Some Thoughts on Conservatism

Recently I ran across the news item that Bill Kristol had called Ron Paul a “crackpot” and “Anti-American.”  This seemed pretty harsh coming from a guy who has always seemed pretty balanced to me, and I’ve been listening to him on Fox News and occasionally reading his columns at National Review for about 4 years.

Then I came across this.  If you don’t have time to watch it, it basically goes something like this: Ron Paul documents the beliefs of “neoconservatives,” and it just so happens that Bill Kristol and his father Irving Kristol are named.  Why?  Because Irving is the founder of neoconservatism.  No wonder Billy’s mad; Ron picked on his daddy.

This whole debacle teaches me how much I still need to know about historical conservatism, since I was under the impression that “neocon” was simply a term made up by opponents to Bush-type conservatives.  Apparently, it’s a label they chose for themselves.  This led me to several thoughts on conservatism while I was brushing my teeth tonight, so I thought I’d share them with you.

Here’s a key point.  Irving Kristol’s initial book outlining neoconservatism was published in 1983.  What this means is that 9/11 didn’t actually change the mentality of the neoconservatives; rather, it gave them a justification for their agenda, which already existed prior to 9/11.  Did anyone really think Bush-43 meant it when he ran on a “humble foreign policy” with “no nation-building” and “no policing the world?”  We were fooled, all of us.

Now, I’m not particularly upset that neoconservatives are using the term “conservative;” they have every right to do so, of course.  What’s bothersome is that they have co-opted the term, now calling paleo-conservatives (which is the camp I’m leaning more toward every day) not conservative at all, or worse: “crackpots” or “anti-American.”

Another justification I’ve heard recently for neoconservatism (particularly government size and infringements on privacy, etc.) is that, while Ron Paul and others like him are correct that the Founders envisioned a more libertarian government, they also insisted that we be a moral country, and that liberty and morality go hand in hand.  Since we’re not a moral country anymore, things are different.

I cringe when my fellow conservatives say this, especially my fellow Christian conservatives, for a few reasons:

1. To call us a “more moral” country “back then” is to demonstrate a very deficient and twisted set of ethics, really.  Yes: the blatant sexual immorality of our culture is appalling.  Yes: work ethic has fallen terribly.  There are other legitimate complaints.  But this golden age of morality that we want to “get back to” was an age of racism, sexism, slavery, oppression, lying, treaty-breaking, etc…many of these sins still have tremendous influence and impact today.  But in the progress we’ve made on these issues, we’ve become more moral, not less, and we need to proceed forward in those areas.  We conservatives reveal just how unaware we are of the absolute sinfulness of racism and slavery when we pine for the good old days of American morality.
2. Even if the Founders agreed with the assessment that we’re much less moral than we used to be, there’s no way they’d prescribe neoconservatism as the remedy.  They would see big government - which neocons have only added to - as one of the root problems.

Now let’s be plain: all the Republicans running for president are neoconservatives, except for Ron Paul.  So it might be quite helpful to back the conversation up a bit and begin to talk about what conservatism really is in the first place.

Again, I have a lot to learn, and these are random thoughts.  I appreciate feedback.