. Neither side was perfectly happy with the result but, any negative consequences of the policy would be mitigated because the compromise prevented either side from going too far.

When one party takes control over too many branches of the government, that is when real problems start. Instead of measured debate, they tend to rubber stamp their own party's policies with little or no regard for the consequences. They tend to rush things through before the next election, when the other party gets a chance to unseat them.

During the Bush years we got stupid wars and intrusive homeland security measures directed against the American people. During the Obama years, we have poor economic leadership and an expansion in entitlement programs regardless of the country's ability to pay for them. During both times, there was rampant, out of control spending by the party in charge. All the rhetoric about fiscal responsibility went out the window when their own party was in charge.

Politics needs to change from a winner-take all mentality with both sides constantly at each other's throats back to a system where each side complimented the other and served to reign in the excesses of the opposing party.

The entire idea of creating a thread on a single axis description of conservative is already a terrible foundation, leading to exactly what has happened. The same confusion when people are speaking about different things in the same conversation using the same terms.

Even more evolved political thought places 2 axis on the conversation, breaking up the philosophies of economic and social thought. Personally I suggest a 3 axis description: Economic, Social, and Global Policy. While not perfect, this system at least contains the 3 major components that encompass national policy concerns.

To illustrate my point, many members of the GOP and myself are conservatives. That, however, describes two polar opposites.

The main political weight of the GOP currently is socially very conservative (read Christian) and economically pretty liberal. I am economically very conservative and socially very liberal. The two camps are not getting along well at the moment (if ever) as can be seen with the pushback on Ron Paul.

A recipe for failure is the social climate for political discourse in this nation, not any particular dogma. Hell, even the old saying about talking about religion or politics is an acid that has eaten the true discourse of this nation to death, creating small and relatively isolated echo chambers for each group.

peace
KJ

I think the main problem is, and this appears in every scenario, that you have selected some-ism as your enemy.
It's 2012 and we really have to move beyond some-isms.

I think we need to move forward toward a everybody-ism and establish a government built on that cooperative instinct that dwells within humanity.

So far we have had monarchism, despotism, individualism, collectivism, etc. But none of these -isms can come close to Everybody-ism. With my new system called Everybody-ism, everybody must be a winner and everybody will rejoice when everybody wins!