?Listen? Stop Calling me a Crypto-Nazi??

I have always found it interesting that we like to believe in the unparalleled importance of the historical window of time and space we currently occupy.? Apparently, for many people progress is two-fold: it is the manifest movement of the zeitgeist forward, meaning for the better.? Secondly, as technology becomes more sophisticated (ie. ?better? as many people would have you think) so do the problems faced by people.? I like to think that this idea is articulated best by Biggie Smalls, when Puff Daddy (at the time), Ma$e and Notorious BIG performed the song Mo Money Mo Problems.? Since we do not have ?mo? Money? we have to settle with the belief that we have more problems because we general tend to have ?mo?? of everything else (including elapsed time).? What kills me is when people make comments like ?I just think it?s so hard for kids today,? because having to take buses across town to co-mingle races was not hard.? In the political spectrum, people tend to quip that ?political attacks have gotten to personal and ugly;? because meeting a man for the purpose of dueling and shooting a former Secretary of the Treasury dead just wasn?t personal enough (see Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton).? We have a tendency for generational narcissism.?

The latest personal smear being employed in today?s debate regarding Health Care is calling someone a ?Nazi? or comparing another to Hitler or the likes.? I say this in jest, because any Conservative knows that this technique has been used against Conservatives for years and years.? Just to throw in a personal anecdote: I was once caught up in a friendly debate with the ?College Democrats? table at my respective University, when my opposition to some of the ideas espoused by the young lady I was engaging warranted me being called a ?Klansmen? (to which I told her I was unaware they had changed their membership guidelines to allow Catholics in now) and then I was called anti-Semitic a mere five minutes later.? No name calling exchange is quite as infamous as the 1968 exchange between Messrs William Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal.? A cult classic.

Now we are seeing both sides using the old Nazi name-calling with a tenacious fervor.? Both sides are invoking the images of a regime none of them know much more about than what they have seen in the movies or read in books (I would likely place my bets on the former).? Interestingly enough, nobody dares bring what Nazism entailed; the slaughter of 12 million people.? It?s like we don?t have the gonads to actually say what we mean, leaving those in the audience to deduce this on their own.? Nazis equal Holocaust.? Obama equals a Nazi.? Therefore, Obama will lead to the Holocaust.? What is the point of invoking the memory of one of the most heinous regimes known to mankind if you are not going to invoke the outcome of that regime and what made them so Notorious?? Because your comparison is disingenuous and loathsome; any intellectual nincompoop can call another person a Nazi, and each time that happens, the memory of those who actually knew the Nazis diminishes little by little.? David Frum has a decent article which expresses this sentiment at NewMajority.?

Unfortunately for Conservatives, there is a populist uprising that is including many average Americans as well as ?below-average? Americans.? I don?t say this from the point of view as though I am ?better? than them or an elitist.? I mean this as Americans who know little about their own country, history, or even politics.? The good thing: they are getting involved in politics.? This is the point of a liberal democracy, no?? The bad thing: they are getting involved in politics, and they are tending to be the more boisterous and in the end, the ones on the news.? Funny how short-lived our memory span is however, when not but years before people had signs of President Bush as Hitler, and Republicans as Nazis, and accused us of killing babies for oil and the likes.? Obviously that is proper discourse when utilized by the fringe left because we expect that from them; perhaps we should be proud of the fact that the Right is held to a higher standard, even by the left.? I believe that we should do a better job living up to that standard.? I do not think that the people protesting should stop, they are doing their country a service, they ARE making a difference in politics and their regime, they should be damn proud!? Using the terms ?Nazi? and ?Hitler? loosely is disingenuous and abominable in the end (Leo Strauss use to refer to reducto ad Hitlerum), but it is selfish of us to pretend like we are bearing witness to a hostile politics like none that has ever been seen before.

-rj

Up Frum Conservatism Pt. II

I began this thread addressing the issue of Conservatives that were acting neither ?conservatively? nor even making any attempt to reconcile the many factions forming in the movement.? Mr. David Frum was the person I used as the vanguard of this particular predisposition mainly because of the advent of his NewMajority.Com.? Also, I found his name a delightful play on words and figured it would be appreciated by those of my acquaintances that were, and still are, William F. Buckley fans.? Mainly it was the former point that I sought to address, because I felt like I was bearing witness to a growing faction within the Conservative movement that sought to ?reform Conservatism? as though it were a party to be reformed.? It is slightly comical to me, that anyone calling themselves a Conservative can think this way if they are aware of Mr. Russell Kirk?s laments on the issue of conservatism as a movement in a party.? Conservative is a state of mind, being a Republican is a vehicle.? You cannot reform Conservatism, therefore what I believe Mr. Frum truly intends to do is to re-brand it as ?Republicanism.??

??????????? Conservatives and Republicans alike feel slighted by the recent regime that left power a mere six months prior.? Conservatives are of course divided further into the various principles they adhere to.? Neoconservatives are much kinder to President Bush, and easily ready the defenses against the gauntlet of attacks from Paleoconservatives, libertarians, liberals and mainstreamers.? Talk about President Obama?s ?blank slate,? President Bush was a champion of natural rights for those around the world by some; the advocate of unmitigated military expeditions by others.? He was a New World Order member hell bent on the destruction of the state sovereign in favor of a North American Union; and he was the Carl Schmittian disciple that put state above all and practiced the true international form of politics with a Hobbesian approach to state affairs and reckless disregard for the UN and international community.? He was an unapologetic radical Conservative by moderates; and a tax-cut and spend moderate Republican by Conservatives.? One got a very similar George W. Bush speaking to leftist rappers like Immortal Technique as they did rightist Conspiracy nuts like Alex Jones.? A convoluted portrait, as if Picasso were hired to have painted it to adorn the halls of the White House (I imagine something like this, you know, representing a Cowboy hat and such); A momentous digression, but interesting to point out to ?Bush Haters? nonetheless.? Either way, to be conservative is a reference of mind while being a Republican is the vehicle for action.? Mr. Frum and others on NewMajority seem to want to turn conservatism into something it?s not at the national level: a party.

??????????? Mr. Frum?s, and others?, actions are not malicious in that they are trying to ruin conservatism as some would suggest.? The NewMajority site claims to want to build a ?conservatism that can win again,? taking the bite out of standing on principles, and turning conservatism into a pragmatic arm of the Republican Party.? Here in lies Mr. Frum?s misunderstanding because as I have said before, Conservatism is a state of mind for people that may occupy the Republican or Democratic Parties (it happens to make up more of the Republican Party than Democratic, though I cannot see how one reconciles their conservatism with the Democratic Party of today as Henry ?Scoop? Jacksons or Zell Millers could in their day).? Conservatism, per se, is claimed by those who abhor it as an ideology.? It is contra to that notion, because conservatism was supposed to be the anti?ideal.? Conservatism is not a neat package.? At times I find people trying to argue this to Mr. Frum, or others on his website; but their plights seemingly fall on deaf ears.? They argue that they stand on principles, but the Republicans ask them to make their principles more malleable, ask for Conservatives to be more Republican because Republicans can win.? That?s like saying ?if you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns.?? Yes, the only the Republicans can win because they are part duex currently of a two-party system.? But Republicans have been losing as of the past half a decade, which has caused a stir and focused the limelight on the Conservative movement that led the party to its zenith since its inception.? The prescription for Republicans? recent ill-health has been to blame the Conservatives and try to get Conservatives to ?open up;? which is the wrong strategy.

??????????? One could go on about the policies under President Bush and the then-controlled Republican congress, and how they did not live up to Conservatives? expectations and it cost the Republicans.? I will spare you the lecture, as there is little of that horse?s decayed carcass left to beat.? Rather, to borrow a term from my dear friend Tom, I will take the route of a ?forward-looking Conservative? and expound on my last paragraph by reaching back and taking some of the past principles that deserve to come with us into the new millennium.? There are two tenets to the Conservative movement that are strong and can help the Republican Party gain prominence (maybe not a majority, but being steamrolled by an Executive-Legislative tyranny of the majority is time and space we currently inhabit, and frankly it sucks): fiscal Conservatism and Social Conservatism.?

??????????? Fiscal Conservatism is a boring topic in my eyes.? Economics is a rambunctious beast that can be tamed through myriad means.? It is circumscribed by the actions of the market forces, or by government.? One keeps it chained so that it can move about within the confines of an open space while still being contained within the boundaries set by other outside forces so it cannot run off.? The latter keeps the beast caged; unable to attain any inkling of freedom, it is stifled by the iron confines of government completely.? During the last generation, we saw that the forces that generally tend to keep economics chained in the yard let the Cujo loose because they felt his total freedom and depravity would lead to unmitigated growth and prosperity.? Cujo was his by a truck.? Now our economy occupies the oppressive cage in the vet clinic, while Dr. Obama and his Technicians seek a treatment.? There is a complete lack of freedom now, which will not help our situation either because our economy will not grow at all.? Furthermore, our President has decided to overzealously pursue all of the drastic changes he campaigned for in his first year while he has the most political capital.? This has brought out the fiscal conservative in the average citizen.? Anderson Cooper can make sexual jokes about the Tea Parties, and ?conservatives? can deride the Tea Party protestors all they want; but there is a spirit and a fight in these people that can help the party.? Recent trends demonstrate a growing unease regarding President Obama?s spending and budget, and a new Gallup Poll shows that Americans are becoming increasingly conservative regarding the size and power of the national government.? This Gallup Poll released other preliminary numbers showing more Americans classifying themselves as ?Conservative? which now hovered at 40%, and David Frum was quick to squelch our optimism with his The Week piece? in which he makes the important argument that 40% won?t win elections.? He leaves out that we witnessed an impressive growth in self described ?Conservatives? at a time when the label and brand have been lambasted by the liberal media since 2006.? The Conservatives in the Republican Party need to act Conservative about spending, and the problems that arise from this are two fold: 1) history has not erased the fact that Republicans spent like drunken-sailors under President Bush and 2) it makes us the ?party of ?no??.? It is important that men and women like Mr. Frum continue doing what they are best at, molding Republican policies to be more Conservative.? How can we accomplish what we want by spending less, or incentivizing better behavior??

??????????? The second ?type? of conservatism was the one that took the most grief by their counterparts in the movement (libertarians) and liberals alike: the social Conservatives.? Being socially conservative can be broadly defined, but we imagine white bible-thumpers from the south.? While a lot of white southerners demonstrate a deep attachment to their faith and abiding by the teachings of that faith, we cannot let social conservatism be defined this way.? What about the black families that have strong values and a sense of tradition?? What about Hispanics who tend to be Catholic and also possess phenomenal family values?? There are a lot of pundits that dwell on hating social conservatives and deriding the party for failing to rake in more non-WASPs, but fall short in addressing the problem of attracting minorities on a foundation of social conservatism and family values.? Another Gallup Poll demonstrated America?s move into a Pro-Life direction, more Americans were self described as Pro-Life over Pro-Choice for the first time ever.? This is despite the fact that it is inherently an up-hill battle for a ?pro-life? movement because of our basic beliefs in curtailing what we view as government intrusiveness.? Nevertheless, people are deciding that protecting the concept of ?life? is a part for government even in this sense, and the increase came among Republicans and Moderates.? Also, there is something to be said about the Proposition 8 vote in California.? I have still managed to find an article that attempts to spin the Prop 8 outcome as some ?Republican surge to keep gays from marrying? and give no credit to the vote attributed by minorities.? As a matter of fact, the entire article is dedicated to snuffing out the African American vote by stating well they only make up ten percent of the population anyway.? Never mind that 70% of blacks voted for Prop 8, and furthermore, Latinos also supported the measure according to a Public Policy Institute poll; this in a state that voted 61% to 37% in Barrack Obama?s favor.?

??????????? Conservatism can be an inclusive tent, we need to find the ways and means to include people that don?t mean surrendering our ideals though.? This is not about ?reforming conservatism? because it cannot be reformed; the Republican Party can be reformed, but the drive to stand ?athwart history yelling ?stop?? and fighting for the principles or traditions you hold dear is a different story.? I believe that the Republican Party can be inclusive, but it needs to remember who the party people are and who the Conservatives are.? We need to be better about arguing our points and reaching out.? Not ostracizing anyone who crosses us as is accused of some radio-show hosts, and certainly not by abandoning what makes us conservative in the first place by pragmatists and Party loyalists.? We need to preach a good sermon, and more importantly, we need to practice what we preach.? If you build a strong Republican Party on a foundation of rights and justice, we can unify conservatives of all races, creeds and religions.? Our conservative impulses are not something to transcend, but something to embrace.?

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-rj