When moderation is not a virtue
Bookworm on Nov 06 2008 at 8:44 am | Filed under: Conservative ideology
Moderation is a virtue in so many things: if we eat moderately, we can enjoy a wide variety of foods without risking our weight or health; if we drink moderately, we can enjoy alcohol without the negatives of alcoholism; and if we exercise moderately, we can increase our health without damaging our bodies.
It turns out, though, that in matters of principle, certain core beliefs cannot be moderated without destroying the principle itself. That’s what conservatives discovered this election: without core conservative principles as ballast, “conservatism” becomes nothing but a word, unanchored to anything at all. There is no there there.
My statement, above, is not a demand for extremism. It is, however, an insistence that, in the next go round, conservatives need to figure out which principles are inextricably intertwined with conservative notions, and then they need to stick to those principles.
John McCain, who is as good and true a man as ever there was, didn’t have those fixed principles. Instead, as a maverick, he respond situationally, with his gut leading his response as often as not.
Obama, on the other hand, does have fixed principles. There are two guiding lights in his life, and he never loses sign of them: First, his own self-aggrandizement and, second, his Leftist world view. I suspect that, despite all the lies, prevarications and secrets, voters picked up on the underlying fixity of purpose, translated that in their own minds as “strength,” and voted for him as the strong candidate.
All of which is a lead-in to John Hawkins’ excellent analysis of why conservatives cannot build a strong political party around moderates. Note as you read it that he is not calling for political extremism. He’s not demanding that conservatives become fascist totalitarian types, who demand total control of the world and the deaths of their enemies. Instead, he is arguing that, without fixed principles, a political party becomes meaningless — and loses.
In my liberal days, I used to fancy myself a moderate, and I would joke that I was so middle of the road, I got hit by traffic coming from both directions. It never occurred to me that this wasn’t virtuous, but was merely weakly foolish. I would have done better to analyze carefully the traffic coming from either direction, and to pick the side that seemed to build that best cars.
Related posts:
- Conservative politics in a nutshell
- Comments and moderation
- Moving Republicans forward in American hearts and minds
Email This Post To A Friend
21 Responses to “When moderation is not a virtue”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Although I don’t think this was the reason for McCain-Palin’s defeat (I blame the Democrat engineered sub-prime mortgage collapse, fear, and a sizable portion of the electorate looking for something for nothing), I believe the Republicans derailed in the Gingrich-DeLay era when they proved themselves to be corrupt big-government hypocrites, like the Democrats. This blurred the Republican brand with that of the Democrats, reducing it to a personality contest.
Although the Libertarian Party is itself a loser party, I don’t think that the Republicans can go wrong by adopting Libertarian ideals…somewhere between “Don’t tread on me” and “Live Free or Die”.
One blogger suggested that McCain is basically an Elizabethan man, in that he has never been concerned with economic values. Unfortunately, this characteristic came up against a point in time in which economic issues are dominant.
‘In my liberal days, I used to fancy myself a moderate, and I would joke that I was so middle of the road, I got hit by traffic coming from both directions.’
This reminds me of the woman who was so proud of her moderation that when shopping would tell the sales person to bring her that sweater in an extra-medium! In the realm of ideas this virtue-in-mediocrity translates into the ‘fairness’ doctrine which will now be actively pursued to silence people who can make their conservative case with ideas in the yet-free market. There is a podcast available with Milt Rosenberg (11-3-08), host of Extension 720, that anyone who is concerned about the first amendment on the air waves AND the internet should hear.
Wow. So:
Post-election day one: Russia announces that it will put missile systems on the Polish border.
Post-election day two: Putin announces he will “return” as president of Russia. He’s always been in control. I guess he just “happened” to choose today to make it official again.
And (drum roll please): Fox News just announced that Iran has reportedly asked President Elect Obama to remove sanctions as a gesture of “good-will.”
Obviously, Iran didn’t hear Biden assure the world that Obama has “steel in his spine.”
Deana
I’d like to throw in here a list of “the principles of conservatism” that Ozzie supplied in a comment a few weeks past. I liked the list, so I saved it off.
The list is vague. It means that each item can be “expanded” in any direction you might wish. I’m very interested in what each of you think are the most important conservative items, or any item you think is missing, and what those most-important items mean to you. It might help us focus on what kind of conservatism we each want to see, going forward…
Writing in the American Conservative, one of my new-found heroes, Andrew J. Bacevich put it this way:
My own definition emphasizes the following:
- a commitment to individual liberty, tempered by the conviction that genuine freedom entails more than simply an absence of restraint;
- a belief in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the rule of law;
- veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of stewardship for Creation;
- a reluctance to discard or tamper with traditional social arrangements;
- respect for the market as the generator of wealth combined with a wariness of the market’s corrosive impact on humane values;
- a deep suspicion of utopian promises, rooted in an appreciation of the sinfulness of man and the recalcitrance of history.
I personally haven’t decided yet which of these seem most important to me. I like them all and can expand them all to specifics.
The critical issue of religious faith is entirely missing from this list. It *must* be included. Those of strong faith must be entirely welcome within the conservative movement, so long as they adhere to other conservative principles. Those not of strong religious faith, and in particular strong Judeo-Christian faith, must indicate a respect for our thousands of years of Judeo-Christian history and tradition.
Certainly the abortion issue is going to be a huge discriminator. I believe that at a bare minimum, conservatism must strongly promote the culture of life, not the culture of death. And that’s the bare minimum, I think. I personally can accept a somewhat wide range of opinions on abortion from a candidate that I could support. For many of us, I am sure, you have a specific position on abortion which is the only one you could accept, and I think that is totally fine too. In a sense, that’s what the Republican primary elections in 2010 and 2012 are for…
Oz doesn’t care about the rule of law. To her mere rumors and allegations, without trial or proof, constitutes the “truth”.
Paying attention to the stock market, Deana? Add that to your list: Day Two of the Obama recession is well under way. The market’s always worried about liberal jerks in the White House; this one being the most liberal jerk in history leads directly to (drum roll, please): the biggest day-after-election-day loss of all time! Wow! Are we lucky, or what?
Bookworm, the list of how the world now loves us, which should be by this time prominently mounted on your refrigerator for your husband to read every morning, is now up to four in less than 36 hours (a new record!): one Sarkozy; one Aminedinejad; two Putins – and counting. (I’ll see your Sarkozy, and raise you two Putins…)
And of course on the domestic front – beyond a joke. We have Chuck Schumer telling us who the real John McCain is (thanks, Upchuck – we knew, that was the problem) and how they need the “old” McCain as a “liasion” between the Obama administration and the senate. Schumer, who is a genuine lizard who’s never walked, reached, or even looked across an aisle in his life – and clearly has no intention of ever doing so, figures he needs the “old John McCain” to liase, because the democrats sure as hell aren’t going to be anything other than purely partisan at all times.
That’s what moderation gets you: the jackass Schumer telling us all who the jackass McCain really is. (WTF: how did I get locked in the men”s room of the Restraurant at the Edge of the Universe!)
And now we have the McCain genius team who ran his “campaign,” if that’s what that was, attacking Sarah Palin! In the last 36 hours these “anonymous source within the campaign” worthless bastards have attacked HER more than they did Wright, Khalili, Ayers et al during the entire campaign! She was the one bright spot these morons had, and they’re (apparently) too witless to have noticed that.
I risk turning this into an abortion thread, but I was too vague above I think. Here’s my position on this critical issue:
I want Roe v Wade overturned, and the issue returned to the states, to be fought over in each state. It belongs with each state, and in particular, the ferment could result in a national consensus emerging.
Within my state, then, my personal *preference* is that abortion should be banned except for
1. risk to the life of the mother, and
2. severe risk to the health of the mother, where “severe” is very narrowly and very strictly defined.
I am of conflicted opinion on rape or incest, but I think personal responsibility requires that the victim of rape or incest come forward quickly enough that we can allow abortion there, as well, as long as it occurs soon after potential conception.
In combination with such a ban with limited exceptions, I prefer freely available anti-conception drugs and measures available, via purchase and NOT government benefit nor school benefit, for all adults.
Parental notification is a *must* for me. Parents have total responsibility for their children, not “the village”, and not any representative of “the village”. I’ve put it this way: It takes a village to support the parents as the parents raise their children.
Unless the day after pill is abortion, they should take that instead.
Mike – I’m making my way through the topics in italics and stopped at:
- veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of stewardship for Creation;
What does this mean?
Hi Marguerite,
>> – veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of stewardship for Creation; >>
This is a list I got from Ozzie, which she attributed (see above #4) to Andrew Bacevich. I liked the list as a jumping-off point. What does that point mean? Well, I would say, whatever each of us *thinks* it means!
To me it is partly a faith-based statement, due to the capital “C” on Creation. But it is so vague that it allows paganism, Mother Gaia worship, etc, etc, etc.
I am also worried about the vagueness of “stewarship for Creation”. I have at least one evangelist friend who takes this concept so seriously that he wants a “dictator of environmentalism” in the Executive Branch that overrides all individual rights and rights of businesses, so that this dictator can via a complete tyranny set rules that protect the environment. And he would prefer this dictator of environmentalism to be established worldwide. That’s not conservatism in any way, shape or form. And that’s why I said people of faith must be welcome within conservatism *so long as* their positions remain conservative in other ways.
The crunchy-con branch of evangelicals, with its burgeoning radical environmentalism that is focused on Statist solutions that are tyrannical, is very worrisome to me.
All of this is why I said all these points are very vague; and what is interesting to me is how each of us defines our vision of conservatism. And how, perhaps over time even here in Book’s domain, we might all eventually arrive at several kinds of consensus. To the point where even here we might solidify behind one or two or three different versions of conservatism that would define the kinds of candidate(s) we’d support.
Mike:
Good points about the dangers from a radical, all-consuming environmentalism.
One thing that has always bothered me about extreme environmentalism is its tendency toward pride, namely, the conviction that man is powerful enough to “destroy the earth.”
Of course he’s not. I think the sun, tectonic forces, an errant asteroid or a really pissed-off Mt. Pinatubo might have more input on that matter than we ever could.
So, the irony is that even as radical environmentalism condemns man as an evil interloper — a virus even — it gives him this fantastic power. (Talk about your unwitting appropriation of Satan!)
The pride in being boys who are bad enough to kill Mother Earth is accentuated by the “look-at-me” pride that comes from being a bad boy who’s decided to do good by “saving” Mother Earth.
Too bad that doing good inevitably involves condemning hundreds of millions of poor people to death or never-ending poverty because the good boys and girls have decided to block all of their escape routes.
Alexander Hamilton
Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard’s Almanac
John Adams
Pithy quotes, all, to be sure.
In my rather humble opinion, the main error of the McCain campaign was in not highlighting the links Obama has to the Jew haters, terrorists, and just plain hate filled associates. The campaign should have pressed the judicial appointment angle.
This country can survive just about whatever can occur under Obama, with one area of exception, that of judges.
The current congress has refused to allow even hearings for many of Bush’s judicial nominees.
Obama will now be allowed to stock all levels of the judiciary, no doubt with liberal judges that will interpret the Constitution as they see fit.
And that, my friends, we will not survive. Once these views are enshrined in law, they will be nigh impossible to reverse.
I hold on to hope that the Republican minority can filibuster the more extreme nominees. My fear is that McCain will cross the aisle yet again, ensuring the majority party has its way.
Would it be possible for the dems to actually eliminate the filibuster?
THe difference, Danny, is that Democrats don’t care about corruption while Republicans do. So when Republicans act corrupt they get taken down. Which makes it easier for Democrats to claim all Republicans are corrupt.
When Democrats are proven to be corrupt like Barney Frank and William Jefferson, they just get a big fat raise, Danny. Proving that no Democrats are corrupt, only Republicans.
Eventually this cycle has to stop.
>>And he would prefer this dictator of environmentalism to be established worldwide.>>
On the general idea…I could go for this in the sense that I think we _do_ have an obligation to preserve our environment to the best of our ability. Unfortunately, we really aren’t smart enough to hand this sort of power to any one. As an example – and a very limited one, I realize – our company sells 1500 watt metal halide bulbs to fishing boats. They also need the fixtures to run the bulbs. Within the last 7 years, the State has required the fishermen to modify the fixtures with shields so that the light can’t escape above a certain degree level. The rule was made because their research indicated that excessive light was affecting the egg laying by a local eagle on the off shore islands.
Except in the last 2-3 years, they’ve discovered that the problem was rats eating the eggs. Light had nothing to do with it…the rats were not using the light to find the eggs. I have no idea if the rules have been relaxed.
We really are still too ignorant, and the various cycles are way too complex for us to knowledgeably manage by governmental dictat.
SueK,
>> On the general idea…I could go for this in the sense that I think we _do_ have an obligation to preserve our environment to the best of our ability. >>
Are you really saying that you would abandon all idea of our three branches of government, in favor of a tyrannical lawmaker who answers to nobody?
That was the part I found disturbing, not the idea of stewardship of the earth.
Consider the Clean Water and Air Acts of 1971 (I am pulling the exact name and date from memory). I would probably have been against it, yet it was debated and passed, and has turned out to be a good thing. All this is appropriate. Did it go too far, or not far enough? Hard to say, but I believe we did it via our normal mode of legislation.
I fear laws based not on rationality, and on facts and PROOF, but rather on emotion and faith.
Global Warming is *not* occurring and yet we continue to persist as if it is occurring, and we are ready to sacrifice billions and billions of dollars for a non-reality. That is beyond ridiculous. Yet we are about to do it.
Well, crap. The earth is flat, and the moon is made of cheese. Let’s go fly to it and harvest that cheese to put on our burgers. Makes JUST AS MUCH SENSE.
What has happened to human beings, that we can look facts full in their face and then absolutely deny them, deny their very existence; and then go on, pretending as if we NEVER even saw them? There can be no hope of debate, or rational argument, if this continues.
Are you really saying that you would abandon all idea of our three branches of government, in favor of a tyrannical lawmaker who answers to nobody?
No, I think suek is saying that there are people who care about the environment and there are people who are megalomaniacs who claim they care about the environment (Gore).
I agree with that distinction. We should not ignore the environment or pollution simply because the Democrats want to own the environment like they own blacks and gays.
I just got my latest copy of the Marinscope paper. (For those of you who don’t live in Marin County, Marinscope publishes several weekly newspapers that cover the various towns in southern and central Marin.)
It had a short write-up on a fellow named Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, who appeared at Book Passages, a local indie bookstore that functions as sort of a nerve center for “progressive” causes in Marin.
Friedman asserted that global warming should actually be called “global weirding,” saying that “hot is getting hotter” and “cold is getting colder.”
Wow, talk about moving the goal posts! When your new religion — global warming — gets demolished by the facts, not only take them down and move them, but move them all the way across town and into a baseball stadium.
By the way, this guy won a Pulitzer. I don’t know for what, and after reading the report of his remarks, I don’t care.
Mike D –
That list of conservative principles that you listed from Andrew Bacevich comes from an article in which he laid out his support for an Obama presidency.
While he makes several good and valid points, he does not explain how an Obama presidency would support those conservative principles (because obviously, Obama wouldn’t) and instead argues that an Obama administration would help focus the nation’s attention on the “habits and expectations that propelled the United States into the Iraq war.”
That may happen but if you claim you are a conservative (and he does), and you list the principles that you think conservatives should adhere to but then support a candidate who would NEVER promote those principles, it tends to make people question you.
(I do realize, though, that Mr. Bacevich’s lost a beloved son who was serving in Iraq. And while I’m confident that Mr. Bacevich does not argue his point because of the death of his son, his personal involvement with that war has to have profoundly affected his view on things. And that’s ok.)
But anyway, back to the point: I DO really like the conservative principles that Bacevich lists. They aren’t perfect but they provide a very good starting point for a discussion.
Deana
Deana,
Yes, I had no idea who this fellow Bacevich was. I just thought that was a reasonably comprehensive list of conservative principles to start from.
But his liberal impulse to vote for Obama sure explains why the listed principles were so vague! And more crucially, it explains why issues based on – and a complete respect for – traditional religious faith were missing from the list.