Why conservatism is dead?
I’ll get right to the point. It’s not just Donald Trump, he’s just put the last nail in the coffin. To begin with, no one knows what conservatism even means anymore. Donald Trump’s lousy answer at the debates notwithstanding most no one knows what it conservatism means. People think that conservatism is whatever Republicans do. To be fair the word is somewhat ambiguous as a definition for a political ideology. But conservatism as a defining philosophy and approach to government no longer exists in any meaningful way. Let me lay out for you the case for its death. I will foremost have to explain to you what it means so you can see that it doesn’t exist as a living movement.
Conservatism meant fiscal common sense. It was the philosophy that all of the money the government spends is the people’s money. That through the consent of the governed the people agreed to fund the government through taxes for practical common sense and necessary spending. Spending should be on things like roads, bridges, the military and occasionally some other things that fit within the government’s necessary but limited purview. It didn’t mean slush funds, thousand dollar hammers, nonsense studies on the gender fluidity of cockroaches or Swedish massages on rabbits, hundred billion dollar jets that don’t work right, the war on poverty and so on.
This philosophy was important because it realized that bureaucracies, even well meaning ones are not good at staying on a budget and sticking to what they’re good at. Creep happens, and even well meaning programs and safety nets would not only grow unsustainable and do little good but would handicap individual people and eventually the government itself as it lost control of its finances.
Euphemisms like “compassionate conservative” helped kill this notion because it was just an excuse to waste money and it sounded nice and well meaning but well meaning intentions pave the road to you know where. The neo-cons who are military hawks think that any and all military spending is good but even this aspect of government though important, needs to operate on a reasonable and smart budget. Fiscal common sense once made sense but when you can buy votes with programs, whether it is social programs or subsidies for ethanol or just good old bringing home the bacon, people choose money over sense. No one sees the need for fiscal conservatism when it comes to their favorite program.
Conservatism used to mean a strong military. As mentioned previously that’s not just wasteful spending but common sense defense combined with moral values and clarity. This didn’t mean being the world’s policeman or being an isolationist. It mean protecting ourselves, helping our allies, being strategic to stop future threats and helping those who needed help when we could make a difference. It didn’t mean propping up dictators to try and play six dimensional chess. It didn’t mean charging allies a support fee when they called, it didn’t mean nation building and it didn’t mean coddling terrorists or killing innocent civilians. The libertarians who were too isolationist and the war hawks and feckless helped destroy this facet of conservatism.
For a lot of people but not for everyone, conservatism also meant conserving social values. Not racism, not a good old boy network, but values that said human life was and will always be precious. These social values said that the government had no place in redefining institutions like marriage, let alone biology. The “smart” Republicans who thought science would show the way are to blame here. Supposedly no one else’s lives be it their gay marriage or other bedroom decisions would affect anyone else, until it started shutting down businesses who wouldn’t play intimate roles in their ceremonies or who wouldn’t pay for their employees birth control or abortions. Science was a fine excuse because it said there was a gay gene and suddenly science said there wasn’t. Science said babies aren’t humans except the only position science takes is that life indeed begins at conception. Science said there’s a consensus on climate change except the scientific method can’t be used here because it only can be proven in computer models.
If you really want to be left alone, don’t ask others to pay for your behaviors and don’t kill or hurt anyone else. Don’t do things like sue doctors for wrongful birth and ask the government to pay for your relatively cheap birth control and don’t use abortion as birth control. The people who are embarrassed by traditional values killed conservatism here.
Conservatism meant limited government because hundreds of thousands of rules, regulations and laws is far too unwieldy for any government to manage well, for any citizen to navigate and for even lawmakers and judges to understand. Limited government allowed businesses to do well because they knew what they had to do and weren’t intruded upon by despots who wanted their own fiefdom. Some regulations make sense to keep out charlatans who would kill innocent people and commit financial crimes but full scale regulation crushes the economy, allows for crony capitalism and gives power to unelected, unaccountable middle-managers who have their own agenda and axe to grind. The war- weary Republicans who thought it was just too complicated for the masses to understand the fight on these issues are responsible here for conservatisms death.
Finally the constitution was something conservatism cared about. Not a worship of it as a holy document because it’s not, but a respect that the founders who experienced the failings of government, men and civilizations worked hard and died to put into place. The constitution while not perfect proved to be the grounds for making a powerful, wealthy and generally good country. No it wasn’t and isn’t perfect. Yes slavery was not immediately fixed by the constitution but it was eventually stomped out. Conservatism respected the constitution because it is supposed to be the highest law of our country and because for all its flaws it was and is vastly better than other forms of human government and has lasted longer than any other. The uninformed and lazy politicians helped kill this aspect of conservatism but so did those who put the constitution as a higher power than the Bible.
In short, people who wanted to be liked rather than stand for what was right and for what people elected them to do, played a major part in killing conservatism.
I still believe in these ideas as do many other people. But I can’t fight for them under the banner of conservatism because that is now meaningless or worse, simply means what team Republican stands for at the moment. I can only stand for these values in myself and point to them for others as to what I believe is right and good and tell politicians I won’t vote for them when they are against every single one of these values.
