Living and breathing in the Second City
Thomas Franks:
OK, let me get this straight: The central axiom of conservative Republicanism is that government is inherently corrupt and can’t do anything right.
Over many years of ascendancy, conservative Republicans have filled government agencies with conservative Republicans and proceeded to enact the conservative Republican policy wish list — tax cuts, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing federal work, and so on.
And as a consequence of these policies our conservative Republican government has bungled most of the big tasks that have fallen to it. The rescue and recovery of the Gulf Coast was a disaster. The reconstruction of Iraq was a disaster. The regulatory agencies became so dumb they didn’t even see the disasters they were set up to prevent. And each disaster was attributable to the conservative philosophy of government.
Yet now we are supposed to vote for more conservative Republicans because we learned from the last bunch of conservative Republicans that government just doesn’t work.
While I dislike where Franks is going with this–he undoubtedly thinks that government isn’t fundamentally corrupt and inadequate–I like that he’s pointed out the paradox: How does a party that claims to believe “Government is the problem” actually govern once they ARE the government? They have no choice but to confirm their own philosophy by their actions, but by doing so undermine the very effectiveness of their message.
The past eight years should give conservatives pause. Perhaps they are better off in the minority.
- Tags: Political Theory, Politics
4 Responses to “The Conservative Paradox”
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The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
-Carl Sandburg
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T.J. Schwab
October 8th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Show me any hint of conservative agenda in GWB’s compassionate conservatism over the last 8 years and I will grant you the argument about the paradox that Mr. Franks likes to paint to which I strongly disagree. To state that the past eight years have been a string of bungled events in the name of conservatism is disingenuous of Mr. Franks, and I must say that I wish you were not echoing as much.
Since 1994 we sadly watched the steady decline of conservatism in the Republican ranks while those who vowed to fight the corrosive powers in Washington, made love to it instead. Therein lays the paradox. The ones claiming government as corrupt, once in charge of it, became corruptible themselves. Another paradox rests in the simple fact that Republicans who ran as conservatives governed directly opposed to conservative beliefs.
Conservatism should aim to correct the intrusion of government into our lives over the past half century. There was plenty of work to be done once elected, however, the past eight years have seen the absence of a conservative movement in Congress as witnessed not only by their outrageous spending but also by needlessly relieving tens of millions of citizens from their tax responsibility altogether, passing the prescription medicine entitlement bill, tripling of the education budget, passing campaign finance reform (in the form that it passed), and most recently caving in to GWB and the democrats (to include Paulson) in passing the nightmare to conservatism - the 700b bailout. And yet another painful paradox - those that claimed government was too big made it bigger.
So we do not need conservatives in the minority, we need conservatives who are true to themselves, their ideology, their constituency and the founding principles of this country to be in the majority. More importantly, when the critical time comes to vote, we need to have those individuals who will do so fearlessly, with conservative ideals set firmly in the forefront of their minds, and with a blind eye to the persuasiveness and power of corruption.
Mike
October 9th, 2008 at 8:29 am
TJ, I’m not sure you understood my point. I can’t show you a shred of conservative agenda in GWB presidency, nor even in the Congress since he was elected. But this enormous failure should make stop and think about why this might have happened.
The paradox:
1) Politicians are corrupt or incompetent or both.
2) Therefore fed. government should be limited to only essential functions “eumerated” in the constitutions.
3) Conservatives should promote the rolling back of government invasion into what should be states issues or non-governmental issue.
4) To do this conservatives have to elect conservative politicians.
5) But politicians, as part of government (see definition above), are necessarily corrupt, incompetent or both.
6) It follows that CONSERVATIVE politicians will be corrupt or incompetent at accomplishing CONSERVATIVE goals.
Do you see the challenge here. This isn’t to say our logic, it is only to say that we have to question whether we will EVER be able to trust so called “conservative” politicians to actually behave conservatively once they are in government because of the innate corruption of a government (which is why we are conservatives in the first place).
Conservative got a hell of a lot more done in the minority and I’m not sure it’s merely coincidence.
Andrew
October 9th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Interesting assertion that conservatism is more effective as a minority. Not something I have ever considered. However, and I am just spitballing here, wouldn\’t this indirectly imply that liberalism is an effective majority? Or does this position assume that there would be some sort of centrist agenda that would keep liberal and conservative agendas balanced?
Mike
October 9th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Good question … I’ll have to think on it. I think it would depend on whether we are judging them by conservative or liberal values. If liberalism (in the modern sense) is about expanding government, the question is how best do they go about it. For them Majority is likely to be the best position … but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are MORE effective than conservatives, or more competent, or less corrupt.