The Conservative Brotherhood

In a strange way I have turned to conservatism in much the same way some may find comfort in religion. Not to say conservatism is my religion, but in a similar way it is a mechanism I am using trying to mediate the evils of earth while waiting for the niceties of heaven. I cling to the assurances of the Constitution amidst the Gomorrah of modern America. It may be age or my own personal chickens coming home to roost, but I see the better angels of our cultural nature under severe threat. And my faith is as well.

As they say, “a little education is a dangerous thing”. This I imagine is juxtaposed against a broad and deep education, and if my mental state is an indication, the danger is real. I had the misfortune some years ago to be exposed to Camille Paglia. I now have a love/hate relationship with this woman. I love that there are people as erudite as she, and I hate that I’m not one of them. I read her book “Sexual Personae” and since that time I have had to live with the realization I have cheated, defeated, and impoverished myself by neglecting formal education. My ten chickens are roosting in a hen house that could possibly accommodate hundreds. So my conception of conservatism and of the country itself may be similar to that of a first millennium Catholic trying to understand the natural world; full of fear and superstition and clinging to a simplistic understanding of esoteric doctrine. So, I stipulate to my shortcomings, but being ignorant I ask for education. I would like someone to explain modern America to me in the context of a conservative understanding of the Constitution.

In the past few days I have thrown the word ‘conservative’ about as if the correct spelling of the word is sufficient to connote its meaning. I consider and reconsider the meaning myself, on a regular basis. As with most things mine is a personal definition fitting the contours of my mind and may in places and instances be at odds with the formal playbook. I am aware that for many people conservatism suggests a certain meanness and elitism. Some feel it is a political philosophy that is adopted only after acquiring a certain level of affluence and material comfort. And to be frank conservatism can sound, to the untrained ear, like a dissonant cord played in conjunction with liberalism. I think it is just more complicated music, like jazz, that requires a little more effort to understand and enjoy.

I drank myself to sleep last night and I have awakened to the same insipid world today. In my weekly reformation I am drinking my Sunday morning coffee and watching the news shows. Bad move. It may be just me, still hung over, but I see nothing more than organized mass stupidity. I don’t know how many people out there reading this are of an age or had the experience of taking a test called the SAT’s. I don’t know if the SAT’s still exist or have been replaced by some other acronym but some of the questions asked by the millionaire “journalists” to the millionaire political consultants seemed reminiscent of what I remember of that test I paid to take to see if I qualified to pay for further education. A Hillary guy was asked if the results of the most recent primaries and subsequent events with super delegates indicated anything we the observing and hopefully voting public should consider. The question was essentially SAT-esque, “Moondoggy has a surf board. The surf board has an Obama logo painted and engraved on it. Moondoggy is running to the beach with his surf board. For your admission to Princeton, answer this question, “”Which way are the waves breaking?” The answer was, “Hillary’s way”.

I was watching a movie the other day and a man in the throes of a romantic fantasy hopped into a cab, drove to the airport, ran inside, bought a ticket, got on a plane and flew to the Disneyland that lay between his infatuation and future divorce. The good ole days when getting on a plane were just that easy. Now the cab would have to wind through a maze of cement barriers to drop off just outside of car bomb range of the building, and then you’d wait in line for an hour or so to submit to a search that once required an engagement ring, to finally board a plane that may have enough fuel to get you to your destination. This is the world of terror we live in. In this nation where trillions of dollars are spent on “defense”, wary of attack by land, sea, or aerospace, bristling with weapons, where our defense perimeter begins thousands of miles from our borders, the average American must pass through a metal detector and submit to a full body cavity search just to enter a government building to transact routine business with the lowest level of bureaucracy. I guess what they say is true, freedom isn’t free. Do we owe this state of perpetual fear to the Cold War, the sinister Soviet Union, or the monsters of the KGB? No, modern international terrorism can be directly traced to the late 1960’s and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A man fought in the French and Indian war, his son fought in the Revolutionary War, his son in the War of 1812, his son fought Indians, his son fought in the Mexican-American War, his son in the Civil War, his son fought Indians, possibly with Custer, his son fought in the Spanish-American War, his son in WWI, his son in WWII and maybe Korea also, his son in Vietnam, his son and/or daughter fought in Dessert Storm, and believe it or not those veterans may have a child fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq. The many other “interventions”, some lauded in the Marine Corp anthem, and others almost forgotten by the general public round out a fairly active military portrait of the United States. As you can see, we are a peace loving people. Opinions on which conflicts were necessary or unavoidable can differ, but I think it would be difficult to dispute the evidence this nation is and has been one of the least passive nations in the world, and certainly in the Western Hemisphere. The burden of leadership? God’s commission to spread his political light? Or could it be a lost opportunity to bask in a level of peace and prosperity unmatched by circumstances previously offered to any other nation or people?

I may not always be right, in fact my batting average is roughly comparable to a journeyman second-baseman kept on for defensive purposes, but I make contact with the ball once in a while. In a post to this site on 4/28/08 entitled “Was Cobb Right”, I suggested some’ racial things to come’ from the Clinton camp. If you have the patience to wage through my excess verbiage you will find I predicted a blackmail scenario where the Democratic Party would be presented with the threat of Hillary Clinton walking off with the white Democratic vote if she was denied the nomination. Although she is losing in popular vote and pledged delegates, and those who have mastered arithmetic say she can’t overcome those deficits in the remaining primary contests, she did today submit for the consideration of the Party the proposition that “white people support her”.

It appears as if the Democratic Primary process has likely resolved itself and we can move on from the fun that contest provided for political junkies and now move on to arguing about what is or is not conservatism. This recent Stephen King imbroglio is a valid starting point. Supporting the war in Iraq has nothing to do with conservatism. It may mean supporting the policies of the current administration and to some that may be synonymous with supporting “your country”, but is has nothing to do with conservatism as an ideology. To my mind the war in Iraq represents anti-conservatism. I can see how it could be more accurately described as “militarism” or “imperialism” or “opportunistic”, but how it can be adapted to the rubric of conservatism eludes me. Let me pose a few questions I believe a classical conservative might ask. Did Iraq attack us? Did Iraq have any part in 9/11? Did Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction? Did the people of Iraq request our assistance in deposing Mr. Hussein? What requirements of conservative philosophy directed our unilateral and “preemptive” attack upon that nation? Limited government? Fiscal responsibility? A threat to the civil freedoms of Americans? Or even the popular will? No, I believe that many calling themselves conservatives have either forgotten what it means or have never known.

If I have offended anyone with my last two posts, I apologize. While trying to merely acknowledge the incontrovertible and humanly unavoidable elements of racial politics that have surfaced I realize I descended into what even to my ears sounds like whinny-ness. I don’t attribute blatant racism to the majority of Americans, but what we may be seeing is the completely natural cleaving to the familiar; and there is absolutely nothing evil or sinister in a competitor making use of an innate advantage. My attempt was to document rather than castigate, but I am a little dashy at times and sometimes confuse thoughts with mature reason. All the candidates are grown folks and probably have lesser expectations of the political process than us sideline observers because they come into contact with more people and realize that votes are often cast for reasons other than complex calculations and in-depth contemplation of the many issues that beset our nation. If not for superficialities the candidates and the electorate probably wouldn’t be able to find each other. The chasm of opinion among and between those possessing PhD’s is little different than that which exists between the uneducated, like myself, and the guy I argue with at the mini-mart, so conflict can’t be a wholly unexpected part of the progression. All the candidates are in it to win and the courses they chart and the strategies they employ will ultimately be ratified or not by the voters, and this will probably offer the best result we can hope for and will be the optimal reflection of what we want or deserve.