Vulcan's Mercy

Feser on Conservatism

The clear-thinking philosopher Ed Feser has posted an excellent article on how anti-state libertarians and statist liberals fail to understand conservatism.  Libertarians and liberals are ideologues who rationalize away the complexities of the human condition to hammer the square peg of their One Big Idea That Explains Everything into the round hole of how the world really works.  So neither are of a mind to get conservatism, because it is non-ideological.  Instead they see it as a swamp of contradictions born of either ignorance or mendacity, oblivious to the firm principles of the permanent things that underlie it.  Unlike the ideologies of left and right, conservatism doesn't lend itself to soundbites.  However, it can certainly be explained concisely, which Feser does in less than a dozen paragraphs.

In fact, with just two paragraphs he does a fine job of encapsulating conservatism:

Conservatism is neither populist nor snobbish, any more than it is either laissez-faire or statist. It does not believe that the common man is always right, and it does not believe that he is always wrong. While it is suspicious of the fleeting passions of the multitude, it is equally suspicious of those who would dismiss the deepest feelings of the mass of mankind as just so much ignorance and bigotry waiting to be socially engineered out of existence. The reason has to do with conservatism’s distinctive conception of moral and social knowledge, and with its organic view of society. The conservative takes respect for both untutored common sense and learned reflection, and indeed for both the common man and the learned man, to be essential to a well-ordered society.

Conservatism regards tradition as the distillation of the moral and social wisdom of centuries, and as embodying more information about the concrete and complex details of human life than is available to any single human mind or even any single generation. This by no means makes tradition infallible, but it does entail that there is a presumption in its favor, that traditional practices are more likely to serve human interests than anything someone might dream up from the comfort of the faculty lounge or seminar room, and that the burden of proof therefore lies with the moral or social innovator rather than the defender of tradition.

Amen.

Palin vs. Sanford

One last thought on the Palin matter.  The wife made an interesting observation.  She noted while Sarah Palin has been met mostly with contempt in the media for resigning the governorship of Alaska to spare Alaskans and her family of further unfounded political assaults, the media has been relatively silent about how Mark Sanford is clinging to the governorship of South Carolina after going A.W.O.L. to a foreign country to cheat on his wife.  Both are Republicans and conservatives, so it can't be the usual liberal bias of the press.  Again the answer lies in the left's fear and loathing of an authentic standard-bearer for heartland conservatism, which Palin is and Sanford isn't.  So they must burn her down while leaving Sanford to his own devices.

[Edit 7/8/09 -- P.S. Here is a good article by Bruce Walker in The American Thinker comparing Palin and Sanford.]

Still Getting Palin Wrong

It is interesting how few among the punditry can get their minds around the idea that Palin is quitting the Alaska statehouse because she is done with politics, at least as a politician.  I'll grant if Palin's resignation is a ploy in pursuit of the presidency in 2012, then:  [1] It is dimwitted, [2] it is irresponsible, and [3] it is disingenuous.  For those reasons I would not support her if she put herself out as a candidate.  But if we take the woman at her word -- and why shouldn't we? -- her resignation relieves Alaskans of the burden of further partisan-driven baseless investigations of her, takes her family out the national spotlight where they have been vilified and ridiculed (even her new baby for heaven's sake), and gives her the opportunity to respond to a "higher calling" to do good.  Together they support her decision as a serious and responsible one.  Boo-hoo if it doesn't make sense to the jaw jackers of the media.  If Palin is a normal person instead of a greasy-pole climbing careerist hack who got into politics step-by-step to do the right thing for her community, as hundreds of thousands of us do by serving as elected officials in small towns, counties, and states, her rationale for tossing her office back at us makes sense.  Who needs the grief as a public servant when there is far more to life than politics?

[FYI:  Hat tip to the American Papist for this related piece on Kresta in the Afternoon about the mendacity of national media when it comes to Palin.]

Getting Palin Wrong

When my wife Bridget told me yesterday that Sarah Palin is quitting as governor of Alaska, I took that to mean she's not running for re-election in 2010 in preparation for a presidential campaign.  Good, I thought.  While Palin would still need to close the deal with me to get my vote, she's my favorite against the usual run of hacks whose names are currently in play.  But then Bridget corrected me.  She explained that Palin is resigning within the next few weeks.  Well, that's a bit different.  It's one thing to not run again for an office.  It's another to break your commitment to serve in that office after winning it.  Because I have no reason to think Palin isn't a serious person when it comes to such things, I then thought she must be quitting politics.

Why not?

Common Ground on Abortion a.k.a. The Graveyard

Thomas Peters of The American Papist has had his fill of the "common ground" efforts of pro-choicers to ratchet down the battle with pro-lifers.  Meeting on that common ground requires pro-lifers to compromise fundamental principles, whereas pro-choicers give up nothing but perhaps rhetoric on how swell abortion is.  Of course, even if pro-choicers also had to compromise on their principles, that common ground would still be a graveyard for pro-lifers where the truth surrenders to the lies that sustain political support for abortion-on-demand.  As any Christian should know, denial of the truth is death.  In his commentary about this, Peters does a fine job showing how the abortion argument is nothing but falsehoods, Orwellian vocabulary, and con artistry by tearing apart the noxious polemics of a hideous "common grounder" named Cecily Kellogg.

Missing In Action: The Honor of Senator McCain

Any decent person should be disgusted with the trashing of Gov. Sarah Palin by the media.  Whatever one thinks of her qualifications to be president, there's no basis for the calumny -- and just plain nastiness -- of reporters, pundits, and talking heads like that, most recently, of late-night host David Letterman and Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum.  Palin deserves the support of all civic-minded Americans against this increasingly deranged assault upon her character, especially that of the man who brought her into the national spotlight last summer, Sen. John McCain.

Now McCain is quite a chest-thumping champion of personal honor, at least his own.  But he has been mostly silent when it comes to the defense of his erstwhile running mate, and what excuse does he have for such dishonorable conduct?  Why is he keeping his head low in this battle?  Especially when Palin's attackers are his campaign staffers too cowardly to put their names behind their words to the likes of Purdum?  When his own people are back-shooters, how come McCain cannot muster his honor to call them out to either stand by their statements against Palin or repudiate them?

Well, the truth is that what McCain calls honor is a lot like self-aggrandizement with a healthy dollop of sanctimony.  So if the matter at hand doesn't make him look good in the media or gore some particular ox of his, McCain isn't going to put himself out.  So even if common decency and genuine honor mean defending Palin against the slanders of his minions, the senator from Arizona ain't gonna do that if it doesn't win him the plaudits of the national media, the Beltway insiders, and the other bein pensants of the political muck he likes to wallow in.

[Note:  And just to make clear how unfit I thought Obama was for the White House, I voted for McCain last November believing all this about him at the time.]

Go West!

After high school I traveled quite a bit courtesy of the United States Air Force.  First I had the opportunity to journey back and forth from my home in Michigan to the West Coast a number of times over a period of a couple years.  Then I went east, and eventually across the Atlantic to England, where I was stationed for three years.  From there, I visited the Continent and my missions took me to even more exotic locations.  After that I spent awhile stationed near Washington D.C. and traveled up and down the East Coast.  Back to civilian life, business and fishing expeditions took me to other nooks and crannies of North America.  And most recently my wife and I spent a pleasant two weeks rambling along the backroads of France.

However, it was my first great journey from home to the wild wild West that made the deepest impression upon me, especially in contrast to my life soon after that in England.  It taught me both the importance of conservation while completely disabusing me of the urgency of environmentalism.   In other words, I learned that the wild spaces of the West and elsewhere would be best preserved by the evolution of our culture instead of the sledgehammer of our politics.  Let me explain.

Obama: No Friend of Liberty?

Obama's craven statements regarding the uprising in Iran have convinced me of the man's utter incompetence.  It's one thing to be a dove in foreign policy.  It's another to not support a people's demand for liberty because you think that would upset the tyrant you want to buddy up with.  How can he possibly think his mealy-mouthed cautions serve this country's interets?  Advancing liberty elsewhere in the world, where possible and practical, is never contrary to American security, commerce, and ideals.  Giving full-throated support to the Iranian people in their protests against the tyranny of the mullahs not only strengthens us in dealing with those tyrants but has the merit of being the right thing to do.  Only a man completely over his head at the White House could fail to grasp this.  The only other explanation is that Obama is no friend of liberty.  As the man clearly has a Marxist worldview, that could be true.  Then again, maybe the Iowa Hawk has Obama figured out on this one.

Wisdom at the Gates of Vienna

Thanks to the Maverick Philosopher, I discovered this piece of political wisdom by the Baron at The Gates of Vienna.  The Baron offers five reasons why we cannot be conciliatory to Muslim jihadists, and he's quite right the history shows us the disaster that will result.  (Actually the third and fourth reason are basically the same, but I quibble.)  I hope you find this as tidy an argument as I have against confusing decency with conciliation and appeasement.

Remembering Reagan

Five years ago Ronald Reagan died.  A good occasion to remember the man, especially these days when conservatives are frequently scolded for clinging to those antiquated principles that the Gipper governed by.

Of course, we are talking about the politics of only a quarter-century ago as though the lessons learned then are now suddenly irrelevant in the Age of Obama.  Human nature isn't so mutable that what was fundamentally true about taxes, sex, and war a couple decades back is any different today.  But then our culture has continued its decay, embracing the vulgarity and ignorance that have allowed unspoken leftist assumptions about man and his society to go uncritically challenge by most of us.  So the bohemain idea that people are plastic and amenable to radical change creates that upside-down world in which Obama, an old-fashioned man of the left peddling decrepit and discredited Marxist policies and programs, heralds the brave new world, while Reagan, a man who grasped the eternal verities of the human condition and brought about genuine liberation for hundreds of millions of people, is consigned to the dustbin of history.

Well, perhaps only the fools and the liars say that.  Neither of which is Mark Steyn.  Here is a reprise of his "Dutch Courage" that marked the passing of Ronald Reagan.