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The Abandonment of Conservative Principle
On Laura Ingraham’s website, Lifezette, Edmund Kozack laments the “Constitution worship” of those opposing the populist movement within the GOP:
The Constitution worship of those like Shapiro and Sen. Ted Cruz reveals that the mainstream conservative movement has largely forgotten the principle of imperfectability. The Constitution alone cannot guarantee some sort of political utopia. Man is fallen — a city on a shining hill cannot be guaranteed by a mere piece of paper. The fact that within a decade of the documents’ adoption the government was already trying to subvert it should be a clear indication of that reality.
Ironically, Kozack seems to have forgotten that the Constitution is based on the premise that Man is imperfect and that, therefore, his institutions of power must be restrained.
In its attempt to define conservatism in a way that dovetails its author’s nationalist populism, the piece draws heavily on Russell Kirk. And yet, he seems to forget one of Kirk’s central theses: That private property and freedom are inextricably linked. Something the current leader of the nationalist populists seems to have a problem with.
Never mind all that. Kozack’s original sin is in confusing British toryism of the Kirk/Burke variety with the more classical liberal American conservatism. It’s an important distinction that’s often glossed over.
This is what we mean when we say the nationalist populists have abandoned conservative principle: that, in rejecting classical liberalism and us “Constitution worshipers,” they reject everything that made American conservatism the unique foundation of the freest and greatest nation on this earth.
Published in General
We need some retort reform around here. Also, I need a pop tart. Man that sounds good.
I can’t let you have the last word. So this is it. The last word. Don’t comment further. ;-)
Lucky, or dumb. I always hear that the people who do things are either lucky or dumb when described by those who read other people’s written wisdom and describe the reading as an achievement.
I kind of prefer Roosevelt’s “Man in the arena” take on things. But then again, I have been a knuckle dragger for more than six decades.
Come again, last transmission unclear….
Burke was absolutely reverential of classical liberalism and the American Constitution but that was incidental to his conservatism. At least by my reading he was more concerned with the preservation of “ancient institutions” than the disruption that often occurs from the adoption of Liberal values. It is why I classify Burke as a member of the British Tory/Whiggish Tradition – a fine tradition, but not as committed to Liberalism as say John Locke. This was even more true of Kirk who, since Burke was more a statesman than a philosopher, did a lot of the work of synthesizing Burke into a coherent modern conservative philosophy.
I said that I get to have the final comment in this exchange, not you. Now don’t go all heels on me.
Still garbled, change frequency . Sounds like you are talking about shoes….
Do you concede that you’re disagreeing with Hayek in your assessment of Burke? Are you aware of the areas where Burke pursued classical liberal reforms that were or would have been highly disruptive, such as bringing civilized law to India, elevating the levels of self determination for the Irish and Americans, and promoting free trade?
What ancient institution do you believe he valued excessively? The traditional complaint of the new Whigs is that he failed to support totalitarianism in France and efforts to move the United Kingdom in the same direction.
Objecting to his reverence for the constitutional order is fine, but makes for a terrible basis on which to oppose his supposed lack of reverence for the Constitutional order. The Constitution we revere was influenced by him perhaps as much as any foreigner.
In short, with regard to Burke, it appears that you’re taking Kozack over Hayek. Again, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Wouldn’t this be an example of Hayek’s criticism of Conservatism suffering from the pretense of knowledge – that as an Englishman Burke he knew what the superior form of the good life was and sought to impose it on India?
These are examples of Burke’s empiricism in my opinion, but yes in this regard Burke acted as a Liberal. Burke’s desire to devolve power to the colonies had more to do with his practical concerns in preserving the British Empire than it did any principled commitment to self-determination. In this, as in most things, Burke was strikingly non-ideological, for example regarding the colonies he said to the British Parliament:
In addition – Burke is well know to have rejected the Lockean concept of rights being inherent to mans nature.
Here of course Burke is discussing the French Revolution – a liberal revolution gone wrong and something he was absolutely correct about. And this is where, I think, Hayek’s reverence for Burkeanism comes in – not because he believed it to be Liberal in the classical Hayekean sense, but rather because Hayek saw the value of a conservatism that stems the flow of rapid change. Hayek’s criticism of conservatism in this regard is its penchant for stopping all change – even that proven to be good.
I go into a bit more depth on my interpretations of Hayek in my more recent post which I sent to you via PM.
Does this mean that you do no projections of the future effects our level of federal spending and federal government intrusions into the marketplace? You had no clue that the housing market in the first decade of this century was going to crash? Many of our ‘financial wizards’ do nothing more than this George Soros method of encouraging destructive behavior and then taking advantage for financial gain. Who was that guy at Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines? Yes, many of the culprits are right in the government. Oh, there’s Hillary. If we could make it smaller we wouldn’t have to chase after so many crooks.
I’m not promoting candidates or policies here but I would rather deal with a disruptor than a crook.
a: I’m not familiar with Hayek claiming this, and I believe that Hayek would have supported Burke’s belief that Indians were the equals of Englishmen rather than choosing a soft bigotry of local expectations and multiculturalism. But I would be fascinated if you could cite something that disagreed.
Link it here, and I’ll continue there.
The United States could have grown and prospered more in the 19th century. And I don’t think I’d call the Chinese transition from a medieval economy to a second world economy “prospering.” It’s kind of like calling a 40 year old a genius because he finally finished elementary school after 30 years of trying and then went straight for his GED.
It’s all relative. China was entirely protectionist and poor to the point before Nixon and Deng. Then it became somewhat free trading and somewhat wealthy. Obviously, correlation doesn’t demonstrate causation; it’s possible that China would have become even richer if it had not opened its markets as much as it did.
This is an assertion not in evidence, although plainly avoiding the Civil War would have helped the country prosper more. Also, actual events contradict the assertion I was responding to, that protectionist regimes always fall behind free traders.
If you don’t think China has “prospered” over the last few decades I humbly suggest you reconsider. China has gone from a country with a disastrous communist regime that literally starved millions of its own citizens to a country with a space program and nuclear power.
Thank you, @Marion Evans!
Brent—you sound like my mom, who thought I was too upset about the deaths of the Dallas police officers, and it must be because of menopause…
As someone who would definitely come down on the side of “defend the Constitution,” and yet sympathizes with the issues you raise, TKC 1101, I don’t see why the Constitution gets in the way of doing what could and should be done for the working class, white and black.
The problems facing poor whites in Maine are—in brief— a combination of not enough jobs and government assistance that pays people to remain where they are (physically, psychologically and spiritually). Out of wedlock baby-making, drug-taking and, for the energetic and entrepreneurial, criminal activity are concentrated in this group. The problems facing poor blacks in Milwaukee are, essentially, the same.
Trump’s speech outside Milwaukee was one I was waiting for someone (anyone!) to make— a principled pitch for the black vote on the grounds that Democratic policies have done far more harm than good, and Trump deserves credit for either recognizing or happening upon the deep uncertainty and unhappiness of white working-class Americans. But it seems to me that both white and black working class and poor people are subject to the same forces and could be helped by the same remedies—reform/elimination of the (extra-Constitutional) regulatory state, immigration reform that combined border control with aggressive prosecution of those who hire illegals, reforming labor laws so as to reduce the incentive to hire illegals or move production offshore and, of course, reforming welfare so we aren’t essentially warehousing the surplus population in public housing projects.
Oh, that Trump was Trump in all the useful ways—famous enough to be able to skip the getting-to-know-you parts of a campaign, blustery enough to ignore political correctness, rich enough and egotistical enough to shun the donor class—and yet not Trump in all the ways that prevent him from doing the good that he could have done, not to mention rendering him unelectable?
I hope he gets the chance (and has the discipline) to make his points about the failure of progressive policies to improve the lot of black Americans and white Americans during the debates.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my wife many years ago. She insisted she didn’t want any of us (including our children) to wear seat belts in the car in case we might drive off a bridge (á la Ted Kennedy) into a river and not be able to free ourselves before we drowned. It was a hard sell to get her to consider the probability of that compared to that of an ordinary accident in which the seat belts would save us.
I agree with you on the border issue. Everything that can be done within the bounds of the constitution and decency should have been done and, since it wasn’t, should now be done.
But if I’m understanding you correctly you don’t seem to approve of the collection of metadata. That is one tool in the fight against terrorism that probably worked and did not actually interfere with the rights of citizens in any meaningful way. So, I don’t oppose that and I think it weakened us when Snowden leaked it and we overreacted to it.
I have sympathy for your wife—I had nightmares about somehow ending up in the water and trying to get the kids out of their car-seats. In real life, a car-seat indisputably saved my baby’s life during a roll-over accident, so yeah, seat-belts, car seats, helmets, airbags, life jackets…all good. All very good.
However, I did once respond (professionally, that is) to a drowning in which a woman did drive her truck off a bridge (to be precise, the brakes failed). Since her windows were electric rather than roll-down, she couldn’t open the windows and was too weak to open the door.
The lesson I learned was: have a window-breaker in the car. My in-car knife has a little pointy metal bit that one can, I am told, use to smash through the window…
Yes. I’m neurotic.
I have seen tools for sale that are supposed to both break the window and cut the seat belt. I might buy one for my wife for our 40th anniversary.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015A5C70/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Have one in every vehicle. A useful product by Smith & Wesson.
I’d potentially be open to the collection of metadata if the government had bothered to make any sort of attempt to make a political case for it, as part of a defense against terrorism. Such a political case would, I think, have included a description of the necessity for much improved border security and immigration control.
None of that happened. The collection of metadata was a secret, much like the open borders policy of the government.
I think this is a bad sign. The regime couldn’t tell the public what it was up to, for fear the public would object.
Why couldn’t it? What schemes does it have that must be kept hidden? Why should I trust these people, after their negligence resulted in the most disastrous terrorist attack in history?
I don’t.
I understand the mistrust. Especially of the Obama administration.
The reason I don’t worry too much about metadata is that there is so much of it, trillions of calls every year, that the only thing that the government could do with it is look for connections with known terrorist suspects. They only would know who is calling whom, not what they are talking about. And these records exist anyway, in the hands of the telecom companies.
They keep it secret because they want the bad guys to think no one is watching. Remember when Orrin Hatch let it slip that we were listening to terrorist cell phones? They didn’t know, and immediately stopped using cell phones.