Conservatism's Basic Flaw

Edmund Burke did well in articulating the essence of conservatism.
    Facing the upheaval of radical changes, spurred by the Age of Reason, the world he lived in was different from what we have today. The changes we face are not radical innovation. They are a response to a world already changed, and the threats we face because of it.
    Conservatism is about preserving tried and true lessons from the past. Vehicles of morality, such as religion and traditions, should not be tampered with lightly. Better not to tamper at all and let change evolve organically, in a way that God has set in motion. It is a philosophy that builds its trust on the past, on fixtures and institutions that seem to work, however imperfectly. Such fixtures and institutions reflect who we are historically, and therefore reflect who we are in fact. As for being imperfect, imperfection is better than destructive chaos.
    Government of, by and for the people presents a threat as well. The whims and fancies of people change. Their growing power and inclinations make them unpredictable and arrogant. Power corrupts even the masses. Equality is a ridiculous idea in a population with such extreme examples of human nature as Gandhi and Hitler. That certain segments of the population are better off than others merely reflects the natural way of things. It is better for government not to be in the business of leveling out the playing field, or redistributing income, because the artificial rise of people who are not industrious and clever and know how to work the system, and who are simply not equal to their betters, sets the meritorious dynamics of life off track. The successful are less inclined to further themselves if their rewards are being siphoned for the poor, and the poor learn nothing except how to take. This is a threat to liberty itself, a social engineering that shapes values not on obvious truth but on a faith in human reason that is not justified by history. The more people tinker with grand social designs, the more trouble arises from it.
    In other words, government should leave people alone. It should lower taxes to a bare minimum to provide for common defense, and thus encourage the industrious to shine, and the less industrious to be inspired by what they see.
    Local government knows its communities and traditions best, and therefore should not be regulated by the federal government, which imposes its will from the outside, the will of a detached and oppressive majority.
    This is the intellectual logic of conservatism as Edmund Burke articulated it in the 18th century. It provided a philosophical foundation for American conservatism, where conservative needed a well-articulated philosophical premise.
    Conservatism was nourished in the U.S. by the resentment of rural, agrarian populations caused by taxes that were supporting industrialized areas of the nation. The argument conveniently ignores how these taxes went into building the railroads and highways and military complexes that the budding nation needed. It just the immediate resentment of certain people who refused to see the greater picture. This set the stage for future conservatism. The disconnect between immediate dislike or inconvenience and reasonable justification.
    Whereas Edmund Burke looked at the French Revolution as the horror he was trying to avoid for England, U.S. conservatives looked to the growing threat of abolitionist rhetoric, which would disrupt their racial traditions and way of life in the south. They felt that the federal government had no justification for asserting its will upon their culture and values. They portrayed it as a threat to liberty. They were, in fact, deathly afraid of abolition. They were convinced that freed slaves would justifiably enact terrible revenge for previous abuse. They were willing to go to war and split the nation to prevent this from happening. They used Calvinistic conservatism to justify their own prejudices, claiming that nature decided who was master and who was not in a social Darwinist fashion. Each man deserves what he gets according to the plan the God has in place.
    These arguments, of course, were very self-serving. They were cleverly designed to divert and stop any further moral argument course, while propagating a distrust of those who carried reason beyond such rhetoric. This distrust of logic and people of learning is still evident today.
    The idea of equality, as unveiled in the Declaration of Independence, is pernicious according to conservatism. So is majority rule and popular vote, where unequal persons get equal franchise.
    The complaints of such right wing luminaries as John C. Calhoun and John Roanoke are still as fashionable in conservative circles as if they were spoken yesterday. Southern conservatives still righteously complain about their taxes being taken to support industrialized states, even though the truth is quite the opposite. Southern and western states are siphoning off subsidies from wealthier states. That they know this, but will not admit it, and still repeat the same complaints by rote, is a telling commentary of conservatism's unchanging nature that has nothing to do with reality. There are no conservative leaders anymore who can find conservative solutions to problems. There are only conservative broken records, parroting the same rhetoric of two centuries past, as a groping of self-identify.
    This is unfortunate. A valid and even important case can be made for resisting change that is radical and proven. If today's conservatism served us in more cautious, prescriptive fashion, we would all have reason to be thankful. Testing change, connecting it to cultural values, making sure it is beneficial to human nature is a good thing.
    But today's conservatism does not perform that necessary function. It uses the power of negative resistance for no other reason than to inhibit progress. It is an echo from a dark epoch of the past that is completely anachronistic to today's needs.
    We live in a very different world than Calhoun and Randolph, and even Burke. There really is nothing like communism and fascism and the French Revolution that is threatening our way of life. Conservative propagandists would have us think otherwise, hoping to fan the kind of popular hysteria that Republicans benefit from.
    In practical terms, though, what comes from today's conservatism?
    When the world changes rapidly due to technology, global economics and the persistent threat of manmade pollution, we need to ask ourselves if the kind of negative power that stops us from adequately responding is something we should value? Or is it dangerously leading us to oblivion? If organic change, the kind of change that conservatives are supposed to like and protect, has been needlessly and purposely impeded for decades, by conservatives themselves, to exploit the tone of past conservative politics, something is terribly wrong.
    This is where conservatism finds itself today-still clinging to anachronistic rhetoric, still preying on those who refuse to look beyond it. Negative power defines them, decrying anything liberal or moderate as being socialist or fascist, as their predecessors did so effectively decades earlier. While their distortions and refusal to cooperate in finding real solutions to terrible problems does indeed rally their base to vocally ridiculous discontent, the same old biases end up being raised on placards that turn most people off. They are affirming popular prejudices against conservatism.
    Their problem is really very simple. By looking only to the past for their political strategies, to the Calhouns and Reagans, they resurrect what simply is no longer appropriate for the times. History has moved beyond their surface level message. They are so define by past successes, they cannot respond positively to today's challenges. Their only hope, it seems, is that a constant drone of complaining will maintain their converted base, and offer an angry voice that others can turn to when things go wrong, as they inevitably will.
    Here we see the demise of conservatism as a ideology of political value. It has become a remnant of the past, instead of a power dedicated to conserving what is best from our past.
    And for that, we are all lessened.

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