Is the Conservative Movement Losing Steam?

Becker-Posner Blog ^ | May 10th, 2009 | Richard Posner

[BlueStateBlues]

?

[Melas]

By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.

Everything I've been feeling since the Autumn of 2008 expressed in a single sentence. Brilliant.

[penelopesire]

The guy was probably never a conservative to begin with.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Never heard of posner either.
So I guess he’s an intellectual elitist. I bet he likes Olympia Snowe and that ilk
Bye bye Posner...Hope I don’t hear from you for some time...

[muawiyah]

This Posner guy is a University of Chicago lecturer. He's one of Obama's buddies. Guy's a commie or a thief or both.

He's not worth listening to, and his line about Conservatism's face showed up in Obama bin Laden's speech regarding people who "cling to their religion and guns".

Smart Conservative Intellectuals reject Commies and their little stories.

[marron]

By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States. I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism," the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded.

In his mind, the golden age of conservatism was the Clinton Administration.

[ChetNavVet]

The writer of this peice is no Conservative IMHO.

Mixing half truthes with liberal babble does not fool me.

[Clemenza]

Posner is one of our foremost classical liberal thinkers. He is neither a commie nor a thief, no matter what you think of him.

BTW: Isn't it odd that Barry O didn't follow with a speech about the bitter, angry folks in the ghetto clinging to their Ravens and Religion?

[donaldo]

Generally, I’m in agreement. Conservatism and personal responsibility are a hard sell when people are feeling vulnerable. That touchy-feely, warm-fuzzy message of the Democrats is heady wine for malleable morons. We’ve turned the corner in this country. We are clearly in decline; morally, culturally, spiritually, economically, and politically. A clear majority of the idiots who now vote are immersed in a herd like mentality. It was a great ride, but it’s basically over. When a totally manufactured nonentity like Obama can be elected President of this former Republic it’s over, believe me. And he has a wife who wears $400.00 Lanvin tennis shoes! The irony. Imagine, the Vanguard of the Proletariat wearing $400.00 shoes.

[Conservativism]

It’s true that he lectures at the University of Chicago, but I think you’re giving him too little credit. He is a free market hero and is one of the leaders in the Chicago school of thought on economics. He may be the most respected judge not sitting on SCOTUS.

[muawiyah]

Posner must have been better known in the past. Based on this writing and where he works (law lecturer at U of Chicago ~ where Obama worked) it just doesn't wash anymore.

A true classical liberal would recognize that the First Amendment carves out religion for the same special place we put speech, the press, and the right of the people to peaceably assemble.

He's just another narrow-minded partisan busybody.

[Larry381]

I was a tiny part of the Goldwater movement in 1964 and you could count the number of real conservative intellectuals on one hand. They were considered an anachronism by liberals of the time, a kind of dying breed that were good to have around because they made political debates interesting.
Even into the 70’s there were few real conservatives and I firmly believe that if not for Jimmy Carter and his horrendous policies conservatives would have continued marking time into the 80’s and possibly the 90’s.
It took a Jimmy Carter to make the Republican party coalesce around Ronald Reagan just as I believe that the policies of President Obama will call forth the next Republican president and hopefully re-energize the conservative movement.

[moondoggie]

Another article designed to demoralize the Conservatives?

How refreshing....NOT!

[Niuhuru]

It is faltering. We don’t have conservatives running the party like real leaders. We have these flaccid country clubbers who don’t want to dirty their delicate hands and start taking charge. There’s no zeal or real passion to make a better country.

Before the sixties we had Eisenhower, Lincoln, really decisive men who understood the concept of win or lose. McCain is too old and we have to open ranks more, stop treating the party like a union or cocktail party.

We need to run it like a business, you either contribute, meet certain standards, and prove yourself, get votes and pound pavement.

The Democrats run their party according to their temperments, they’re out to win and we’re not.

If conservatives ran their personal businesses like they do the party, they wouldn’t be successful. We are zealous when it comes to our personal lives, but not in public.

Admittedly both parties were more civilized and didn’t resort to blackmail or personal attacks and the presidential candidates were usually better credentialed and did come from hardworking backgrounds that did connect them with the common man.

But it isn’t like that anymore unfortunately and the Republicans have got to open the door more. The Democrats win because they take anyone who can contribute anything.

We don’t try new things or take bold steps. We don’t strategize. Democrats more likely than not started cruising and vetting potential candidates after ‘04 and realized that Kerry failed because he was too freakin’ effete. Obama is easily identifiable with someone who went from little to big, no matter how much AA he enjoyed.

McCain did the same, but he didn’t take initiative when Obama inadvertantly handed him chance after chance after chance. Then the stupid Republicans started getting divided while the Democrats closed in and no matter what, did all they could to get Obama through.

What we have to do is start small, state by state by actively implementing tax reduction policies and make damn sure the public knows about it. Zero is handing us disaffected voters by the dozen and we better not blow this chance.

We expected McCain’s credentials to carry him through, they would have too in normal circumstances, but these weren’t normal circumstances.

We need to be ruthless politically like we are in the business world.

[muawiyah]

One more consideration ~ did you notice the piece where he said: "..... the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials....."?

It's really beyond the limits of this one thread to get into his belief that "denial of global warming" is some sort of sign of intellectual decline. It's not like there's a settled science with comprehensive data and perfect models. Just yesterday we found out that the GW standard model regarding the conveyor belt that transports warm water North in the Atlantic and ships cool water South is seriously flawed ~ and not only flawed, it doesn't even begin to match the theory. Seems the Atlantic is rather complex.

Postner's past his time when it comes to GW. Certainly he must have noticed the enormous and continual rains at the 40th parallel that are signs of an impending "little Ice Age" ~ like all he has to do is go outside and discover that this year's Cool Dry Spring (which makes lots of rain in some places and stops it in others) is not at all predicted by any of the GW models.

An old guy unable to step out his door and ask "why" probably is not in touch with Conservative intellectualism.

Concerning using "religious criteria" to select public officials ~ since we still aren't doing that I have no idea what he's talking about. What that expression almost always means is "I don't want hotdampt holyrollers around here" ~ so it's more an expression of religious bigotry on Posner's part than anything else. Again, that's hardly the sort of thinking we expect of Conservative intellectuals.

[hellbender]

the essentially conservative policies, especially in economics, of the Clinton administration

What an idiot. Hillary's attempt to communize health care, an orgy of affirmative action in Clinton's administration (so it would "look like America"), and appointment of an ACLU hack to the Supreme Court were "conservative policies"?

[SWAMPSNIPER]

I’m just getting warmed up!

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

SOunds like he's just another abortion-supporting, "religion is bad", go along to get along hack. If he's the best conservative intellectualism can do, then he's (unwittingly) right - we ARE toast.

Fortunately, his analysis has more holes in it than a cheese grater.

[Melas]

Is he really a friend of Obama’s or are you merely extrapolating that from the fact that he works for the UoC?