Posted on 05/09/2003 4:14:34 AM PDT by Continental Op
The Unmaking of Conservatism
Joe Sobran
April 24, 2003 Conservatism — or at least something calling itself conservatism — is now fashionable, and those who claim the label are triumphant today. Their government has just won a war, and they can afford to gloat not only over liberals, but over an older breed of conservatives who are suspicious of big government even when (or especially when) it’s winning.
When I began to consider myself a conservative, back in 1965, conservatism didn’t seem to have much of a future. Lyndon Johnson had just crushed Barry Goldwater in what looked like a final showdown between the philosophies of limitless and limited government. I was clearly enlisting in a losing cause.
But that, in a way, was what attracted me to conservatism. It was a philosophy of reflective losers, men whose principles and memories gave them resistance to the conquering fad and its propaganda. Such men hoped for victory, naturally, but they were fighting heavy odds, fierce passions, and powerful interests. They were ready for defeat, but they weren’t going to adjust their principles in order to win. They knew that if you win power by giving up your principles, you’ve already lost.
I was a college student, and my reading in English literature had already predisposed me to conservatism. The great writers I admired — Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, George Orwell, Michael Oakeshott — were all notable for opposing the fads and enthusiasms of their times. They took being in the minority for granted. They even treasured solitude and meditation. Their minds and hearts were closed to statist propaganda and the passions it sought to incite, and they were prepared to endure abuse and libel for refusing to join the herd — especially what has been wittily called “the herd of independent minds.”
It soon turned out that the Goldwater campaign marked only the beginning, not the end, of a powerful new conservative movement, which astonished itself by managing to get one of its own, Ronald Reagan, elected president in 1980. Few had imagined this possible in 1965.
But by winning power, the conservative movement began to loose its grip on conservative principles. It had hoped to reverse the gains of liberalism — not only Johnson’s Great Society, but Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, both of which had violated America’s constitutional tradition of strictly limited and federal government. Now it quietly dropped its original goals.
As a powerful movement, conservatism also attracted new members who were more interested in power than in principle. Some of these were called “neoconservatives” — admirers of Roosevelt and recent supporters of Lyndon Johnson who cared nothing for limited government and the U.S. Constitution. Few of them, if any, had voted for Goldwater.
The chief common ground between the conservatives and the neocons was an anti-Communist foreign policy. All talk of deeper principles — and of repealing the welfare state — was discreetly dropped for the sake of harmony within the movement and political victory.
The conservatives wanted to keep the neocons within the movement. In this they succeeded only too well. Today the neocons have not only stayed; they have taken over the movement and pushed the principled conservatives out — or cowed them into silence, which comes to the same thing.
The older conservatives were wary of foreign entanglements and opposed on principle to foreign aid. But these are the very things the neocons favor most ardently; in fact, they are the very things that define neoconservatism and separate it from genuine conservatism.
As the neocon Max Boot recently wrote, “Support for Israel [is] a key tenet of neoconservatism.” He failed to name any other “key” tenets, because there aren’t any. War against Arab and Muslim regimes — enemies of Israel — is what it’s all about. Reagan’s all-out support for Israel, when Jimmy Carter was toying with Palestinian rights, is what won him neocon support in 1980.
A Rip Van Winkle conservative who had dozed off in 1965 would wake up in 2003 to find a movement that has almost nothing to do with the creed he professed when he last closed his eyes. It also has nothing to do with the conservative temper we find in the great writers of the past. It has everything to do with a shallow jingoism and war propaganda. It has become the sort of hot fad wise conservatives used to avoid, back when wise conservatives still defined conservatism.
No law is unconstitutional until it is declared to be so. All laws on the books have to be obeyed, and enforced at a cost, even if they are "unconstitutional", until repealed or declared unconstitutional.
That is perhaps the most ridiculous statement I have seen on this thread. Anything that goes against the Constitution is UNCONSTITUTIONAL! You might feel comfortable living under a judicial oligarchy, but not me.
Compare your ludicrous remarks with Ben Franklin's:
"It is every American's right, and obligation, to read and interpret the Constitution for himself."
It's a good thing our founding fathers didn't share your unique view of liberty. What a shameless display of willful ignorance.
That must be why Sobran and others reacted so harshly to David Frum's article. The truth hit hard, and it hurt pretty bad, didn't it?
Let's just say that many of us didn't realize how bad things had become until that blowhard Frum was granted sainthood by the neocon left.
I find it hard to take Sobran seriesly.
Incredible!
Apparently you come from the Woodrow Wilson school of conservatism!
OK, so you'd support my right to build an explosives factory right next door to your house, without any permits, fees, licenses, regulations, or ordinances to govern my activities?
Yes. Your post was correct, but selective because you addressed it to one of the offending parties. One called the other's screen name and the other responded as a result, yet you saw fit to overlook that. Had you addressed you comment to both parties, I think that both would have agreed and heeded you advice. But you didn't do that, did you?
Seriously, they are more big-government-solution, centralized-power, and globalist than moderates.
Hardly, but there's one on every editorial page.
I hate to tell you this...but those "unelected bureaucrats" are, in damn near every case, making regulations pursuant to laws passed by the duly constituted legislature.
Not if it's on the books as a law. I'm against abortion, but, unfortunately, it's not unconstitutional even though I think it is. It is being practiced, it is protected, it is being enforced, and it is lawful — until it is repealed or declared unconstitutional — just like I said in my the statement that you totally disagree with.
I oppose UN-elected bureaucrats creating codes, reg's, etc. that are NOT constitutional and are nothing more than revenue producing instruments for their particular entity
True conservatives should also oppose American-elected bureaucrats creating codes, reg's, etc. that are NOT constitutional and are nothing more than revenue producing instruments for their particular entity.
Neo-cons are the Sheeple's right-wing.
Anyone who wants to involve themselves in this neverending neo vs. paleo p*ssing contest should be forced to read it.
It'd only improve the quality of the debate & weed out the name callers.
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