gracchusdixit

The so-called “debate” between Republican candidates in California some days ago was riddled with rhetoric about the conflict between “liberal” and “conservative” values.  This dichotomy is both false and profoundly misleading, because it obscures what the fight is really about.  The problem we face is not a conflict between liberal and conservative values..  It is the total absence of truly conservative voices from the debate.

True conservatives honor tradition.  They respect and fight to preserve what past generations have accomplished, so that future generations can benefit from those accomplishments.  They are humble in the face of history and suspicious of any person or ideology that tries to remake history in its own image.

True conservatives prefer compromise over confrontation.  They realize that members of a diverse and complicated society forge necessary accommodations with one another over long periods of time.  They believe that such accommodations are both fragile and precious, and deserve to be protected.  Their appetite for radical change is therefore limited and reluctant.

True conservatives are true patriots—not chest-thumping nationalists and demagogues.  They love their country, but they know its limitations.  They realize that love of country does not depend on one set of political opinions, on one religion, on one vision of right and wrong.  True conservatives don’t demonize their fellow citizens for making other  political, spiritual, or even sexual choices.  They recognize that free and democratic societies make room for people; they don’t exclude them.

The Republican Party was once richly endowed with true conservatives and true patriots, men and women like Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Everett Dirksen of Illinois, and Margaret Chase Smith of Maine.  These were people of steadfast principles but also broad and tolerant views.  They were fiscally prudent, to be sure,  and they understood the value of a balancing a budget.  But they also believed that a decent nation has to make some provision for people who are down on their luck, that the privileged and protected owe something to the vulnerable and less fortunate.   These true conservatives were willing to negotiate and find common ground for the greater good   In that spirit, they contributed mightily to the building of our social consensus and would never have participated in its destruction.

One of the greatest conservatives in history, the 18th century British politician, Edmund Burke, once said:  “A true statesman is one who combines the disposition to preserve with the ability to reform.”

This, however, is not the temper of those who today call themselves “conservatives.”  Today’s so-called “conservatives” wish neither to preserve nor to reform.  Instead, they have an unyielding and voracious appetite to destroy.  They want to tear up the past and tear down its legacy.  They clamor to overturn every decent compromise and accommodation our society has made.  They want to reverse or eradicate every shred of the New Deal.  They want to eliminate even the most sensible government regulation.  They want to privatize many of our most precious national resources.

Those who today call themselves “conservative” don’t even know the meaning of the word.  Theirs  is not a “conservative” philosophy.  It is a radical, indeed a revolutionary, program, and it should be labeled as such.

The battle that is ravaging our country today isn’t one between liberal and conservative values.  It is a battle between American values and those who would destroy them.  Until we recognize what this fight is really about, we will never be able to win it.