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ESSAY: To be truly conservative
By Matthew L. Curtis
YORK -- One year ago, with the election of Barack Obama and significant Democrat majorities in Congress, many proclaimed the death of conservatism. Newsweek shouted, “We are All Socialists Now.” Yet, a conservative Republican has since been elected Virginia’s governor, and a moderate Republican won the governor’s seat in reliably Democratic New Jersey.
With Congress close to dramatically reshaping our health care system, a Massachusetts Republican who vows to be the deciding vote against the health care bill is seriously challenging the seat held by Teddy Kennedy for nearly 50 years. Reports of conservatism’s death were indeed exaggerated.
Not everyone agrees on what conservatism means. For some, it is largely defined by social issues of abortion, traditional marriage, or the Second Amendment. For others, it is more defined by issues of foreign policy, or by capitalism and limited government. Conservatism has perhaps its greatest opportunity at this moment in our nation’s history. We can lead our country toward a fuller realization of the ideas that ignited the American Revolution and led to our Constitution.
It is important to consider how conservatism has rebounded. One reason is the incorrect characterization of the Bush administration as “conservative.” President Bush promoted a number of liberal policies, such as the Medicare drug expansion and No Child Left Behind. After the profligate spending of the Bush administration, candidate Obama promised a return to fiscal discipline, a conservative value. Consequently, the election of Obama was more a repudiation of Bush than of conservative principles. Yet Obama quickly demonstrated he was no fiscal conservative. The attempted government takeover of health care, stimulus spending that has created (or saved) nothing but more red ink, and the crass outright vote-buying by the Democratic majority have breathed life into conservatism.
What are the founding principles we must conserve? Foremost is that there is a natural law that divides right action from wrong. From this natural law are derived our individual rights: life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. The next principle is the understanding that individuals will typically pursue their own interests. From this understanding of man’s nature arose the principle that government is necessary to secure individual rights from those who would seek to deny those rights to others through theft, murder, or enslavement.
Our Founding Fathers established a limited government, with only a few express powers and a system of checks and balances. They placed limitations on our government to constrain the excesses of a minority of citizens as well as those of a majority. They recognized that the tyranny of the many was no better than the tyranny of a few.
Many of these same principles serve as justification for capitalism – the free market. Individuals will seek good products and reward those who provide them by buying, while punishing those who don’t by not buying. The conservative role of government in the free market is to protect the rights of the buyers and sellers by enforcing contracts and punishing fraud.
The free market sometimes fails, but, then, so does government. And that brings us to another conservative principle: Men are fallible and will make mistakes. Therefore, no system designed by man and overseen by man is perfect. The fact that one system will occasionally fail or that it has inherent weaknesses does not necessarily mean that another system is better.
Modern liberals believe government regulators can prevent market failures and eliminate inherent weaknesses. They believe that ensuring a more equal distribution of wealth is possible without destroying wealth; that individuals will work just as hard even as they see more of the fruits of their labor go to those who don’t work as hard. They believe they are moral and compassionate when, through government, they pick one man’s pocket to give to another.
Modern liberals arrogantly think all of the past failures of their ideas were due to the imperfect implementation of them by lesser men. Perhaps worst of all, they believe there really are angels who are more capable of putting aside self-interest and nobly acting only for the greater good, men who are somehow less imperfect than the rest of us. But there are no such angels among us.
Therefore, our founding principles should be conserved because they have been demonstrated to most accurately reflect the nature of man, to better promote man’s goodness, and to mitigate his badness. To advance conservatism, we must teach others these principles and demonstrate how they can work to better the situation of all Americans.
We must show that, as John F. Kennedy argued, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” We must hold accountable those self-proclaimed conservatives who ask for our vote but set aside conservative principles once in office. We have to look at one another not as black or white, Hispanic or Asian, Christian or Muslim, rich or poor, young or old, but as fellow citizens of the greatest system of government yet devised, entitled to the fruit of our own labor and the equal protection of the law.
Matthew L. Curtis is a local attorney and graduate of the William & Mary School of Law.
With Congress close to dramatically reshaping our health care system, a Massachusetts Republican who vows to be the deciding vote against the health care bill is seriously challenging the seat held by Teddy Kennedy for nearly 50 years. Reports of conservatism’s death were indeed exaggerated.
Not everyone agrees on what conservatism means. For some, it is largely defined by social issues of abortion, traditional marriage, or the Second Amendment. For others, it is more defined by issues of foreign policy, or by capitalism and limited government. Conservatism has perhaps its greatest opportunity at this moment in our nation’s history. We can lead our country toward a fuller realization of the ideas that ignited the American Revolution and led to our Constitution.
It is important to consider how conservatism has rebounded. One reason is the incorrect characterization of the Bush administration as “conservative.” President Bush promoted a number of liberal policies, such as the Medicare drug expansion and No Child Left Behind. After the profligate spending of the Bush administration, candidate Obama promised a return to fiscal discipline, a conservative value. Consequently, the election of Obama was more a repudiation of Bush than of conservative principles. Yet Obama quickly demonstrated he was no fiscal conservative. The attempted government takeover of health care, stimulus spending that has created (or saved) nothing but more red ink, and the crass outright vote-buying by the Democratic majority have breathed life into conservatism.
What are the founding principles we must conserve? Foremost is that there is a natural law that divides right action from wrong. From this natural law are derived our individual rights: life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. The next principle is the understanding that individuals will typically pursue their own interests. From this understanding of man’s nature arose the principle that government is necessary to secure individual rights from those who would seek to deny those rights to others through theft, murder, or enslavement.
Our Founding Fathers established a limited government, with only a few express powers and a system of checks and balances. They placed limitations on our government to constrain the excesses of a minority of citizens as well as those of a majority. They recognized that the tyranny of the many was no better than the tyranny of a few.
Many of these same principles serve as justification for capitalism – the free market. Individuals will seek good products and reward those who provide them by buying, while punishing those who don’t by not buying. The conservative role of government in the free market is to protect the rights of the buyers and sellers by enforcing contracts and punishing fraud.
The free market sometimes fails, but, then, so does government. And that brings us to another conservative principle: Men are fallible and will make mistakes. Therefore, no system designed by man and overseen by man is perfect. The fact that one system will occasionally fail or that it has inherent weaknesses does not necessarily mean that another system is better.
Modern liberals believe government regulators can prevent market failures and eliminate inherent weaknesses. They believe that ensuring a more equal distribution of wealth is possible without destroying wealth; that individuals will work just as hard even as they see more of the fruits of their labor go to those who don’t work as hard. They believe they are moral and compassionate when, through government, they pick one man’s pocket to give to another.
Modern liberals arrogantly think all of the past failures of their ideas were due to the imperfect implementation of them by lesser men. Perhaps worst of all, they believe there really are angels who are more capable of putting aside self-interest and nobly acting only for the greater good, men who are somehow less imperfect than the rest of us. But there are no such angels among us.
Therefore, our founding principles should be conserved because they have been demonstrated to most accurately reflect the nature of man, to better promote man’s goodness, and to mitigate his badness. To advance conservatism, we must teach others these principles and demonstrate how they can work to better the situation of all Americans.
We must show that, as John F. Kennedy argued, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” We must hold accountable those self-proclaimed conservatives who ask for our vote but set aside conservative principles once in office. We have to look at one another not as black or white, Hispanic or Asian, Christian or Muslim, rich or poor, young or old, but as fellow citizens of the greatest system of government yet devised, entitled to the fruit of our own labor and the equal protection of the law.
Matthew L. Curtis is a local attorney and graduate of the William & Mary School of Law.
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LeRoy Paul wrote on Jan 21, 2010 8:15 PM: