Can we calk about the pink elephant in the room?
Once upon a time I was a moderate. I believed in Keynesian economics. I believed in using market forces to help institute desired policy. I believed in empowering people so that they could take charge of their own lives. I believed in incentives in business and personal tax deductions and rebates. I believed that people had a right to privacy. I believed that the government should stay out of people’s private lives, but that the government is needed to protect people from not just crime but from abuse through pollution and fraud. I believed in free speech.
That was then. I was a moderate.
This is now … and I still believe all those things. But now I find myself labeled as “left.”
Time was when I could look at a conservative and find some things about him/her I liked. I appreciated the talk about fiscal responsibility. I appreciated the talk about empowering individuals. I appreciated the generally positive view on the future, on opportunity, on making one’s own life. I even appreciated Barry Goldwater (who was before my time), who said:
Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.
and said:
A lot of so-called conservatives don’t know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.
and even said:
The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they’re gay. You don’t have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that’s what brings me into it.
Goldwater was the conservative icon. And he espoused what I understood to be conservative principles. Like him or not, there was something to be admired about Goldwater’s views.
Goldwater couldn’t get elected dog-catcher in today’s Republican party. Today’s Republicans consider conservatism to be a partisan flag that flies above the Stars and Stripes, and an ideology that calls for the State to dictate personal behavior.
Today’s conservatives are for establishment of religion.
Today’s conservatives are for regulating what happens in the bedroom.
Today’s conservatives are for controlling what is said and done in the doctor’s office.
Today’s conservatives are for imposing religious doctrine like “intelligent design” upon science teaching in schools.
And all that talk about fiscal responsibility? After Reagan and the two Bushes ran up ALL national debt accrued since WW2, we know that’s not true.
All that talk about optimism for the future? After all the fear-mongering and gloom and doom rhetoric we get now from conservative leaders, we know that’s not true.
How can they call themselves “conservative” when they’re trying to impose radical change on our country?
These modern-day conservatives
They make no sense to me
They like to tell us how to live
I wish they’d let us beThese modern-day conservatives
Are holier than thou
About your life they’re positive
You must obey them nowThese modern-day conservatives
They like their power fine
They used to fight for liberty
Now you must toe the lineThese modern-day conservatives
They make no sense to me
They like to tell us how to live
But I’d rather live free.
Hmmm… I seem to be having css troubles. Layout is all stacked up. (Oh why can’t it be like before! Can’t we “conserve” the old layout?)
Great diary, mediagirl. These modern day conservatives saw an opening to grab their power and took it. They saw Bush as the path to their SCOTUS majority and have turned a blind eye to their wrongdoing.
You said it all here: they put their partisan flag over the stars and stripes.
but it wasn’t instantaneous.
I think that the 1992 Republican Convention was really the turning point, where the old school conservatives started to be drowned out by the so called Moral Majority.
That caused a fracture in the Republican party, which was one of the many factors that led to the Clinton victory.
The Religious Right was obviously not enamored with Clinton. Voting machine issues notwithstanding, the Religious Right propelled Bush to victory.
And he’s been walking the line between keeping them happy and pursuing his own agenda ever since.
But I think that now what we’re seeing is that the old-style conservatives (read : rational conservatives) are starting to reassert themselves.
We’re seeing the same fractures that divided the party in 1992. Only this time, it’s happening the opposite way.
So many labels, so little time. Take the Political Compass test.
Rather than spend time trying to stand on a “left-right” or “liberal-conservative” flat line, I’ll stick to positions on a variety of issues and let the pundits and poly sci folk figure out the labels.
I think if you look at the Reagan era, the same thing was happening — except nobody dared say anything, especially on the right. They’ve gotten more brazen, but the pseudo-Christian authoritarians were a virile insurgency into the Republican Party since Goldwater. (Goldwater was not quiet about it, either. He hated it.)
The Moral Majority was in force in the early ’80s, and started (afaik) in the ’70s. I had my “The Moral Majority is Neither” button pinned to my bag in 1980, right next to my “Anderson of Illinois for President” and “Save the Humans” buttons.
But I think you’re right, in 1992 they got really ugly and brazen. And we thought that was ugly. And then we see them now. They should never live down what they did to Terri Schiavo.
Goldwater has been one of my heroes for many of his views – those that you lay out are an excellent list. I also liked his views on the natural environment (his sorry at approving Lake Mead, for example).But not all of his policies, of course. And at the end, I think the Repubs wanted to shut him up.
There are still some Republicans who think as Goldwater did, that conservatives are indeed trying to conserve something – though they don’t mean the power of the financial filthy rich when they say that! There has been such a perversion of language and policy description that I’m not sure many ordinary citizens who signed on as Repubs quite a while back really understand all that is benig done in their name.
It seems to me that the problem you have is simply that you’re trying to find some value of “conservatism” by which the last 30 years or so will make some kind of sense.
If I may suggest, There Ain’t No Sech Animule. None of this, from the start, had any logical or necessary connection to conservatism or its philosophy.
The American Taliban and the Robber Baron Redux crowds realized, roughly during the Johnson and early Nixon eras, that while they had little in common philosophically, they had much the same short-term goals — a return to the Gilded Age as it never actually was. It didn’t take much for them to realizer that they would be more effective working with each other than working at cross purposes, and since the first few steps in the process were about power rather than philosophy, they could work well in the short term and defer the long range discussions. The Republican Party happened to be on one of the down swings of the election cycle, at that point, and was open to takeover by the combination of virtually unlimited corporate money and absolute moral certaintly brought in by the Christofascisti.
And so they went for it, and here we are… and the Republicans are only now beginning to realize what happened to them.
As with all idealogues and demagogues, there’s no connection to the actual philosophy which the speaker claims to espouse. The problem reduces to finding an appropriate scapegoat and yelling loud enough long enough. In this case it was the “liberals,” but it could just as easily have been set up a little differently had the Democratic party been on the outs.. . All that’s really necessary is some sort of reasonably clear division between an “us” over here and some other “them” over there, and the right mindset to exploit that division.
I understand that in many parts of the world, the terms “conservative” and “liberal” have NO philosophical or connotational meaning; they simply denote which of the two competing cliques, old or new money, the subject has chosen to support. Politics has nothing to do with anything.
This is now … and I still believe all those things. But now I find myself labeled as “left.”
No kidding. I was far left by the standards of 25 years ago. When the right these days talks about liberal Democrats or the liberal media, I wonder who the hell they’re talking about. I never understood why the so-called left was so fond of Bill Clinton, because in general, his policy stances were not very different than Richard Nixon’s.
But then, a lot of the confusion comes from the terminology. Today’s “conservatives” are actually radical extremists, and the left-wing establishment is fairly conservative, even retrogressive if you consider the DLC crowd to be left, which I, for one, do not.
But to get back to Barry Goldwater and his rejection of the religious right, the ultimate indictment of the anti-democratic nature of the religious right lies in its coercive tactics. The wackos know that if people are free to live as they please, their numbers will dwindle. Hardly anyone will voluntarily choose to live as they do, including their own children. The threat that we pose to them is our very existence; our freedom threatens their control simply by demonstrating an alternative.
When the best you have to offer is a way of life so unpleasant that it can only be sustained by making it mandatory, you don’t really have much to offer, do you? But then, that’s been the right wing’s problem ever since they were helping kings and emperors keep a firm grip on us commoners.
I think this current crowd in power have totally turned the terms “conservative” and “liberal” on their heads. In addition to the moral and fiscal issues you’ve identified, what’s conservative about pre-emptive war.
A co-worker and I have regular conversations about this. He likes to think of himself as conservative but can’t stomach the current crowd. He values things like fiscal discipline, accountability and personal responsibility. He’s been uncomfortable identifying with the so-called “liberals” (like Howard Dean ha-ha), but finds more in commen with them. I just tell him the labels mean nothing anymore. That’s why I think all of this “positioning” in politics is so dangerous. If you give up your priciples and values, you have nothing left but a label. And what good is that?
He is why I joined the Young Republicans. And now I identify myself as a liberal progressive. Most of my views and positions haven’t changed in over 40 years but the definitions of liberal and conservative have gotten completely bent out of shape. And the parties — Republicans and Democrats — have been shuffled together like two decks of cards in preparation for a game of “Battle.” All the identifiers have become meaningless.
I remember bumpers stickers saying, “Better Dead than Red,” and now the Repubs are the Reds. It’s seriously weird. The Neocons are Stalinists, they’re communists. The Religious Right are authoritarians, too, wanting a central power to control the people. The world is so fucked up that some days my mind just spins like a top trying to make sense of it all.
but with a stronger sense of self-entitlement.
I think we’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on the far right who would understand Edmund Burke, let alone want to follow his ideas.
My journey has been more of one from the more extremist views of my youth in the sixties to a more moderate stand as progressive today.
In another life, I’d be a libertarian. Not the wacky kind running around now (private property uber alles!!) but rather in the Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do sort of way. All drugs, prostitution, gambling … anything consenting adults decide to do … is up to them. I think I share that with Goldwater.
I think churches are businesses, and should be taxed like any other business.
I think the gov’t is there to protect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of living persons FIRST, NOT the business plans, profits and property of “legal entities” that don’t have blood coursing through their non-existant veins. Any gov’t protection of such entities should be there only to the extent that it protects the rights of the people involved in that enterprise.
Property is not the building block of a society, people are. Property is merely a bundle of rights that people have. Corporations and such are PROPERTY, not persons.
Does that make me a conservative?
I think it makes you hot. Want to go out?
LOL … you just want me for my radical politics!
Is there something wrong with that???
LOL … nope!
I’d be an anarchist — educate people so that they undersand how fully interdependent we all are and the state will wither away.
I’ve always considerd myself a leftist and used to self-label as a Libertarian. That was before the current crop of Rand-worshipping apologists for plutocracy swarmed in. Yuck.
The fight, as I see it, is always between authoritarians and libertarians. The first uses the power of the State to force their positions on everyone; the latter want to “Live and Let Live.” These are psychological and moralistic attitudes as much as philosophical and political positions.