A Musing About Self-Proclaimed Conservatives

It's July 3, 2018. Let's see if we can start the fireworks early.

Although I have been musing about this post for a long time, it took the following tweet from Stace Nelson to prod me to compose it.

Well, at least you didn't resort to "liar" or "racist.."

"Radical?" Though? Are Christian constitutional conservative Republicans that rare these days..

Is it really me bugging you, when I respond to you bugging me? 🐞

— Stace Nelson (@SenStaceNelson) July 2, 2018

Self-proclaimed conservatives like Nelson have done yeoman work destroying the meaning of the word liberal. Few would argue that classic liberalism  produced the Declaration of Independence and informed the men who developed the Constitution. However, a few decades of Rush Limbaugh rants and Fox evening entertainment posing as news and commentary have morphed liberal into a term that connotes devil worshiping, human-sacrificing, lizard people grinches who eat tofu on Thanksgiving and hate puppies.

There is, therefore, a delicious irony in the fact the same people who gleefully destroyed the term liberal have through their demeanor and rhetoric obliterated the meaning of the term conservative. Whereas the term formerly applied to people like William F. Buckley who claimed that a conservative is a person who "stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." In the hands of Buckley and F.A. Hayek, the term connoted prudence and caring for institutions such as those the Constitution set up to preserve checks and balances.

The contemporary self-proclaimed conservatives have exchanged Buckley's intellect and eloquence for Alex Jones's braying and conspiracy mongering. They do not seek to to stop or slow down down history. Instead, they seek to return to the Fifties, whether it's the 1950s or the 1850s is still to be determined.

Unfortunately, these same folk have begun to obliterate the meaning of Christian. American Christianity, like that of the rest of the world, formerly rested on the premise that God loves the world and sent his son to redeem it. Further, American Christians used to proclaim the greatest commandment is to love one's neighbor as oneself and love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are desirable qualities. Now, however, the "conservative christians" seemingly relish the idea that people view them as folk who come not to bring peace but a sword and desire the Apocalypse at its soonest moment, God's patience and  millstones be damned.

We live in a world where a white woman can self-identify as black, so Stace Nelson, Lora Hubbel, the folks at Right Side South Dakota, and their fellow travelers can certainly claim to be conservatives if they wish. 

As I'm getting older, however, I want the history of destroying the meaning of words to stop. A good step would be for most of the self-proclaimed conservatives to admit that they are populists. Like the Trump whisperer Steve Bannon, they "to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” After all,, when "everything is a disaster, then you’ll have riots to go back to where we used to be, when we were great.” In short, they should proudly take up the label populist and leave the term conservative for the half dozen or so remaining folk who have the wit and wisdom to use conservative intellectual history to good effect.

What Does It Mean To Be A Conservative? Part II

From my Twitter feed this afternoon, conservatives apparently want to become liberals. I am not making these up.

I wonder if conservatives won't soon be where liberals were after Dukakis. Liberals rebranded as progressives. What are options on right?

— Keith E. Whittington (@kewhittington) August 5, 2017

Conservatives could "rebrand" as liberals. Seriously. We're for liberal democracy, liberal world order, liberal economy, liberal education. https://t.co/MvSbZCfLEZ

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 5, 2017

Time to start a Liberal Party. https://t.co/6YxDGCNh0j

— Gabe Schoenfeld (@gabeschoenfeld) August 5, 2017

I like it. Just like Australia where the Liberal Party is the center right party. Conservative & Republican labels are besmirched by Trump. https://t.co/McDm93o9z0

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) August 5, 2017

What The Heck Is A Conservative?

Following links off my Twitter feed, I came across this article about a class on the history of American conservatism. The fact that the class discussed Russel Kirk, William F. Buckley, F. A. Hayek, and Milton Friedman. The fact that Ayn Rand is not mentioned in the article is cause for joy. Actually, the young conservatives reactions to conservative history that the article describes are cause for a bit of hope.

This paragraph, however, illustrated that the word conservative has become so elastic that it's meaningless:

We ended our time together by discussing current splits in the right. The differences between foreign-policy neoconservatives and paleoconservatives became acute after victory in the Cold War. In 2017 the spectrum of conservative thought in America runs from libertarians to neos to paleos to traditionalists to nation-state populists all the way to the alt-right fringe. You have Senator Jeff Flake and his Conscience of a Conservative on one hand, and Steve Bannon and Breitbart.com on the other. The various claimants to the conservative throne each have problems.[emphasis mine]

The only way this list could be more inclusive is if it contained "Appalachian snake handling glossolalians who are also members of Opus Dei."

More importantly, first the connotation of the word "fringe" implies that the author of the piece doesn't consider the "alt-right" conservative. Their populist rhetoric certainly indicates that the only thing that makes them conservative is that they consider the word "liberal" a pejorative. Given the current kerfuffle over National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, the alt-right seems more willing to break conservatives' bones than it does to break bread with them.

Further, the list left off social conservatives. Libertarians who want everything legal as long as no one is defrauded or physically harmed and the social conservatives who want legislation that clearly defines which toilet a person uses do not seem to share the same philosophical spaces.

In some ways, it's poetic justice. Elements of the conservative movement distorted the word liberal until it became an epithet. Now, conservatives can self-identify and the term can apply to those who want to extend the American empire and those who want to erect trade barriers can both be conservatives makes the word vacuous.

Quotation Of The Day: Are Angry Conservatives Really Conservative Edition?

Andrew Sullivan looks for "a conservatism of joy." In his quest, he quotes Aaron Taylor who remembers Michael Oakeshott who asserted that conservatism is “not a creed or a doctrine, but a disposition":

The real foes of conservatism are not socialism and liberalism, but the reactionary and innovating mentalities. Neither the reactionary nor the innovator share the joie de vivre of the conservative mind—its natural inclination to rejoice in and savor what is. They are restless and tormented if things are not in a state of perpetual flux, if “progress” is not being made either backward toward an imagined age of innocence, or forward toward an imagined age of future liberation. If nothing is changing, then nothing is happening. Reactionaries and innovators eschew what Oakeshott calls the conservative mind’s “cool and critical” attitude toward change, advocating instead a radical overhaul of society and its refashioning in the image of a golden age which is either imagined to have existed in the past or lusted after as a possible future.[italics in original]

"[C]ool and critical" over angry and unthinking? What would Bob Ellis, the angriest man in the South Dakota blogosphere say?

A Way For Conservatives To Build On The Hobby Lobby Decision

Andrew Sullivan has spent quite a bit of time telling folks to chill on the Hobby Lobby decision. This post succinctly sums up his view: "[w]hen I see the panic and near-hysteria among some liberals in response to the Hobby Lobby ruling, I have to wonder what America they think they’re living in."

Yesterday, he asked a rather pointed question of conservatives:

It might be worth asking various figures on the evangelical right if they are outraged by the decision today by the European Court of Human Rights to uphold the French ban on the public wearing of the full-face veil:

It's a question worth asking. One also wonders what conservatives will do with China's ban on fasting during Ramadan:

Students and civil servants in China's Muslim northwest, where Beijing is enforcing a security crackdown following deadly unrest, have been ordered to avoid taking part in traditional fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Statements posted Wednesday on websites of schools, government agencies and local party organizations in the Xinjiang region said the ban was aimed at protecting students' wellbeing and preventing use of schools and government offices to promote religion. Statements on the websites of local party organizations said members of the officially atheist ruling party also should avoid fasting.

"No teacher can participate in religious activities, instill religious thoughts in students or coerce students into religious activities," said a statement on the website of the No. 3 Grade School in Ruoqiang County in Xinjiang.

Similar bans have been imposed in the past on fasting for Ramadan, which began at sundown Saturday. But this year is unusually sensitive because Xinjiang is under tight security following attacks that the government blames on Muslim extremists with foreign terrorist ties.

Nearly every conservative claims to love religious liberty. Conservatives look askance at Europe and share an particular antipathy toward the French. They also view China as a threat. (Do I really need links for those statements?)

Given this confluence, I eagerly await Mike Rounds, John Thune, Kristi Noem, Gordon Howie and conservative leaders across the state issuing condemnations of the the European court's veil decision and China's ban on fasting during Ramadan. It seems like the most consistent position they can take, so why do I believe I'll be waiting for a long time.

Quotation Of The Day: Conservative Advice Tea Partiers Will Likely Ignore

I may disagree with John Podhoretz, but no one should question his intellect. I fear conservatives will ignore his advice and analogy:

Meanwhile, Boehner is basically the face of the US Congress in the eyes of the public. John Boehner is also the effective head of the Republican Party. And the US Congress is viewed favorably by . . . 11 percent of Americans. 

Eleven percent.

When I interact with these conservatives, they say they don’t care about the GOP; what they care about are conservative ideas.

They’re right not to assign special glory or power to a political organization and to hold ideas above party. But here’s the condundrum: There is only one electoral vehicle for conservative ideas in the United States — the Republican Party.

It’s one thing to refuse to waste your time buffing and polishing the vehicle so that it looks nice and pretty; that’s what political hacks do, and ideologues have every right to disdain such frippery.

But if, in the guise of making the vehicle function better, you muck up the engine, smash the windshield, put the wrong tires on it and pour antifreeze in the gas tank, you are impeding its forward movement. You’re ruining it, not repairing it.

It may not have been a very good vehicle in the first place, and you may think it couldn’t drive worse, but oh man, could it ever. And it’s the only one you’ve got.

What's Conservative About Shutting Down The Government Or Defaulting To Repeal Obamacare?

Conservatives claim they respect the Constitution as framed by America's founders. Further, I can remember former President George W. Bush repeating "I trust the American people" as if the sentence were an incantation against all evil.

On ABC's This Week Matt Dowd, former George W. Bush political strategist, points out that contemporary politicians seem to have trust issues:

Well first I want to say after watching your interview with the Foreign Minister of Iran. It's somewhat amazing and ironic that more reasonable and enlightenment is coming out of the Middle East than is coming out of Washington D.C. these days. With everything that's happened with Syria and the chemical weapons and all that, it's like we're now in a situation where we have to look at ourselves and say, why isn't our own act in order?

One of the biggest problems that's going on I think in this country today, this government shutdown, which everybody knows is a bad idea and ultimately will be bad for the Republicans and they only hope it's only temporarily bad.

That is that way is, there's a large part of both parties that refuses to accept what actually is going on. So they don't, if they don't like the result of an election, they contest the election. If they don't like the result of a legislative something passing the Senate, passing the House, signed by the president, which is the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, we actually have a situation, we should accept it.

I have some disagreements with it. I think there's great parts of it. I think there's great parts of it. I think there's some parts of it that could be problematic. But it is the law and we should accept it. But part of the problem is in our politics today is that we refuse to accept our institutions, our legislation and our elections

If Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare, a law that has been upheld by the Supreme Court,  there's a simple constitutional way to do it. Win the White House in 2016.

Republicans have gerrymandered themselves a House Majority until 2022. Even if Democrats retain a Senate majority in 2016, that number will not be filibuster proof. With a Republican in the White House, any tea party Republican competent enough to get elected to either the U.S. House or Senate will be able chip away at Obamacare until it's gone.

Until then, the tea party House members need to remember that in 2012 the American people elected Barack Obama, returned the Democrats to a majority in the Senate, and gave more votes to House Democrats than House Republicans.

Of course, it's possible that all of the talk about trusting the American people and respecting original intent is just talk.

Hard Core Conservative Confusion Illustrated Once Again

Conor Friedersdorf states a truth that few have enunciated as clearly or succinctly:  "Secret policy and secret law corrode representative government, undermining Americans' ability to govern themselves."

How do conservatives respond to threats posed by the Patriot Act and the national security state? They want to shut down the government unless Obamacare is defunded. Defunding a law that everyone knows about is, of course, the best way to deal with secret policies and secret laws. Damn, it all seems so obvious, I'm shocked that every President since FDR hasn't made that policy central to their administration.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that conservatives who spend most of their time bragging about the strength of their values seem to have a confused sense of priorities?

Michelle Malkin Provides South Dakota Conservatives 'With A Model Of How To Confront The Common Core

I generally find Michelle Malkin shrill. I find her arguments in favor Japanese Internment Camps wrong on moral and intellectual levels. With that predicate, it follows I must say something good about her: she expertly uses the Bennett debacle to take down Common Core.

First, she takes on everyone, including the Core's corporate backers:

These good ol’ boys bonded over their zeal for the top-down racket known as Common Core. As I’ve reported previously, this Fed Ed program is supported by both big-business interests (Microsoft founder Bill Gates and News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch’s education arm) and government educrats. Progressive activists in both parties have worked on nationalized standards, tests, and curricula for decades under previous names: outcome-based education, national school-to-work, Goals 2000, and No Child Left Behind, for example. Obama-administration bribery through “Race to the Top” greased the wheels for adoption of the Common Core program by cash-strapped states, many of which had more rigorous standards than the fed-imposed system.

She reserves some special venom for conservative astroturf organizations:

Bush’s foundation has now joined with the Common Core–peddling Fordham Institute under a new phony-baloney umbrella group: “Conservatives for Higher Standards.” While its list of supporters includes federal bureaucrats, politicians, and business interests, there are no grassroots groups of conservative parents or teachers. So beware of this “conservative” front. And remember: Astroturfing runs in the Bush family. Under George W. Bush, the federal Department of Education paid GOP mouthpiece/columnist Armstrong Williams to shill for No Child Left Behind.

Finally, she uses a personal touch to illustrate the big picture and show how Core and other corporate reforms violate conservative principles:

Cronyism and corruption come in all political stripes and colors. As a conservative parent of children educated at public charter schools, I am especially appalled by these pocket-lining GOP elites who are giving grassroots education reformers a bad name and cashing in on their betrayal of limited-government principles.

I'm not sure what I think of charters, but I agree that much of the Core and Race to the Top reform is about lining pockets. Too often, South Dakota conservatives attack Common Core by leading with an alleged U.N. conspiracy. Malkin shows that the there's no need to look for shadowy conspiracies when the corporate and political folk are engaged in obvious cronyism and cheating.

HT: Diane Ravitch

It Seems South Dakota Republicans Are Just Like National Republicans

From this Pew Poll report:

Yet while Republicans may agree on the scope of the problem, there is little consensus over the party’s future course on either policy or strategy.

Move in a more conservative or moderate direction on policy? By 54% to 40%, Republican and Republican-leaning voters want the party’s leaders to move further to the right. Not surprisingly, conservatives and those who agree with the Tea Party overwhelmingly favor moving in a more conservative direction, while moderates and liberals would like to see the party take more centrist positions. Yet the more moderate wing of the party is a minority generally, and makes up an even smaller share of the likely primary electorate.

Has the GOP compromised too much, or not enough? Republican voters are divided: 35% say the party has compromised too much with Democrats, 27% say not enough, while 32% say party leaders have handled this about right. On this tactical question the Tea Party stands apart: about half (53%) think party leaders have already compromised too much with Democrats, compared with just 22% of non-Tea Party Republicans.

These results don't seem to differ markedly from those one would get counting the charges and denials of RINOism in the South Dakota blogosphere.

The fact that conservatives make up a large block of the primary voters does indicate that the next 10 months will feature more conservation questioning Mike Rounds conservative credentials. It will be interesting to see if the charges gain real traction.

When Principles Conflict, Ignoring The First Amendment Should Not Be The Default

Indiana not only makes same-sex marriage illegal; it also penalizes those who perform same-sex marriages:

The law also penalizes a clergyman, judge, mayor, city clerk or town clerk-treasurer who solemnizes a marriage between two people of the same gender. Those who conduct a gay marriage ceremony can be charged with a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

If the Roman Catholic church does not want to perform a same-sex marriage until the end of time, the church should be allowed to go with God and be happy. If the Episcopalians want to create a special same sex marriage ceremony, they too should be allowed to go with God and be happy. The state can regulate the contractual nature of the union to regulate how property is passed on or who can share insurance benefits. State legislatures, like Congress, should make no law regarding the practice of religion nor regulating the free exercise thereof.

Writing at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher sums up the shortsighted nature of this law:

This is a religious liberty issue — and Indiana conservatives are on the wrong side of it. If we conservatives don’t want the state telling our churches we have to marry same-sex couples, then we should stand up for the right of liberal churches to follow their own consciences within the confines of their communions. We may believe these churches are in serious error about same-sex marriage, but our own religious liberty depends on defending their right to be wrong. If we aren’t willing to stand up for them now, they won’t take seriously our future attempts to defend our own autonomy on religious liberty grounds.

I have a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that the South Dakota legislature will see a similar law in the hopper in January, especially since over half of the state's residents oppose same-sex marriage.

It Ain't Never Simple Or Easy

Since the school year ended, I've been paying less attention to grammar. I've also spent a lot of time reading Dakota War College comments. At the risk of oversimplification, most of the comments fall into three categories. First, many commenters allege that they and their allies are true conservatives whereas self-described conservatives who disagree with them about a particular issue are RINOS. Second, the comments assert small government, low taxes, capitalism, and true conservative Republicans are good in and of themselves. Finally, all DWC regulars seem to agree Democrats are treacherous, incompetent, and unlikable.

Because many of the comments frame solutions to complex problems as both easy and simple, the comments frequently remind me of Animal Farm's mantras especially the most famous one "Four legs good; two legs bad." 

That's why this Alan Jacobs post is a must read. Jacobs does not "know nor care" whether he is a "True Conservative." He lays out his key principles: being consistently pro-life, subsidiarity, and valuing the wisdom that humanity has inherited. While those principles may resonate with many self-described conservatives, they lead Jacobs to write,

I am not and never have been a Republican. I feel roughly as alienated from that party as I do from the Democratic Party. I hold a number of political views that strong-minded Republicans typically find appalling: I think racism is one of the greatest problems in American society today; I am not convinced that austerity programs are helpful in addressing our economic condition; I am absolutely convinced that what many Republicans call free-market capitalism is in fact crony capitalism, calculated to favor the extremely wealthy and immensely powerful multinational corporations; I think that for all of the flaws of Obamacare, it was at least an attempt to solve a drastically unjust and often morally corrupt network of medical care in this country; I dislike military adventurism, and believe that our various attempts at nation-building over the past decade were miscalculated from the outset.

That quotation sums up a lot of what I believe as well. 

A Minor Musing About Parliamentary Practices And The 17th Amendment

A few days ago, Dr. Blanchard speculated that netting seats may be "the only thing we care about anymore." Coincidentally, Kevin Drum provides a major reason for that political callousness:

For all practical purposes, we live in a pseudo-parliamentary system of governance, and the only thing that matters in Congress is what party you belong to.

I've long thought Congress began morphing into a de facto parliament with Gingrich's Contract with/on/for America. Northeastern liberal Republicans and Southern conservative Democrats were endangered species before then but now they are extinct.

Conservatives nationally and in South Dakota now want to repeal the 17th Amendment. They claim that repeal will increase the influence of states. These same conservatives seem content with conservative Republicans voting en masse to stop every Obama initiative simply because it's an Obama initiative.

Repealing the 17th Amendment will do little to reduce the Republican embrace of a pseudo-parliamentary system. In fact, it seems a blatantly obvious move to increase Republican numbers in Congress. Currently, Republicans control the legislatures in 27 states; Democrats control only 17. Those numbers would give Republicans 54 seats. Nebraska's unicameral legislature would probably send two more Republicans. Republicans would then need to get 4 of the 10 Senate appointees from the states with divided legislatures to have a 60 vote majority in the Senate.

Meanwhile, electoral college trends show Democrats should have an easier time keeping the Presidency. Nate Silver provides a helpful graphic.

Parliamentary systems work because the head of state and head of dominant party are the same person. Parliamentary practices won't work with a federal system that seems be destined to have divided government more the foreseeable future.

A Question About The Boston Bombing Case For Small Government Conservatives

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing,is being charged with charged with ""using a weapon of mass destruction that resulted in three deaths and more than 170 injuries." In addition to the three deaths caused by the bombs, Tsarnaev is alleged to have killed a Boston police officer.  Tsarnaev has indicated that he and his brother acted alone. Why, then, is he facing federal charges when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could simply charge him with murder and destruction of property? .

So far some leading Republican or conservative voices have used the bombing to demand that the Tsarnaev be sent to Gitmo.

"You can't hold every person who commits a terrorist attack as an enemy combatant, I agree with that," Mr. Graham said. "But you have a right, with his radical Islamist ties and the fact that Chechens are all over the world fighting with Al Qaeda -- I think you have a reasonable belief to go down that road, and it would be a big mistake not to go down that road. If we didn't hold him for intelligence-gathering purposes, that would be unconscionable."

Mr. Graham said 30 days of confinement and interrogation as an enemy combatant would be an appropriate amount of time to allow the government to look for evidence that would justify his continued detention under the law of war. He also said he believed that federal judges would grant the government that amount of leeway.

Others want to slow the process on immigration reform:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been a vocal supporter of immigration reform but Monday called on Senate leaders to hold off until lawmakers know if system failures played a role in aiding the two foreign-born brothers accused of planting the deadly bombs.

Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building, so the federal government prosecution was justified. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, mailed some of his bombs, so federal involvement was necessary. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber, acted on a plane; once again federal jurisdiction was warranted.

This attack, however, was in a state against citizens of that state. The attack did not use the mail nor did it target a federal property. The state has no history of ignoring crimes against its citizens. The state prosecutes murderers successfully. It, therefore, seems odd that folks who frequently complain that the 10th amendment is being usurped are quiet about the federal government taking over what clearly seems to be a state case.

Baptists, Conservatives, Shrimp & Coffee With A Twist Of Lemon

When I was a young'un sitting in Baptist Sunday School, I learned that not all Baptists were the same. There were North American Baptists, American Baptists, Southern Baptists, General Conference Baptists, and Seventh Day Baptists. We even heard horrifying stories about groups of Baptists that did not frown on dancing.

Bubba from Forrest Gump listed all the ways one can cook shrimp; Wikipedia lists all of the Baptists. The numbers are, in fact, comparable.

Conservatives seem to be branching out in the same way as the Baptists have. There are neocons, paleocons, crunchy cons, social conservatives, and business roundtable conservatives. There may be a slight difference between conservatives and Baptists, however. The Baptists of my youth claimed to be Southern Baptist or North American Baptist. There were part of a list just like like the of shrimp dishes Bubba listed. Conservatives, however, will probably define themselves in the same way that Steve Martin orders coffee in this clip.

The Baptists seemed to agree only on the fact that one must be fully immersed to be baptized. I wonder if conservatives will all be able to agree on the policy detail that constitutes the twist of lemon.

Chart Of The Day: Beyond Fox News And Rush Limbaugh Edition*

Every time I see a chart with with layers and circles, I think of Dante's Inferno. This chart from The American Conservative, however, does not cause me to abandon all hope.

I read Friedersdorf, Sullivan, Frum, and Douthat regularly. While I may not agree with them, I can respect them for their intellect. That's more than I can say for the people at the center of this chart. The further conservatives move away from Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the neocon "let's invade every country in the world" club represented by Bill Kristol, the better off the country will be.

*I am, of course, slightly ashamed that I could not work a Beyond Good and Evil Neitzsche reference into this post. In my defense, it's hard to go beyond Limbaugh's evil.

Quotation Of The Day:Andrew Bacevich May Turn Me Into A Conservative Edition

From this post at The American Conservative:

Well, I’ll admit to prejudices, so let me lay them out.

(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.)

The conservative tradition I have in mind may not satisfy purists. It doesn’t rise to the level of qualifying as anything so grandiose as a coherent philosophy. It’s more of a stew produced by combining sundry ingredients. The result, to use a word that ought warm the cockles of any conservative’s heart, is a sort of an intellectual slumgullion.

Here’s the basic recipe. As that stew’s principal ingredients, start with generous portions of John Quincy Adams and his grandson Henry. Fold in ample amounts of Randolph Bourne, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Christopher Lasch. For seasoning, throw in some Flannery O’Connor and Wendell Berry—don’t skimp. If you’re in a daring mood, add a dash of William Appleman Williams. To finish, sprinkle with Frank Capra—use a light hand: too sweet and the concoction’s ruined. Cook slowly. (Microwave not allowed.) What you get is a dish that is as nutritious as it is tasty

Niebuhr and Lasch challenge and are as relevant today as ever. A student gave me a single volume collection of Henry Adams works. His life in politics was, to put it mildly, fascinating. I admit that I don't recall reading anything by Williams or Bourne. Further, Capra is cloying, but every thinking person should read O'Connor's short stories annually.

A Post Wherein I Try To Explain To Gordon Howie That Reading Skills Matter

Mr. Howie is alarmed that South Dakota is not one the ten most conservative states according to a recent Gallup poll:

This once conservative state simply seems to have disappeared. Even the respected Gallop organization reports that South Dakota is missing!!

In a study of top ten conservative states done by Gallop, South Dakota is simply NOT THERE. Some of our neighbors made the list. Wyoming, North Dakota and Nebraska made the top ten, but for conservatives in South Dakota… some sad news… You didn’t make it to the playoffs!

Conservatives in South Dakota are probably not surprised by this sad news. We have seen the expulsion and dismissal of conservatives escalating for the past few years.

Howie than goes on to castigate South Dakota's leaders for not being conservative enough:

Most South Dakota Republicans are still good, conservative folks. They just don’t seem to be watching while their leaders and elected officials take them farther and farther down the path of more government, more regulation and higher taxes. 

The Gallup poll that Howie refers to did not examine states' regulatory or tax policies; instead, it was based on residents' self identification:

Alabama, North Dakota, and Wyoming were the most conservative states in the union in 2012, with between 49% and 50% of residents in each identifying their ideology as conservative. Residents of the District of Columbia were by far the most likely to identify as liberal (41%), followed by Massachusetts (31%), Oregon, and Vermont (each at 29% liberal).[emphasis mine]

In short, South Dakota did not make the top 10 most conservative states because a smaller percentage of South Dakotans than North Dakotans say they are conservative. When it comes to policies North Dakota has a state owned bank; one can't get much more collectivist than that.

South Dakota didn't rank as one of the most moderate states:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/160196/alabama-north-dakota-wyoming-conservative-states.aspx

Nor did it make the list of liberal states:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/160196/alabama-north-dakota-wyoming-conservative-states.aspx

Had Howie bothered to go to page two of the Gallup report, he would have found that 41.6% of South Dakotans self-identify as conservative; 35.8% self-identify as moderate, and 19.9% self-identify as liberal.

Howie concludes:

While Gallup didn’t just survey Republicans, this alarming decline to the left has happened as moderates have taken control of the Republican Party.

It seems Howie doesn't have a problem with moderates or liberals; he has a problem with the idea of representative democracy. The poll indicates that moderates and liberals outnumber conservatives 58.4% to 41.6%. If South Dakota has become more moderate, a fact that Howie asserts but does not document, shouldn't the policies become more moderate as well?

I think Gallup's numbers for moderates are at least 5% too high, but that's the risk of relying on self-identification. What the poll doesn't show is South Dakota lurching to the left.
Update: Madville has a take here. I don't know who hit publish first. Cory probably did. I'm a lousy typist.

Another Quotation Of The Day: Making Plebs Of Us All Edition

From Phillip Blond, the British thinker popularizing Red Toryism, "Modern conservatives make plebs of us all" in yesterday's Financial Times:

The trouble is that “47-per-centers” and “plebs” do define the modern order and do capture current reality. Much of this results unbeknown to themselves from centre right economics in both the US and the UK. Conservatives in both countries now represent vested over public interest, big business over small, international over national capital. They typify and defend an economic system that serves the minority rather than the majority.

Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic are narrowing opportunity, concentrating wealth and protecting monopoly interests. The centre right has almost ceased to do majority politics. It defines national interest in terms of the already powerful and increasingly abandons the middle and lower classes to their fate. They are persuaded by past fictions that what is in the interest of the winners percolates to those below them. In short, conservatives are unknowingly creating an oligarchy, one which will make us all plebs. By following the interests of a vested minority, conservatives may not win a general election for years. Of course, this is not conservative intention or wish but the rhetoric should not conceal the reality.

Quotation Of The Day: Would Calvin Coolidge Vote For Mitt Romney Edition

Writing at The American Conservative, James Pinkerton looks at conservatives, including Disraeli, Lincoln, and Coolidge, who campaigned to get the votes of the 100% without disparaging the 47%.

When he was sworn in as president of Massachusetts State Senate, Silent Cal spoke like a collectivist:

The commonwealth is one. We are all members of one body. The welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together. Industry cannot flourish if labor languish. Transportation cannot prosper if manufactures decline. The general welfare cannot be provided for in any one act, but it is well to remember that the benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all. The suspension of one man’s dividends is the suspension of another man’s pay envelope.

Sounds like a combination of John Donne and an Occupy Wall Street speech to me.