[Oe List ...] What do we mean by a right? To Jim, Dave, et.al. re: Conservativism

[Bill Schlesinger]

I'm not sure that the positions you present are 'right wing.'  Right wing
has consistently represented public enforcement of a specific value system,
designed to maintain an identified 'picture' of society.  It has ranged from
enforced segregation to enforced limits on sexual behavior (much of the
original opposition to birth control was that it would make pre-marital sex
'easier' by reducing the consequences), restrictions on labor organizing
including violent disruption of labor activities, and substantively
anti-immigration policies.  

 

Another stream has been that of traditionally conservative values, which
generally have focused on limited regulation in the economic sector,
investment in long term growth (education, infrastructure, technological
advances) and maintaining the sense of order and stability in the public
sector.

 

The stream I hear your thoughts most reflecting is mostly called
libertarian.  In this perspective, individual and family choice and freedom
is the most reliable base for economic, cultural, and political action.
There is an inherent mistrust and suspicion of larger organizations, which
are seen as manipulative and controlling.  To some extent, Reinhold
Niebuhr's work on 'Moral Man and Immoral Society' addresses some of these
perspectives.

 

Since these streams - as well many of the other streams of thought  ("Your
'people', sir, your 'people' is a great beast!" - Alexander Hamilton to
Thomas Jefferson) tend to reflect a priori assumptions, it is difficult to
create a wider discourse across the streams.  Each sees its own reality
profoundly, mistrusts the others, and assumes the others to be either
foolish, or corrupt.  

 

As with most streams of thought, each stream has a grasp of elements of
reality.  Fear of loss is real.  Ideal hopes are real.  And both play
strongly in all streams.  

 

When we worked with Bonhoeffer, we learned that no ethical decision was ever
simple, or ever internally justified.  

 

As one who is deeply enmeshed in local health care 're-form' (our county has
34% uninsured and our Mental Health system is putting about 1500 of 4500
consumers on a 'waiting list' for services.  It's complicated), it isn't
easy to sort out.  Practical reality here often trumps ideological
considerations as public and private sector folk acknowledge overwhelming
need, and fight bitterly about who should do what in the midst of working
together to solve things.  We watch the ideologically focused folk move from
the way things 'ought' to be to what's possible and might actually work, and
people moving from a suspicion of ulterior motives in others to
understanding other's universes.  It doesn't mean agreement, but it does
create the basis for trying to work things out instead of sabotaging one
another.  Sometimes.

 

I work with city and state and federal government daily - and see the seamy
side of power grabbing, nit-picking, and frustrating bureaucracy.    From my
perspective, systems exist and they need structuring.  We aren't going to
demolish them, no matter how we complain about their inefficiencies,
corruptions, and inequities.  There are no perfect systems.  One of my most
cherished Calvinist 'beliefs' is Total Depravity.  Everything is screwed up
and I'm included.  And my next one is 'Unconditional Election.'  No matter
how screwed up you and I - and our systems - are, we're unconditionally
called to be responsible.  

 

My take is that the current debate is incredibly muddled.  Some of the
comments ('This will mean more for minorities and even less for white
people' - father of two children on Medicaid in Appalachia) indicate an
underlying racial fear.  Others ('rampant socialism') reflect an overall
economic/political philosophy.  Some are focused on pragmatic health care
priorities (heroic end of life care is much more costly - and often not
beneficial in either quality of life or life expectation).  Most focus on
their piece of the elephant as the magic bullet.  'If only we have x/don't
have x then all will be well for me.'  

 

This is messy.  Watching political deals made is - famously quoted - like
watching what goes into sausage.  Ain't pretty.  De-railing is one option.
Pushing through is another.  I don't perceive much middle ground left, but
there may still be some space for give and take.  

 

FWIW

Bill Schlesinger
Project Vida
3607 Rivera Ave
El Paso, TX 79905
(915) 533-7057 x 207
(915) 490-6148 mobile
(915) 533-7158 fax
bschlesinger.pv at tachc.org
www.projectvidaelpaso.org

 

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Susan Fertig
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 6:23 PM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] What do we mean by a right? To Jim, Dave,et.al.
re: Conservativism

 

Ed, Something in what you said below triggered a memory of a recent exchange
I had with a young cousin of mine.  He is more right wing than I am -- Yah,
I know, most of you can't imagine what that would even look like.  He is
very against abortion, but he said he didn't want it made illegal, because
he wanted people to want not to get abortions rather than being prohibited
by law from it. I guess thats the way I feel about a lot of things.  I want
the human spirit to triumph -- somehow I thought that was what we were all
about back in the day, not creating a stronger government to force people to
do or not do things.  Some of it is necessary of course, just for physical
safety and for things like infrastructure (roads and the like), but the
things that have to do with caring about people should be connected to civil
society.

 

Susan

 

 

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of ed feldmanis
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 2:57 PM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] What do we mean by a right? To Jim, Dave,et.al.
re: Conservativism

Susan, 

I thought more about the implications of what you and all of us have on our
minds.  These are observations and reflections.  I am sure that as complex
as this can get none of us are completely right.

I wonder in the comparison between government and business, conservative and
liberal, rights versus privilege whether the philosophy of who we are and
what we are doing is really in play.  I am wondering out loud whether all of
things that are being said with assurance that this is the way it is is
really true. 

Today, for example, it has been posited that having money and spending on
whatever political opportunity there is, is freedom of speech.  The old boy
from Kentucky, now the number 1 Republican, Mitch McConnell, is saying
freedom of speech is the money that buys campaign commercials.  So if you
have more money do you get more freedom of speech? The new crowd, some of
the ones that fit today's label of conservative, is saying that money is
freedom of speech.  Note that this is not inherent in American conservative
philosophy.

In the old days conservatives wanted necessary government and avoided bigger
government.  Even though business was the conservative friend, I suspect
that the conservatives of yesteryear would be aghast at businesses getting
government favors.  They would be against the tax structured help, loop
holes and even allowing of lobbyists into the inner offices of Congress.
After all, FDR took a hand in stabilizing and helping business and that was
too much for old conservatives.  I think the older conservatives would side
with Eisenhower who warned of the take over by the Military-Industrial
Complex.  Times change.  We now see a 180.

So today people are yelling about keeping government out of their
businesses.  They are not yelling about keeping businesses out of our
government. Even the active evangelists of Baptist religion, and the like,
in an earlier time, wanted government to stay out of most of the moral
regulations and to stay out of the church. Talk about a 180.

It is sad to see many businesses, including giant corporations, think of
themselves as little empires, governments and sanctioned ones who can do no
wrong; they are outlaws for they have a sense of being a kind of government
all on their own.  Think about Enron, Worldcom, HealthSouth, Tyco, Hospital
Corportation of America, Halliburton, big banks, big Insurance, and on and
on.

Notice economics being tied into the above narrative.  People are saying
what we can afford and what we can't and so on.  No one is yelling at town
hall meetings that the whole of the economy is totally different and that we
are actually in the process of reinventing it. When you get right down to
it, the way we all live is not sustainable. There is something everyone in
this country is doing or benefiting from that won't work in the future.
Period.  That is reality, economics, that is hard for me to swallow.

When in the European and Asian world people got as upset as we are as a
people often they turned to violence.  We have a wonderful country where no
one is out gunning, or seems to be gunning, for the rich.  It is true that
in riots people have burned their own neighborhoods.  In this country people
are very forgiving, understanding and kind, especially the poor.  One big
reason in the past that we have had social change sponsored by the
government, and why the FDR types were barely tolerated, was that they, even
conservatives, learned the lesson from Europe and Asia. We know that if
pushed hard enough victims, even in the USA, can collectively rage. Examples
of history: Bolshevism, Nazi-ism, Chinese Communism, and in more recent
history the slaughters that have taken place in again in Europe, Southeast
Asia and Africa. I don't want the violence.  That's not the kind of country
I want to live in.

Ed

2009/9/1 Susan Fertig <susan at gmdtech.com>

Wow.  Dave blew my naive expectation (not really, I mean not really an
expectation) that people of the Spirit didn't practice stereotyping.  But Ed
somewhat restored my faith (well a LITTLE bit, anyway).

 

Susan

 

 

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of ed feldmanis
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 10:59 PM
To: oe at wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Oe List ...] What do we mean by a right? To Jim, Dave,et.al. re:
Conservativism

Jim,

The most eloquent modern day description that I have seen is in the book
Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater.

I have to agree with Dave as far as his description goes. Here is where I
found the problem, at least for me: Conservatives may give lip service to
these values, but they intolerantly restrict the freedoms and opportunities
they would offer people different from themselves, often valuing the freedom
of businesses more than the freedom of individuals.  

I find that statement in general to be devastatingly true and possibly
un-American. However, I don't agree that every conservative is merely giving
lip service. My own impression is that Barry Goldwater was very sincere and
specific in his book. At the point of writing the book, in my opinion, there
was some sense in that folks still wanted to make America work for everybody
and they thought they had more common ground than there is today.

For a while it, the Goldwater book, was the standard of what a conservative
was. Conservativism was tied to merit, learning,  service, pay as you go
spending, and the wide spread use of incentives before deciding to create an
agency; and, by the way, there was some sense of what is called state-craft.
If pushed beyond Goldwater to Teddy Roosevelt it was also tied to
conservation.  I think in my time this is as close to having a dynamic -
conservativism- defined in some stability. (Notice some of the liberalism
inherent in the above description.)

Where I really disagree is where many people simply call the new crowd
conservatives; for example, the crowd now in power and mostly Southerners
and their business conspirators. The label, I think, in this case, is a cop
out for the sake of convenience.  In my mind, I can not get the label of
conservative to stick on extremists or people who have neo-fascist ideas.
These are the same people who called Goldwater a liberal. And they are the
so-called conservatives of our day  I don't buy it, but the press and then
everyone else seems to.

Ed





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