What Is A True Conservative Anyway?

[ataraxia]

I don't agree that the New Deal in general, SS or Medicare created the middle class. The GI bill certainly helped but there would have been no GI bill without WWII. WWII did more to make America an economic powerhouse than anything else both by what it required us to do to win the war and by the fact that Europe was decimated after the war leaving the US as the prime economic power in the world for decades.

The success of the government spending on WWII was really a story about the success of Keynesian economics- anathema to modern conservatives, as evidenced by their conniptions over the stimulus spending by the government in the last recession.

And if there was any residual questions that Keynesian economics by governments to help their people during economic slumps works, the success of the Marshall Plan in jump starting all those other war-ravaged economies in Europe and Japan clinched it.

 

[veritas1]

Broadly speaking, American conservatism is about limiting the power of the state (specifically the Federal government) to specific areas and not going an inch further. The agreed upon areas being maintaining national defense, facilitating interstate trade and commerce, and maintaining Federal courts of law and equity. On a smaller level, American conservatism is about protecting the freedoms of citizens from encroachment by fellow citizens or the government, and allowing people to live their lives as they choose, raise their children as they see fit, worship as they see fit, and be left to involve themselves (or disengage themselves) as much as they wish with their communities. At the fiscal level, conservatism is about allowing individuals and firms to conduct intercourse between themselves as they see fit, and only intervening if there is some harmful externality that cannot be dealt with at the private level. At the international level, American conservatism is about making sure the power of the Federal government is exercised to maintain robust trade around the globe, and defending our allies who share our views or at the very least our interests.

That is it in a nutshell.

I would add that true conservatism takes a very cautious approach on committing the US to military endeavors, particularly long term ones with fuzzy objectives and no timetable for when it's over or those that become nation building exercises. (ie. most of our ME entanglements)

 

[<alt>doxygen]

One way to measure conservatism is by support of conservative policies. Here is the American Conservative Union's score of members of the US Congress:

The American Conservative Union Federal Legislative Ratings

With this you can see that McCain's score is 80.6 and Ted Cruz's score is 99 out of 100.

So it's not true that McCain is not a conservative, but he's not as conservative as some would like.

There's a lot of detail at that site about what the ACU thinks conservative policies are, also.

Conservatism usually means sticking with traditional values and morality, avoiding change for change's sake, sticking with what works.

The bolded part is what I used to embrace about conservatism. It acts as a clutch/brake on progressivism. That ideally wouldn't stall the advancement of society, it would cause that advancement to occur in a more reasoned and hopefully intelligent and sustainable way.

The problem is that the modern hard-right (what is non-RINO at this date) is regressive. People like Clarence Thomas and probably Gorsuch seem to want to go back to 1791. Then there are the religious fundamentalists who really hate America and the Constitution, period. They see everything they need to construct government set forth in their interpretation (and that's all it is, an interpretation) of the Bible. I oppose those people, strongly.

 

[ataraxia]

I would add that true conservatism takes a very cautious approach on committing the US to military endeavors, particularly long term ones with fuzzy objectives and no timetable for when it's over or those that become nation building exercises. (ie. most of our ME entanglements)

So with that criterion Obama and Hillary Clinton would be more conservative than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and John McCain.

 

[veritas1]

The success of the government spending on WWII was really a story about the success of Keynesian economics- anathema to modern conservatives, as evidenced by their conniptions over the stimulus spending by the government in the last recession.

And if there was any residual questions that Keynesian economics by governments to help their people during economic slumps works, the success of the Marshall Plan in jump starting all those other war-ravaged economies in Europe and Japan clinched it.

Yet, the Marshall Plan was a temporary boost to countries flattened by war. I wouldn't hold that up as an argument for why permanent large (and ever growing) government is a good thing.

 

[Fiddytree]

So with that criterion Obama and Hillary Clinton would be more conservative than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and John McCain.

Correct, which is why you shouldn't take that comment seriously.

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[veritas1]

So with that criterion Obama and Hillary Clinton would be more conservative than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and John McCain.

On that narrow question, they might be. Conservatives are not interventionists. They are not to be confused with neo-cons.

 

[Fiddytree]

On that narrow question, they might be. Conservatives are not interventionists. They are not to be confused with neo-cons.

Conservatives can be interventionists. Likewise, because Cheney and Bolton are not neoconservatives, you would have to make a distinction between Jacksonian foreign policy conservatives and foreign policy neoconservatives.

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[ataraxia]

Yet, the Marshall Plan was a temporary boost to countries flattened by war. I wouldn't hold that up as an argument for why permanent large (and ever growing) government is a good thing.

So you were OK with the stimulus spending in the last recession?

 

[veritas1]

Conservatives can be interventionists. Likewise, because Cheney and Bolton are not neoconservatives, you would have to make a distinction between Jacksonian foreign policy conservatives and foreign policy neoconservatives.

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I would argue that Bolton is very much closer to the neo-con camp than the true conservative camp. I don't think Cheney is but the Bush administration, or more succinctly, Bush himself, had an itch to take out Saddam and they simply concocted a pretext to do it. His coterie of neo-con advisers made coming up with something easy. That is why Bush was a disaster in the end.

 

[Fiddytree]

I would argue that Bolton is very much closer to the neo-con camp than the true conservative camp. I don't think Cheney is but the Bush administration, or more succinctly, Bush himself, had an itch to take out Saddam and they simply concocted a pretext to do it. His coterie of neo-con advisers made coming up with something easy. That is why Bush was a disaster in the end.

Okay, but aside from willing to be interventionist, at times, Bolton, like Cheney, is much more circumspect about when to intervene and isn't interested in the ends that neoconservatives are.

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[veritas1]

So you were OK with the stimulus spending in the last recession?

It was an unavoidable necessity that McCain would have done as well if he'd won. You can't have the biggest banks in the country go under simultaneously, which is what would have happened. On that score, people should be very much concerned with the enormous backlog of school debt in this country. This has the potential to explode just like the housing mess in 2008.

 

[veritas1]

Okay, but aside from willing to be interventionist, at times, Bolton, like Cheney, is much more circumspect about when to intervene and isn't interested in the ends that neoconservatives are.

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Bolton has blabbered about taking out Assad and also supported the Iraq war. That is why I didn't like his selection.

 

[Fiddytree]

Bolton has blabbered about taking out Assad and also supported the Iraq war. That is why I didn't like his selection.

On purely national security grounds. If Iraq or Syria have not been been accused of or engaged in terrorist activities or having a chemical or nuclear program to boot, nor had implications into the oil markets, neither would have been as interested in intervention as neoconservatives were.

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[biff_poindexter]

I'm not sure if FDR was an evil socialist but he certainly shifted our government more toward a socialist path. I'm also sure that most of those people down and out during the depression would have considered any government help

Let's remember that it was Hoover's conservative "laissez-faire economic policies" which you conservatives love that ushered on the Great Depression, something the people in that time certainly knew

Also, WWII gave our economy an enormous boost. People of that generation were either in the service or helping by building the implements of war. Whether the US would have recovered as quickly or in the same manner without WWII, is doubtful. Yet, the New Deal is usually given all the credit.

Conservatives of that time didn't want to be involved in WWII -- and all that enormous economic boost sounds like government spending to me -- thought that was evil too, but I guess when you doing it for the war effort, than that is fine -- to me, government spending is government spending -- I'm amazed how that lead to an economic boost. Maybe because most of the spending went back into the economy with a multiplier effect, instead of stashed in offshore accounts or stock buybacks -- which is the kind of government spending some conservatives love.

In any case, the point is that government has become a bloated behemoth and taken on all sorts of tasks and powers never intended for it. That doesn't mean that everything they do is wrong or that certain agencies like the FDA or the EPA aren't required, only that they've gathered enormous power unto themselves. State and local governments have done much the same.

Some if not many conservatives very much want the EPA and FDA to be done away with, but those are the so called libertarian types -- and whenever I hear people talking about how bloated the government is -- they usually only talking about to the parts of government that are there to serve the common people like Education, Health & Human Services, Consumer Protection, pretty much any body that regulates powerful corporations -- conservatives usually want government to be so small that it results in the corporate power structure having even more unchecked influence over the well-being of the country --sort of why the Sherman Anti-trust Act became a thing.

 

[Zyphlin]

True conservative is rather idiotic, similar to saying "True American". It's attempting to take something that is very broad and diverse with multiple aspects and try and decree a certain fashion of it is "true".

You have the social aspects of conservatism...the belief in a shared tradition, patriotism, and morality

You have the fiscal aspects conservatism...the belief in tight and limited spending, low taxation, and light regulation of commerce and trade.

You have the libertarian aspects of conservatism...the belief in a constrained government with a narrow view of it's constitutional duties that largely stays out of how people live their lives.

You have the defensive aspects of conservatism...the belief that a strong defense structure is essential to our sovereignty and is one of the primary duties of the government.

Those are kind of your four massive main "planks" of conservative ideology, from which various parties or policies spring from. The tricky part is that if you take any one plank to the extreme, it will typically step upon a different plank.

Take defensive conservatism to the extreme, and you'll begin to have to moderate your fiscal conservative views. Take social conservatism to the extreme, and you begin to have to moderate your fiscal conservative views. It's all a push and pull.

Big L libertarians tend to be heavy on the libertarian and fiscal conservative views, but much more moderated on defensive and social. Neoconservatives were big on the defensive and social side of things, no so much on the fiscal and libertarian sides. Paleocons perhaps are the most in the middle across all pillars, though typically not staunch or moderate enough on any given plank to piss off another segment of the conservative base.

It also doesn't help that often times people mistake three different things...

Ideology (Conservatism)
Party (Republican)
Policy (Drug Laws)

It's very possible for two people to both be Republicans, but come down heavier or lighter on different portions of conservative ideology. This is because Republican isn't an ideology, it's simply a party; it is a house in which people of various ideologies live in together because they all share a common broad bond.

Similarly, it's entirely possible for two people to have very different views on a specific policy, while having those two views for similar broad ideological reasons. Drug laws are a great example of this. Someone who identifies more with the libertarian aspects of conservatism may be for legalizing drugs, as they believe the government has no place telling people what to put in their own body. A staunch fiscal conservative may care less about legalizing, but rather decriminalizing, believing that the amount of money spent dealing with drug crimes is fiscally unsound and that decriminalizing it is the easiest and most efficient way to deal with that specific problem. Meanwhile a person who is more focused on the social aspects of conservatism may want to keep the drug laws as they are, as they believe the overall harm to society caused by normalizing such a practice by making it legal would be immoral and damaging to the traditional foundations of our society.

All three are coming at their views from some aspect of Conservative ideology, but their focus on different legs of the table cause their POLICY views to differ.

So what is a "true conservative"? Typically it's someone who's focus is on the same legs of the table that the person stating the term focuses on.

Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Paul Ryan are all three very different types of conservatives...but I think all three are very good examples of a staunchly Conservative Republican politician.

 

[calamity]

Trump's conservative credentials aside, where is the evidence that he has done anything worthy of being thrown out of office, other than beating Hillary Clinton I mean? Mueller certainly hasn't presented anything and the fishing around from Flynn to Manafort to Stormy Daniels suggests he never will. Democrats should worry a lot less about getting Trump and a lot more about finding someone who can beat him in 2020.

Open your eyes and you'll see it. I no longer waste my time with people pretending that there is nothing to see here.

 

[veritas1]

Let's remember that it was Hoover's conservative "laissez-faire economic policies" which you conservatives love that ushered on the Great Depression, something the people in that time certainly knew

Conservatives of that time didn't want to be involved in WWII -- and all that enormous economic boost sounds like government spending to me -- thought that was evil too, but I guess when you doing it for the war effort, than that is fine -- to me, government spending is government spending -- I'm amazed how that lead to an economic boost. Maybe because most of the spending went back into the economy with a multiplier effect, instead of stashed in offshore accounts or stock buybacks -- which is the kind of government spending some conservatives love.

Some if not many conservatives very much want the EPA and FDA to be done away with, but those are the so called libertarian types -- and whenever I hear people talking about how bloated the government is -- they usually only talking about to the parts of government that are there to serve the common people like Education, Health & Human Services, Consumer Protection, pretty much any body that regulates powerful corporations -- conservatives usually want government to be so small that it results in the corporate power structure having even more unchecked influence over the well-being of the country --sort of why the Sherman Anti-trust Act became a thing.

1. Your first assertion is unfounded. We've never practiced true laissez faire economics in this country and Hoover certainly wasn't practicing it. He has become the convenient historical whipping boy for the Depression when he had no way to stop it. Congress had much more power to regulate anything that needed regulation than Hoover did. In fact, once it started, Hoover was extremely pro-active in attempting to stem the tide.

2. There was certainly an isolationist movement in the US up to Pearl Harbor but it vanished overnight after the attack. Yes, most all that government spending went into having companies build the planes, tanks, trucks, guns, ships and all the other accoutrements of war. So, of course it greatly juiced the economy. But war is a rare exigency that can't be counted on nor can that spending be compared to the usual types of spending the government does. Some spending is helpful. That doesn't mean that more and more is better.

3. The government is certainly bloated. That isn't really debatable. The question is how much is really needed, how much you can tolerate and how much is beneficial to the well being of a country. As for the anti-trust act, it seems rather toothless to me when companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Walmart can completely dominate certain industries. It seems we like monopolies after all.

 

[trixare4kids]

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/opinion/campaign-stops/the-defeat-of-true-conservatism.html


After the 2007-2008 economic collapse, when Bush was on his way out of DC -- I heard a lot of people talking about how he wasn't a "true conservative" anyway -- and how the previous Bush wasn't a "true conservative" anyway.

Then when McCain lost in 2008, I still was told how McCain wasn't a true conservative anyway, how it was Palin who was the true conservative. Then in 2012, when Romney lost, I was told how Romney wasn't a "true conservative" anyway, how it was Paul Ryan who was the true conservative. Then in 2016, that was the year I was told that the GOP needed to nominate a "true conservative" -- then Trump won, and when it looked like he wasn't going to win the election -- I was told how Trump isn't a true conservative anyway -- then he won.

Is Trump a true conservative now?? If not, who is a "true conservative"? -- or is that term just something conservatives say when they need to distance themselves from policies or presidential administrations that were failures?? Can someone tell me who is a true conservative? Not in terms of platitude statements that doesn't really amount to anything but bumper sticker slogans, but can you tell me what currently elected politician is a true conservative?

The definition of a "true conservative" is not that cut and dry. I would imagine the definition of a true conservative is more subjective than it is objective. This wiki paragraph gives a brief summation below.

IMO, one can be a conservative, espousing limited government beliefs while staying true to the Constitution without being a social conservative. No, Trump is not a true conservative but he does behold conservative tenets.

Anyway... hope this helps you realize there is no such thing as a "true conservative," but Wm. Buckley comes pretty close to the ideal.

The history of American conservatism has been marked by tensions and competing ideologies. Fiscal conservatives and libertarians favor small government, laissez-faire economy, low income and corporate taxes, limited regulation, and free enterprise. Social conservatives see traditional social values as threatened by secularism; they tend to support mandatory school prayer and oppose abortion and same sex marriage.[20][21][22][23][24] The 21st century has seen an increase in conservative support for the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Neoconservatives want to expand American ideals throughout the world.[25] Paleoconservatives advocate restrictions on immigration, non-interventionist foreign policy, and stand in opposition to multiculturalism.[26] Nationwide most factions, except some libertarians, support a unilateral foreign policy, and a strong military. The conservative movement of the 1950s attempted to bring together these divergent strands, stressing the need for unity to prevent the spread of "godless communism."[27]

William F. Buckley Jr., in the first issue of his magazine National Review in 1955, explained the standards of his magazine and helped make explicit the beliefs of American conservatives:[28]

Among our convictions: It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens' lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side. The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, the conflict between the Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to scientific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order. We believe that truth is neither arrived at nor illuminated by monitoring election results, binding though these are for other purposes, but by other means, including a study of human experience. On this point we are, without reservations, on the conservative side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States

 

[veritas1]

Open your eyes and you'll see it. I no longer waste my time with people pretending that there is nothing to see here.

Spit it out if you have anything. Of course, you do not.

 

[late]

The country has been dragged far to the Right. What can I say, propaganda works.

In an earlier time, Hillary would have been in what was called the liberal wing of the Republican party. She was a Republican before Bill.

The "base" was never let into the room with the adults. A lot of the base are a lot like Birchers. Republicans openly mocked them on national TV in the 70s.

A lot of the stuff Ike did is considered Left wing now.

We've gone nuts.

 

[Zyphlin]

Broadly speaking, American conservatism is about limiting the power of the state (specifically the Federal government) to specific areas and not going an inch further. The agreed upon areas being maintaining national defense, facilitating interstate trade and commerce, and maintaining Federal courts of law and equity. On a smaller level, American conservatism is about protecting the freedoms of citizens from encroachment by fellow citizens or the government, and allowing people to live their lives as they choose, raise their children as they see fit, worship as they see fit, and be left to involve themselves (or disengage themselves) as much as they wish with their communities. At the fiscal level, conservatism is about allowing individuals and firms to conduct intercourse between themselves as they see fit, and only intervening if there is some harmful externality that cannot be dealt with at the private level. At the international level, American conservatism is about making sure the power of the Federal government is exercised to maintain robust trade around the globe, and defending our allies who share our views or at the very least our interests.

That is it in a nutshell.

Wow, excellent post

 

[veritas1]

The country has been dragged far to the Right. What can I say, propaganda works.

In an earlier time, Hillary would have been in what was called the liberal wing of the Republican party. She was a Republican before Bill.

The "base" was never let into the room with the adults. A lot of the base are a lot like Birchers. Republicans openly mocked them on national TV in the 70s.

A lot of the stuff Ike did is considered Left wing now.

We've gone nuts.

The left controls most of academia. They control most of the MSM. They've won the abortion on demand battle. They've won the gay marriage battle. They've won the activist government battle, even with Republicans in charge. I'm wondering where all this far rightism is that you're seeing. Is it because Trump has undone a few Obama programs and policies? That's the wave of far right propaganda that has you so worried?

 

[late]

The left controls most of academia. They control most of the MSM. They've won the abortion on demand battle. They've won the gay marriage battle. They've won the activist government battle, even with Republicans in charge. I'm wondering where all this far rightism is that you're seeing. Is it because Trump has undone a few Obama programs and policies? That's the wave of far right propaganda that has you so worried?

A lot of this is the Kochs. They hired a ton of scientists and experts in various fields to make the most effective propaganda machines in human history. Sanity is in retreat.

All those massive budget cuts are intended to be slow poison. They want to destroy the government, and it's working.

This just covers the recent stuff.
https://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-T...165&sr=8-1&keywords=it's+worse+than+you+think

Take a close look at Pence's disaster when he was pretending to be governor.

 

[veritas1]

A lot of this is the Kochs. They hired a ton of scientists and experts in various fields to make the most effective propaganda machines in human history. Sanity is in retreat.

All those massive budget cuts are intended to be slow poison. They want to destroy the government, and it's working.

This just covers the recent stuff.
https://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-T...165&sr=8-1&keywords=it's+worse+than+you+think

Take a close look at Pence's disaster when he was pretending to be governor.

Are you suggesting that government is actually shrinking? Or is it simply a slow down in its endless expansion? Destroy the government? That would take decades, just as it's taken decades to make it a behemoth. Plus, the entrenched power cliques won't be easily pried from their positions. That's part of what the get Trump effort is about.