Conservative Donnybrook

Dr. Jack Kerwick posted a poorly reasoned piece on the Intellectual Conservative web site concerning the difference between, well, him and me.  He being the “Classical Conservative” (i.e. paleo-conservative) I representing the “Neo-Conservative” camp.  Dr. Kerwick begins his discussion by comparing a utilitarian’s opposition to abortion to that of natural law theorist’s.  Mr. Kerwick writes:

“The utilitarian opposes abortion because he believes that the general practice of abortion will in the long run cause more pain than pleasure for the greatest number of people. In stark contrast, the Roman Catholic natural law theorist opposes it because he thinks that abortion is inherently wrong, irrespective of consequences.”  So far so good, no objections here. He goes on to state how classical and neo-conservative philosophies differ in much the same way.   Kerwick then compares the classical and neocon perspectives in three areas; reason, morality and the State.

Reason/Knowledge
Kerwick states “Neo-conservatives endorse a trans-cultural, trans-historical conception of reason.  Reason…is ultimately capable of rising over and against [tradition].”  Classical conservatives on the other hand, according to Kerwick, believe “…reason is the product of…tradition.  [Reason*] consists not [of]…’self-evident truths’ but in unarticulated feelings, habits and customs….”

Continue Reading »

Share This

Good morning!  An open thread for Wednesday.  If you are a conservative or a Republican and plan to support Obama in the general election, we would love to hear from you.  Why Obama?  And how does your support for him jive with your “conservative” or republican views?

Share This

The Rockies beat the Padres 2-1 last night in 22 1/2 innings.  The game lasted 6 hours 17 minutes!  That is what I call getting you money’s worth.  One could classify this as a liberal game judging by time or a conservative contest if judging by runs…which is it?  Definitely not moderate!

Share This

Thomas Bertonneau puts on his hazmat suit and diffuses the miasma of Atlas Shrugged in a new essay on First Principles, ISI’s Web Journal.  

Particularly excoriated is Rand’s ”naïve attitude towards history and philosophy[,] that at times can only be described as sophomoric.”

Share This

I’ve been trying to rekindle my love of baseball lately. To that end I have started to rewatch the Ken Burn’s Baseball series. As some of you may know George Will is one of the commentors and has a great quote on the second DVD:

“I grew up in Champaign, Illinois, which is midway between Chicago and St. Louis. I played baseball briefly and badly in Little League for the Mittendorf Funeral Home Panthers. And at an age too tender for making life decisions, I had to make a choice between being a Cub fan looking north and a Cardinal fan looking south. All my friends became Cardinal fans and grew up happy and liberal. I became a Cub fan and a gloomy conservative.”

Being a Cub fan and a conservative myself, Mr. Will has certainly hit a chord. I know that this quote will resonate with a couple other contributors to this site as well.

Share This

I know, it is shameful that I have only just now read Witness. Whittaker Chambers’ autobiography is required reading for anyone who would call himself conservative. Thankfully, unlike most required reading, this is interesting, provocative and, considering it was written in 1952 about the Communist threat, timely. Even though it would seem that the threat of Communist expansion, especially in the form of Soviet Communism, seems to have passed, the underlying premise of this book is the question, “God or Man?” It is in answering that question that one is drawn to Communism, its brother Fascism, or any number of totalitarian forms of government hatched from the laboratory of the Enlightenment deification of Man that were spawned out of the French Revolution.

On the opening page of his autobiography he writes:

I wanted my wife to realize clearly one long-term penalty, for herself and for the children, of the step I was taking. I said: “You know, we are leaving the winning world for the losing world.” I meant that, in the revolutionary conflict of the 20th century, I knowingly chose the side of probable defeat. Almost nothing that I have observed, or that has happened to me since, has made me think that I was wrong about that forecast. But nothing has changed my determination to act as if I were wrong - if only because, in the last instance, men must act on what they believe right, not on what they believe probable.

Then in 1938, with the clearest understanding of the consequences, we freely made the choice which history is slowly bringing all men to see is the only possible choice - the decision to die, if necessary, rather than to live under Communism. Continue Reading »

Share This

Follow this link to an interesting piece over at the American Spectator on third party choices for the conservative voter.

Share This

It seems to be cropping up more often lately. Either that, or I am just noticing it more often. People seem to be shocked by things that should not even surprise them. On my buddy Mike’s blog, he quotes from Wilhelm Röpke. Herr Röpke wrote the following: “… surely, noone who is at all honest with himself can fail to be struck by the shocking dechristianization and secularization of our culture.”

Am I overreacting when I note that not only am I not shocked by the dechristianization  or secularization of our culture, but it would be truly shocking if such a process were not in progress. Perhaps I am too cynical. For me, I suppose, I see the work of living a Christian life to be much harder than to be a pagan, perhaps especially, in our increasingly dechristianized, increasingly secularized culture.

Conservatism is much like Christianity in that it is the harder road. Liberals fall into two camps, both of which are easy: the first type simply inflate their own self-satisfaction through the mechanism of pretending they care more. After much practice in pretending to care more than one’s neighbors, they then make the small step to arrogate power to themselves in order to provide for the objects of “their” bounty. By making promises to give others the things they want, they consolidate their own power over other people. The second type of liberals are the co-conspirators of the power through caring crowd - those who consume the confiscated bounty that is offered. Conservatism, by contrast, is a mental exercise requiring discipline. It is a hard sell to tell one’s ruler that he rules best when he does least - when he arrogates to himself a minimal amount of power. Conservatism is the politics of restraint. We have never been good at restraint since we were children and therefore, it is always a bit of a shock to me when the harder road, conservatism, makes gains.

Does one indeed need to be dishonest with oneself to fail to be shocked by the dechristianization and secularization of our culture as Röpke claims? I am forced to answer, No. It is hardly shocking that the hard thing is in decline and the easy thing is in the ascendancy. Perhaps a better response, instead of shock, would be recognition of that which is expected and a renewal of one’s commitment to reform one’s culture.

Share This

Here is a classic debate from Firing Line history where Buckley demolishes Noam Chomsky and makes him look stupid. Charmingly.

Buckley’s line toward the beginning of this exchange where Buckley offers to take up Chomsky’s digression and then peeks over at him with a bit of a wink and sparkle in his eye is priceless.

Chomsky debate: Part I and Part II

And, as it turns out, this seems to be fairly topical.

Share This

Mr. Cubbedge has been (very) subtly goading us into taking up this story. For instance, he has posted on his website that “Conservative Donnybrook picks up the story” and has posted comments on this website about the story in unrelated topics. We only wish he’d come out and say that he thinks we should write about this issue instead of beating around the bush so much. In the face of all this indirect pressure, what can I do?

Let me say a few words about the sudden rash of “conservatives” advocating for Obama.

Just to catch everyone up on the story:

Doug Kmiec wrote the following piece for Slate.
Deal Hudson found it less than impressive.
Kmiec shot back with this retort. (Notice the insinuation that bloggers are not regular, butts-in-the-pews churchgoers who pray on a regular basis).

And then the piling on began…

Cubbedge…
Ramesh…
Kmiec answered Ramesh, but not Cubbedge (What’s up with that, Will?). Continue Reading »

Share This

A recent study suggests that conservatives are not attracted to the courses of study which lead to the professoriate.

Mr. Maranto asked the Woessners to contribute a chapter to his book on why conservatives don’t pursue doctorates. Typically, he says, there are a few answers to the question. Liberals say conservatives want to make more money than professors earn, while conservatives argue that they get less encouragement from professors than liberal students do. What the Woessners found, though, is that those are not the only reasons. They looked at a 2004 survey of 15,569 college seniors completed by the University of California at Los Angeles’s Higher Education Research Institute. That research showed that while liberal students were more likely than conservative students to have contact with professors outside the classroom and to do research with them, the difference was not enough to explain why so many more liberal students wanted to pursue Ph.D’s.

Instead the Woessners looked at differences in interests and personality. They found that in a variety of ways, conservative students were less interested than liberals in subject matter that often leads to doctoral degrees, and less interested in doing the kinds of things that professors spend their time doing. Continue Reading »

Share This

I have been noodling around a bit on various blogs sponsored by the “paleo” persuasion.  I know we have a few in-house paleos here.  The discussions have been spirited and cordial and the argument heated and well played.  Yet there is one re-occurring theme on most sites: the Confederacy.  Paleos seem to hate Lincoln as much as they love the Confederacy.  Why is this?  Is there a self-described paleocon out there that is not a Southern Cross wearing, rebel-yelling Confederate lover (oh, I mean state secessionist lover, sorry)?

Share This

There has been some chatter on the internet concerning the use of “suicide votes” should McCain win the GOP nomination.  The idea is to vote for who ever may be the Democrat candidate for president in an effort to sink McCain’s endeavor and thereby send a clear message to the Party that the conservative base will not stand for liberal leanings in her ranks. Continue Reading »

Share This

With McCain’s big win last night, we should probably all pause for a moment and consider what we have done. Lawrence Auster from View From the Right had this excellent post about a week ago. In it, he links to an interview that Mark Levin conducted with McCain’s former Senate colleague, Rick Santorum.

The bottom line is McCain bleeds (and has bled) Red, White and Blue. But, mostly Blue.

Share This

In my previous post, I raised the question of who is courting Catholic swing voters. In it, I noted that George W. Bush likely won the White House by advancing his version of Compassionate Conservatism which attracted these voters. But that raises the following question, which I wanted to address separately from the swing vote question: Which is more important, for the Republicans to win elections or for conservatism to remain pure?

I am going to start with the premise that if G.W. does not advance a compassionate conservative platform, he is an unemployed politician colling his heels in Texas today. John Kerry is finishing his second term in office and Alito and Roberts are replaced by two very different Justices. In that scenario, Roe v. Wade is entrenched, perhaps irrevocably, as the law of the land for generations to come - and perhaps, permanently as stare decisis cements it in place.

Continue Reading »

Share This

Douthat on the conservative coalition:

It’s true that the current conservative intelligentsia, forged in the crucible of Ronald Reagan’s successes, is heavily invested in keeping the triple alliance [of religious conservatives, anti-taxers, and neoconservatives] intact - hence the Thompson bubble, the anti-Huckabee crusade, and the “rally round Romney” effect. And it’s true, as well, that if the Republican Party recovers its majority in the next election the alliance will be considerably strengthened. But such a recovery is unlikely, and already, in the wake of just a single midterm-election debacle, it’s obvious that the Norquistians and neocons and social conservatives aren’t inevitable allies - that many tax-cutters and foreign-policy hawks, for instance, would happily screw over their Christian-Right allies to nominate Rudy Giuliani; or that many social conservatives don’t give a tinker’s dam what the Club for Growth thinks about Mike Huckabee’s record. (So too with the neocon yearning for a McCain-Lieberman ticket, which would arguably represent a far more radical remaking of the GOP coalition than anything Chuck Hagel has to offer.)

Continue Reading »

Share This

The real story here is not that Huckabee supports a national sales tax.  No, the real story is that the Los Angeles Times calls “Mike Huckabee, one of the most conservative Republicans in the 2008 presidential race….”

Now, my laughter aside, I would like to give a Conservative Donnybrook Christmas present to our readers, let’s make this post a sounding board for you!  In that vain, Karl and I had this discussion about a month ago; should the income tax be repealed in favor of a national sales tax?   This is the question I offer all of you!  Please, give me your answer and a good reason why you think we should/should not.  I am NOT looking for lengthily prose on why we should not have any tax at all or why it is unconstitutional.  The debate should be focused on income versus slaes and why. 

Share This

We are now racking up, as a nation, $1 million per minute in debt. Let me write that out for you: $1,000,000 per minute; $16, 667 per second; $60,000,000 per hour;  $1,440,000,000 per day (that’s in the billions folks!). Staggering, I know. And yet, we persist in thinking that a national drug plan is a good idea. Even Republicans (link requires a subscription to National Review, which really, you ought to have anyway) according to Ramesh Ponnuru.

Ramesh makes the point that Americans generally believe that they believe in smaller government when asked, but mention a specific program and you get the whole, “well, I’m not sure about that program” routine. The facts speak for themselves. Democrats own the organ of spending (Congress), spending shoots up. Republicans take over the organ of spending (on a program of fiscal restraint ironically enough), spending shoots up. Unfortunately, folks, we’ve run out of parties unless the Libertarians ever gain traction. The moral of this story is unlimber your wallets, because the ride could get bumpy from here on out.

Share This

Rasmussen has more out today which reiterates what I believe is a fatalistic attitude among “Republicans:”

     1) Giuliani is a liberal.

     2) Giuliani will win if nominated.

     3) More Republicans prefer Giuliani.

Huckabee has surged, though. This, to me, suggests that a candidate (whom many have surmised is making a decent attempt at being a nice-guy-conservative Christian) can pull support by not being liberal. Or at least not as liberal as Giuliani or Clinton.

I have long viewed John McCain with a jaundiced eye, but his idiotic and jingoistic attack on Ron Paul re-re-re-reconfirmed my distaste for the man. As a self-styled amateur historian with no academic credentials whatsoever, I saw through the bluster and bluffing that McCain bandied about in defense of “the troops.” Isolationism as the cause of Hitler? Was he serious? If so, he’s so woefully ignorant that he should never be considered eligible for dogcatcher, much less President. If not, well, mendacity doesn’t become him, but it isn’t novel.

Share This

My friends at Politeuma sure have a lot of time on their hands. Here’s just a few kind words they’ve had for ol’ SM recently:

- “I have little respect for SM” - Mike Burgess

- “Of course I have called SM to task several times. This is because of his deliberate smearing of paleos and what I consider his lies about Ron Paul and his supporters” - Josh M.

- “That means that your site has its own David Frum personality and if he’s left unchecked, I think it will happen again to anyone else who espouses, say, Ron Paul viewpoints” - Josh M.

- “Look, not to keep beating a dead horse, but SM’s “conversion” to whatever his new politics is is very odd” - Josh M.

- “Perhaps SM is from the Muhammad Ali school of politics” - Jon Luker Continue Reading »

Share This