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November 4, 2004
An article in The Australian by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, senior writers at The Economist, indicates the way US conservatism has changed under the Presidency of George Bush. The article was originally published in The Wall Street Journal.
I will outline the argument, as the article will go offline in a week or so. It offers an insight into the approach of the Bush Presidency in its second term being discussed by John Quiggin and by Jack Strocchi over at Catallaxy. The changes outlined below may also help us to understand the way that Australian conservatism is being transformed under John Howard's government.
Micklethwait and Wooldridge say that Bush's reinvention of "conservatism" can be charted in three areas. First, there has been a shift from small government to big government. They say:
"Since the Goldwater campaign of 1964, conservatism has defined itself as an anti-government creed. Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater proclaimed that he had little interest in reforming government, "for I mean to reduce its size". Republican president Ronald Reagan proclaimed that "government is the problem, not the solution". The Republican class of '94 believed that "government is dumb while markets are smart", as one leading congressman put it, and set about balancing the budget and cutting popular government programs. But Bush has been different: an avowed conservative who is nevertheless willing to embrace big government."
So politics overrides the market. Is this not a confusion? What Micklethwait and Wooldridge are calling small government conservatism is actually classical liberalism--now known as libertarianism. Political conservatism has always been about a big strong state providing security to the realm.
Micklethwait and Wooldridge go onto say that the second way Bush has reinvented conservatism is by turning government into an agent of conservative values. This is more than using market values (choice and accountability) to force public-sector bureaucracies to act more like the private sector. It means using government departments to promote conservative values such as sexual abstinence and responsible fatherhood.
Modern American conservatism has been based around a coalition of anti-government libertarians (many of them based in the west) and social conservatives (many based in the south). Reagan did a virtuoso job of keeping both sides happy, giving the social conservatives just enough to keep them on side, but never so much that he risked alienating the libertarians.
However, in his first term Bush's shifted power dramatically in favour of social conservatives. Micklethwait and Wooldridge say:
"Wherever you look -- embryonic stem-cell research, gay marriage, abortion rights or drug policy -- he is joined with the religious Right. This may make short-term political sense. One-quarter of voters are born-again Christians -- and Bush adviser Karl Rove blames his boss's failure to win a resounding victory in 2000 on the failure of 4 million of these voters to turn up at the polls."
This is the huge fundamentalist Christian revival in America. It is a religious movement that is explicitly political, which has been developing since the 1970s. For the religious Right "moral values" and "moral issues" are shorthand for some narrow, divisive issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage and tough on drugs.
Micklethwait and Wooldridge say that Bush's boldest contribution to reinventing conservatism is in the field of foreign policy.
They chart this as a break with conservative realism:
"It is easy to find parallels between his [Bush's] foreign policy and Reagan's. The latter married American power and American principle (particularly the onward march of freedom). He believed in calling evil by its proper name. And he endured criticism that he was a naive Wilsonian rather than a sensible conservative realist. In some ways Bush's battle against "the axis of evil" is a logical continuation of Reagan's against "the evil empire"'.
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Their argument is that these continuities should not blind conservatives to the radicalism of the US's post-September 11 foreign policy:
"First, remember that Reagan's foreign policy was, at the time, a radical departure from older conservative traditions such as America firstism and Kissingerian realism. Then add the fact the Bush foreign policy has been far more ambitious than Reagan's was. Turning to the neo-conservatives, Bush has applied his doctrine of spreading democracy to an area of the world where the Reaganites feared to tread. Baghdad is not Warsaw; Ayatollah Ali Sistani is not Lech Walesa.
Bush has also taken his ideas much further than Reagan. Within a few months of the declaration of the Bush doctrine -- those who harbour terrorists will be treated as terrorists -- US tanks were rolling into Baghdad."
This implanting democracy in hostile soil of Iraq shades into Wilsonian idealism.
Micklethwait and Wooldridge conclude by noting a paradox: a president governing on behalf of conservative America, and who is the most conservative person to reach the White House, is creating deep divisions on the Right. Big-government conservatism has alienated influential small-government activists. Social conservatism has alienated the party's western wing. Wilsonian liberalism alienates conservative realists in the foreign policy world.
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The Essay (Forward this to all!)
By: Richard Vincent Grear
This universe is filled with atoms, unified into clusters or systems. They make up all things of matter from rocks to humans. All things of matter are either unconscious (a.k.a dead/ non living), semi- conscious (partially conscious), or fully conscious. Intelligence is the ability to be conscious. If one conceives, then one also sees an amount of right and wrong. One always does what one truly conceives is right. When one does not conceive what is right, then one is blind and may do wrong. Right and wrong will always exist as long as life exists. For with life, come feelings of enjoyment and non-enjoyment (I know this because without feelings, one would have no motivation to even twitch a finger). Righteous actions cause enjoyment, while wrongful actions cause non-enjoyment. Subjectivists cannot argue with that.
The condition of being unconscious is having no consciousness of all the worlds components, including right and wrong, at any given point in time (not being aware of anything). Matter is dead if there is no intelligence present to be able to conceive an existing world. The state of unconsciousness affects rocks, murder victims, volcanoes, this piece of paper, etc..
The condition of semi-consciousness is defined as not fully conceiving the world at any point in time. If one is semi-conscious then one sees some right and wrong from what they do conceive, but don’t see some right and wrong from what they don’t conceive. The state of semi-consciousness affects humans and all other known living beings in existence (animals).
The condition of being fully conscious is being conscious of everything in existence at any point in time, past, present, and future (a.k.a all knowing). If one is fully conscious then one only does right for they know all that is right and wrong (unless they cannot physically act to do what is right). Whether or not this pure state of consciousness exists in the universe or can ever exist for that matter is a mystery. If one did exist having full consciousness and could act according to there consciousness, then one would be “GOD”.
The more conscious one is, the more likely one would be to make righteous decisions. The less conscious one is, the more likely one would be to make wrongful decisions. The humans living on Earth, and all other living beings on Earth are not fully conscious. Our system of living confronts us with complexities which, due to our unintelligence we cannot always respond to in righteous ways. When a world in which people live is grander in complexity than the size of the average persons consciousness, then wrongdoing will occur. This is the situation of our world while I write this paper. As a result of the average humans lack of consciousness, wrongdoing is extremely prevalent in every society on earth. Laws, and commandments have been created by the conscious few who truly know the existence of there righteous statements. But these laws are mere statements reflecting the consciousness of those who created them. They are no cure for wrongdoing. In fact, they create more wrong doing because with rules, comes punishment to enforce the rules. Punishment is a form of wronging others. All these rules, courts, enforcing officers, jails, and punishments cannot make a semi-conscious man conscious, thus purely righteous. The only cure for wrongdoing is consciousness. Remember, if one is purely conscious, one will not do wrong. So I say to you my fellow man, your laws, your commandments, they are useless to those who don’t truly conceive the truth, the good in them, which is the majority of living beings on this planet.
The only way for us to be more good, peaceful, happy, and content as a whole is to become more intelligent thus becoming more conscious of right and wrong thus becoming more righteous in our actions. Let it be known that the average human is close to the intelligence level that will allow for peace on earth (at least in the human sector of Earth). Some, such as myself (and I am no god) are already there.
The following are not rules. They are statements that are facts (not mere philosophies) that my semi-conscious mind has conceived.
1. It is right, not to be apathetic. When one is apathetic, one turns there back on the world an its potential for greatness.
2. It is right, to place enjoyment for all, above everything else. Enjoyment has many forms. The most valuable is long-term contentment and happiness. The goal of everyone should be to be content and happy and to have everyone in the present and future be content and happy. Without enjoyment, life is no greater than death.
3. It is right, for the positive affects of your actions to outweigh the negative affects of your actions.
4. It is right, to develop technology for the sole purpose of making life more enjoyable.
5. It is right, to be purely selfless. You are consciousness itself, thus you are everyone (all forms of consciousness). To be selfish is to deny the existence of yourself (consciousness) in other bodies. The benefits of being selfless are endless. One who fears death by itself is selfish, because having pure selflessness one has eternal life (assuming life will continue forever) and surely would not fear death as a result. For as long as there is consciousness, you will exist for you are consciousness itself. Those who disagree with what I just said are selfish. Eating others for food, hunting for sport, crime against others, etc. are all products of selfishness. Smiles and contentment are the products of selflessness.
6. It is right, to always shun the suffering of any form of consciousness. Any form of wrong doing against others is not shunning the suffering but supporting the suffering of any form of consciousness.
7. It is right, to never deny nor accept the existence of anything not yet proven to exist. This statement proves the fact that all current religions in the world should not exist because none of them have been proven true. Those who live by faith are doing wrong.
8. It is right, neither to deny nor accept the non-existence of anything not yet proven not to exist. Anyone who says that God does not exist is doing wrong because it has not been proven that god does not exist.
9. It is right, not to deny the existence of what is proven to exist. Denying the proven fact of evolution is wrong.
10. It is right, to deny the existence of what is proven not to exist.
11. It is right to respect the existence and the condition of the world that supports life. Destruction of natural habitats necessary for a healthy world is wrong at this moment in time. Causing global warming is also wrong at this time.
12. It is right to respect the condition and the existence of life and its enjoyable experiences.
13. It is right to praise consciousness and always shun the lack of consciousness. Consciousness is the cure for wrongdoing and the key to a Utopia.
14. It is right to praise intelligence and shun unintelligence. Intelligence allows for consciousness and consciousness is the cure for wrongdoing.
15. It is right to be fully honest to consciousness (don’t lie). A virtual world like the Matrix would be lying to others. Any form of lying, even white lies are wrong.
The most important thing that humans should be focusing on is the advancement of our intelligence. Intelligence would create consciousness, consciousness would create righteousness, and righteousness would eliminate wrongdoing, rules, courts, enforcing officers, jails, and punishment. It would create a much more happy, healthy, earth.
Richard Vincent Grear Age 17