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We Are No Longer Conservatives; We Are Restorationists
Conservatives have long struggled to define the term “conservatism.” This makes sense since it’s always been less a political ideology than a life philosophy. Perhaps even an attitude.
When asked to define conservatism, Abraham Lincoln replied, “Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?”
William F. Buckley updated his answer for the mid-20th century, framing it in opposition to liberalism. In other words, an anti-ideology. In his book Up from Liberalism (1959), Buckley declares conservativism is “freedom, individuality, the sense of community, the sanctity of the family, the supremacy of the conscience, the spiritual view of life.”
A half-century earlier, G.K. Chesterton didn’t so much define the term as identify the action it requires.
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. [Orthodoxy, 1908]
It isn’t enough to “stand athwart history, yelling ‘Stop.'” Conservatism requires intentional, aggressive work to evaluate the firehose of proposed changes, then promote the good ones and destroy the bad.
Or, as Reagan put it, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Reagan was prophetic. These days, conservatives spend a lot of time telling younger generations what it was once like to be free. We speak of lost liberties and wonder how best to restore them.
Here’s the plain fact: there’s no need for conservatism when there’s little left to conserve.
That’s why, over at The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson declared, “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives.”
Conservatives have long defined their politics in terms of what they wish to conserve or preserve — individual rights, family values, religious freedom, and so on. Conservatives, we are told, want to preserve the rich traditions and civilizational achievements of the past, pass them on to the next generation, and defend them from the left. In America, conservatives and classical liberals alike rightly believe an ascendent left wants to dismantle our constitutional system and transform America into a woke dystopia. The task of conservatives, going back many decades now, has been to stop them.
In an earlier era, this made sense. There was much to conserve. But any honest appraisal of our situation today renders such a definition absurd. After all, what have conservatives succeeded in conserving? In just my lifetime, they have lost much: marriage as it has been understood for thousands of years, the First Amendment, any semblance of control over our borders, a fundamental distinction between men and women, and, especially of late, the basic rule of law.
We have conserved a few things — gun rights, red-state economic policies, religious liberty (for now) — but it’s hard to argue with the main thrust of Davidson’s assessment.
The right isn’t conserving much but desperately trying to restore our freedom, our family, and our constitutional order.
Words mean things, and in the modern age, so does branding. I agree that “conservative” has outlasted its accuracy, but we need to call ourselves something. To that end…
We are no longer Conservatives; we are Restorationists.
We seek not to conserve the role of tradition in our society but to restore tradition to its rightful place.
Similarly, there are no national borders left to conserve; they must be restored.
The family is shattered and we must reintroduce this cornerstone of civilization. (That includes gender norms promoted from the dawn of time.)
Free speech must be placed back in the academy, workplace, and civil society.
All of this is work. Hard work. As such, it requires all of us to join the effort; neighbors, business leaders, teachers, and our government.
This is no longer the time for Conservation. On to Restoration.
Published in Politics, Religion & Philosophy
And, let’s face it, “Restoration” is just another way of saying make something great again.
I think we should take back the term Liberal – it was the original term for those who believed in limited government. The left should be referred to as statist – they believe in the power of the state, central planning and the federal bureaucracy
I tend to read “civic institutions” that need restoring most as the non-governmental (and not dependent on government) institutions that used to dominate civic life – the churches (and other religious institutions), the public service groups (Rotary, Kiwanis, local “clean-up-the-parks”or “feed-the-hungry” and other functional groups, etc.), business and professional associations, sports leagues, theater and musical groups – the voluntary institutions into which people group themselves according to interests. Many such groups still nominally exist, but they have become dependent on government funding, or have their operations heavily constrained by government regulations.
Restore Liberalism – Restore the right to dissent without cancellation or persecution. Restore the right of the individual to be left alone by the state so long as he doesn’t materially harm others.
Tocqueville said the same in “Democracy in America” – move focus from the Federal to the local
I think that’s a parallel effort to purging governmental institutions, but no less essential. The churches, just to pick on one, have become terribly corrupt and need to be restored. The source of the corruption is people, and the corrupt people need to be removed from positions of authority.
Celebrated United Methodist Drag Queen Activist Denounces Bible.
It’s supposed to be one here too. I’m currently stuck in my windowless office but hoping the sun will be out when I go to lunch.
Say government schools instead of public schools.
Have the money follow the student. I think Arizona recently passed something to that effect. New Mexico had a proposal last session, but it didn’t make it out of committee.
“Government schools” has been a common term among homeschoolers for at least a couple decades or more.
Yes. They have atrophied as government has asserted more control in those arenas. It will take some effort to stretch those muscles and rebuild them. It needs to be done though.
This could be the last nice weekend of the year. Tryna make the most of it.
It’s a little cloudy here. The aspens are still bright but on the decline now; most of the leaves will be gone after the next storm. Today being Friday I’m going to drink lunch down at Bier Werks. Maybe there’ll be a food truck.
Restore the scouting movement. Shed corporate types from the boards of directors.
Chesterton is wrong about conservatism. Conservatism is not based on leaving things alone, it is about conserving things. A conservatory is not merely a store room. A conservationist works to preserve something; he doesn’t watch it rot.
Heck, our “conservative” establishment isn’t even that. Our conservative leaders don’t even shield the nation from depredation – they don’t try to make sure that others leave it alone, they just turn their back on it themselves.
That said, it’s too late to conserve what’s been taken from us. We have to put it back. If the Republican Party is to be a vehicle for the Restoration, then we need to scour it, but that’ll have to be a moving target. We can’t afford to cede any more ground just to get rid of Mittens and that half-prog from Maine.
If you want to conserve things, overhaul the Fed and the financial system. It wastes capital. It puts it in the wrong places. It grows government. It causes social problems and then everybody whines about people not being moral enough. It’s a menace.
Gary, I think that you’re seriously misguided here.
You complain about Trump trying to run people out of the party. Well, it seems to me that the recipients of that treatment are the ones who started it, by trying to run Trump out of the party. For that matter, you have consistently wanted to run every pro-Trump candidate out of the Republican Party. You’ve even given money to Democrats to do so.
It was the anti-Trump side that started this unpleasant civil war in the party. It was a foolish and juvenile thing to do. I recall saying so at the time, during the 2016 primaries, when I was opposed to Trump but refused to jump on the NeverTrump bandwagon.
I do find this complaint a bit obnoxious. Maybe it’s because I was a big brother, and had a little brother. Your little brother punches you, and you smack him down, and then he complains to mommy and daddy that you hit him for no reason.
If you’re gonna throw the first punch, you don’t get to complain about the counterpunch. Trump is a counterpuncher.
What you, and politicians like those you list, should do is say uncle. Admit that you’ve lost, and come back into the fold.
Well said, your whole comment. But misguided. You aren’t dealing with a responsible or honest interlocutor.
Agreed, and I myself wrote a lengthy comment (no doubt seen by 2, gosh maybe 3 people) in a similar vein (different needle), which upon reflection I decided was going nowhere (my default position for things like this) and replaced with a comment about what a beautiful day it is.
And it is a beautiful day. I can see the hive of scum and villainy spread out before me, and I have to say, our Imperial Capital looks great in granite. It would look better behind bars, but for now, granite will do.
Bari Weiss hosted a discussion between Patrick Deneen and Bret Stephens on the topic of whether liberalism is something that should be preserved or a problem that should be replaced with something else. The key question was how we could go about restoring the institutions that de Toqueville credited with being key to the success of the American experiment and that @JonGabriel so aptly describes. Deneen suggested that we need to use political power while Stephens strongly resisted. The podcast is almost 2 hours long, but worth a listen. Link below.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/has-freedom-failed-us-a-debate/id1570872415?i=1000578816244
Then Bret Stephens isn’t a conservative, by the standard I’d like to use. He doesn’t act to conserve anything of value; he just wants to be a respected bystander.
I’m pretty curious about what this guy believes in. I mean separate from foreign policy.
I would love to ask him a ton of questions.
Not the Second Amendment, that much we know.
How about Rastafarians. :-P
That’s right. I forgot that. That was driving my vague curiosity. Man, he is out of control on that. ZERO and I mean ZERO of those types make any damn sense when they talk about gun policy.
I think gun policy is quite hard to understand but most of it is pretty interesting. So many people don’t put any effort into it and then they shoot their mouths off.
Then count you out. I can’t speak for
Tob Lingbut the other three are not really conservativesEdit: That was supposed to say I can’t speak for Rob Long.
One of my favorite takeaways from the Libertarian Wars of 2012-2016 (can’t rightly say what happened after that, but conservatives seem to have won) on this site was the discipline of separating that which government should do and that which society should do. A perfectly moral society would have no need for abortions, and a reasonably moral one would have few abortions despite their perfect legality. Yet a perfectly immoral society will have many abortions regardless of their legality. So legality is only a minor factor in both morality and the specific application to abortion.
It is not government’s place to enforce morality upon its electorate IN PART BECAUSE the government is supposed to defend the electorate from unwanted, unassimilating, foreign changes in its own moral composition. That’s why we have countries, borders, laws, governments. The government currently works for external enemies to suppress and reduce internal constituents, and its favorite tact is to import enemies and call them the real constituency. And those who instituted said governemnt? We get to go screw ourselves?
Naah. Let’s honor our duty to the Constitution, and to our forebears who gifted us the most free, most powerful, and most fair country in the world — and let’s screw this government instead.
The government itself has become a domestic enemy of the Constitution. Really, that’s the only entity capable of doing so anyway. The Constitution is kryptonite to these grifters, from the Democrat President on down to the lowliest paper-stamper. Yet the Constitution is the proper object of any government employee’s loyalty, not his boss, not the agency, not the “inter-agency intel community,” not the PResident nor the office of president, not “the government,” not “the nation, the people, the country.” or anything like that. The Constitution.
Beware case law and interpretation. Unless the Constitution is amended, it still means what it says. Lawyers have no special ownership of this stuff. Out Constitution is simple enough that “a farmer can understand it,” according to some famous quote about why it is such a fine document. Yes — good, clear, purposeful writing is like that.
Case law and interpretation are how we got to this point where the government now simply interprets what itr wants how it wants, and acts accordingly. There’s no question that our government has escaped the shackles of a Constitution it barely recognizes and certainly neither upholds not defends.
Elections are worth winning even if they only slow the bad guys down (because half the SOBs we elect are bad guys), but the real fight is for the culture — for that society which determines what happens.
I am dissatisfied with how the miserable GOP has put tiny interests before large ones, and abetted the Communists in the ruin of our country. But I’ll still support what’s left of the cause. At the same time, we must work AROUND them to restore what has been lost. They won’t help us.
When NeverTrumpers get their fingers into the pie, it always degenerates fast. Setting aside Trump’s idiosyncrasies, they are blind to the fact that Trump was really a strong conservative. A true conservative, not the elitist George Will BS conservativism.
Tob Ling speaks for himself!