Is Conservativism Finished ?

Commentary Magazine via Real Clear Politics ^ | Wilfred McClay

[gusopol3]

Consider Reagan’s address to the British parliament on June 8, 1982, a self-conscious echo of Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech 36 years earlier:

We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. . . . The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.

[gusopol3]

great article; I can't find that it's been posted in Search

[kittymyrib]

Didn't we read this after Barry Goldwater's defeat? Conservatism has been buried more times than Osama bin Laden.

[Zenith]

Until Cnservatives realize they don't have enough to WIN a majority, they are FINISHED.

[gusopol3]

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.aip?id=10812

[VRWC For Truth]

Liberals never win in the long run. Conservatives always triumph because they do what is right to survive and not what is wrong.

[gusopol3]

this guy's answer is emphatically NO and with plenty of intellectual firepower.

[VRWC For Truth]

There was no majority in favor of the Revolution in 1776. Somehow those with the better idea triumphed ... those with idea were willing to win.

[Czar]

"Until Cnservatives the GOP realize[s] they don't have enough RINOs to WIN a majority without conservatives, they are FINISHED.

That's the real lesson of the last election.

[gusopol3]

Have you heard of this McClay ? He has a book entitled Figures in the Carpet: Looking for the Human Person in America's Past that I am going to get after reading this article. It sounds like good reading for the kinds of parallels you suggest.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

If I have to vote for rino liberals the republic is dead anyway.

[backtothestreets]

"That's the real lesson of the last election."

Another lesson learned, don't expect loyalty to the party from voters abandoned by the party. Loyalty is a two way street.

[hosepipe]

[ Is Conservativism Finished ? ]

NO, its the right wing that is finished..
Most conservatives are LEFTISTS...

Conservatives would gouge out their eyes, throw dust in the air, and tear their clothing if the (SSA) Social Security Administration was abolished..

Social Security is PURE SOCIALISM... And will be the tip of the iceberg to Hillary Clintons New United States.. Whatever happened to the right wing?... There is NO organized right wing in the United States.. We used to have one... What happened?..

[BW2221]

If an exit poll conduct by the Pew Research Center is to be believed, the election of 2006 was a repudiation of George Bush (who a number of FReepers consider a lukewarm conservative) rather than conservative principles. The poll concluded:

"As expected, the election turned out in large measure to be a referendum on President Bush and the war in Iraq -- bad news for Republicans. About six-in-ten voters (59%) said they were either dissatisfied (30%) or angry (29%) with the president. By more than two-to-one, those dissatisfied with Bush supported the Democratic candidate in their district (69%-29%); among those angry with the president the margin was more than fifteen-to-one (92%-6%).

Bush was much more of a drag on his party's candidates than was former President Clinton in 1994, the year that Republicans won control of Congress. More than a third (36%) of the electorate said they voted to oppose Bush; that compares with 27% who voted to oppose Clinton in 1994, and 21% in 1998, the year Congress impeached the president."

[x]

The whole article is here.

Our system rests on "rotation in office" -- the two parties alternating in power, taking office, becoming arrogant or sloppy or lazy, losing elections, reorganizing and redefining themselves, making stronger appeals, and then retaking the positions they lost. And that's what's happening now.

In the 1930s and 1940s Democrats assumed that they could hold power forever with New Deal policies. Twenty years later, Eisenhower was elected and reelected with large majorities, and Stevenson and Kennedy represented the beginnings of a different kind of Democratic Party.

So now it's twenty years or so after Reagan, and the same messages don't have the power they had in his day. All the more so, since voters recognize that Republican politicians don't always mean them, anymore than the post-Roosevelt Democrats really meant most of the things they said.

Sooner or later, after the Democrats mess things up, the Republicans will straighten out get their chance again. As McClay notes, the country is still basically conservative, as it was essentially FDR's country in the Eisenhower and Nixon years.

A liberal country didn't want to go to the extremes of liberalism then and elected Republicans. Today, a conservative country now is leery of Republican dominance in Washington and gives the Democrats a shot. After seeing what the Democrats make of their chance, voters will come back around to the GOP.

[gusopol3]

give the article a read; it hangs every conservative who's abandoned Bush from Viguerie (whose screeds against Reagan are listed) to Sullivan to Jeffrey Hart out to dry.

[Chi-townChief]

After every election, win or lose, it is always announced by someone that conservatism is finished.

[gusopol3]

I'm concerned we're entering an end game because of demographics and the end of the moat as a protection against the forces hostile to our security. We need to do better than take three downs and punt.

[himno hero]

IF conservatism dies

THEN capitalism withers and dies

and consumerism disappears

[inpajamas]

If I have to vote for rino liberals the republic is dead anyway.

I don't have to vote for them and I won't so your statement is true. Conservative were to conserve what? - The republic, that's what.

If they have to move away from preserving the Constitution then as you say our nation is dead. A move to the middle is a half-way house to socialism and destroys enough of the system's checks and balances that the big government liberals will be able to reel the country in the rest of the way.

What has happened by forsaking conservatism to enlarge the party, the party grew in size but became weaker in policy and failed destroying the party and allowing Democrats even as a minority to control by virtue of the RINOs.

Conservatives would have been better off with a smaller but strongly committed Conservative base than a larger weak one that can be disillusioned and persuaded that they were wrong and support liberal policies.

[Vaquero]

Until ...the GOP realize[s] they don't have enough RINOs to WIN a majority without conservatives, they are FINISHED.......That's the real lesson of the last election

BINGO!!!

[hosepipe]

[ give the article a read; it hangs every conservative who's abandoned Bush from Viguerie (whose screeds against Reagan are listed) to Sullivan to Jeffrey Hart out to dry. ]

So then you are saying BUSH is NOT a leftist himself?...
Since there is NO right wing in America anywhere, how can Bush be right wing?..

He's not.. you know.. The White RINO House is not right wing..
Even a little bit.. Theres 3 maybe 4 right wingers in all of Congress...

[gusopol3]

to qoute Rumsfeld: "you go to war with the army you have." You still have to win elections. Does anyone on the national scene articulate the vision you have for America clearly?

[MurryMom]

Conservativism has been dead in the Republican Party since at least the Reagan years. The Republican Party formerly embraced balanced budgets, conservation of natural resources, and restraint in policy toward foreign nations. Not any more.

In the Republican Party, Straussianism (aka neoconservativism) has replaced conservativism. More details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straussianism

[Luke21]

It's very ironic that Jerry Ford just died, because he was a huge factor in the coming of age of conservatism. The Republican party was similarly slaughtered in the 1974 elections and Ford had a radical Democrat Congress on his heels. Ford was pretty liberal so I doubt he minded so much.

The Republican party had a civil war in the 1976 primaries, an all out brawl. Ford used all the presidential power and prestige he could muster to hold off Ronald Reagan at the convention. He won by less than twenty delegates. I despised Ford so much I voted for Carter. Four years later, I got my way and the Gipper was elected. If Ford had been re-elected, Teddy Kennedy would have almost certainly been president in 1980. Ford would have been blamed for all that went wrong on Carter's watch, and would have been following most of Carter's policies, though probably without the Iranian disater. Ford was that liberal, gang. Nelson Rockefeller and John Paul Stevens were his biggest accomplishments. More nations fell to communism under Ford than under Carter.

So 2007 isn't that different from 1975, politically. We are about five years out from starting to whomp the Democrats again, albeit it may be tough with what say, thirty million new illegals from Mexico on board.

We need to debate for awhile. What are we? Conservatives? Mainstream Republicans? Those were the two feuding sides during the Reagan/Ford battle, and the Gipper fused them for awhile. But conservatism has never been truly ascendant. We've won elections, but not the minds of our fellow citizens who are addicted to government. Believe it or not the W years are the most successfully we've had and it took a national calamity to bring that about for a short time.

Even Reagan's landslide wins were never translated into across the board victories for Republicans. He never had both houses of Congress and eventually lost the senate in 1986.

We are people of tradition, character, family, strong values, patriotism, ethics, sense of fair play, charity, and good will. Some of us are Christians, some libertarians, some are at times closer to the Democrats socially, but they choose to remain our camp. Now we have to go to work again; to build a philosophy, to find as much common ground as possible between our warring sides, and to again reassemble an attempt to stem the forces of socialistic parasitism and the political correctness tyranny that threatens us at every turn. We aren't winning. Indeed, we just had the stuffing beat out of us last month. We can point fingers all day. The bottom line is, we were not, and are not unified. But the Democrats have a way of unifying us when they are in power. So our glue should start to harden again soon, say around the middle of next month.

God bless you all. Happy New Year and many blessings.

[JHBowden]

Leo Strauss is the greatest political philosopher since Burke.

One of the key points of neoconservatism is that there is an objective difference between right and wrong in ethics and politics. One can't blindly support tradition, for there are different traditions, and one needs to evaluate and distinguish between them.

Click on the wiki neoconservative link. You'll learn that we believe patriotism is a necessity, counterculture is self-destruction, and that economic growth is the proper end of economic policy rather than Platonic visions of justice.

[Cacique]

btt

[SWAMPSNIPER]

The Giuliani and Romney types represent things I have been fighting against for almost 50 years. I won't surrender now.

[JimRed]

It hasn't even been TRIED yet!

[NewLand]

Is Conservativism Finished ?

How absurd.

[flashbunny]

your attitude is an example of everything that's wrong with the GOP.

The conservative base wins elections. The moderate / rino politicians are what lose them.

[jpl]

Until Cnservatives realize they don't have enough to WIN a majority, they are FINISHED.

Huh? If you're talking about the United States, I believe that conservatism still is the silent majority today.

Since Goldwater suffered his crushing defeat, it's been proven over and over again in America that when politicians espouse true conservative principles and attempt to stick by them, they win. When they abandon these principles, they lose.

[sauropod]

Hopefully not, although Nov 7th has made me question it.

[Issaquahking]

Would Newt do you justice? Looking like the only conservative in the the whole arena.

[Candor7]

your attitude is an example of everything that's wrong with the GOP. The conservative base wins elections. The moderate / rino politicians are what lose them.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Flashbunny. You are a hunny.

And as we watch the greening of the Republican Party by RINOS who have been complicit in destroying every conservative politician in their party who had a hand on the levers of power, over the past three years: You can predict: Pubbies Loose in 2008. So far the poop is that Conservatives will stay home again.The Conservative Pubbies in my neck of the woods have no intention of voting at all rather than vote for a RINO.

[JHBowden]

You're talking about RINOs like Allen, Santorum, Talent, Ehrlich, and Hayworth, right?

[secretagent]

It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.

Some do, if they fear oppression of their minority by the majority. Democracy doesn't guarantee liberty.

[hosepipe]

[ to qoute Rumsfeld: "you go to war with the army you have." You still have to win elections. Does anyone on the national scene articulate the vision you have for America clearly? ]

No.....
Since MOST republicans seem to appear to be some version of Leftism..
Who is to complain?... Democrats?... LoL...

Conservatism has become "A" leftist ideology..

The Communist Manifesto in the U.S. has become COMPLETE...
YES... even in the republican party and among "conservatives"...

Most all conservatives and republicans don't even remember what the Communist Manifesto "IS" or says.. or IMPLYS.. Americans almost completely have become socialists in gross denial that they have been co-opted...

[flashbunny]

I'm talking about your choice for president.

[JHBowden]

Well, my choice for president can win, which means we'll stay on offense against Revolutionary Islam, we'll overturn Affirmative Action and Roe v Wade, and we'll fight to keep things like the Bush tax cuts.

When you can't have both authenticity and results, go with the results.

[Gideon Reader]

Conservatism finished?
Hardly, Mate. It is just getting started.
Every once in a while it is necessary to open a window and get rid of the stale air.
The Democrat regime which is incoming will do everything that they are trained and predisposed to do. And they will do that evil so well and have so bad an effect on everything they touch it will leave open the comparison ideology for a resurgence.

Conservatives did not fail. The failure was that of the failed politicians who hijacked the philosophy and perverted it with their little understanding of it and lack of faith in it, and their personal base corruption.
RINO's have poisoned the philosophy, but the draft of poison has inoculated the surviving belivers of conservatism, and even now they search for true to the faith individuals who can carry the standard and recover the nation.

[Hardastarboard]

Conservatives would gouge out their eyes, throw dust in the air, and tear their clothing if the (SSA) Social Security Administration was abolished..

Not THIS one, I'll tell you. Let me out now, and I'll never ask for a dime from SSA.

[hosepipe]

[ Conservatism finished? / Hardly, Mate. It is just getting started. ]

Conservatism is a version of Socialism... You know.. Like Communism.. only different..

Evidence: Conservatives in Canada, United Kingdom, United States.. and of course URP...

[longtermmemmory]

My how many trolls we have floating on this thread.

We have a conservative population. given the number of people who vote overwhelming for Marriage Protection amendments despite the press blackout and censorship it is a good indicator.

Yet the trolls here are trying to push the blatent my that conservatives are leftists.

BEWARE FOLKS.

We have many DUmies since Saddam bit the dust.

[longtermmemmory]

consider that rush's daily audience is more that the three alphabets and cnn combined,


yest that is a very good conclusion.

[BW2221]

Some interesting points from the Wiki article you referred us coupled with Fred Barnes lunacy confirms my view that neoconservatives are not really conservatives. From Wikipedia:

"The prefix neo- refers to two ways in which neoconservatism was new. First, many of the movement's founders, originally liberals, Democrats or from socialist backgrounds, were new to conservatism. Also, neoconservatism was a comparatively recent strain of conservative socio-political thought. It derived from a variety of intellectual roots in the decades following World War II, including literary criticism and the social sciences."

SNIP

"The original neoconservatives were a band of liberal intellectuals who rebelled against the Democratic Party's leftward drift on defense issues in the 1970s. At first the neoconservatives clustered around Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democrat, but then they aligned themselves with Ronald Reagan and the Republicans, who promised to confront Soviet expansionism. The neoconservatives, in the famous formulation of one of their leaders, Irving Kristol, were "liberals mugged by reality."

SNIP

"Critics take issue with neoconservatives' support for aggressive foreign policy; critics from the left especially take issue with what they characterize as unilateralism and lack of concern with international consensus through organizations such as the United Nations.[4][5][6] Neoconservatives respond by describing their shared view as a belief that national security is best attained by promoting freedom and democracy abroad through the support of pro-democracy movements, foreign aid and in certain cases military intervention. This is a departure from the traditional conservative tendency to support friendly regimes in matters of trade and anti-communism even at the expense of undermining existing democratic systems. Author Paul Berman in his book Terror and Liberalism describes it as, "Freedom for others means safety for ourselves. Let us be for freedom for others."

SNIP

"Historically, neoconservatives supported a militant anticommunism [citation needed], tolerated more social welfare spending than was sometimes acceptable to libertarians and mainstream conservatives, supported civil equality for blacks and other minorities[citation needed], and sympathized with a non-traditional foreign policy agenda that was less deferential to traditional conceptions of diplomacy and international law and less inclined to compromise principles, even if that meant unilateral action."

[Liberty Valance]

Is Conservativism Finished?

Not hardly. I'd say we're just getting started :o)

[BW2221]

"The Giuliani and Romney types represent things I have been fighting against for almost 50 years. I won't surrender now."

I agree. The two main differences between Rudy and Hillary:

1. Hillary has a bigger butt
2. Rudy is drag is prettier than Hillary

Rudy would make a great Presidential candidate - for the Democrats.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

"Well, my choice for president can win, which means we'll stay on offense against Revolutionary Islam, we'll overturn Affirmative Action and Roe v Wade, and we'll fight to keep things like the Bush tax cuts.

---

Dream on.
I guess you don't care about 2nd amendment rights anyway, and Rudy isn't much different than Hilary on the other stuff. I almost hope Hilary wins, and taxes you into bankruptcy, your damned money is all you care about, and seems to be all you are afraid of losing. Do you really think you can buy our freedom by offering tax cuts?

[Smokin' Joe]

Finished? Finished what? Hell, we're just getting warmed up.

[Right-Wing Champion]

[Note: I've copied and pasted my original response to this article that was already posted several days ago.]

Great post! Conservatism is far from being over.

'Conservative' is a very attractive word while 'liberal' is a very dirty one. Liberal politicians claim they are either moderate or "don't believe in labels" for good reason. Here's why:

* If believing in God and going to church is conservative and being agnostic is liberal, America is conservative.

* If preferring God's name on our money and in our pledge is conservative and wanting It off is liberal, America is conservative.

* If wanting to drop bombs and go to war right after 9/11 is conservative and preferring to show peace and understanding is liberal, America is conservative.

* If believing Saddam Hussein is evil and deserves to hang is conservative and believing Iraq was once a peaceful oasis is liberal, America is conservative.

* If preferring your child to be straight, wait until marraige to have sex, and never have an abortion is conservative and not caring is liberal, America is conservative.

* If wanting to keep mind-altering drugs illegal is conservative and wanting them legalized is liberal, America is conservative.

* If hating high taxes is conservative and believing in their great benefit is liberal, America is conservative.

* If enjoying all types of tasty meat is conservative and agonizing over how "inhumane" the chicken might have been killed is liberal, America is conservative.

* If going to Walmart to shop and save money is conservative and boycotting it because they're "an evil corporation" is liberal, America is conservative.

* If Rush Limbaugh is conservative and Cindy Sheehan is liberal, then America is conservative.

Feel free to add on!!