A couple of recent conversations have caused me to think carefully about what it means to be a ‘conservative’ and to identify the reasons I don’t believe that the modern GOP is conservative in any meaningful sense.<\/p>\n
For starters, I think that, rightly understood, conservatism is not an agenda but an attitude, a will to solve problems and prepare for the future while protecting — or, conserving — what is most valuable. Those who are conversant in philosophy might recognize what I’m driving at as the Deweyan pragmatism to which all engineers are trained; not Dewey’s socialism, but Dewey’s approach<\/i> to problem-solving. A few of the rules:<\/p>\n Conservatives are reality junkies. As they used to say on Dragnet<\/i>, “Just the facts” — and conservative respect that there are<\/i> such things as facts.<\/p>\n Education is a good thing; the more of it possessed by individuals, and society writ large<\/i>, the better.<\/p>\n The methods of science are the best means of determining facts about the world; mysticism, feelings, ‘just knowing’ things, is untrustworthy.<\/ul>\n An example: We all know that, according to most GOPrs and the Evangelical Right, same-sex marriage is a very grave evil that pisses-off Our Invisible Friend and heralds the imminent collapse of Civilization.<\/p>\n No. A proper conservatism favors<\/i> permitting same-sex marriage, because …<\/p>\n It is a settled, incontestable fact that sexual orientation is innate at birth.<\/p>\n The sex lives of the Gentlemen Bachelors down the street affects nobody but themselves.<\/p>\n It protects<\/i> marriage by affirming its importance and enlarging its compass, drawing more people into one of society’s most important building-blocks.<\/ul>\n The hostility of the GOP and the Evangelical Right to same-sex marriage is not grounded on any principled conservatism; it is merely reaction, hostility to change.<\/p>\n Some other examples of the distinction I’m making here between agenda and attitude.<\/p>\n Richard Nixon oversaw the founding of the EPA, and OSHA. Further, he masterminded the opening to China.<\/p>\n The contemporary GOP was hostile to those acts then, and the Trump administration has worked fervidly to undermine the work of the EPA and OSHA. By my lights, Nixon was a conservative in the real meaning on the word, striving to protect the environment and safe workplaces, and Trump’s GOP is merely reactionary.<\/p>\n Dwight Eisenhower oversaw the inauguration of the Interstate Highway System, the founding of NASA under civilian control, funded America’s early research in computing, and presciently warned against the military-industrial complex. This distinguished military man relied on science and engineering to prepare for an onrushing future while protecting, preserving, conserving<\/i>, civilian control of each of these major initiatives.<\/p>\n Teddy Roosevelt and Gerald Ford, each a Republican president, favored a system of public health care.<\/ul>\n Granted, there is room for arguing about all these things as public policy initiatives, and I don’t want to disparage that. What I am concerned to point out is the attitude, the spirit with which problems are addressed. The contemporary — not<\/i> modern — GOP responds to all change with hostility and sentimental, half-baked mysticism; they are not<\/i> conservatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A couple of recent conversations have caused me to think carefully about what it means to be a ‘conservative’ and to identify the reasons I don’t believe that the modern GOP is conservative in any meaningful sense. For starters, I … Continue reading \n
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