Editor’s Note: As a non-narrative book, “The Young Conservative’s Field Guide: Facts, Charts and Figures” by Brenton Stransky and Andrew Foy, M.D., defies the usual short review and asks instead for a more comprehensive discussion. We are pleased to provide you with that discussion in the first of several parts.
[img]871|left|||no_popup[/img]It seems like a good idea. A little book of facts, easily digested for regurgitation on demand – perfect for dealing with those pesky solicitors standing outside grocery stores. The book even comes with useful debating tips. However, given the diverse topics – health care, economics, climate change and the environment – it’s unclear any book of “facts,” conservative, liberal, or other, can provide the final word. These subjects are far too complex to effectively distill. But methodological quibbles aside, the authors of “The Young Conservative’s Field Guide – Facts, Charts and Figures” ultimately fall victim to one of the oldest errors in the history of human cognition: confirmation bias.
Before even getting to the stack of cherries glibly plucked from the ideological tree, Mssrs. Stransky and Foy begin with a definition of conservatism, taken from Merriam-Webster, that unintentionally highlights how conservatism isn’t so much a philosophy but an attitude:
Conservatism. N. Political philosophy calling for lower taxes, limited government regulation of business and investing, a strong national defense, and individual responsibility for personal needs.
To this they add the usual mention of traditional views and values – whatever they are – with the result that there is nothing at all objectionable about conservatism. After all, who doesn’t want to be left alone with one’s own familiar culture while nonetheless well defended with low taxes? Missing is the nuance: What does “strong” defense mean? What about achieving the right amount of taxes that yields good value from the government? What about keeping what works and changing what is broken? In a sense, conservatism seems to work the same voodoo as negative theology and trickle-down economics. It’s defined by what it opposes – social programs, taxes, government regulation of markets, and changes away from tradition – rather than by what it is.
If that isn’t confusing enough, deadlier still is the paradox between a professed love of freedom, which big liberal government apparently restricts, and a deep suspicion of democracy. Writing to an unidentified correspondent in 1833, James Madison wrote: “It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.”
Drawing on that spirit, the authors contrast the risk of mob rule in a democracy with the balance achieved by a republican form of government, in which a constitution provides a framework for elected representatives to govern. Read another way, this is like saying that people are either too stupid or dangerous to rule directly through democracy and must be restricted somehow, if only for their own sake. So much for liberty, then. The question isn’t freedom or lack thereof, but to what extent freedom is to be restricted by forms of government for the sake of social order. Conservatism, too timid for anarchism, opts for minimal approaches that, in the authors’ words, “bar equally the ‘snob rule’ of a governing elite and the ‘mob rule’ of an omnipotent majority.” Only it’s quite clear that the constitutional republic of the U.S. has leaned strongly to the favour of wealthy elites. The roots of this can be seen in the views of Alexander Hamilton, who viewed the “people” with suspicion:
“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government…. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.”
Considering that, until later amended, blacks, women, and the propertyless were not allowed to vote — and $300 kept you from being drafted to fight in the Civil War — it’s hard to see the founding fathers and the early years of the Republic with any kind of wild-eyed, elitism-free romanticism. And today, despite the voting franchise extended to all, the amount of money required to run for office (according to OpenSecrets.org, the 2008 Presidential election raised more than $1 billion) and the influence of corporate donations sets the bar extremely high for access and accountability. For candidates choosing not be funded by corporations, the bar might as well not even exist. Hence, elections as the providence for the wealthy or those funded by wealthy interests.
Debate could go on, of course, and even this small treatment doesn’t do justice to the topic of wealth’s influence on politics. The point for now is that the Constitution, U.S. history, and the various political philosophies that have come into play are far beyond Mssrs. Stransky and Foy’s simplistic treatment.
To be continued…
Mr. Sisa may be contacted at fsisa@thefrontpageonline.com
