As an independent conservative I have said for years that the Republican party is not truly a conservative party based on true conservative policies and values. Of course my definition of what is conservative policies and values does affect this judgment.
So let me rehash a bit about what I feel are conservative values and policies and then address where conservatism stands and does it stand a chance going forward.
First I do want to say I do not think there is going to be a “blue wave”, but that there is a possibility the Republican party could be swept out of office and as some liberals are wanting swept from history. The election will be close and yet we may see a complete sweep of democrats in both houses of Congress and the Presidency. As a conservative I do fear a backlash if this is to happen, but not a complete meltdown of the Republican party.
So second to say I almost want that to happen, because maybe we do need a complete collapse of the Republican party and a new conservative party to rise from the ashes. The problem is a much more scarier alt right conspiracy theory orientated party may emerge and leave us with no real conservative advocates in American politics. And if you are even a half student of the current political situation in our country none of this may come as a surprise that someone may think this outcome.
Let’s get back to point for now though. I will start with what should be the fundamental basic of conservative ideology and work forward from there. First and most important is the concept of the dignity of life. And many Republican and other religious conservatives struggle with this even though they espouse it daily. So to understand, dignity of life is from conception to natural death. To over simplify the Republican problem with this is to look at the equation 2+2=4. The Republicans put two in the in the equation and want you to believe they have four. They never follow through with dignity of life throughout life. I make note of this to give you a foundation for the rest of the points. And of course there are Republicans who are “pro-life” just for votes and these people just need to be called out.
The next set of conservative talking points are also well known: family values, smaller government, capitalism, less taxes, fiscal responsibility, self responsibility, belief in God and right to worship are some examples. And here again come some issues, Republicans talk to these values extensively, but what has been put into practice. Well it seems in recent history for the taxes and smaller government come into play when the Democrats are in power. And the family values and worship come into play on the campaign trail. Yet in actual practice or the introduction of public policy for any of these topics the Republicans fall short in achieving anything. Or anything that resembles a cognitive policy to enhance these values.
The next set of talking points are a bit different for what is called conservative policy, but are actually instrumental in achieving the above. And I am struggling as to which to put first because people tend to see first on a list as first priority, when in reality there is some equal need for much of these ideas.
I will start with the economic view. I believe in the free market and capitalism and I believe the wealth gap affects quality of life and hurts the dignity of life. And I believe you can say this with great confidence. In previous posts I have tried to espouse a much more fleshed out argument that we need a bottom up, local out form of capitalism. I am reading more from some authors who seem to have a much greater grasp of what this means than me so I hope to do some more research and incorporate it further some other time. For now, please accept the simplistic definition above and know yes many of my economic development plans have a top down start so I have to rectify these points. For now the concept that people need to have opportunity given and open to them is what is important. So economic policies need to reflect the ability of people to have access to opportunity and capital. Note the word open and capital in the previous sentences. These are chosen words that I want to emphasize in those sentences. So in essence I feel that the open markets, the ability for people to create and grow businesses are a valid conservative point, yet you cannot accept doing this unless you realize that people have a inalienable right to not be excluded by others who have now become successful. The wealth gap excludes others and needs to be addressed. And this should be just as much an energetic conservative point as the ability to support business. If you do not give people opportunity you are taking away their dignity.
The second topic is the essence of life. We must have the ability to have a healthful life. And this topic includes a host of specific issues from health care to clean air and water to protecting and preserving the family to even retirement security. A conservative who believes in the dignity of life, must always profess the need for that life to be well taken care. And then developing actual public policy to protect and enhance these values becomes the goal. They have to be policies that actually achieve these goals, not campaign talking points. And these are the issues that fall within that how much government do we want argument. Since I do believe in smaller government, a person like me then has to find ideas that obtain the goals without interfering in our daily lives. It does lead to walking a tightrope of ideas that either side of the current liberal/conservative groups will try to sway to one side or the other.
One example is the current healthcare public policy discussions going on between the Democrats and Republicans. Simplistically do we want universal healthcare or free market healthcare? Do we even know which is better? Each side will say their ideas are better, yet we know both sides are extremely biased and are self centered in their thinking. I am not going to try and create a counter argument at this time. I am just trying to show that developing a new conservative policy argument that addresses the best way for people to obtain affordable practical available and effective healthcare is something that will need serious work to counter the current arguments. Yet achieving this healthcare dream is again tantamount of a public policy so we actual promote the dignity of life or in this particular case part of the second 2 in 2+2.
And you can take the above argument and get stuck with a whole host of individual public policy initiatives to address. Each one caught on that tightrope. I have in previous posts and will continue in future posts to put forth ideas to try and walk that tightrope.
For now though I am trying to define what conservatism needs to address to move forward in a more general sense. One philosophy I do have is we need to be more efficient in developing public policy which means many of the individual public policy initiatives can overlap and we need to find ways for the public to pick up the task and less reliance on the government to solve all our problems. The government should give us frameworks to solve problems, maybe parameters, but we should not look to the government to be the main instrument of our lives. And that is one start to how to move forward.
So what are the next factors to moving conservatism forward, well lets recap a bit of what has been said. The first is balancing everything around the full 2+2 equation of dignity of life. And this means reaching deeper than some so called conservatives are willing to dig which also means dig into their souls. A conservative must conserve values and the full set of conservative values, not pick and choose them for political efficiency. Some aren’t digging right now and in doing so, have forced themselves to compromise principals for a few short term goals or are completely hypocritical to maintain a power grab. Obviously this should not be conservatism. As mentioned you must conserve values, so those values must mean something and more importantly must be lived. And living them and creating public policy for them are extremely difficult. My tightrope statement is just the tip of the iceberg of the problem to creating the public policy. Even though difficult this change has to happen for a real conservative movement to reignite and become an effective voice going forward.
And to answer my original statement can it move forward. I believe it can and I believe it can be truly successful and that is the goal and that is why I write.
Cheers
Oh and by the way, we need new parties, even a new liberal one.
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