Those who have followed this blog for some time are aware of my misgivings about using the designation "conservative" to describe myself. In "Reticent To Adopt a Title", "A Possible Designation" and "The Right Identity", I described the problems I have with not just "conservative", but "libertarian", "constitutionalist" and  a host of other terms. While each term has some applicability, each also either includes elements I find troubling, or else is poorly defined and allows for the inclusion of many with whom I strongly disagree.

Despite that, I do tend to place myself, when describing my beliefs, in the conservative camp. There may be many problems with that designation, but among the larger political movements, conservatism is the one which comes closest to my personal beliefs. I may have many objections to current conservative practices, but I like to believe the problem is that some modern conservatives have lost sight of the proper direction, and that gives me hope that perhaps I do fall within some variation of the "conservative" label.

And it is this somewhat reluctant association with the conservative movement that causes me to be so troubled by the tendency of conservatives to adopt self-defeating positions.

I am sure many expect this to be another in the long line of posts about the tendency of the right to send mixed messages, in the same spirit as "Defending Freedom?", "Why We Lose", "Giving Away the Game", "The Single Greatest Weakness",  "What We Deserve", "What is Wrong with Us", "Pyrrhic Victories", "Who Is To Blame?", "Don't Blame the Politicians", "The Difficulty of Principle", "Damn the Torpedoes!", "You Lose When You Think You Win" and others. And that is certainly part of the problem, but that is not my sole, or even main, focus in this essay. Yes, the conservative movement does suffer from two troubling tendencies in this regard, both the habit of compromising on issues where they should not ("Cigarettes, Sudan and Abortion", "Katrina and BP"), and also a lack of clarity which often leads them to adopt "pragmatic" position which end up giving up crucial points to the left ("The Shortcomings of Pragmatism", "Pragmatism Revisited", "Pragmatism Revistied, Again", "Impractical Pragmatists", "The Problem of the Small Picture", "Arguing In Hindsight"), but I have discussed that often enough already. And, even had I not done so, there are more than enough other reasons to be concerned by the direction the right has taken. That the right has an identity problem, and tends to try to compensate by trying to make the media and the middle love them, and in the process end up looking like a watered down left, those facts are well known, and not really disputed by any but the most "moderate" "mainstream" conservatives. What I intend to do here is to look beyond those open secrets, get past the whining about "RINOs" and the "big tent" (which I have done often enough myself), and look at the many other ways the right tries to suffocate its message beneath a heap of bad decisions.

Or, perhaps I should say that I intend to move beyond that topic in a moment, as first I want to look at that tendency to send mixed messages, and, more specifically, the interesting parallel errors or compromising on issues, while remaining inflexible on methods, that is, the tendency to put image over substance, and end up neither making a good impression nor winning over the moderates.

One of the primary problems for conservatives, or for any politician, to be honest¹, is that the media is, whether they admit it or not, dominated by the political left. ("Some Thoughts on the Media", "The Press Versus The Nation", "The Death of Impartial Media", "The Impossibility of Unbiased Reporting", "Media Double Standards and a Proposed Solution") They may not be explicitly aligned with the political left, may not be Democrats, may have no formal political affiliation, may not even think of themselves as liberal, but the fact remains that the pressures and personality types which encourage one to enter journalism, especially given today's activist view of journalism, tend to be the same forces which produce a left-leaning political philosophy. Even ignoring the leftward bias in universities, and especially within schools of journalism ("The State Versus Universities", "Subsidies and Censorship", "Patronage Versus Choice", "Asking the Wrong Question", "My Censorship Is Your Discretion", "Publish Or Perish", "Funding and the Corruption of Science"), the fact remains that those who go into journalism tend to be the sort who endorse big, activist government and intrusive political action.

Why is that important? Because, despite all the effort spent on polling, on focus groups, on surveys and so on, politicians, like everyone else, get their information through the filter of the media, and thus see the political landscape through a liberal lens. Which means, all other things being equal, politicians tend to believe the public is more liberal than it is, that big government is more popular than it is, and the public dislikes conservative positions more than they do. Nor is that the only problem, especially for politicians. Politicians also have to worry about their public image, and, as the public gets its information from that same media, politicians have to worry about appeasing the media, lest the public come to see them as failures or villains.

All of which tends to push conservatives into senseless compromises on issues where they should stand firm. Rather than make a public stand and use the resultant media storm as a platform to get out their position, the right has a tendency to cave in to the left, adopt their causes, and then adopt a slightly less left-leaning alternative as the "conservative" solution. For example, during the health care debate, rather than argue that the government has no business in health care, and that even what we have now is too much, many on the right foolishly began trying to develop a "conservative health care plan." (See also "You Don't Drown in a Glass of Water - Vouchers Revisited", "Why Vouchers are not the Answer", "Never Ascribe To Evil, A Discussion of Education",  "Social Security is Not Insurance", "A Conservative Energy Policy? What's Next? Conservative Welfare?","Authoritarian Oil Talk") And so, instead of taking a contentious issue, and using it to draw clear lines between the two prominent ideologies, giving the public a clear choice which might motivate them to vote, the conservatives made themselves into the "Democrat Lite" position, gave away the game, and adopted the basic large government, interventionist premises as their own.

"But", some will say, "what about abortion? Or those other issues where the right won't give an inch?" And it sounds reasonable to ask such questions, except that the question overlooks one essential difference. In the issues above, where I described the right's damaging compromises, the right was willing to compromise on issues. In the case of abortion and some other issues, the right is also often willing to compromise on issues (eg. rape and incest exclusions -- see "A Few Questions on Abortion"), but they are inflexible on methods².
And that is a huge difference. For example, in health care, rather than fight against the entire premise that the government is supposed to provide health coverage, conservatives, afraid of appearing "heartless" folded immediately, but, once they had, they then adopted a pointless symbolic stand against government run insurance, and fought tirelessly against the irrelevant issue of government ownership, while allowing the same thing by allowing government funding³. In other words, they surrendered on the ideas, which mattered, and then fought for show over pointless questions of method.

There are a number other such examples of placing emphasis on appearance over substance, as well as being far too willing to compromise on issues of substance only to gain a small increase in media support⁴, in fact probably enough to write an entire essay on that topic alone. But as I plan to write soon about the left's reason for emphasizing motive over results, I will likely deal with this topic then, so for now, let me end this section by saying that the right sabotages itself far too readily by making compromises, leaving the public with either an indistinct impression of what the right believes, or else the impression that the right believes in nothing. Worse, in making such compromises, the right rarely, if ever, manages to get the goodwill it hoped to gain from the press, meaning that conservatives often sell out their principles, ruin their image and, in exchange, receive little or nothing.

But I have discussed those topics at great length, and plan on discussing some of them again in future essays, so I will not go into them any more here. Instead, let us forget for a moment the right's self-destructive dealings with the left, and instead look at the many ways in which it manages to behave in suicidal ways all alone, without the help of anyone else.

The greatest problem, and one that appears unavoidable in two-party systems⁵, is the tendency for the conservative movement to be poorly defined, to embrace far too many viewpoints, to have vague or inconsistent beliefs, and generally to become a "big tent" which makes it difficult for outsiders, and even insiders, to understand what the movement's beliefs truly are^6,7.

This results in many types of confusion. First, as mentioned before, it makes it difficult for anyone to define the movement by its beliefs, as the huge number of contradictory ideas assembled under the banner of conservatism makes it almost impossible to find even one unifying characteristic. It seems to outsiders (and insiders) that the only requirement for a political philosophy to be defined as "conservative" is their assertion that they are.

But the confusion does not stop there. Because such a large spectrum of ideas will inevitably include many that water down what many see as the "core beliefs" of the movement, any inclusive party will contain many whose beliefs, in part or in whole, overlap with the major opposing philosophy. In other words, many supposed conservatives will inevitably hold some number of beliefs normally called liberal.  Not that such a diversity of views would be absent even in a more well defined, or smaller, movement. However, with the movement so large and so poorly defined, not only are there many holding liberal views, but in many cases those on the left of the movement manage to wield actual power, and even move the rest to the left⁸. Not only does this farther dilute the public's understanding of what the movement represents, but by making it hard to distinguish conservative from liberal, and putting the conservative sin the position of saying "me too" to liberals, it gives the left the upper hand in most debates. ("Doing Something", ""Doing Something" Revisited", "Inescapable Logic", "Recipe For Disaster", "The Endless Cycle of Intervention", "The Cycle of Compassion")

In many ways, it was this tendency toward a large, ill-defined philosophy, and a similar tendency within the political parties themselves, that led to the strange situation we have been in since the 1890's. ("The Best Historical Example", "A Passing Thought", "Rethinking the Scopes Trial", "The Political Spectrum", "Child Labor and the Industrial Revolution", "Mistaken Perceptions of the Industrial Age") Since most readers will not follow the links I have provided, let me just offer a quick summary. From the founding of the United States, until the 1890's, the Democrats (or Democratic Republicans), were the party of individual liberty, economic freedom, states' rights and weak central government. The Federalists were the party of bigger government, central banking, reduced state autonomy and the rest. Though by today's standards they would be considered far right, at the time, they were the party of big government, as were the inflationary Whigs which succeeded them. And as were the original Republicans, whose platform rested largely on central banking, cheap money (through inflation), protectionism, more centralized, and more intrusive, government. A number of other issues would become part of these platforms at various times, slavery, prohibition, railroad subsidies, and so on, but the two parties, whatever their names at the time, could largely be understood as the party of individual freedom and decentralized power, and the party of central authority and expansive regulation.

But then there arose the confusion which seems to plague mankind to this day, the failure to distinguish between economic "power" and the very real political power. ("Economic and Political Power Revisited", "Power - Political and Economic", "Greed Versus Evil") As a result, the Populists and other big government, anti-banking, anti-business, pro-inflation, populist, protectionist movements seized local Democrat parties, and introduced into the national party the confusion of small government intended to stop the growth of government power, and a big state with unlimited power, intended to stop the growth of "economic power". As a result, the Democrats were left without a clear identity, and, as I have described elsewhere, and mentioned above, once a party adopts the basic premises, it will eventually embrace their logical conclusions. Which is why, between 1892 and 1932 we went from Grover Cleveland to FDR. In 40 short years, the Democrats changed in almost every regard.

Unfortunately, at least for those who support individual freedom, the Republicans did not. Oh, they embraced some of the "reform" issues the left wing of the Democrats had pushed, but other than those new issues,t eh Republicans remained the party of big government, cheap money, tariffs and intrusive social legislation⁹. And though the period between the 1940's and 1980's saw the rise of a freedom centered conservative movement within the Republicans, culminating in the Reagan presidency, there are still many in the Republican party, and the supposed conservative movement, who still embrace some or all of those old, big government ideas. In fact, though we have had more pro-freedom candidates in my lifetime than in those of my parents or grandparents, it is still true that the 20th and 21st centuries still were dominated by two parties, both having official platforms which favored larger, more intrusive government.

Yet the problems of the "big tent" do not end there. Thanks to the wide range of views embraced, the movement has a tendency to include a number of members who hold beliefs that are not only contrary to the general beliefs of the movement, but who even hold beliefs which are either offensive in themselves, or at least give the impression that they are. And, unfortunately, with the movement being so ill defined, it is often difficult for those who object to such beliefs to contest the validity of such ideas, as without a clearly defined set of positions describing the movement, the question of who is and is not a real conservative is meaningless, as the term is without a clear definition. We might as well argue over who is a real nugnork or billburk. Without a clear definition of conservative, anyone can claim to be one, and so we are saddled with many repulsive groups, be they politically offensive, such as populists and protectionists, or generally offensive, such as the casual anti-semites who haunt the edges of the movement¹⁰.

And that, in the long run, is the worst damage conservatives do to themselves, by refusing to define themselves with clarity, by allowing the movement to be defined by whoever chooses to do so, they allow in any and all comers, making of the movement a complete shambles. Rather than a well defined, focused movement, conservatism is torn between "economic" conservatives, "social conservatives", "defense conservatives", paleo-cons, protectionists, populists, libertarians, pacifists, militarists, anti-state paranoids, and other, smaller, fringe movements. And, as I said before, because no one feels he can speak as the voice of the movement, as the movement has no clear identity, there is simply no way to exclude such groups, leaving the movement in a permanent state of identity crisis.

Which brings me back to my original complaints. As the movement lacks a clear identity, it tends to shift from point to point, without any clear idea what conservatism really is. And one consequence of that is a tendency toward anti-intellectual, unprincipled "pragmatism", which results in many of he damaging compromises I mentioned at the start. If the movement lacks a clear identity, what is there to stop them from making such compromises? If there is advantage to be had, and if no belief is essential to being deemed conservative, then why not make whatever agreement is needed to advance one's cause?

Until we refuse to allow "conservative" to be a self-defined status, with anyone claiming to be conservative accepted as such, these problems will persist. Only with the establishment of a clear and precise definition of what conservatism means will we be free of these problems. Once such a definition is established, not only will we be able to recognize who is and is not within the conservative fold, but also those who are within the movement will finally have grounds to object to those who claim the conservative mantle while professing beliefs which fall well outside that philosophy.

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1. As I mention later in passing, this is actually a two-sided issue. First, politicians are as deceived by the media as anyone else. Just because they hold office and make laws does not make them immune to the distortions of the news that the rest of us suffer. And so, when politicians look at the world, they see it distorted by media lies as much as the rest of us do. And, on the other hand,  politicians are also aware of the bias in the media, and have to consider how that bias will effect their public image. As the public is also led about by the media, politicians have to make sure the media presents them favorably. Of course, with the rise of, first talk radio, and then internet news sources, the left has less control over the way politicians are viewed, but many have not yet come to realize this, and continue to behave as if the the "Big Three" (or "Big Four", if you prefer the 80's) networks still run things.

2. In this way the left and right are more alike than different. As I plan to describe in an upcoming essay, as well as in a chapter later in "Liberalism, Its Origins and Consequences", the left often places more emphasis on intentions and goals than on the actual outcomes. Success is often less important than whether or not the one acting had the "right" reasons. Oddly enough, in some ways this belief is the only thing allowing us to distinguish between many on the nominal left and the nominal right. As "moderates" in both camps have accepted big government, interventionist policies, and a host of identical beliefs, many times the motives they have for doing so is the only things making it possible to tell them apart. ("The Political Spectrum")

3. I covered this in several posts ("Why Health Insurance Isn't Insurance and Related Topics", "The GOP Health Care Plan", "The Insurance Sham"). It makes no difference whether the government openly runs the insurer or whether the government controls the insurance industry through funding and regulation,  there may be superficial differences, but whether there is formal nationalization or just de facto control, the results are the same. That one would choose to fight over this symbolic difference while conceding almost every important point shows how little value modern conservatives place on ideas. (At least the public figures who claim to speak for conservatives, that is. Many grass roots conservatives are far more consistent than those who supposedly speak for them. Though even at the grass roots level there are many who hold to very inconsistent, and often anti-intellectual, beliefs.)

4. In reality, the right almost never gets media support, no matter how far left they move. There are a few who get some credit from the media, but only so long as praising them can be used to pressure politicians farther to the right. Once a conservative becomes inconvenient, the press praise stops. Just look at McCain for an example. He was praised as a "maverick" in order to try to press other more conservative politicians to move left, but once he became a threat to the media darling Obama, McCain was suddenly denounced as an arch-conservative and all of his "maverick" status was forgotten.

5. Parliamentary systems, by having many smaller parties, tend to have more clearly defined beliefs, many to the point where positions which would be too far outside the mainstream in a two party system not only hold seats, but actually are included in coalition governments. I am not sure whether this is beneficial or not, as having such a plethora of parties, and the resultant need for weakly joined coalition governments seems to produce the same problems caused by weakly defined, large parties in two party systems. In short, at some point there is going to be a merging of poorly-mated beliefs, it is just a question of where. Though, thinking about what consequences arise from such differences, I am inclined to write a future post comparing and contrasting two party and multiparty systems, as well as parliamentary systems versus the method used in the US. It would be interesting to investigate the many small differences, and what consequences arise from them.

6. I know in some ways I am confusing Republican and conservative and liberal and Democrat, but I do not believe that is an invalid premise. Yes, not all Republicans are conservative, and not all conservatives are Republican, but the public perception of both parties, and both philosophies, tend to make the two identical. And, even within the parties, and the movements, there tend to be many who assume the two are coterminous. Since the accepted definition of "conservative" depends at least in part on what the Republicans do, it is not unfair to use one to paint a picture of the other. Perhaps were we less of a two party system this would not be so, but given our party system, it is unavoidable that the two major parties would help define the two major political philosophies.

7. This confusion over the party's beliefs, brought about by the tendency toward a "big tent" is reinforced by the previously mentioned tendency to compromise on significant issues, as well as adopting opposition beliefs in order to gain media approval. As a result, in the minds of many, the right is not only poorly defined, but lacks any definition at all. Or, if they are defined in the public mind, they are defined by the caricatures painted by the opposition, anti-intellectual, fundamentalist, intolerant, bigoted neanderthals. After all, if the right cannot define themselves, and present nothing but a confused muddle of beliefs, then the only other possibility is to accept the definition provided by the opposition, as at least it provides a consistent picture, something the right itself cannot do.

8. A smaller, more well defined movement may still have liberal members, but with the movement better defined, it would be clear the more liberal individuals are the ones deviating from the norm. Without such a definition, it is possible for what would normally be the outliers to become the center of the movement.

9. And even today, the "paleo-cons" continue to embrace a platform that would have been recognizable -- and acceptable -- not just to Taft or McKinley, but to their 19th century predecessors.

10. The conservatives in general are not prone to anti-semitism, that is a myth of the left. Unfortunately, on the fringes of the party, though, there are many who hold such views. And thanks to a small anti-Israel movement, as well as a group that is disturbed by the general liberal politics of Jews, they often have more influence than they should. On the other hand, they also sometimes appear to be more influential than they are, as they latch on to groups such a those claiming conservatism is founded on Christian beliefs, to give the impression their particular beliefs are much more widespread than they truly are. (To be clear, I disagree with the concept that conservatism is Christian in origin, but I also do not believe most who profess such views believe one must be Christian to be conservative. Only a tiny minority holds such views. However, by confusing that small group with the larger number professing Christian origins for conservatism, the antisemitic fringe looks much larger than it is.)

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POSTSCRIPT

My thoughts on the problems inherent in protectionism, please read "Protectionism", "Free Trade, Employment, Outsourcing, and Protectionism", "Cheap Lighters, Overseas Dumping and Monopolies", "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, and More Jobs", "Capital Investment", "Fairness and the Free Market", "More Proponents of Protectionism", "Clarifying a Reality of Capitalism" and "The Inevitable Corruption of Protectionism". And for the problems of populism, I recommend "Fear of the "Big"" and "Beware Populist Deception".  And on the subject of paelocons, I would point readers to the posts "Misplaced Blame and A Power Play" and "Remember I Predicted It".

POSTSCRIPT II

I am well aware that when, if ever, "conservative" is finally defined, it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the definition may not be pleasing to me. It may contain elements of the authoritarian social conservative agenda, or the paleocon platform, or may simply be more tolerant of government intervention than I am. I am ready to accept such a situation. After all, at least with a definition I will know whether or not I am a conservative. Even if the final definition excludes my beliefs, at least it will tell me I am no longer welcome. Without such a definition, I am left endlessly arguing over whether or not my beliefs are "really' conservative or not. Once we have a definition, such debates will be pointless. And so, even if it leaves me outside the movement, I welcome such a definition.