The Conservatice Political Action Conference and Gay Republicans

In the latest illustration of the strange new defintions of "conservativism," several "pillars of the conservative movement," as they are described by the New York Times(perhaps not the best authority on such things, admittedly, but still ...) have withdrawn from a major fundraising and organization conference over the issue of gay rights.

Their beef is that a group called GOProud has been allowed to cosponsor the affair. According to the Times,

some conservative pillars, including church-based groups like the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and Liberty University and others like the Heritage Foundation, are refusing to participate. They are angry that the gay organization, GOProud, has been given a seat at the planning table. These groups are implacable opponents of same-sex marriage, which they say GOProud implicitly endorses by saying that the question should be left to the states.

In years past, conservatives would say that any defense of states rights was key plank of the conservative and/or Republican platform. "Big government," in the form of federal intervention, is the bogie man of most conservative rhetoric. And such language certainly has been at the center of protests over the health care bill. So why the outrage? Why is it "conservative" to seek federal law over an essentially personal matter?

An Aside on the Reaction to the Attack in Tuscon, Arizona

Jared Loughner's attack on Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords might be seen as just another alarming example of what happens when a disturbed young man gets his hands on an assault rifle. By many accounts, he had raised the suspicions of a number of people who had even casual contact with him, and his senseless violence looks very much like other such acts we have seen in the United States in the not-so-distant past.

But Giffords represented the Democratic Party in a hotly-contested state, where some rhetoric has been angry, especially around the state's immigration laws. According to Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, in his press conference following the shooting, he is "not aware of any public officials who are not receiving threats." As part of that rhetoric, Sarah Palin (whose role in American political life is as strange as it gets) used a gun-sight graphic on a map of certain Congressional districts, including the one represented by Giffords. Palin even crowed about the effectiveness of the graphic on her Twitter page: "Remember months ago 'bullseye' icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin' incumbent seats? We won 18 out of 20 (90% success rate;T'aint bad).

When some people, particularly Democrats, including Sheriff Dupnik, pointed out that such rhetoric might encourage some to react more violently than they might otherwise, Republicans went ballistic. Palin responded in a strange Facebook video in which she says that she saddened by the killing, but that she has no responsibility in the matter at all. She even refers to the tradition of American duelling over political disputes (which was excoriated at least as early as 1803, when Alexander Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr) as the moidel for political discourse.

It's odd to see people like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin expressing anger over the vitriol of the liberal press. Of course, it';s worth noting that even their comments about liberal anger are angry, and they have nothing introspective or careful to say about the rhetoric in Arizona.

On the other hand, some conservatives have expressed dismay, and Speaker John Boehner's speech in the House last Wednesday was truly conciliatory. I just wish we could focus more on these concessions and attempts at compromise than on the accusations.

American Political Discourse (con't)

LIBERALS AS UNDERSTOOD IN 20TH CENTURY AMERICA

“Liberal” has a somewhat more complicated history. Before, say, 1900, “liberal” referred to those who supported the growth of participatory government, and was placed in contrast to “conservatives” of an older sort – royalists and the like who saw no good from anything democratic with a small “d.” After the turn of the last century, however, the term came to refer to people who sought government intervention in a greater area of human life than had previously been contemplated. Led at first by Progressives outside the government like Upton Sinclair, the writer of The Jungle (also a bit wordy) and Jacob Riis, writer and photographer of How the Other Half Lives, this group believed that the power of corporations, lauded by “conservatives,” corrupted American life rather than advancing it, and wanted to see the government intervene on behalf of those on the bottom. With the election of Woodrow Wilson and then Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this political thinking gained ascendency.

[Note that while Wilson and FD Roosevelt were Democrats, Theodore Roosevelt, the first Progressive with serious national clout, was a Republican.]

People who ascribed to this line of thinking liked federal power because it could fix social and economic problems more quickly, at least in theory. Pols controlling local and state governments tended to favor the interests of local financiers and industrialists, and often did not have the raw money power of individuals like Morgan and Carnegie. Liberals tended to prefer unions to corporations for the same reason, and often supported gender and racial rights at a somewhat more rapid pace than conservatives because they saw these people as unfairly downtrodden , although liberals had their own problems with racism and sexism. This liberal tradition was carried on by proponents of larger federal government like John F. Kennedy (see "the New Frontier") and Lyndon Johnson (and his "Great Society'.)

THE COMPLICATION OF COMMUNISM

One initial source of American political confusion was the growth of Communism’s influence in the United States around the turn of the 20th century, peaking during the Depression. American Communists shared liberals’ concern for the socially and economically disadvantaged, but did not share their appreciation for the long-term power of elective systems. Democracy, for the Communists, was a temporary means to the greater end. This end was anything but liberal. Even if we disregard the actual application of pseudo-communist beliefs by Stalin and Lenin – a tough thing to disregard – Communism called for authoritarian government with no interest in individual rights.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Congress introduced large-scale federal spending during the Depression, they came nowhere near the kind of massive, all-consuming extension of government spending executed by the Nationalist Socialists in Germany or the Communists in the USSR. In the eyes of many Americans, however, the New Deal represented a significant step toward socialism. Some saw this step as a disaster, others as the key to all social progress, but it was difficult to argue that it was not such a step.

Mostly, though, it was not. No one with any serious influence in American government sought the replacement of the constitutional scheme of rights with an all-powerful government charged with the redistribution of property. True radicals did live in the US in the 30’s, as they do now, but they did not have much pull. In other words, Americans were true liberals – almost all of them – but tended to focus more on their differences than on their essential agreements. Ironically, this conflict stemmed from the very electoral system that served as the foundation of these common principles. To be elected, candidates and parties had to distinguish themselves from one another rather than seeking common ground.

This electoral conflict caused people to obfuscate or lie about each other’s true intentions and principles. Conservatives could call liberals “communist,” and liberals responded by repudiating some ideas that were, in fact important to them – and to conservatives, even. Liberals could exaggerate the greed of conservatives while seeking the growth of the same capitalist system encouraged by the industrialists they excoriated.

In this way, words began to lose their original and, I would argue most useful, meanings and political discourse became unmoored.

Political Labels and Political Discourse

One obstacle to a useful political dialogue in the United States is the confused and confusing labels we affix to various candidates and leaders. If they ever did have meaning, “conservative” and “liberal” have lost it, and so our vocabulary can be so deceptive as to be useless.

To some extent this change has been the intentional result of the cynical efforts of men like Karl Rove whose goals in life center on the acquisition of power rather than its productive application. In the 1990’s and then especially as Republican campaign guru from 2000 to 2007, Rove set out so to obscure political realities that he could get any ham sandwich elected just because the electorate would throw up its hands and toss a coin until he found the last-minute emotional appeal to get just enough votes to win.

But generally I prefer to assume more sincere motives. I think most people are confused because political questions have changed and the old labels don’t describe the answers. Before we can improve the politics themselves we need to develop a new vocabulary. In the next few posts, I will explain what I see as the fundamental problems with our current vocabulary and suggest some ways in which it might change for the better

CONSERVATIVES IN THE AMERICAN VERNACULAR

For most of the 20th century, “conservative” referred to a fairly consistent constellation of political beliefs. It stood primarily for minimal government action on any level or any issue. That meant small federal government and somewhat broader state prerogatives – if only to choose to do less. In particular, it meant the laissez-faire economic policies of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and even Dwight Eisenhower. It also meant resistance to changes in laws regarding racial or gender equality and hesitance to use US military force unless absolutely necessary.

Conservatives also disliked labor unions because they represented a kind of group behavior at odds with their preference for individual freedom of movement. That unions also interfered with the growth of power for capitalists of a the highest class also offended conservatives, especially after the publication of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which offered a philosophical defense of the Great Man theory of history, albeit in the form of fictional (and incredibly long-winded) stories.

In sum, conservatives believed deeply in the value and the power of the individual – especially the talented or gifted individual – and sought to enhance the latitude in which such people could operate. At times, this belief carried with it racist, sexist or elitist undertones because the sense of who counted as an individual worthy of such broad freedom often depended on exclusion. It should be noted, though, that such conservatives existed in both American political parties. Southern Democrats were just as likely to adhere to these tenets as any Republican; Strom Thurmond as a Democrat was a lot more conservative than Theodore Roosevelt as a Republican.