Bush Destroyed Conservative Movement

[Doug]

What's Next?
The conservative era is over. What will replace it?
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006
From Slate.com

=========
The conservative era in American politics, which has coincided with my entire adult lifetime, came to an end two weeks ago. Though the seeds were sown by Barry Goldwater in 1964, the era truly began in 1980, when Ronald Reagan's election first brought the conservative movement to power. The ascendant right was libertarian in economics, traditional in values, and confrontational in foreign policy. It called for smaller government, lower taxes, a moral dimension to social policy, and a more aggressive stance toward the Soviet Union. Reagan succeeded as president by reversing what had been the country's decades-long liberal drift in all of these areas, much as Margaret Thatcher did in Britain.

...Though George W. Bush is as right-wing as Reagan or Gingrich, he has managed to terminate the conservative era. Bush did this, first of all, by joining with congressional Republicans in treating the federal budget as a Christmas stocking for supporters. Rapidly accumulating deficits and growth in federal spending—from 18.3 percent of GDP in Clinton's final year to 20.3 percent in 2006—undermined the association of conservatism with limited government. On social, moral, and scientific issues, Bush tilted so far to the right that he scared away secular, socially moderate, and libertarian Republicans. Finally, Bush's feckless foreign policy discredited optional military intervention, much as Johnson and Nixon did in Vietnam.

Today, the conservative movement is not just reeling and dejected after a loss at the polls. It has reached a terminal point, much as American liberalism had in 1980. The dream may never die, as Ted Kennedy said at the Democratic convention in 1980, but the patient has. That's not to say that Republican candidates can't win elections, or that some other kind of conservative movement won't emerge as a potent force in the future. But the revolution is over. Its coalition is fractured, its energy is exhausted, and most of its remaining big ideas—school vouchers, the flat tax, and Social Security privatization—are so unpopular that they're not even part of the conversation anymore.

Read the rest here.

[RickBaber]

........and the really sad thing is that those few who still consider themselves "conservatives" believe they lost because they weren't conservative enough.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Baber, that really is the sad thing, since the reason they "lost" was because the power elite stole their movement. As far as the true "Goldwater conservative" agenda was concerned, they never had a better president that Bill Clinton and they allowed power-hungry fascists wearing elephant suits to convince them otherwise.

[Dardedar]

DAR
I remember the news/talk opining that the repub's were done after Bob Dole was shellacked in '96. Bush has done incredible damage to his party and the country but I still think the US is more rightwing than almost any comparable country. Wasn't it just the US and Australia that had a majority of it's populace in support of the Iraq war? Everyone else had more sense.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Darrel, the problem with Americans (and Australians) is that largely they aren't interested - as long as their food arrives in front of them in quantity and on a regular basis, they have adequate or above adequate shelter, "acceptible" clothing, decently-paying jobs, and minimal interference from neighbors or government, any patriotic propaganda machine gets their vote. Movies and TV shows get what little attention these folks pay to what's going on in the world. That's why we really need to bust up the media monopoly and reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. You know you have a country that really doesn't pay attention when the movie star icon of macho patriotism is chickenhawk John Wayne, rather than AAFR, Ret., Jimmy Stewart.

[Hogeye]

Barbara, "rational irrationality" explains it.

The conservative movement may have gained power in the 1980s, but it began in the 1950s. That was when the anti-imperialist, minimal government "Old Right" was hijacked by Wm. F. Buckley and the "fusion" conservatives. This new group of conservatives stressed anti-communism and were ardent cold-warriors. They still talked a small government game, but wanted to put that off indefinitely so as to defeat evil communism. But to build up the military and fight the commies everywhere required, of course, big big big bad government.

Here's a typical quote from an Old Right dude on foreign policy:

"Our warmongers and the military apparently believe . . . that all other nations are unimportant and can be trampled under foot the moment either Russia or the U.S. sees fit to precipitate a war. . . . To this faction [the warmongers and the military] it seems of small concern that the nations lying between us and Russia would be the most terrible sufferers. . . . The growing ‘neutralism’ of the European nations is merely a reasonable, sensible, and civilized reaction, legitimate in every respect when all the factors from Russia's inherent weaknesses to our own meddling and aggressiveness are taken into consideration. . . . The Korean situation . . . will not be settled until we withdraw entirely from an area in which we have no right to be and leave the peoples of that area to work out their own problems. . . ." - Louis Bromfield, A New Pattern for a Tired World

Cf:
The Transformation of the American Right
The Old Right
Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal "My personal odyssey is unimportant; the important point is that if I can move from "extreme right" to "extreme left" merely by standing in one place, drastic though unrecognized changes must have taken place throughout the American political spectrum over the last generation."

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The whole thing is a balancing act. We need to keep our military strong enough to deal with threats like Hitler, before they become as severe as Hitlerian threat was in WWII. Otherwise, we need to do a whole lot of minding our own business. Of course, with Wal-Mart's "economy" (larger than most nations) being dependent on slave labor (or the local equivalent) in 3rd world countries, it has become a little difficult to determine what "our own business" actually is. What we most assuredly shouldn't be doing is arming most of the conflicts in the world - and especially we shouldn't be invading sovreign nations. Now figure out how we get out of the arms business without bankrupting the country and throwing us into a depression that would make the "Great" Depression look like a picnic. (Actually, it can be done, but requires replacement "needs" shifting political and tax-dollar focus on non-military needs. "Green" energy is one of those areas that could do the job - if members of congress weren't in the pay of the "military-industrial complex".)

[Hogeye]

Of course, with Wal-Mart's "economy" (larger than most nations) being dependent on slave labor (or the local equivalent) in 3rd world countries, it has become a little difficult to determine what "our own business" actually is.

The non-interventionist POV is:

1) Defending US territory is the US military's only legitimate business.
2) The US military should not defend corporations, tourists, or anyone in foreign territory. Let the oil corporations and Wal-Marts and Nikes and Apples, and yes even tourists, take their own risks at their own cost.

Once you start appealing to the vague, fuzzy "national interest," you have no objective limitation on intervention. "National interest" is a political chimera, that will be used by rulers to justify whatever they damn well please.

[Doug]

The US military should not defend corporations, tourists, or anyone in foreign territory.

DOUG
I disagree. If we can stop a genocide, we should.

[Hogeye]

If we can stop a genocide, we should.

That ol' ambiguous collective again. What you mean "we," Kemosabe? If you mean yourself, and your buddies who volunteer for the Ozark Save-the-World Shotgun Militia, then I support your action, or at least your right to do so. (Pardon me if I don't join.) Like the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, you are doing it on your own dime, with voluntary funding and manning.

But if you mean "we" as the US State, funded involuntarily by massive plunder, enticing poor ignorant/stupid farm boys to die in a foreign land, with political rulers running the show, and using weapons of mass death that cannot by their very nature be targeted (like aerial bombing) then I unequivocably condemn the action.

Certainly you couldn't possibly mean the latter, after all my informative rants and warnings about the Stateholm Syndrome, using the slave "we," with all the attendent dangers to critical thinking.

Seriously, Doug, do you think the US' modern statist military is capable of fighting without using morally reprehensible weapons of mass murder, that they would refrain from dropping bombs on civilian areas and shooting rockets into neighborhoods?

[Doug]

If we can stop a genocide, we should.

That ol' ambiguous collective again. What you mean "we," Kemosabe? If you mean yourself, and your buddies who volunteer for the Ozark Save-the-World Shotgun Militia, then I support your action, or at least your right to do so.

No, militias like that are a waste of time. They are nothing but Boy Scouts for rednecks.

(Pardon me if I don't join.) Like the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, you are doing it on your own dime, with voluntary funding and manning.

But if you mean "we" as the US State, funded involuntarily by massive plunder, enticing poor ignorant/stupid farm boys to die in a foreign land, with political rulers running the show, and using weapons of mass death that cannot by their very nature be targeted (like aerial bombing) then I unequivocably condemn the action.

DOUG
What does aiming have to do with anything? Militias can't aim any better, and would do worse. Enticing poor ignorant farm boys? If we had college grads it would be OK? Your objections seem little more than nonsequiturs.

Certainly you couldn't possibly mean the latter, after all my informative rants and warnings about the Stateholm Syndrome, using the slave "we," with all the attendent dangers to critical thinking.

Seriously, Doug, do you think the US' modern statist military is capable of fighting without using morally reprehensible weapons of mass murder, that they would refrain from dropping bombs on civilian areas and shooting rockets into neighborhoods?

DOUG
Yes, I believe that the modern statist military could refrain from doing that needlessly. But if you are worried about civilian deaths, then you are hypocritical to be against stopping genocide regardless of the army used.

[Hogeye]

Hogeye> But if you mean "we" as the US State, funded involuntarily by massive plunder, enticing poor ignorant/stupid farm boys to die in a foreign land, with political rulers running the show, and using weapons of mass death that cannot by their very nature be targeted (like aerial bombing) then I unequivocably condemn the action.

Doug> What does aiming have to do with anything?

Everything, if you believe that non-combatants should not be murdered. If, on the other hand, you hold the statist paradigm, where everyone is fair game if they are from the enemy State, then nuking everyone in "their" territory is fine and dandy. Us vs. them, rah, rah, rah!

My hero Rothbard said it well in his essay War, Peace, and the State:

The libertarian's basic attitude toward war must then be: it is legitimate to use violence against criminals in defense of one's rights of person and property; it is completely impermissible to violate the rights of other innocent people. War, then, is only proper when the exercise of violence is rigorously limited to the individual criminals. We may judge for ourselves how many wars or conflicts in history have met this criterion.

It has often been maintained, and especially by conservatives, that the development of the horrendous modern weapons of mass murder (nuclear weapons, rockets, germ warfare, etc.) is only a difference of degree rather than kind from the simpler weapons of an earlier era. Of course, one answer to this is that when the degree is the number of human lives, the difference is a very big one.4 But another answer that the libertarian is particularly equipped to give is that while the bow and arrow and even the rifle can be pinpointed, if the will be there, against actual criminals, modern nuclear weapons cannot. Here is a crucial difference in kind. Of course, the bow and arrow could be used for aggressive purposes, but it could also be pinpointed to use only against aggressors. Nuclear weapons, even "conventional" aerial bombs, cannot be. These weapons are ipso facto engines of indiscriminate mass destruction. (The only exception would be the extremely rare case where a mass of people who were all criminals inhabited a vast geographical area.) We must, therefore, conclude that the use of nuclear or similar weapons, or the threat thereof, is a sin and a crime against humanity for which there can be no justification.

Dick Bennet gave a good speech at the last Hiroshima Memorial event, talking about how WWII basically obliterated all former notions of just war, in particular the prohibition of killing non-combatants. The firebombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo, and later the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are demonstrative of the end of just war theory and the modern permissibility of mass-murdering non-combatants.

Yes, I believe that the modern statist military could refrain from doing that needlessly.

Then you are hoping for something that the US military has never done since WWII (refrain from aerial bombing of civilian areas "as needed"). But then again, strictly speaking you are right - with the humongous "needlessly" hedge. The US rulers and their henchmen will always consider such mass murder to be needed, of course.

But if you are worried about civilian deaths, then you are hypocritical to be against stopping genocide regardless of the army used.

What's hypocritical about not wanting to use an army that will certainly murder non-combatants? What's hypocritical about not wanting to use an army that will definitely use weapons that cannot, by their very nature, be targeted against only the "bad guys?" There is nothing hypocritical about not wanting to add to the mass murder. (Nor not wanting to plunder to fund such an operation.)

[Doug]

Hogeye> But if you mean "we" as the US State, funded involuntarily by massive plunder, enticing poor ignorant/stupid farm boys to die in a foreign land, with political rulers running the show, and using weapons of mass death that cannot by their very nature be targeted (like aerial bombing) then I unequivocably condemn the action.

Doug> What does aiming have to do with anything?

Everything, if you believe that non-combatants should not be murdered. If, on the other hand, you hold the statist paradigm, where everyone is fair game if they are from the enemy State, then nuking everyone in "their" territory is fine and dandy. Us vs. them, rah, rah, rah!

As I already pointed out, if you would approve of militias, poorly armed, going in to stop genocide, you can hardly disapprove of a better armed state army that can aim even better going in to do the same thing on the grounds that they have poor aim. That is just contradictory.

Yes, I believe that the modern statist military could refrain from doing that needlessly.

Then you are hoping for something that the US military has never done since WWII (refrain from aerial bombing of civilian areas "as needed"). But then again, strictly speaking you are right - with the humongous "needlessly" hedge. The US rulers and their henchmen will always consider such mass murder to be needed, of course.

DOUG
You asked me if they could refrain from killing civilians. They can. Whether they do or whether they will is another story.

But if you are worried about civilian deaths, then you are hypocritical to be against stopping genocide regardless of the army used.

What's hypocritical about not wanting to use an army that will certainly murder non-combatants? What's hypocritical about not wanting to use an army that will definitely use weapons that cannot, by their very nature, be targeted against only the "bad guys?" There is nothing hypocritical about not wanting to add to the mass murder. (Nor not wanting to plunder to fund such an operation.)

DOUG
Let me explain it. What is hypocritical is that you pretend that you want to avoid civilian casualties, such that you loathe allowing an army going in to stop genocide, yet you prefer to allow genocide which is the slaughter of civilians on an even larger scale. So you throw the baby out on the grounds that the bathwater needs to keep from getting dirty. That is just absurd.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Doug, Hogeye has an unfortunate point on modern weaponry and the way modern wars are fought. Even as late as WWI war losses were 90% military and 10% civilian, but now the numbers are reversed. "Collateral damage" is 90% and only 10% is military. Much of that has to do with the fact that we don't fight wars anymore by Army A meeting Army B in the field somewhere away from population centers and blasting at each other until somebody gives up (or retreats to a position not worth the other's losses to dig them out). Now we shoot missiles or drop bombs on wedding parties because a terrorist might be attending. Under the current "tactical" SOP, we'd be trying to stop genocide with greater genocide. Fighting genocide with genocide is a lose-lose situation.

However, that doesn't mean we CAN'T field an army of Rangers or Commandos or whatever name the special forces are going under to go in, on the ground, and fight another group bent on genocide. We are capable, if usually unwilling due to the loss of "our" guys, of doing the job much more efficiently than a poorly armed, poorly trained rag-tag militia. (Kindly remember the volunteer Lincoln Brigade's side didn't win.) Considering the average American's inability to tell one "gook" (sorry - Vietnam terminology) from another, I think everyone would be better off if America bankrolls (as in finally pays our dues in full) the U.N. to send in forces who can.

[Hogeye]

As I already pointed out, if you would approve of militias, poorly armed, going in to stop genocide, you can hardly disapprove of a better armed state army that can aim even better going in to do the same thing on the grounds that they have poor aim. That is just contradictory.

As I already pointed out, militias use weapons which can be targeted, like rifles and shotguns, while statist armies use weapons which cannot be targeted to miss non-combatants, like jets for aerial bombing, rockets shot into civilian neighborhoods (as the US did in Fallujah), WMDs like large-scaled biological and nuclear weapons, etc. It is only "contradictory" if you can't tell the difference between weapons capable of being targeted and WMDs.

You asked me if they could refrain from killing civilians. They can. Whether they do or whether they will is another story.

Good. I'll take that as a concession that, in practice, statist armies do not refrain from killing citizens, and cannot be expected to. That will do quite nicely for my argument.

Let me explain it. What is hypocritical is that you pretend that you want to avoid civilian casualties, such that you loathe allowing an army going in to stop genocide, yet you prefer to allow genocide which is the slaughter of civilians on an even larger scale.

I see. You are assuming that I hold some kind of utilitarian ethic, wherein I weigh the number of deaths, and choose the action which I believe to yield the smaller expected number. If I were such a utilitarian, that would indeed be hypocritical. However, I am not a utilitarian. I have a principle-based ethic, with some considerations having lexicographic priority over others. (Nozick calls such considerations "side constraints," making an analogy with mathematical maximization problems.) In short, the principle against murder takes precedence over hypotheticals and guesses about how many people may be killed in various scenerios. Here's the classic "tough scenerio" from Philosophy 101:

You are the sheriff in town, and have someone accused of a heinous crime in your jail. (You know he's innocent, in one version of this.) A lynch mob forms, and demands that you give the prisoner up. The mob is getting unruly and starting to riot, which you predict will lead to several deaths. Should you turn the prisoner over to the mob?

The utilitarian says "yes," since it will minimize the number of deaths (and give the mob great psychic satisfaction.) Those with a principle-based ethic may not. To them, not sending one innocent man to his death takes priority over the multiple deaths that result.

Back at the military invasion, the fact that the US military would murder numerous civilians were they to intervene overrides the advantage of possibly stopping a genocide. (BTW, Doug, are you one of those warmongers who want to invade Darfur?)

Barbara puts it nicely: "Now we shoot missiles or drop bombs on wedding parties because a terrorist might be attending. Under the current "tactical" SOP, we'd be trying to stop genocide with greater genocide. Fighting genocide with genocide is a lose-lose situation."

[Doug]

As I already pointed out, if you would approve of militias, poorly armed, going in to stop genocide, you can hardly disapprove of a better armed state army that can aim even better going in to do the same thing on the grounds that they have poor aim. That is just contradictory.

As I already pointed out, militias use weapons which can be targeted, like rifles and shotguns, while statist armies use weapons which cannot be targeted to miss non-combatants, like jets for aerial bombing, rockets shot into civilian neighborhoods (as the US did in Fallujah), WMDs like large-scaled biological and nuclear weapons, etc. It is only "contradictory" if you can't tell the difference between weapons capable of being targeted and WMDs.

But rifles and shotguns are insufficient as the sole weapons in wartime, unless we want to go from a powerful army to a pathetic one. If we got rid of bombs, rockets, and air cover, we'd be conquered by another country in about a week.

You asked me if they could refrain from killing civilians. They can. Whether they do or whether they will is another story.

Good. I'll take that as a concession that, in practice, statist armies do not refrain from killing citizens, and cannot be expected to. That will do quite nicely for my argument.

No, because you were trying to make a distinction between what "statist" armies do and what a bunch of untrained rednecks in a militia do. What evidence do you have that militias don't kill civilians too? Zero? OK. So much for your argument.

Let me explain it. What is hypocritical is that you pretend that you want to avoid civilian casualties, such that you loathe allowing an army going in to stop genocide, yet you prefer to allow genocide which is the slaughter of civilians on an even larger scale.

I see. You are assuming that I hold some kind of utilitarian ethic, wherein I weigh the number of deaths, and choose the action which I believe to yield the smaller expected number. If I were such a utilitarian, that would indeed be hypocritical. However, I am not a utilitarian. I have a principle-based ethic, with some considerations having lexicographic priority over others.

[remainder of Hog's post irrelevant and snipped]

No, I don't need to assume any particular ethical theory is yours in order to refute you. All I need to know is that you object to civilian deaths, which you have stated quite clearly.

So since both genocide AND war to prevent genocide result in civilian deaths, you cannot--as you have--object to one on the grounds that it results in civilian deaths and not the other when both of them result in civilian deaths.

[Betsy]

So what's the bottom line for either of your arguments?

Doug: If a government of another country or large group within another country is guilty of genocide, we should send our military to stop that genocide.

Hogeye: Same scenario, ignore it and let them deal with it themselves.

Right?

I would say that neither solution is completely acceptable.

Barbara offers: send in a specialized ground military to defeat the government/group committing the genocide.

Good start, but still. We would spend money and lose lives of our own military to do so, while interfering in someone else's "business."

So what's the completely acceptable answer?

There probably isn't one, although Barbara's is the most palatable of the three choices.

[Hogeye]

But rifles and shotguns are insufficient as the sole weapons in wartime, unless we want to go from a powerful army to a pathetic one. If we got rid of bombs, rockets, and air cover, we'd be conquered by another country in about a week.

I've made no claim that rifles and shotguns are suffient as the sole weapons in wartime, so that is a strawman. My claim was that use of weapons which predictably kill non-combatants (untargetable weapons) is immoral. Doug, your claim that, if the US didn't have WMDs, American territory would be conquered strikes me as amazingly paranoid and silly. Canada would suddenly attack, maybe? Or China? Get a grip, dude! The fact is that US military interventionism promotes hatred, and, if we are attacked by a foreign military force (highly unlikely) it will almost certainly be a response to past US aggression.

You were trying to make a distinction between what "statist" armies do and what a bunch of untrained rednecks in a militia do.

Another strawman. I was making a distinction between using untargetable weapons of mass death and weapons that can be targeted. The Lincoln Brigade was one example of legitimate aid to foreigners, which used voluntary labor and funding. I doubt that "a bunch of untrained rednecks" fairly characterizes the Lincoln Brigade.

What evidence do you have that militias don't kill civilians too?

Yet another strawman thrown out to muddy the waters. I have made no claims about what militias do or don't do. My claims are that WMDs that predictably kill civilians are immoral to use, and that the US military (and most statist militaries) use such weapons routinely and are unlikely to refrain from such use. I oppose the use of such non-targeted weapons, period. I.e. Whether they are used by statist militaries or militias or sunday-school classes.

Since both genocide AND war to prevent genocide result in civilian deaths, you cannot--as you have--object to one on the grounds that it results in civilian deaths and not the other when both of them result in civilian deaths.

Sure I can. I object to engaging in murder for whatever the reason, even to prevent other murders. I object in principle to aggression. I am not so inconsistent as to aggress to prevent aggression. You seem to want to ignore the choice at hand. The original genocide was not my choice. We are assuming it is my choice to decide whether to engage in mass murder to prevent or ameliorate the given genocide. The choice before me is whether to engage in murder or not. I choose not, on principle.

Doug: If a government of another country or large group within another country is guilty of genocide, we should send our military to stop that genocide.

Hogeye: Same scenario, ignore it and let them deal with it themselves.

Right?

No. First of all, let's specify the "we":

If a government of another country or large group within another country is guilty of genocide, the US State should send in its military to stop that genocide, even though 1) that military would be murdering many innocent non-combatants, and 2) the costs of that military aggression would fall on the general US public, regardless of whether they approved.

Doug says, "yes," as I understand him. I say "no." I don't say that everyone should ignore it, however. I do say that any action should be voluntary. I don't object to a Lincoln Brigade type action, or a private well-targeted commando action per Barbara, and of course I don't object to voluntary aid through organizations like Amnesty International and the Red Cross. In short, I think the US State should ignore it, but people and groups may and perhaps should do something about it using voluntary means.

Getting a government to stop genocide is like getting a Mafia to stop crime.

[Dardedar]

Barbara offers: send in a specialized ground military to defeat the government/group committing the genocide.

Good start, but still. We would spend money and lose lives of our own military to do so, while interfering in someone else's "business."

DAR
Then Clinton's efforts to stop the Serbian genocide were very successful. Not a single US military person lost their life in combat (there was a helicoptor accident). And the genocide was stopped.

[Dardedar]

Getting a government to stop genocide is like getting a Mafia to stop crime.

DAR
To say this is profoundly naive would be a compliment. Genocides are usually, if not always, stopped by a government or governments. In a rather famous example, you may contemplate who stopped the Nazi's.

Here is a less famous one I was just reading about. The Bangladesh genocide in the 70's was especially nasty:

"The number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures. It was one of the worst genocides of the World War II era, outstripping Rwanda (800,000 killed) and probably surpassing even Indonesia (1 million to 1.5 million killed in 1965-66)."

Who stopped it? The Indian government:

"On December 3, India under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, seeking to return the millions of Bengali refugees and seize an opportunity to weaken its perennial military rival, finally launched a fullscale intervention to crush West Pakistani forces and secure Bangladeshi independence." --link

D.