Patterico's Pontifications

10/11/2006

What It Means to Be a Conservative

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:41 pm



The other day the Chicago Tribune ran a piece by Geoffrey Stone titled What it means to be a liberal. Stone sets forth 10 principles which he claims that liberals believe, and he therefore implicitly claims conservatives do not.

I almost posted on it at the time, since my main reaction was that many of the points were phony: they are principles that sound good, but that many conservatives also believe. For example:

Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate.

Conservatives don’t?

Liberals believe “we the people” are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind.

Conservatives don’t?

And so forth.

In any event, I’m posting on this now, but only to highlight Cassandra’s excellent response, setting forth 10 conservative principles. She plays off of Stone’s list, noting the similarities and differences. It’s an excellent post.

Cassandra describes this as “a quick, off the cuff response on my lunch hour.” But it’s impressive even if you treat it as a well thought out piece that took time to write — which is how it reads.

36 Responses to “What It Means to Be a Conservative”

  1. My take on Stone’s article is here.

    Tom Anger (e33274)

  2. One comment that was left off both of the rebuttals involves the Second Amendment.

    Conservatives see an armed society as a method of preventing an overreaching influence of government from becoming a full police state. The level of regulation and enforcement that seems to be the desired goal of liberals comes a heck of a lot closer to that line in a lot of areas. So much so that this whole argument tends to fall on deaf ears. (Though there are some areas where the right would over-police given free reign, I think.)

    Al (2e2489)

  3. Cassandra describes this as “a quick, off the cuff response on my lunch hour.” But it’s impressive even if you treat it as a well thought out piece that took time to write — which is how it reads.

    I have been reading Cassandra off and on for the better part of a year and a half and my consistent experience off her is that she is impressive in her writing and clarity, regardless of how much time she invests in the piece.

    She is an unsung treasure.

    Jason McClain (ffe198)

  4. “of” not “off”. Ack.

    Jason McClain (ffe198)

  5. Some dude over at proteinwisdom is big into the 1960 democratic platform. Can we all come together as a country on that?

    actus (10527e)

  6. Reminds me of when Howard Dean said that Democratic family values included children not going to bed at night hungry. I was shocked that he learned of our plot to take dinner away from everyone less than 13…. Actually, it was to take away only dessert when the veggies weren’t consumed.

    Many “Conservative” talk radio people like Bill Bennett and Dennis Prager refer to themselves as “Kennedy Democrats who the Party left”. I think the Dems want a Party platform more like that of 1972 and 1976, not 1960.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  7. I think the Dems want a Party platform more like that of 1972 and 1976, not 1960.

    If switching to 1960 is all it takes to get ‘conservative’ talk radio people to become democrat, i’m all for it. Something tells me they won’t though. Specially since I’ve been reading the 1960 democrat platform.

    actus (10527e)

  8. I sent the following message to the listed email address, but it was not among the responses published:

    Professor Stone,

    I write as a someone who was a liberal Democrat for most of my adult life, but has reconsidered and revised his views extensively over the last several years. In general, I found your propositions to be platitudes that almost no one could disagree with. But what those broad principles mean in application is another matter. For example, item 2 proclaims that liberals “believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference.” Who could argue with that? But then you say, as an application of that principle, that liberals support affirmative action. This is not the place to argue the matter in depth, but there are many people, including me, who believe that they are tolerant and respectful of difference, but who do not support “affirmative action” as that policy is typically implemented, i.e., as (non-merit) preferences of one sort or another.

    Item 3 proclaims that “Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate.” Again, who isn’t in favor of open and vigorous public debate? But then you give campaign-finance reform as an example of commitment to that principle. I regard the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, which overtly regulates and prohibits a great deal of political speech, as completely antithetical to First Amendment principles.

    In item 4, you say it is “liberals who have defended and continue to defend the freedom of the press to investigate and challenge the government . . . .” Are there prominent conservatives who oppose this principle? But to talk about something specific, did the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times have the right and duty to publish classified information to the public, when the persons leaking that information were clearly violating federal criminal law, and where disclosure of the information might be harmful to the public interest?

    I have similar problems with virtually all of your propositions, but this gives you an idea of the source of my misgivings.

    Tim K (7e41e8)

  9. Two observations:1. Liberals would like to implement their “principals” by force. We have a convenient example of Gore and friends advocating Nurenburg War Crimes trials for all those who refuse to recognize Global Warming.
    2. Liberals are actually for redistribution of wealth. And guess who is going to do it? Not liberals in the government? Not them. Conservatives rely on entreprenurial individuals to start businesses which will create opportunity and wealth; that means that the well never runs dry. Liberals have always viewed the economy as a pie, which by definition will be eaten—unless.

    Howard Veit (28df94)

  10. Cassandra’s response was excellent.

    Back when I was young and didn’t know any better, I was a liberal and I would say that I really, really thought that everything on Stone’s list was EXACTLY what I thought being a liberal was. But there are a lot of things he didn’t include on that list that I firmly believed in. Like taxation and taxing the hell out of the rich people. And that government had a duty to take care of the poor and that only heartless people would talk about individual life choices.

    Since then, I’ve grown up, gotten married, had kids, owned property, worked my ass off, and taken care of a number of other people both through family and charity. And one of the things I discovered is how misguided most liberals are because they refuse to accept the human ability to make bad choices and then have to deal with the consequences of such. And, conversely, the human ability to make good choices and then be punished (by government through taxation and such) for making good choices.

    I particularly liked Stone’s juxtaposition of “individual liberties” with “property rights.” Does he really not know that one of the greatest individual liberties there is is the fundamental right to own private property?

    sharon (dfeb10)

  11. Liberals believe in limiting government’s powers only with respect to the primary reason people form governments in the first place — to safeguard their lives and property — and in expanding the powers of government to address virtually every other aspect of human endeavor.

    Diffus (ead439)

  12. >> Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility
    >> to participate in public debate.
    >>
    >> Conservatives don’t?

    This conservative doesn’t. A right to participate? Certainly. A responsibility? Emphatically not.

    Bruce H. (e68c3f)

  13. Sharon: I wouldn’t say that most liberals disbelieve in the human ability to make bad choices. In my experience, most liberals believe that many of those whom conservatives castigate for making bad choices never had good choices to make in the first place, and that the state should help people get themselves into situations in which there are good options available.

    [That’s a perfect illustration of the difference. As a conservative, I believe good choices are available to almost everyone. They’re much *harder* for some, but they are *available*. — P]

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  14. You’re probably right, aphrael, that most liberals believe what you’re saying. The problem is that many of us conservatives either grew up in bad situations or know people who did and still managed to avoid the bad choices. Not because they were “lucky,” but because they were smart and attentive and worked hard and made good decisions.

    sharon (dfeb10)

  15. […] On Tuesday, Republican Pundit had a great post on Liberalism as a mental disorder, AKA a review of a UC Professor Stone’s definition of liberalism. And today while surfing, I found that Patterico has a link to Cassandra at Villainous Company. Her response is a composition on conservatism. […]

    Hang Right Politics - Archives » Conservatives Prefer Respiration Over Preferential Treatment (ab26d8)

  16. Patterico — that makes sense. I think this is one of the core differences between conservatives and liberals.

    I am *acutely* aware of how where I am today, who I am today, and what choices I have today owe at least as much to luck as they do to the effects of choices I have made in the past. I expect that this is true of everyone; our destinies are influenced both by our choices and by our luck … and while it’s reasonable to hold someone accountable for their choices, it’s not reasonable in my mind to hold people accountable for their luck.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  17. Sharon: I grew up in a reasonably bad situation; I made more money my first job out of college than my mother ever had, and I still bear heavy emotional scars from her abusive husbands and boyfriends.

    I’m smart, and i’ve mostly made good decisions, but I don’t work nearly as hard as, say, the Mexican laborers who moved my furniture the last time I moved — i’m *very* aware that people who work harder than I do and who have made the best choices available on their plate of options are in much less good financial situations than I am. Not because i’m more deserving, but because the options which I had to choose from — even given the really bad things in my childhood — were better in general.

    To be fair, some of this is that I saw options that other people didn’t see — they had the same options but didn’t notice them, or didn’t believe in them. But that’s not all of it; and to the degree that my success is predicated on something which is not a result of my choices, and someone else’s failure is predicated on something which is not a result of *their* choices … well, it’s hardly fair to judge either that person or me on tha basis.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  18. Bruce: why do you emphatically not believe that people have a responsibility to participate in public debate?

    I believe that this is our country, and that we own it together; and that we have a responsibility *to ourselves* to be engaged with making it work. If we’re not involved, who will be?

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  19. Aphrael,

    I don’t believe in the “luck” theory of prosperity because it both discounts the hard work people do to have good lives and excuses bad behavior as just “bad luck.”

    I think you are confusing a good life with having a lot of material goods. For all you know, the hard-working Mexicans who moved your furniture have what they consider good lives because they can do the work you are paying them for.

    Maybe the problem is that you think if one doesn’t believe in “luck” that a person cannot have compassion for people who don’t do so well in life. Nothing could be further from the truth, as you can see from the charitable work done by churches and other organizations.

    sharon (dfeb10)

  20. Sharon: I agree that you can have a good life without a lot of material goods. Absolutely.

    I don’t want to discount the hard work people do to have good lives, nor do I want to excuse bad behavior. But the point remains that I know people who work hard who can barely pay rent and feed themselves; and I know people who are well off slackers.

    I think the idea that hard work *automatically* creates good lives is a myth; in my experience it is neither necessary nor sufficient.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  21. If switching to 1960 is all it takes to get ‘conservative’ talk radio people to become democrat,

    Not sure it needs to be said here, but ignore Actus. To describe his representations as disingenuous would be understatement. The discussion at PW was not about conservatives it was about self identified liberals (that’s where the 1960’s Democrat references came from) finding themselves abandoned by the party’s lurch into the hard left.

    ThomasD (21cdd1)

  22. Aphrael wrote:

    I am *acutely* aware of how where I am today, who I am today, and what choices I have today owe at least as much to luck as they do to the effects of choices I have made in the past. I expect that this is true of everyone; our destinies are influenced both by our choices and by our luck … and while it’s reasonable to hold someone accountable for their choices, it’s not reasonable in my mind to hold people accountable for their luck.

    Ahhh, but the trouble is that if we don’t hold people accountable for their luck, just who is held accountable for people’s bad luck? Yup, you guessed it, the taxpayers!

    One of our thankfully former presidents once noted that “life is unfair.” If we are to take Aphrael’s suggestion that we ought not to hold people accountable for their luck, for the unfairness of life, does that not mean we must compensate everyone for their bad luck (and, concomitantly, penalize those who have been blessed with excessively good luck)?

    Dana (1d5902)

  23. >> Bruce: why do you emphatically not believe that people have a
    >> responsibility to participate in public debate?

    Because such a responsibility is too open ended and too diffuse. How much participation am I responsible for? And to whom, exactly, am I responsible? If I get to decide how much is enough, then it’s not a responsibility. If somebody else gets to decide, what’s conservative about that?

    Bruce H. (e68c3f)

  24. Thanks for the link, Patrick, and the kind words 🙂

    Cassandra (c9069a)

  25. “did the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times have the right and duty to publish classified information to the public, when the persons leaking that information were clearly violating federal criminal law, and where disclosure of the information might be harmful to the public interest?”

    Everything they printed was available through other sources at the time, not to mention some of it was leaked through the administration.
    Let me know when the treason trials start.

    [That’s just flatly false, lemonheads. — P]

    mmm...lemonheads (a960c9)

  26. Conservatives want smaller goverment no more regulations repeal all the others return to family values a end to gun cottrol getting us out of the UN repeal of all the UN treaties and taking care of our families

    krazy kagu (171210)

  27. The discussion at PW was not about conservatives

    But the comment I was replying to in this thread was about some conservatives being 1960 type democrats. Did you notice that? or where you busy ignoring?

    actus (10527e)

  28. actus wrote:

    But the comment I was replying to in this thread was about some conservatives being 1960 type democrats. Did you notice that? or where you busy ignoring?

    Senator Kennedy ran to the right of Vice President Nixon in 1960; perhaps you’ve heard of the Quemoy and Matsu question? And I’m trying to picture John Kerry or Al Gore or Hillary Clinton or Russ Feingold staring down Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis; don’t think I can quite visualize that one, not without a lot of illegal pharmaceutical products.

    I’d have absolutely no problem with the Democrats of 1960. It’s what they turned into forty years later that’s the problem.

    Dana (3e4784)

  29. What it means to be a liberal can be summed up in one line: Being a liberal means never having to say you’re sorry.

    Wurly (203ce5)

  30. Wurly: that isn’t true at all! In fact, my brand of liberalism is almost the opposite: I’m quite reluctant to blame anyone else for anything which might possibly be attributed to me.

    Isn’t that the great criticism of liberalism on the state of international relations? “Why do the hate us”, et al? The same impulse that causes liberals to ask that causes us to ask “how am I responsible for that person’s suffering?”

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  31. But the comment I was replying to in this thread was about some conservatives being 1960 type democrats

    You weren’t replying to a comment in this thread you were injecting a misrepresentation of comments from another thread as a red herring. And why link to the platform but not the PW thread?

    Don’t worry nobody will ever mistake you for a liberal.

    ThomasD (21cdd1)

  32. Conservatives want more conservative movies from hollywood like ITS A WODERFUL LIFE and FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS and to clean up the accademy awards show BUILD A BORDER FENCE and GEORGE W. BUSH IS NO CONSERVATIVE

    krazy kagu (f674df)

  33. You weren’t replying to a comment in this thread

    Did you read comment #6?

    Don’t worry nobody will ever mistake you for a liberal.

    C’mmon Love me, I’m a liberal.

    actus (10527e)

  34. Do you love LIBERTY? Then you should love Liberals. But, by supporting Bu$hco, I don’t know how you can support Liberty, because he is desmantling it altogether.

    You say it is okay because of this “war on terror” but this is forever. So, say good bye to Liberty or get this power-drunk outlaw out of office now, by voting Democrat this time. This war was based on lies, and this war serves no one but the corporate elite, whom put Bu$h into office. This right-wing government is doing NOTHING for the US population, nor the Iraq population. It is solely an aquisition of resources and more wealth for the tiny percentage of the world’s population that own 80% of the world’s cash.

    The golden rule is: He with the gold rule. It ought not to be that way.

    blubonnet (8d9f79)

  35. The previous post was sponsored by leftwing moonbats for Democrats. They paid for that ad.

    sharon (dfeb10)

  36. Vague principles that could, in theory apply to either party (as I think all of the ones discussed in Stone’s column are up for grabs by both parties) really only come into play for the people who aren’t sure which party represents their *interests*.

    I think people first pick parties and candidates based on who they believe best represents their interests. This is pretty easy, really. The rhetorical battle between parties will generally be about principles, because it’s obvious who represents interests.

    Republicans don’t need to say “Hey rich guy: vote for me, I’ll lower your taxes.” That would be the world’s stupidest campaign ad, because every rich guy knows the republicans will lower his taxes. Conversely, democrats don’t need to say “Hey poor guy — vote for me, I’ll try to make sure you have a safety net if you lose your job.” Another stupid campaign ad.

    The real battleground is convincing people whose interests aren’t obviously represented by your party that they should vote for your party anyway — on principle. That’s where the clever campaign ads come in — the republican ad saying “Hey poor guy — vote for me because democrats hate Jesus and America.” Or the democrat ad — “Hey rich guy — vote for me because the republicans are selfish hypocrites who want to invade the middle east just to get oil.”

    The above ads don’t promise any direct benefit to the person they’re courting — if there was a direct benefit to be had, the voter would *already* be voting for you, or you could win them right away just by talking about the benefit a bit. It’s about getting that vote on principal, even if it’s not in that person’s obvious self-interest to elect you.

    One obvious recent “vote for me on principle” example is the “republicans aren’t cracking down hard enough on their sex scandals” argument. As a democrat, I think this is an incredibly stupid argument — but it’s showing enough potential effectiveness that the pragmatists are beating it to death. Another one is “Democrats don’t have a plan to fight terrorism!” Moronic, since fighting terrorism IS the plan, on both sides — if somebody had a believable plan for WINNING against terrorism, both sides would immediately be for it anyway, too.

    Yet for someone whose interests aren’t clearly represented by either party, arguing about principles is really the only way to make a choice.

    The scariest people, in my opinion, are the ones who stop recognizing that most people vote based on their interests, and start really believing the crap about the other party having completely opposite principles. You know the ones — they think all Democrats are either naive idiots or Michael Moore, or that Republicans are all incredibly rich, religious fanatics, or Ann Coulter.

    Phil (88ab5b)


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