I had a dream

My apologies to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for using a variation of the title of one of his major speeches.

My dream early this morning was about a similar nemesis: those whose only interest is ruling with a false idea of conservatism and a misuse of religion.

The false idea of conservatism is holding on to power, irregardless of how it affects the vast majority of the citizens.  This conservatism puts the interests of some large corporations over the interests of large segments of the population.  The misuse of religion is to claim to have the truth even as it acts contrary to the teachings of its greatest prophet.

My dream was that teams of journalists met all over the country to unite against the attacks by false conservatives on the journalists integrity and professionalism.  Interestingly, many of these journalists being attacked are real conservatives, like George Will and Jennifer Rubin.

What is a real conservative?  We can start by naming a few: Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Dwight Eisenhower.  All of these have given warning about the order of men that is not to be trusted.

Adam Smith warned about those who live by profit.  Edmund Burke warned about the folly of not allowing the colonies to govern themselves.  George Washington warned about factions and about foreign entanglements (letting both friends and enemies control our judgment).  Abraham Lincoln stated that we had to think anew with new circumstances.  Dwight Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex.

The best way to counter these false conservatives is to vote in each and every election.  These false conservatives do all they can to dissuade people from voting from gerrymandering to false statements about their opponents.

Until such time as real conservatives appear on the scene, I’ll just have to keep voting for Democrats.  I don’t support many of the issues of the Democrats, but these issues are not so destructive of our country as the issues proclaimed by false conservatives.

“Real Republicans”

Should we even call “Republicans” “conservatives”?  They certainly aren’t concerned with “Res publica” (public things) and the only thing they want to conserve is their power.

I think real conservatives from Edmund Burke to Dwight Eisenhower would not want to be associated with them.  Remember Eisenhower’s warning about the “military-industrial complex”.

Posted as a comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/opinion/the-force-of-decency-awakens.html?comments#permid=26131193:26134931.

Edmund Burke and Sarah Palin thinking alike?

“The occupation of an hair-dresser, or of a working tallow chandler, cannot be a matter of honor to any person–to say nothing of a number of other more servile employments.  Such description of men ought no to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or collectively, are permitted to rule.”

Quoted in The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, Corey Robin

I can’t see how he can equate a thinker like Edmund Burke to a clueless person like Sarah Palin.

The above quote is taken very much out of context.  Burke was commenting on the French Revolution where everything was torn down to start anew.  Burke's comments were often directed at Thomas Paine who thought each generation should start governance from scratch.  Burke was very much for change in the context of continuity.  People should keep what works and fix what is no longer working.  To do so, you can't just take people off the street and expect them to understand what changes should be made and how.

I gave up reading The Reactionary Mind after that quote.

I do recommend Edmund Burke: The First Conservative by Jesse Norman and The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Left and Right by Yuval Levin.  Both have a more nuanced understanding of "conservatives" and "liberals".  Although Levin describes himself as a conservative, he gives fair hearing to both Burke and Paine.

Ironically, both Paine and Burke favored the American Revolution.  However, the United States was founded on a Burkean conservatism.  The French revolutionaries imprisoned Paine for about a year and the French Revolution fell to a military government under Napoleon Bonaparte.

Unfortunately, I don't think there are any Burkean conservatives in the U.S. government, unless they are Democrats.  The only thing conservative about Republicans is conserving their own power and that of large corporations.

Ironically, our first conservative wrote a well-thought treatise on how to govern and what dangers to watch out for.  Current "conservatives" not only ignore the lessons in George Washington's Farewell Address, but they don't even attend its annual reading in the Senate!!

Trump is not a conservative

Are “conservatives” really conservative?  About the only thing “conservatives” want to “conserve” is their power.

They are definitely not like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, or Dwight Eisenhower.  They certainly don’t take Eisenhower’s advice about the “military-industrial complex.”

And they are definitely not like the “First Conservative”, Edmund Burke.  See “Edmund Burke: the first conservative” by Jesse Norman or “Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left” by Yuval Levin.

They are more like the French Revolution, tearing down everything that went before than Burke’s Whigs who made small changes to an existing order as needed.

This was intended for “Why I’m Still a Never Trumper”. Bret Stephens, New York Times, 2017-12-29, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/opinion/why-im-still-a-nevertrumper.html.  Unfortunately, comments were cut off before I could get it sent. 

Edmund Burke asks that people stop calling him a "conservative".

“I’ve heard there is a grave in England that is smoking. It is the grave of Edmund Burke, "The First Conservative", spinning in his grave. I am reading Jesse Norman's book on Burke, and what Burke believed is not what any current Republican believes (or if they believe like Burke, they are keeping very, very quiet).

“Among other things, he believed in a separation of powers so that they could be a check on one another. By contrast, Donald Trump believes that Congress and the Supreme Court should be subservient to his wishes.”

Comment to Jennifer Rubin’s “Be wary of what you wish for in Alabama”.

Did not voting lead to “the triumph of evil”?

“Every member of Mr. Trump’s advisory councils should wrestle with his or her conscience,” Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and former president of Harvard, wrote on the Financial Times website on Tuesday, “and ponder Edmund Burke’s famous warning that ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”

See “Why Are All These Business Leaders Still With Trump?”. Vikas Bajaj and Stuart A. Thompson, New York Times, 2017-08-16.

Fake Republicans

"A Fake Republican mistakes conformism for conservatism, forgetting that the history of true conservatism (in the Burkian tradition) rest[s] on intelligent and thoughtful non-conformism distilled from independent thinking, careful analysis, and tradition—and not the spewings of pre-determined talking points that ignore evidence, facts, and rationality."

-Michael Charney, Tea with the Mad Hatter

Michael Charney has a blog "Chasing Glenn Beck, An Incredibly Minor Public Figure".   Charney also contributes to the Coffee Party http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/ where he is known the Coffee Party Conservative.

I highly recommend "Tea with the Mad Hatter" as a refreshing attempt to get some sanity back into politics.

As for the conservatism of Edmund Burke, see several of his quotes at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edmund_burke.html.  Included among them are:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." (not in writings, but may be a paraphrase)
"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

The second American Revolution has started, and it ain't pretty

The Republican Party has become a revolutionary party, one that tolerates no opposition.

Consider that if a Republican politician doesn't follow party doctrine then he or she is is sidelined as soon as possible.  Why do you think there are so many ex-Republicans?  See Jim Ramstad's praise of Wellstone, "Remembering Paul Wellstone", Star Tribune 2012-10-19.

Consider that Republicans keep insisting that their solutions will solve certain problems even when experts point out historic facts that show similar policies have not worked in the past.

Consider that Republicans' stated goal at the start of Obama's presidency was to ensure he did not have a second term.  Some commentators think this is barely concealed racism.  This may be true, but it is also an effective smokescreen.  Their true motive may be to destroy the Democratic Party and to become the only party.

Consider the Republican claims of voter fraud. Are not voter ID requirements a thinly disguised attempt to reduce the number of Democratic voters?

Consider that the Republicans may have already started a civil war.  As they give more power to corporations, are they transforming our government from "by the people" to "by the corporations"?  Once corporations were tools of the people to be dissolved when their purpose was fulfilled.  Now people seem to be the tools of corporations to be discarded when no longer economically useful.

See "The Great Unraveling" by Paul Krugman.  He saw this revolution in 2003!

Consider that the Republicans call themselves "conservatives" but they are nowhere near being classical conservatives as defined by Edmund Burke in the Eighteenth Century.  In fact, many of the so-called liberals in the Democratic Party may be closer to the Burkian model of Conservative than the Republicans.  For more details, see "Why Voters Should Turn From the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession, Part I", Louis M. Guenin, Huffington Post, 2012-10-24.  It is quite an indictment of the hodgepodge of conflicting ideas of the Republican Party.  Watch for Part II in the Huffington Post tomorrow (2012-10-25).

Legislative tyranny after the American Revolution

When the various American states became independent, the legislatures were freed of the tyranny of the Crown appointed governors.  Despite the high-sounding "civic virtue" that Thomas Jefferson and many of his colleagues thought would come about, special interests often dominated state legislatures, often unicameral legislatures.  If those interests were represented by the majority, those interests would take precedence over the rights of others.  Jefferson wrote, "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for."

Source: "The American Revolution", Gordon S. Woods

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
- Edmund Burke