The Fossilization of Thought

A frequent, shrill refrain from opponents of health care reform is that it is radical. Obama is a radical. Nancy Pelosi is a radical. Harry Reid is a radical. Progressives are radical. They're all socialists. Our founding fathers would be aghast at how radical these people are. And on and on and on.

Good grief. As if the founding fathers were such intellectual gods of mythical proportions that they would be appalled at any attempt to change or improve upon their ideas. They themselves were radicals in every sense of the term, particularly in their proposed constitutional structure for the nascent republic. This "novel" idea so disturbed those that advocated a much looser, confederate alliance of sovereign states, that some of the founders felt compelled to write a series of public letters which became known as the Federalist Papers. Here's what James Madison wrote in Federalist #14 in 1787 (emphasis mine):

But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States might, at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils, must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great Confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them.

Blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names...It is our duty to improve on what was handed down to us. How aggressively we do that is a matter for debate. Conservatism used to mean that we tread cautiously, to avoid unintended side-effects from hasty change. That I used to believe. Now, conservatism has become the movement of "over my dead body." It has become the movement of secession. Challenges to the sanctity of the Union have become commonplace, all because of those "radicals."

Maybe these folks are not really all that serious about secessionism, but the fact that they mindlessly throw around these words without consequence marks how far conservatism has fallen. Again, I give you Madison in Federalist #14 at his most impassioned plea for union:

I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however fashionable the error on which they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scene into which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rendering us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness.

Conservatism We Can Listen To

Unlike the shrill Beckian Hannityoff gibberish that passes for conservatism these days, newmajority.com is a place one can go to and actually listen to various streams of conservative thought without cringing.  This is David Frum's attempt at leading conservatism out of the wilderness with some kind of coherent ideology.  I applaud him for this effort because the country needs a vibrant right that presents a reasonable counterpoint to the left.  Reasonable because so long as it isn't, it is too easy to simply dismiss the right as a bunch of crackpots, and therefore dismiss their good ideas as well.

Case in point:  Frum's ongoing argument with David Horowitz about the man of the moment, Glenn Beck himself.  Basically, Frumpsky dissed the Beckster for falsely attacking someone, to which Horowitz (who admires the Beckmeister) said this:

Our country is under assault by a determined, deceitful and powerful left which will stop at nothing to realize its goals. Facing them, I would rather have Glenn Beck out there fighting for our side than 10,000 David Frums who think that appeasing leftists will make them think well of us. No it won’t. It will only whet their appetite for our heads.

Frum hit back:

Horowitz agrees that Beck’s attack on Sunstein was false. Yet that falsehood does not worry Horowitz. The country is “under assault.” (As the broadcaster Mark Levin has said, President Obama is “literally at war” with the American people.) In a war, truth must yield to the imperatives of victory. Any conservative qualms about the untruth of Beck’s defamation of Sunstein amounts to “appeasement” – an appeasement that will end with the left decapitating the right. This is the language and logic of Leninism. There is no truth or falsehood comrades, there is only service to the revolution or betrayal of the revolution.

Ouch.  It is nice to see someone on the right be able to call out falsehoods without having to abandon their core principles.  Those like Horowitz who see this as a war between the right and the left have preemptively justified all tactics--good and bad--as necessary for defeating those evil liberals.  And here I was, thinking that the right stood for defending American values, especially morality.

To be sure, there is still some looniness at newmajority.com; but IMHO, no more so than at huffiingtonpost or any other talk site.  It's just nice to have an alternative for a change.

Thank you, Mark Steyn

In my last post I attacked something that Mark Steyn said in (on? at?) The Corner, to which TdotTim commented:

"I think Mark Steyn, by opposing any change to our currently perfect system, is essentially saying..."
And I think Mark Steyn hardly needs an obscure blogger to tell anyone what he is essentially saying...we just read his actual words. But as blatant and shameless an attempt at being linked as his "reader of the day" as I've yet seen...and for that (and for at least having good taste in football teams), I congratulate you.

Now, as TdotTim correctly points out, I am indeed an obscure blogger. So obscure, in fact, that I had no idea who Mark Steyn was when I read what he said on a prominent conservative website. I simply read something I didn't like and talked about it. I still don't know (or care about) Mark Steyn's importance in this universe, but I do know that he selected me as his "reader of the day" today on his website and posted nothing more than my unflattering description of him and a link to my post:

For that and for the simple fact that Mark Steyn did not stoop to respond to my vicious attacks in an equally base tone, I admire and applaud him.

@TdotTim: Above all, I am honored that a fellow Cowboys fan visited my site. You are always welcome here.

Bureaucratific

In what passes for conservatism these days, criticism of Obama's health-care plan has seemed to mainly be, "We don't want someone else, least of all, one of them Washington bureaucrats, making our life-or-death decisions for us." As if private insurance bureaucrats were somehow more compassionate than their lowly government counterparts. The "death panels" hysteria is comical given that insurance companies lay out in advance exactly what procedures they will or, more likely, won't, cover and at what price limits. Nevertheless, this ought to be entirely beside the point.

Today, since you can get as much care as you can afford, we don't think of it as rationing, but from a societal standpoint, it absolutely is. Health-care is rationed according to one's ability to pay. Basic economics. So long as resources are limited, no one can get everything. Things get costs assigned to them based on how much people need/want them. The left is being entirely consistent, and noble, in arguing that it is immoral to deny anyone care just because they can't afford it. I fully stand behind that sentiment. However, we still won't be able to afford unlimited care for everybody. We never will as long as resources are finite. The real question is which system best rations health-care while covering as many people as possible, not whether we need to ration. We already do. The fact that the right is babbling about the greater compassion of private insurance companies is mind-boggling.

Where Conservatism Needs to Go

'Tis the season to think aloud about the future of the conservative moment, and most seem to agree that some change is needed, even if what is needed still eludes consensus. But, that hip young conservative thinker, Douthat, puts it well:

This problem is not, repeat not, a matter of conservatives needing to abandon their core convictions in order to win elections, as right-of-center reformers are often accused of doing. Rather, it's a matter of conservatives needing to apply their core convictions to questions like "how do we mitigate the worst effects of climate change?" and "how do we modernize our infrastructure?" and "how do we encourage excellence and competition within our public school bureaucracy?" instead of just letting liberals completely monopolize these debates, while the Right talks about porkbusting and not much else.

Conservatism, to me, is about being prudent, weighing evidence, and worrying about unforeseen consequences before embarking on a course of action. These principles derive from a recognition that human reason is fallible, that "majority think" is not the same as being right, and that rash actions are usually far more dangerous than carefully considered ones. What passes for conservatism now, however, is fossilized sloganeering that simply ignores mounting evidence contrary to long-held beliefs.

On global warming, for example, a healthy skepticism was a reasonable reaction back when scientific evidence in favor of this phenomenon wasn't quite as robust as it is now. Today, many conservatives spend their energies denying that climate change even is, as it were. Therefore, there is no conservative input into the real issue, which is, what, if anything, should we and the government do about it. The left mostly begins from the assumption that, of course, the government ought to step in and fix it, like require lower emissions, create green technologies, etc. If, as Douthat says, conservatives discussed ways of applying their core principles to this issue, they might offer a range of conservative solutions, including market-oriented ideas, that do not automatically assume that government will take charge and fix this thing. So long as conservatives stay in denial-land, all they accomplish is to appear anti-evidence and anti-intellectual. Without conservative participation, we all lose when the only solutions we talk about are what government is going to do about this or that problem.