Friday, February 22, 2013
A new thought on what conservatism might mean
Found on CAEI, an article by Andrew Bacevich which seems fairly reasonable to me. If nothing else you have to admire a writer who prefaces his argument with
I'm not a big fan of labels in politics (or in general), they tend to separate people who agree by introducing tribalism or something, but this seems like a fairly reasonable label. Still, not quite time to update my Facebook page yet.
(Fans of Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman will want to stop reading here and flip to the next article. If Ronald Reagan’s your hero, sorry—you won’t like what’s coming. Ditto regarding Ron Paul. And if in search of wisdom you rely on anyone whose byline appears regularly in any publication owned by Rupert Murdoch, well, you’ve picked up the wrong magazine.)A lot about slow change instead of no change, dealing with reality instead of an echo chamber, scepticism towards coercion, etc. My views may be bleeding in there, but yeah. Some of his proposals are getting people at CAEI a bit angry, e.g.
So forget about dismantling the welfare state. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and, yes, Obamacare are here to stay. Forget about outlawing abortion or prohibiting gay marriage. Conservatives may judge the fruits produced by the sexual revolution poisonous, but the revolution itself is irreversible.But that fits fairly well with dealing with reality, I think.
I'm not a big fan of labels in politics (or in general), they tend to separate people who agree by introducing tribalism or something, but this seems like a fairly reasonable label. Still, not quite time to update my Facebook page yet.
