Intellectual Conservatism Isn’t Dead: Maintaining a Consistent Philosophy (Guest Voice)

Intellectual Conservatism Isn’t Dead: Maintaining a Consistent Philosophy

by Rick Moran

This is the last in my series on the state of intellectual conservatism. Previous articles can be found in order here, and here, and here, and here.

If, as we’ve discovered, intellectual conservatism has been marginalized, and its adherents are in bad odor with much of the base, then conservatism as it is advanced by movement righties must be doomed to wander the night like the headless horseman; an unholy terror riding unseen and unloved, searching fruitlessly for its head until the dawn sends it scurrying back into the shadows.

A bit melodramatic, but who can resist the headless horseman analogy?

Indeed, with the conservative base rejecting the idea that most of their critiques of Obama and the left are wildly illogical and, unreasonable, one wonders if they’re even bothering to search for a head in the first place. It’s as if they really believe that relying on anger and paranoia will win over the great independent middle and sweep them back to power, grinding the left – and their less ideological enemies on the right – into powder.

Well, all I can say is good luck with that. I have little doubt that in 2010, you could put a GOP monkey up for election against some Democrats and the Chimp would be celebrating a victory. That’s how bad Democratic prospects in some districts look at this point. The reaction against Obamacare, and the inevitable rise in taxes along with dim prospects for much of a recovery will give the Republicans a good 20 seats.

But it will take at least a gain of 40 seats to see the GOP returned to power in the House, not to mention the 11 seats Republicans need to take control of the senate. Both numbers are currently out of reach, no matter how bad the Democrats screw up.

The reason is simple; in most districts, running a chimpanzee against a Democrat won’t get the job done. In order to realize the goal of overturning Democratic majorities in Congress, it would help immensely if the GOP had a coherent, consistent, programatic agenda that would seek to address the real concerns of real voters.

Broad themes are nice but a Gingrich-like20″Contract with America” is more to the point. But given where the movement is now, what would that “Contract” look like?”

I would hope that insisting on finding the provenance of Obama’s birth certificate might be far down the list. Ditto the repeal of “death panels” in any health care legislation – if they can be found.

Indeed, promising to roll back liberal legislation might work, and it might not. A lot of opposition to health care reform may melt away once it’s passed. Democrats have history on their side in this since there has never been an instance of an entitlement being repealed once it has been passed.

Besides, while significant electoral gains are possible with a wholly negative agenda, voters would be far more enamored of a GOP platform that laid out positive legislative goals that they would wish to enact.

Frankly, I don’t see this being possible as long as enraged, populist ideologues are driving the Republican party off a cliff.

If reformers will not be listened to with regard to what is needed to regain a majority for the GOP, perhaps they have a role to play on the margins of the movement; that is, in developing the rationale for a consistent philosophy to be applied to governance.

Currently, conservatism is, in the words of R. Emmett Tyrell, a “riot of conceits.” We currently have the spectacle of movement conservatives hoping to use the courts to overturn legislation.

Steven Menashi, a public affairs fellow with the Hoo ver Institution, writing at The American Scene:

[T]he so-called Tenthers think all manner of new legislation is unconstitutional. There is no question that the courts have weakened the constitutional restraints on Congress, and it’s useful to point that out in order to guard against further attrition. But come on. The courts are not going to declare health-care reform unconstitutional. It’s just a fanciful notion that consigns its adherents to the political fringe. Federal regulation is with us, for better or worse, and conservatives should try to make it better rather than worse.

Conservatives have long argued that it’s unhealthy to use courts to decide policy questions because it removes contentious political issues from the realm of democratic deliberation. What’s more, when a political movement focuses its efforts on declaring some policy unconstitutional, it removes itself from the debate over how to craft that policy. Instead of revisiting Supreme Court cases from the 1940s, the Tenthers might want to read up on health policy.

For the same reason, conservatives should be defending the president’s use of informal policy czars. Creating a White House policy apparatus doesn’t undo the growth of the administrative state since the New Deal — that’s not going to happen anytime soon — but it’s a significant counter-measure: it helps shift the balance of power to wards unitary executive control of the bureaucracy. And that’s a change we can believe in.

These arguments against using the courts to short circuit the legislative track while opposing policy czars despite how they may help the president reign in the bureaucracy are exactly the kind of inconsistencies promoted by movement conservatives. And they are the direct result of excessive ideological zeal in that they represent an emotional need to oppose the president and congress in everything they do even at the expense of adhering to a consistent conservative philosophy.

There are many such inconsistencies in conservative principles to be found in the beliefs being touted by the base. Calling for the significant lowering of taxes when the deficit hit $1.7 trillion in FY 2009 isn’t logical (nor is raising taxes during a recession, but tell that to Obama). Nor is it prudent (a marvelous conservative value) to support massive increases in defense spending for the same reason. And how does one square the attempt to legislate morality with subscribing to Kirk’s “voluntary community” or support for an “enduring moral order” when it is crammed down our throats?

I believe these inconsistencies to be a product of a lack among movement conservatives – perhaps a fear – of self examination. Unless you turn a critical eye to the assumptions found in one’s own philosophy, the chances are good that these kinds of inconsistencies will arise and wreak havoc with the logic of one ’s beliefs.

Of course, such self examination would also reveal the paucity of critical thinking in much of their critique of the other side as well as challenging their overwrought paranoia about the effect of what Obama has been attempting to do. Would such self-criticism make it easier to see that we are not living under a dictatorship or some kind of socialist form of government? An honest, non-ideological appraisal of their own philosophy just might.

I’m not holding my breath. It appears that much of the right has abandoned reason altogether and has descended into a cave where, blind to their own excesses, they repeat the echos heard from talk radio and other pop conservatives, while failing to light a match and see where their fear and anger have brought them.

The edge of a precipice where stepping over the edge means falling into political irrelevancy.

Rick Moran is Associate Editor of The American Thinker and Chicago Editor of Pajamas Media. His personal blog is Right Wing Nuthouse. This post is cross posted at his blog.