[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
History See other History Articles Title: Neoconservatives Abandon Conservative Traditions Conservatism is a confusing creed, and especially so these days when there are so few conservatives around. If that sounds odd in an era that is almost universally characterized as an "era of conservatism," you have to consider those who apply the label of "conservative" to themselves. Two weeks ago, writing in The Wall Street Journal, William Kristol and David Brooks of the neo-conservative magazine, the Weekly Standard, unbosomed their latest thoughts about what conservatives should do and think. This is not a new habit for them; they've been doing the same thing for several years, but few have ever paid much attention. Now some are. The main message of Mr. Kristol and Mr. Brooks is that conservatives for too long have denounced "government," and they endorsed what they called "nationalism" and adopted as its icons the figures of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. One problem with that is that the "nationalism" the two neo-cons endorse is a nationalism those earlier nationalists wouldn't recognize. According to its architects, the new neo-con nationalism is supposed to believe in open borders and free trade, though Hamilton opposed immigration, Clay wanted to send blacks back to Africa, and neither Lincoln nor Roosevelt was exactly a racial egalitarian. As for free trade, not a single one of them believed in it, and all of them are famous for their strong support of economic nationalism and protectionism. OK, so Mr, Kristol and Mr. Brooks don't know much about history, but that's the least of their confusions. Where they really tip over the edge and what really made conservatives as well as liberals sit up and bark was their general view of government. The new neo-con nationalism, they write, "isn't unfriendly to government, properly understood," and "How can Americans love their nation if they hate its government?" The neo-cons, as their rivals the paleo-conservatives or Old Right have always said about them, have never met a big government they didn't like. The Kristol-Brooks version of Big Government Conservatism has already been lambasted by conservatives Paul Craig Roberts and Robert Novak, but one non-conservative who is quick to embrace their new Big Government nationalism is liberal E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post. Like Teddy Roosevelt, Mr. Dionne is dee-lighted with the New Testament of the right according to Bill and David. Mr. Dionne found in an interview that "New Dealism doesn't bother Kristol," and the editor of the Weekly Standard told him, "Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and, for that matter, Lyndon Johnson are big facts in American history. Are we willing to say that the country is worse off because of FDR or JFK or LBJ? I'm not willing to say that." But virtually every other American who has claimed the name "conservative" since the 1930s has been willing to say it, and most of them say so today. FDR, JFK and LBJ and their legacies have been disasters for this country, domestically and abroad, and if you don't believe that, you have to abandon literally everything conservatism has represented since the New Deal. No wonder this is a "conservatism" that Mr. Dionne can approve. What Mr. Kristol and Mr. Brooks contrive to miss completely is that most conservatives don't "hate" government. They just don't believe that the kind of swollen state that the neo-con heroes helped build and neo-cons today want to conserve is legitimate. It's not authorized by the Constitution, and its emergence in the last 50 years or so is a deviation from the course on which the founding fathers set the nation. The Constitution establishes the framework for both authorizing the legitimate activities of the federal government and at the same time limiting it by the structure of the state it prescribes. "Big Government" for Americans is by definition government that has no authority in the Constitution, and it is precisely that kind that Mr. Kristol and Mr. Brooks are eager to save and to get their own hands on. Nowhere in their exposition of "American greatness" is there any mention of the Constitution at all. "How can Americans love their nation if they hate its government?" Very easily, if the government does what ours does today -- punish the innocent and reward criminals, wreck the cultural and social fabric of its own people, conspire against their economic prosperity, fail to protect legitimate national interests, and wage pointless wars against nations that have never harmed any American. To make no distinction between the nation and the state is a concept alien to conservatism as well as liberalism, properly understood. It is an idea more appropriate on the lips of Leonid Brezhnev than on those of any American of any American persuasion. Samuel Francis is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
|
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||