When We Say ‘Conservative,’ We Mean . ....

National Review ^ | 06/20/2015 | Jonah Goldberg

[nomad]

In a word, Constitutionalism.

[nomad]

At least to me it does.

[muir_redwoods]

Economic freedom and constitutional rule. Give me that, leave me alone and I’m happy

[Colonel_Flagg]

When We Say ‘Conservative,’ We Mean . ....

For a number of people here, it seems to mean "Donald Trump".

Which is, frankly, quite sad.

[C. Edmund Wright]

And for those suckers, they should take this quote from Goldberg to heart: The entire left-wing economic agenda is geared towards slowing or stopping economic change. Just look at their opposition to free trade, Uber, GMOs, fracking, and now driverless cars.

Conservatives embrace change more passionately and eagerly than liberals ever do in the realm of life that most directly touches the most people: the market.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: For a number of people here, it seems to mean “Donald Trump”.

For a lot of people here, the following DON’T qualify as conservatives on issues they care about:

Marco Rubio
Tom Coburn
Rick Santorum
Paul Ryan
Ben Carson
Mike Huckabee
Rand Paul

I have seen posts here that say that if any of the above were to ran for President, they would not bother to vote ( and of course leave the field to the Democrat canddiate by default ).

[nathanbedford]

I think Brother Goldberg might have made clearer the distinction between fair trade and mercantilism. Open trade works when it is fair but not when the trading partner is mercantilist.

[Erik Latranyi]

Individual liberty.....no two people are alike, no two businesses are alike, no two communities are alike.

Conservatism embraces individual liberty by avoiding the “one size fits all” approach as much as possible.....whether that is government, economics or individuals.

[Dr. Sivana]

Open trade works when it is fair but not when the trading partner is mercantilist.

A good conservative may also be against utterly free trade with enemies, or for security reasons. It might be best to have your armaments (and their constituent parts) made either at home or by long-term allies rather by the Chicoms.

[Lurkinanloomin]

I think the attraction to Trump is mainly driven by his unabashed pro-American stances. The GOP by and large has become too much like the Democrats andpeoplewant something different.

Mostly we want the invasion stopped and Trump is the only one directly addressing it like it is and not with the mushy “immigration” euphamisms.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition by M. Stanton Evans.

That's a must-read for conservatives, IMHO - but you don't necessarily have time to read the whole thing in the midst of the time pressure of a deadline for a paper. That's why you count on me to summarize. The "theme" to which the book's title refers is the theme of American conservatism. As Evans notes, conservatism relates to the particular polity and society you are considering: if you were talking about German conservatism or Russian conservatism or Chinese conservatism you would not say that the theme of conservatism in those places is freedom.

OK, that's Evans on American conservatism. What about American Beliefs by John McElroy?

McElroy notes that there were four main colonial powers in America, and each of them found different things and wanted to do different things:

• Spain found bronze-age civilization, and conquered them in a conventional manner as they would have liked to have done in Europe, especially England. Since they found a going concern their only interest was in dominating and exploiting it, rather than creating it. So the only people they sent to their colonies were soldiers and gentlemen to be in charge. No Spanish peons need apply.

• France found in Canada not a going bronze-age civilization but a stone age one. But like Spain, France's primary motivation was control - of navigation of the St. Lawrence River - and trade with the natives. So there was need of traders, but mostly of gentlemen and soldiers to control. Very few peons, even French ones and certainly none other, were neededD

• Portugal found stone age peoples in Brazil. In order to exploit Brazil they sent over workers - in the form of African slaves. Plus of course, gentlemen to control the operation.

• England (it wasn't Great Britain until later) found in the portion of North America which it was able to claim nothing but stone-age people and forests. The land was rich and had tremendous agricultural potential but wasn't farmland until it had been laboriously cleared of trees and vines. The English colonists found that gentlemen were pretty useless; what the situation cried out for was farmers. So England sent over poor people - some, including some of my ancestors, came from Lutheran Germany - and so the American polity was dominated by practical people (even if they often had religious motivations for wanting to come, still they learned that the situation required diligent work).

The conclusion is that Americans respect any honest work. If you reflect on English costume drama, you will realize that we didn't get that attitude from England - where the emphasis was on who you were rather than what you did - but in the American melieu where people who were respected because they were useful, and were respected for the caluses on their hands.

Now consider the Constitution of the United States of America. That obviously defines American conservatism. And what defines the Constitution (which, BTW, is considered to crowning achievement of the Enlightenment) is its preamble. There we find an echo of "the theme is freedom" in the mission statement "to preserve the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"."

In the reference to "posterity" - which variously can mean "descendants" or, more generally, "those who live after us" - defines conservatism as preserving something for the future. That seems to make sense for a definition of conservatism except if you consider the object being preserved. Liberty, after all, is the possibility of doing things differently than your parents did them. Working in different occupations, inventing new ways of doing things. "Liberty" is about the strangest possible form of "conservatism."

In fact, American conservatives weren't always called "conservatives." Historically we were "liberals." Why then is "liberalism" a dreaded label to shun when you are running for political office? For the simple reason that the word was misappropriated and run into the ground by people who had the ability to manipulate the language - journalists and intellectuals - and who had an agenda other than "liberty." Their agenda was the overthrow of liberty, and they hit on a way of subverting it. They took the word for the public - the word "society" - and appropriated it into the coined word "socialism."

I put it to you that the word "social" has nothing inherently to do with leftism; there's nothing "social" about a business call from a policeman. If you are an American Conservative you probably have learned to check your wallet whenever you hear someone use the term "social" or "society," and you are right to do so. Because leftists adopted the form of usage of the term which inverts its natural meaning. When a leftist says "society" s/he means nothing other than "government."

That is the con. Because "liberty" is only what remains when you subtract "government" from "society." If there be no difference between "society" and "government," then "liberty" is logically excluded. And that is the leftist project.

Well, where was I? I was saying that "liberalism" is a word which once related to "liberty" and applied to the people who are now in America called "conservatives." The transformation of the meaning of "liberalism" occurred in America before it happened anywhere else. Indeed it still hasn't happened everywhere. If you hear or read a foreigner refering to "liberalism" you have to do a context check to determine whether they refer to leftism or to American "conservatism." The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek is a 1944 clasic which was reprinted many times, as recently as 1994. In a foreword to one of the printings, Hayek bewailed not only the fact that his use of the word "liberalism" was so easily misunderstood in America but the fact that that essentially "indispensible word" had been destroyed as far as Americans were concerned. IMHO that destruction had already been accomplished in America by the time of the advent of the FDR Administration. Because FDR used the deformed American version of "liberalism" entirely unselfconsciously.

I put it to you that the reason that America's leftists, and not the leftists of other nations, misappropriated the label "liberalism" lies in the fact that the term "socialism" - which I have noted is deceitful in its etymology - was a smashing success outside the US but a flop inside America. We already had a country which was governed by society; you couldn't promise us one in name which was actually "governmentism" (tyranny) in practice and con us into thinking you were offering nirvana. ("Socialism" in leftist speak actually means "governmentism" in plain talk, since as I noted earlier leftists always mean "government" when they say "social" or "society" - or, for that matter, "public").

[KC Burke]

Hayek’s fourth chapter of The Constitution of Liberty does a pretty good job.

Old thread where the chapter is split up for discussion is here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836099/posts

[SpeakerToAnimals]

I have seen posts here that say that if any of the above were to ran for President, they would not bother to vote ( and of course leave the field to the Democrat canddiate by default ).

Add me to the list. How may times must the republicans lose before they learn? Every name on that list is the republican version of Bruce Jenner. They call themselves republican, but vote like democrats.

Support any of the above and lose. Or learn from experience.

[cashless]

To me conservatism is a firm belief in the Constitution realizing that 80% or more of Federal law and regulation are anti Constitutional as is 80% of the Executive branch, more than half of Supreme Court rulings, and practically every law passed by Congress in the last 100 years. The usurpation of the Federal government of the duties and responsibilities of the States, has us where we are today.Conservatism is free market capitalism.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Hayek’s fourth chapter of The Constitution of Liberty does a pretty good job. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836099/posts

we have had to the present day two different traditions in the theory of liberty: one empirical and unsystematic, the other speculative and rationalistic –the first based on an interpretation of traditions and institutions which had spontaneously grown up and were but imperfectly understood,

the second aiming at the construction of a utopia, which has often been tried but never successfully. Nevertheless, it has been the rationalistic, plausible, and apparently logical argument of the French tradition, with its flattering assumptions about the unlimited powers of human reason, that has progressively gained influence, while the less articulate and less explicit tradition of English freedom has been on the decline.

Compare with Hamilton:

“The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.”

. . . and also with Adam Smith:

The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments

[sauropod]

Bfl.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Paradoxial as it may appear, it is probably true that a successful free society will always in a large measure be a tradition-bound society.

. . . but it is also paradoxical that the US Constitution was a novelty when framed - and that it explicitly (see Article 1 Section 8, The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .) promotes progress (i.e., change) and includes provision for amendments. It also abolishes nobility and priestly classes.

[KC Burke]

The Adam Smith Theory of Moral Sentiments is so much better but denser than the Wealth of Nations.

I have been trying to digest it for many years and can only do a small part at a time.

[KC Burke]

By the way, Obama has decided that Hamilton has to go. We should now quote Sanger or Sacajewea.