Thursday, February 11, 2010
On Conservative Principles, the Twelve Points!
In addition to the blog post to which I have linked for the past eight months, the Twelve Points can now also be found at http://the12points.com/p/twelve-points.html. It's a shorter web address than the other.
Another Discussion of the Division of Conservatives
At In The Agora, a post by Josh Claybourn quotes and links to a recent post by Jonah Goldberg (at NRO's "The Corner," of course) concerning whether division in the conservative movement is a strength or a weakness. The many fissures of the conservative movement are a problem that, as you know, I think jeopardize the potential of the conservative movement to actually achieve its goals. As a result, it doubtlessly would not surprise you to learn that I posted a few comments on the post.
I have thought about this issue a little since I posted my initial comments at In The Agora, and my thoughts on this are a little more well-developed, now: I do agree with Goldberg's theory, to some extent. He believes that the division in the conservative movement is a sign of its intellectual health, or possibly a cause of its intellectual health:
For an indication of how I would elaborate on his point and attempt to turn it into an argument for the Twelve Points as a definitive statement of conservative principles, just read this:
If we, as conservatives, were to somehow settle every issue with a set of cold, unyielding, ideological decrees, the result would be that we would, unnaturally, no longer have anything to discuss. As an alternative to that, I certainly am glad that there are people among us who are able to independently consider and then debate the precise meaning of the most fundamental ideas of conservatism, and then how to apply those principles. It is also a credit to our movement that we generally encourage this, and also that so many of us care enough about these ideas that we would doubtlessly continue to think and speak for ourselves, even if others were to attempt to discourage it.
In addition to being a sign of intellectual health, the variety of conservative types making up this movement is a cause of intellectual health. Though we are (or I am, anyway) well-aquainted with the idea of groups of people as being highly prone to join in crazes and panics, it may just be easier to overlook their far less aggravating tendencies. Groups of people can certainly achieve great things by organizing and intentionally acting in concert, but conservatives often have also recognized (and marveled) that large groups of free individuals, acting independently, can collectively behave so intelligently. Adam Smith's "invisible hand," which is popular with conservatives, is an example of this, as is Edmund Burke's observation (as paraphrased by Russell Kirk) that the "individual is foolish, but the species is wise" (meaning that humans are not so clever that we can effectively invent or reinvent society altogether at once, but that little changes, tested through time, can produce and have produced something magnificent). Similarly, when a group of independent individuals think about the same issues and discuss them openly, the resulting variety of opinion can help each person in the group to recognize his own errors and to correct them. For that reason, the fact that the conservative movement is divided into what we might call "specialists" in particular principles is potentially an asset to the movement. It may not be possible for every one of us to master and properly integrate every thread of every principle as we think about the issues, but whenever we fail to give a particular idea or principle its due consideration, the presence of these "specialists" means that the error will be noticed and can (theoretically) be corrected.
I described this as a "potential" asset for a reason, however. We will not have these benefits if each group of specialists isolates itself and refuses to trust or talk with the rest. No explanation is needed to show why that kind of behavior would prevent us from helping each other to find our flaws and work to perfect our understanding of these ideas and the world. "Specialization" may have benefits, but not if the specialists have put too little thought into their shared principles to be able to consider the possibility that the arguments of the other specialties even have merit!
Additionally, in addition to being only a merely "potential" asset, this division is an actual threat. The portion of the conservative community that thinks and cares about principle the most is divided into pieces that have too little in common with each other to work together in any coherent way. Under these circumstances, how is it even possible that the conservative movement could have a coherent, reasonably long-term plan for government reform -- a plan that active conservatives generally understand and support, and that conservative leaders are prepared to develop and implement? How could conservatives possibly coordinate as to the specifics when there is such confusion as to the meaning of our most fundamental principles and to our ultimate goals?
Well, that isn't possible, and that is bad for the movement. We need a plan.
I hate to be trite and end with little more than a sales pitch and a link, but the Twelve Points can help us to solve this problem. They will resolve the confusion, demonstrate and (ideally) reinforce our common principles, and produce a conservative movement composed of more conservatives with a greater familiarity with the conservative philosophy than ever before.
This outcome is not impossible, is it? If not, then what else other than effective communication can possibly forge this conservative consensus and spread this information throughout the conservative movement?
It's a rhetorical question, and the answer is obvious. Let's use the Twelve Points to deliver these ideas to every person who is prepared to receive them.
I have thought about this issue a little since I posted my initial comments at In The Agora, and my thoughts on this are a little more well-developed, now: I do agree with Goldberg's theory, to some extent. He believes that the division in the conservative movement is a sign of its intellectual health, or possibly a cause of its intellectual health:
"For more than a half century now, modern conservatives have been debating and redebating the question of where to the draw the lines between freedom and order, liberty and virtue. And because that line continually needs to be redrawn given the evolution of attitudes, changes in technology, etc, conservative intellectuals (though not necessarily conservative activists, politicians and the like) are constantly revisiting first principles and philosophical assumptions or are at least capable of acknowledging the good faith of their philosophical opponents)."For the best, most complete and accurate statement of his point, just read his post.
For an indication of how I would elaborate on his point and attempt to turn it into an argument for the Twelve Points as a definitive statement of conservative principles, just read this:
If we, as conservatives, were to somehow settle every issue with a set of cold, unyielding, ideological decrees, the result would be that we would, unnaturally, no longer have anything to discuss. As an alternative to that, I certainly am glad that there are people among us who are able to independently consider and then debate the precise meaning of the most fundamental ideas of conservatism, and then how to apply those principles. It is also a credit to our movement that we generally encourage this, and also that so many of us care enough about these ideas that we would doubtlessly continue to think and speak for ourselves, even if others were to attempt to discourage it.
In addition to being a sign of intellectual health, the variety of conservative types making up this movement is a cause of intellectual health. Though we are (or I am, anyway) well-aquainted with the idea of groups of people as being highly prone to join in crazes and panics, it may just be easier to overlook their far less aggravating tendencies. Groups of people can certainly achieve great things by organizing and intentionally acting in concert, but conservatives often have also recognized (and marveled) that large groups of free individuals, acting independently, can collectively behave so intelligently. Adam Smith's "invisible hand," which is popular with conservatives, is an example of this, as is Edmund Burke's observation (as paraphrased by Russell Kirk) that the "individual is foolish, but the species is wise" (meaning that humans are not so clever that we can effectively invent or reinvent society altogether at once, but that little changes, tested through time, can produce and have produced something magnificent). Similarly, when a group of independent individuals think about the same issues and discuss them openly, the resulting variety of opinion can help each person in the group to recognize his own errors and to correct them. For that reason, the fact that the conservative movement is divided into what we might call "specialists" in particular principles is potentially an asset to the movement. It may not be possible for every one of us to master and properly integrate every thread of every principle as we think about the issues, but whenever we fail to give a particular idea or principle its due consideration, the presence of these "specialists" means that the error will be noticed and can (theoretically) be corrected.
I described this as a "potential" asset for a reason, however. We will not have these benefits if each group of specialists isolates itself and refuses to trust or talk with the rest. No explanation is needed to show why that kind of behavior would prevent us from helping each other to find our flaws and work to perfect our understanding of these ideas and the world. "Specialization" may have benefits, but not if the specialists have put too little thought into their shared principles to be able to consider the possibility that the arguments of the other specialties even have merit!
Additionally, in addition to being only a merely "potential" asset, this division is an actual threat. The portion of the conservative community that thinks and cares about principle the most is divided into pieces that have too little in common with each other to work together in any coherent way. Under these circumstances, how is it even possible that the conservative movement could have a coherent, reasonably long-term plan for government reform -- a plan that active conservatives generally understand and support, and that conservative leaders are prepared to develop and implement? How could conservatives possibly coordinate as to the specifics when there is such confusion as to the meaning of our most fundamental principles and to our ultimate goals?
Well, that isn't possible, and that is bad for the movement. We need a plan.
I hate to be trite and end with little more than a sales pitch and a link, but the Twelve Points can help us to solve this problem. They will resolve the confusion, demonstrate and (ideally) reinforce our common principles, and produce a conservative movement composed of more conservatives with a greater familiarity with the conservative philosophy than ever before.
This outcome is not impossible, is it? If not, then what else other than effective communication can possibly forge this conservative consensus and spread this information throughout the conservative movement?
It's a rhetorical question, and the answer is obvious. Let's use the Twelve Points to deliver these ideas to every person who is prepared to receive them.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Moving Up -- the Twelve Points as The Defining Statement of Conservative Principles?
As of Saturday evening, a Google search for the words "Twelve" and "Points," without quotation marks, returned our Twelve Points as the ninth result. Two weeks ago, the Twelve Points were 199th in the same search.
We still have some work to do, but the Twelve Points are well on their way to becoming a defining statement of conservative principles.
We still have some work to do, but the Twelve Points are well on their way to becoming a defining statement of conservative principles.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Small Government Conservatives and Conservative Principles Survived
On Saturday, while looking for an In The Agora post that I thought I remembered from 2005, I came across this, which calls attention to the conservatives who disagreed with President Bush during his presidency.
This is important as another example of how confusion has produced division (or part of such an example, anyway). Libertarians are disgusted with conservatives who abandoned the freedom-defending, constitutionalist, "small government" positions that they had claimed to support. Unfortunately, it is true that a lot of conservatives did abandon those positions. They have found it easy to oppose spending and budget deficits during the presidency of a liberal, but many of the same "conservative" politicians failed to take that position during the Bush administration, and they leave us with no reason to trust that they would take that position if returned to power.
Usually, at this point, I would explain how popularizing the Twelve Points could help to solve this problem. In this situation, however, ensuring that as many self-described conservatives as possible actually understand conservatism (and giving all conservatives evidence that their fellow conservatives actually do believe in all of this) is only a beginning. Nevertheless, I cannot think of a solution to this problem that does not involve conservatism becoming better-known throughout the conservative community, and I do believe that the Twelve Points can make this happen.
Concerning small-government conservatives, though it may have been hard to find us over the past decade (we certainly haven't been running the government and engineering legislation), the conservatives who have not abandoned all of those positions still exist. This includes not only those who do genuinely want less government spending, less debt, lower taxes, and freedom from the restrictions and requirements of unjustifiable laws, but also those who do care about the rights protected by the Bill of Rights, even when respecting those rights would somewhat limit our options in pursuing as legitimate and compelling of an objective as national defense.
True conservatism is small-government conservatism, and we haven't given up on our fellow conservatives or our country -- nor will we ever.
This is important as another example of how confusion has produced division (or part of such an example, anyway). Libertarians are disgusted with conservatives who abandoned the freedom-defending, constitutionalist, "small government" positions that they had claimed to support. Unfortunately, it is true that a lot of conservatives did abandon those positions. They have found it easy to oppose spending and budget deficits during the presidency of a liberal, but many of the same "conservative" politicians failed to take that position during the Bush administration, and they leave us with no reason to trust that they would take that position if returned to power.
Usually, at this point, I would explain how popularizing the Twelve Points could help to solve this problem. In this situation, however, ensuring that as many self-described conservatives as possible actually understand conservatism (and giving all conservatives evidence that their fellow conservatives actually do believe in all of this) is only a beginning. Nevertheless, I cannot think of a solution to this problem that does not involve conservatism becoming better-known throughout the conservative community, and I do believe that the Twelve Points can make this happen.
Concerning small-government conservatives, though it may have been hard to find us over the past decade (we certainly haven't been running the government and engineering legislation), the conservatives who have not abandoned all of those positions still exist. This includes not only those who do genuinely want less government spending, less debt, lower taxes, and freedom from the restrictions and requirements of unjustifiable laws, but also those who do care about the rights protected by the Bill of Rights, even when respecting those rights would somewhat limit our options in pursuing as legitimate and compelling of an objective as national defense.
True conservatism is small-government conservatism, and we haven't given up on our fellow conservatives or our country -- nor will we ever.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Misunderstandings Concerning the Conservative Position on the Judicial Branch
This issue has turned up repeatedly, so it is worth addressing: the question of what the conservative view on constitutional interpretation actually is.
In an article published at Reason.com a few days ago, Damon W. Root criticizes "judicial restraint," suggesting that the conservative position is that judges and justices should be reluctant to intervene in the cases that come before them, allowing the executive and legislative branches great latitude in deciding how to act without being bound by the Constitution. This is not the first time that the conservative opposition to "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" has been interpreted this way. As Root points out, many liberal critics criticize the application of constitutional restrictions that they do not like as judicial "activism." (Root agrees with their characterization of such decisions as judicial activism, but not with their conclusion that such "activism" is a bad thing.) Additionally, Root himself has criticized this understanding of "judicial restraint" before.
I want to address this issue here because this is an example of how ambiguity in the substance of conservatism can fracture the movement. The relationship between conservatism and libertarianism is well-known, but confusion and misunderstandings have deepened the divide between self-described conservatives and libertarians. To libertarians who think that conservatives have adopted a general rule that judges should avoid limiting the discretion of the other branches or the states, conservatism must seem alien and irrational.
The conservative, however, does not oppose "activist" judges for acting; he criticizes them for disregarding the Constitution in deciding whether and how to act. As a result, while a conservative should oppose courts in imposing contrived rules of law, as the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade (though it had already more or less invented that "right" on a previous occasion), a conservative should not applaud courts in ignoring constitutional violations committed by a state or by the other two federal branches, as it did in Wickard v. Filburn.
Additionally, the conservative position that certain issues should be left in the control of the more democratic branches is not based on the mistaken view that voters are generally more wise and just than judges. Rather, it is based on two important observations: 1) when there is no constitutional provision or valid Act of Congress to apply, it is unconstitutional for a court to apply a novel, extraconstitutional standard, and doing so also exceeds the legitimate authority of the court; and 2) When the courts do create and impose novel, independent rules of law (whether or not they bother to include an implausible, token explanation of how the rule actually is based on the Constitution), we can only correct them by amending the Constitution or organizing a sustained political effort over the course of a generation or more to alter the composition of the Supreme Court. Either of these would be too difficult to accomplish to be a meaningful defense against the courts' arbitrary exercise of power. Such a check on the power of the judicial branch is needed for the same reason that it is needed on the power of the executive and legislative branches, especially once it has effectively assumed the power to legislate!
There are doubtlessly self-described conservatives who do not quite understand the conservative position or who misapply it. In this way, too, confusion over the substance of conservatism is dividing natural allies and scrambling the conservative movement's sense of direction. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to make conservatism better known and more clearly understood.
Conservatives are not always clear in our communication of these views, and some of us are not even clear in our understanding of them. In writing the Twelve Points, I made a point of stating them clearly, hoping to help all conservatives to understand and communicate them better. As a result, unsurprisingly, this issue points back to a familiar conclusion: If you think that something needs to be done about this, spread the word about the Twelve Points!
In an article published at Reason.com a few days ago, Damon W. Root criticizes "judicial restraint," suggesting that the conservative position is that judges and justices should be reluctant to intervene in the cases that come before them, allowing the executive and legislative branches great latitude in deciding how to act without being bound by the Constitution. This is not the first time that the conservative opposition to "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" has been interpreted this way. As Root points out, many liberal critics criticize the application of constitutional restrictions that they do not like as judicial "activism." (Root agrees with their characterization of such decisions as judicial activism, but not with their conclusion that such "activism" is a bad thing.) Additionally, Root himself has criticized this understanding of "judicial restraint" before.
I want to address this issue here because this is an example of how ambiguity in the substance of conservatism can fracture the movement. The relationship between conservatism and libertarianism is well-known, but confusion and misunderstandings have deepened the divide between self-described conservatives and libertarians. To libertarians who think that conservatives have adopted a general rule that judges should avoid limiting the discretion of the other branches or the states, conservatism must seem alien and irrational.
The conservative, however, does not oppose "activist" judges for acting; he criticizes them for disregarding the Constitution in deciding whether and how to act. As a result, while a conservative should oppose courts in imposing contrived rules of law, as the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade (though it had already more or less invented that "right" on a previous occasion), a conservative should not applaud courts in ignoring constitutional violations committed by a state or by the other two federal branches, as it did in Wickard v. Filburn.
Additionally, the conservative position that certain issues should be left in the control of the more democratic branches is not based on the mistaken view that voters are generally more wise and just than judges. Rather, it is based on two important observations: 1) when there is no constitutional provision or valid Act of Congress to apply, it is unconstitutional for a court to apply a novel, extraconstitutional standard, and doing so also exceeds the legitimate authority of the court; and 2) When the courts do create and impose novel, independent rules of law (whether or not they bother to include an implausible, token explanation of how the rule actually is based on the Constitution), we can only correct them by amending the Constitution or organizing a sustained political effort over the course of a generation or more to alter the composition of the Supreme Court. Either of these would be too difficult to accomplish to be a meaningful defense against the courts' arbitrary exercise of power. Such a check on the power of the judicial branch is needed for the same reason that it is needed on the power of the executive and legislative branches, especially once it has effectively assumed the power to legislate!
There are doubtlessly self-described conservatives who do not quite understand the conservative position or who misapply it. In this way, too, confusion over the substance of conservatism is dividing natural allies and scrambling the conservative movement's sense of direction. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to make conservatism better known and more clearly understood.
Conservatives are not always clear in our communication of these views, and some of us are not even clear in our understanding of them. In writing the Twelve Points, I made a point of stating them clearly, hoping to help all conservatives to understand and communicate them better. As a result, unsurprisingly, this issue points back to a familiar conclusion: If you think that something needs to be done about this, spread the word about the Twelve Points!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
More than a beginning
The Twelve Points will not teach a conservative everything that he needs to know. For the sake of brevity, I had to remove a lot of sub-points that I do believe that a good conservative ought to understand, and there is no complete substitute for a long-term study of these ideas. (Ideally, this study would be centered around the reading of books that were written for a purpose other than to excite and anger the reader. It is in disregarding and discarding facts, logic, and proven wisdom for unsound reasons that liberals have mutated their philosophy into the grotesque spectacle that it is. A conservative cannot be a strong conservative unless he is learned.) In their current form, however, the Twelve Points contain conservative principles, observations, objectives, and other ideas in the most concentrated form I can imagine. They'll jumpstart the philosophical educations of many conservatives while filling in the gaps in others' knowledge and understanding of conservatism. They are not the final cure for all of conservatism's problems, but they are more than a beginning.
Monday, February 1, 2010
A Better Web Address for The Twelve Points
From when I first posted the Twelve Points on this blog, last June (when I had only nearly finished writing them), it has bothered me that I could only direct people to the text of the Twelve Points by sending them a long web address (initially, http://guidebookonconservatism.blogspot.com/2009/06/twelve-points.html, but later http://the12points.com/2009/06/twelve-points.html, which was a bit of an improvement). I have finally found a way to point http://the12points.com/ directly to the text of the Twelve Points without abandoning this blog, so don't be surprised when the change takes place.
Once I make that change, the rest of the pages on this blog site will have a "blog." subdomain added into their web addresses. For example, the main page of this blog is now simply http://www.the12points.com,/ but it now can also be reached at http://blog.the12points.com/.
This will allow us to more easily show the Twelve Points to others by simply directing them to http://www.the12points.com./
Hey, now that I've brought it up, why don't you go ahead and send http://www.the12points.com/ to people who you think would like the Twelve Points? I intend to return to the speaking circuit to promote the Twelve Points, this month, so this would be a great time to generate the momentum that the conservative movement will need the Twelve Points to have.
In other words, as I have often written here before, "If you like the Twelve Points, then Spread the Word!"
Once I make that change, the rest of the pages on this blog site will have a "blog." subdomain added into their web addresses. For example, the main page of this blog is now simply http://www.the12points.com,/ but it now can also be reached at http://blog.the12points.com/.
This will allow us to more easily show the Twelve Points to others by simply directing them to http://www.the12points.com./
Hey, now that I've brought it up, why don't you go ahead and send http://www.the12points.com/ to people who you think would like the Twelve Points? I intend to return to the speaking circuit to promote the Twelve Points, this month, so this would be a great time to generate the momentum that the conservative movement will need the Twelve Points to have.
In other words, as I have often written here before, "If you like the Twelve Points, then Spread the Word!"
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