As I recall, in the days of Barry Goldwater,
Conservative meant something. Back then, I don’t recall it being a movement of ‘businessmen.’ That was more
Republican. And I’m not sure it was the ideology of
Hawks, though there was a strong
anti-Communist thread in Conservatism. It was more of an idea than a set of actions back in those days. Even then, I thought of it as being
opposed to things rather than being
for things. The
idea in the
ideology was that government should remain small, and not involve itself in trying to fix the woes of society – the opposite of Socialism.
Wikipedia has a nice way of putting it:
Conservatism is a political term with different definitions. In general, conservatives support gradual change. Scholar R.J. White once put it this way: "To put conservatism in a bottle with a label is like trying to liquify the atmosphere … The difficulty arises from the nature of the thing. For conservatism is less a political doctrine than a habit of mind, a mode of feeling, a way of living." Ronald Reagan often is quoted as saying: "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism." Russell Kirk considered conservatism "the negation of ideology."
David Brooks says in this interview that
it is in shambles [whatever "
it" is]. If you have the stomach for it, you can go to
Rush Limbaugh‘s website and listen to him exhorting us to return to Conservative Values – "
Reestablish the Conservative Movement."
There it is again – Conservative Movement. It sounds weird to me because what Conservative actually means is "to conserve" – to stay the same, not to change. So it should be the Conservative Stay-Put-Ment.
After decades of believing that the Conservatives were a reasonable check on rampant government involvement in our lives, I’ve changed my mind. The Bush Administration has brought an end to that naive idea. I believe now that what Conservatives oppose is Democracy, and maybe Socialism – government of, for, and by the people. They don’t really think we can govern ourselves so they establish some kind of ruling class to do it for us. I think now that, at the core, they are Monarchists – whether they know it or not. Monarchists, or Fascists, or Dictators, or some such thing. I cannot fit what Bush et al have done in their eight years into the framework of our Constitutional Democracy. I must, therefore, conclude that they don’t believe in it. I await David Brooks and other Conservatives to explain their position in terms that fit the government we have.
Which brings me to what I sat down to write in the first place. I’ve been in the group/ideology that’s been called Liberal for my whole adult life, and I don’t know what it means either.
Wikipedia says:
Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophies that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal.
Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Within liberalism there are various streams of thought which compete over the use of the term "liberal" and may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for a number of principles, including freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, an individual’s right to private property, free markets, and a transparent system of government. All liberals, as well as some adherents of other political ideologies, support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law.
Modern liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and rejected many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, established religion, and economic protectionism.
The first modern liberal state was the United States of America, founded on the principle that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to insure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Pioneers of liberalism such as Adam Smith conceptualized free markets, free trade, invisible hand, spontaneous order, and claimed that they lead to prosperity. Liberals argued that economic systems based on free markets are more efficient and generate more prosperity.
Sounds about right, but I thought that was the definition of an American…
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