The People Everyone Calls “Conservative” Aren’t Conservative

A Short Discourse on Political Labels

   Everyone I read refers to Tea Party adherents as conservatives and contrasts them with liberals on the “left” and with more traditional Republicans (if any remain) who tend to be called “moderates.”  My strong beef is that the likes of Ted Cruz and fellow tea partiers and Rand Paul and friends are labeled “conservatives,” which they are not.  Let me treat this topic in the context of a brief account of the political labels in current use.

   Start with the easiest one, because least controversial.  A liberal is someone who is prepared to use governmental powers to accomplish social goals, such as helping less fortunate members of society and the elderly to attain or retain a decent standard of living.  More broadly, someone with a liberal outlook is prepared to support actions by some agency of the state that aim at the improvement of the future—e.g., by supporting research, education, the environment by means of governmental actions and will also approve of the taxes that make such moves possible.  But while a liberal does not accord a special status to what now is—to the status quo—and is open to change it, that liberal supports changes aimed at solving particular problems, but does not—and this is important—propose to change the very system within which we live: representative government and a capitalist, if regulated, economy. (Full disclosure: I am such a liberal, with a philosophy rooted in moral convictions that can remain unexplained here.)

   While liberalism as an ideology was essentially born in the Enlightenment—though with roots going back to ancient Greece—conservatism, as a political philosophy, has above all an 18^th-century father in Edmund Burke and a 20^th century descendant in Russell Kirk.  By oversimplifying somewhat, I will try to express their position by means of two principles.  The first has to do with what is:  History, in its unfathomable complexity, generates institutions, customs, habits, beliefs, and relationships, intertwined in innumerable ways that are not by any means always discernible.  What the processes of history have brought about deserves our greatest respect:  think “tradition, tradition” as celebrated in Fiddler on the Roof.

   The second principle pertains to what we can do.  Conservatism asserts not only that humans beings are quite limited in their ability to understand that complex historical tapestry, but their rationality and knowledge are sharply limited in attempts to bring about desired goals.  Erstens kommt es anders und zweitens als man denkt. The envisaged goals are in fact not brought about, while there may well be unpredicted and undesired effects of those human actions.  The odds are that broad plans will go awry; limit your ambitious to modest and incremental changes.

   If this brief account catches the essence of conservatism, they in Congress who are called that are anything but.  Shut down government, attempt to defund a law created by normal legislative procedures, undermine programs in place since the era of FDR and more—these are not the actions or proposals of conservatives.  They are the ideas of radicals (in that they go to the root); they aim at major changes of the status quo; they are measures of reactionaries, in that they want to return to previous stages of history.  In no way, I repeat, are they conservatives

   Then there are libertarians, as represented by the Paul’s, père et fils, who are also wrongly classified as conservatives.  Their position is to radically reduce governmental action in all spheres from its sway over the economy, as well as in the country’s relation to the rest of the world.  Libertarians are not anarchists, since they hold that the state is needed for defense and to maintain civil order, but they are committed only to what they regard to be minimally necessary governmental action.  Let every individual do what she or he wants and can do when left alone.  Full sway is given to individual enterprise and action, putting Emerson’s self-reliance to shame.  While this  view has 19^th century roots—in Herbert Spencer, for example, and is also wrongly attributed to Adam Smith of the century before—the ideology in its present form goes back primarily to Ayn Rand, an unreadable novelist who sanctified laissez faire in ways that has attracted fervent followers.

   How should we classify these libertarians?  Conservative writer William Buckley tried to include them in his tent, though he was fully aware of fundamental incongruities, while Russell Kirk firmly bans them from the fold.  The verdict is surely obvious.  Not cautious about initiating major change, with the status quo in no way privileged, libertarians, in short, are not conservatives.  Indeed, the magnitude of the changes they support makes them analogous to those who advocate a systemic change to socialism, say, or communism.  Accordingly, the libertarian Messrs Paul are  also radicals, since what they advocate, is in no way merely incremental but a transformation to another system.

   With the term “radical” I conclude my short and very American exercise concerning political labels—namely by adcovating calling a spade a spade.