Matt Gets Simplistic and Shrill

Ezra says conservatives aren't out of ideas they're out of solutions:

What they're lacking, right now, are the appropriate problems. Because they don't have solutions for 47 million Americans without health insurance. They don't have solutions for a failing invasion that's exposed American power as significantly more constrained that the world imagined it to be. They don't have solutions for high gas prices, or a credit and mortgage crisis, or a dawning recognition that we're ruining the only planet we have.

There's something to that, but I think the problem is actually much worse -- the problem with the conservative movement is that it's fundamentally malign. The plenty of things of, for example, a deregulatory nature that would enhance access to health care. Reducing the regulatory barriers that artificially restrict the supply of health care wouldn't "solve" the health care problem in America, but it sure would help! And it could be a conservative idea in perfectly good standing. Reducing senseless land use regulation that over-mandate parking and under-supply residential density would mitigate inequality and reduce carbon emissions. And that could be a conservative idea in perfectly good standing. The whole situation of professional licensing in the United States is a scandal and very bad for poor people, and easing the burden there could be a conservative idea in perfectly good standing.

The trouble is that no sensible person believes that electing conservative politicians will actually improve the situation because even though some instances of reducing the power of economic privilege would be deregulatory and conservative, actually existing conservatism isn't interested in reducing the power of economic privilege except on behalf of some other, greater privilege. Similarly, the conservative movement is correct to say that more stable family structure would be a boon to America's children, but its operational commitment to family values just consists of the political exploitation of anti-gay sentiment. The ideas have some merit, it's the actual moral character of the people able to move the levers of power that are the problem -- they're not fundamentally interested in the merits of ideas, even their own ideas, they're interested in power and greed.

Comments

the actual moral character of the people able to move the levers of power that are the problem

The same could be said of the moral character of their supporters in the think tank world and the punditocracy. It's not as if the politicians can be easily separated out from the system.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 21, 2008 1:00 PM

Exactly.

Global warming is a great example. Science agrees about what is happening. In a world with a sane Republican party you;d have competing plans for how to deal with it based on Conservative and Liberal impulses. You'd expect the Democrats to propose more direct government action and teh Republicans plans based on market incentives and so on. Instead the majority of Republicna effort seems to be expended on debunking science.

Same with Oil and alternative energy.

Posted by eric k | May 21, 2008 1:02 PM

The Bush administration has made me into more of a conservative-- skeptical of government power, mindful of the importance of balancing the budget and of unforeseen consequences of well-intentioned policies, cautious in the use of military force.

So needless to say, I can't consider voting for Republicans except in state and local races.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | May 21, 2008 1:02 PM

This calls for a slow solitary clap, gradually increasing in speed and participation, capped off by a standing ovation. Please continue to serve up this so called shrill with a side helping of smackdown.

Posted by drjimcooper | May 21, 2008 1:04 PM

Why is Matt so brilliant? Why?

Posted by Marshall | May 21, 2008 1:06 PM

You almost sound like Andrew Sullivan. So to take it all the way:

I think you're being a little too harsh. The problem isn't with conservatism so much as it is with Republicanism. It's the extent to which Republicans are a thoroughly corrupt party. Many (even most) conservatives have indeed sold their souls to the GOP, but there are clearly some who believe what they believe not just for power and greed, and you've even linked to them on occasion.

Posted by matt | May 21, 2008 1:08 PM

Amen, brother.

The Victorian principle of "Tory men, Whig programs" is impossible in the current American scene, as our "Tory Men" stand for nothing more than unfettered greed. That's what's so maddening about this "Liberal Fascism"/"Expelled" crap. You want Social Darwinism? Look no further than The Club For Growth.

Posted by Tom | May 21, 2008 1:09 PM

Because they don't have solutions for 47 million Americans without health insurance.

A single-payer system coupled with outcome-based rationing and a massively increased emphasis on prevention and medical research. Stop spending gargantuan sums keeping dying 90-year-olds alive for a few extra weeks and spend the money trying to keep people healthy.

They don't have solutions for a failing invasion that's exposed American power as significantly more constrained that the world imagined it to be.

Do what Vermont Senator George Aiken suggested just as the Vietnam War was getting bad: declare victory, and immediately withdraw our troops. Whatever chaos may result won't be our problem.

They don't have solutions for high gas prices

Drive less.

Posted by Peter | May 21, 2008 1:11 PM

Decrying the Republican obsession with the pursuit of power and the satisfaction of greed is a bit ironic, coming as it does a few posts after noting that Matthew's preferred candidate is a strong supporter of the Farm Bill. Sheesh.

Posted by Will Allen | May 21, 2008 1:15 PM

I tried to read this post, but the actually existing writing was so sloppy and full of typos that I couldn't.

Posted by jim | May 21, 2008 1:17 PM

Farm bill = bad policy, pandering.

Conservative movement = fundamentally malign.

There's no contradiction between these two statements.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | May 21, 2008 1:18 PM

The Victorian principle of "Tory men, Whig programs" is impossible in the current American scene

Isn't it "Democratic presidents, Republican programs?" I.e. the Clinton administration?

Not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, but the shoe does seem to fit.

Posted by Andrew Edwards | May 21, 2008 1:19 PM

And while we’re piling on (and why the hell should we not, given what “conservatives” have done once they got their hands on the levers), let’s consider racism in re their moral character. The fact that the GOP gleefully embraced the southern strategy (and has picked up on immigrant-bashing in its absence) speaks volumes about their willingness to incite bigotry as an instrument for the acquisition and perpetuation of power.

In short, they suck.

Posted by signSansSignified | May 21, 2008 1:25 PM

The problem with the conservative movement is that it's fundamentally malign.

Truer words were never spoken. Liberal tendencies toward relativism, "realism", neutrality, detachment, and meta-narratives tend to make them incapable of expressing this kind of idea.

Posted by John Emerson | May 21, 2008 1:26 PM

Conservatives think that everyone should just be rich and white -- isn't is self evident? The "rugged individualism" of Goldwater (married to rich heiress), W (born into rich family), McCain (married to rich heiress), etc.

Posted by John McCain: More of the Same | May 21, 2008 1:26 PM

I agree with matt (and Sullivan): all this should encourage people like Yglesias to stop equating Republicans with conservatives, or the self-described "Conservative Movement" with conservatives, or so on.

Generally, if a word like "conservatism" is to have any use, it has to mean something besides "whatever Republicans currently are saying". Otherwise, you should just stick with "Republicanism", and drop the term "conservatism".

Posted by DTM | May 21, 2008 1:29 PM

Conservatives think that everyone should just be rich and white -- isn't is self evident? The "rugged individualism" of Goldwater (married to rich heiress), W (born into rich family), McCain (married to rich heiress), etc.

Posted by John McCain: More of the Same | May 21, 2008 1:29 PM

Please elaborate on the professional licensing.

Posted by Kelly | May 21, 2008 1:30 PM

Decrying the Republican obsession with the pursuit of power and the satisfaction of greed is a bit ironic, coming as it does a few posts after noting that Matthew's preferred candidate is a strong supporter of the Farm Bill. Sheesh.

Farm bill? You mean the one the GOP representatives moved against once the Dems said it needed a tax hike to pay for it? I don't like the farm bill, but give me a party that will tax and spend vs. borrow and spend any day. There's a limit to the amount of taxing that can occur. There seems to be no limit on the amount of debt that can be wracked up.

And the "Republican obsession with the pursuit of power and the satisfaction of greed" is borne out by 6 years of control that added trillions to national debt and tens of trillions in unfunded future mandates. It will take years and over 100 farm bills (total cost, not the part being debated) to match that record of profligate spending.

The GOP. Putting our children and grandchildren into perpetual debt, one trillion dollars at a time.

Posted by LFC | May 21, 2008 1:30 PM

To really capture the spirit of the conservative movement, you need to make a minor change in the last line: "...they're interested in _intolerance_ and greed." Power is only an intermediate goal-- a means of enacting inolerance and satisfying greed.

Question for the class (or for Rick Pearlstein): Is the total dominance of inolerance and greed in place of any other principals strictly a post-Cold War phenomenon? That is, was anti-communism a real principal, or just another another expression of intolerance and greed?

Posted by rotgut | May 21, 2008 1:31 PM

The problem with Republicans? They're gangsters.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 21, 2008 1:33 PM

Elvis,

The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings.

Of course, the Republicans voted for the farm bill too. So I might as well pick the party that will only callously starve brown foriegners, opposed to the party that also wants to bomb them outright.

Posted by David Shor | May 21, 2008 1:34 PM

considering that the republicans only reaction to this buffet of problems was to bring out a "change" in family values policy [mostly micro-economic targeted tax breaks], i think the proble isn't that they lack solutions, it's that they don't care about solutions.

Posted by dj spellchecka | May 21, 2008 1:34 PM

As if the completely unworkable "solutions" posed by the "progressives" are an improvement over the conservative impasse.
Obama's solution for a failing invasion is indistinguishable from John McCain's: stay the course and count on things improving.
Obama's healthcare solution is to expand entitlements which can't be payed for much less be passed even by a Dem controlled Congress.
Obama has no solution to high gas prices, indeed he believes prices should rise yet more by the imposition of higher taxes which he'll dispense to "deserving" technologies.
At best his solutions to the credit and mortgage crises postpone the true day of reckoning and shifts the financial burden to renters and the bulk of owners who acted responsibly.
As to his fuzzy solutions for global warming I defy anyone to demonstrate that they in fact will solve anything. The US could end its emission of greenhouse gasses tomorrow and China and India and the rest of the rising industrial powers will continue to take up the slack and expand their contributions.
The reality is that Obama's plans all boil down to staying in Iraq (for which Bush will be blamed) and raising taxes and fees on the middle class with no concurrent rise in our standard of living.
Obama wants us all to wear more sweaters, bike to work, and eat too much spinach. That's not so bad except that he's going to tax us out the arse for the privilege.
All the rest of his "progressive" politics is as empty as his "change you can believe in" bs.
As they say, Obama is actually referencing the bit of change left in your pocket as he taxes us all to feed the growth of a failing nanny state.

Posted by JTHB | May 21, 2008 1:35 PM

Matt, you're right on the facts here, and it's true that much good could be done under the banner of conservative deregulation. But honestly, you can do better than presuming to know the minds (and souls) of your political opponents.

I'm not trying to be insulting, but the last line of your post here is pretty much a reverse of the Rush Limbaugh theory of liberalism: Liberals don't actually believe in what they advocate. All liberal policy is aimed at acquiring liberal power,so they can pass more liberal policy to acquire more liberal power.

This kind of reasoning has never made sense to me. First of all, I don't see much logic in acquiring power if you don't have some notion of something valuable to do with it. More to the point, it glosses over real disagreements on matters of fact. Of course conservatives aren't interested in reducing global warming through changing land regulation. They believe global warming is a liberal conspiracy!

Obviously that idea is ludicrous, and deserves to be challenged. It's not hard to challenge, either, because the facts are on your side. But the facts do no good if the state of our discourse is such that we can't argue in good faith. If we view our opponents as fundamentally morally suspect, they will do the same, and then why should they view the facts we bring to support our arguments as anything other than lies?

Posted by lackluster | May 21, 2008 1:36 PM

Elvis,

The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings.

Of course, the Republicans voted for the farm bill too. So I might as well pick the party that will only callously starve brown foriegners, opposed to the party that also wants to bomb them outright.

Posted by David Shor | May 21, 2008 1:36 PM

Elvis,

The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings.

Of course, the Republicans voted for the farm bill too. So I might as well pick the party that will only callously starve brown foriegners, opposed to the party that also wants to bomb them outright.

Posted by David Shor | May 21, 2008 1:36 PM

"The plenty of things of, for example, a deregulatory nature that would enhance access to health care."

What?

I think you're missing some words, or something is mistranscribed. I can't make heads or tails of that sentence.

Posted by epistole | May 21, 2008 1:37 PM

This, like when he dove into the S-CHIP imbroglio, is when Matt is at his best. More like this, please.

Posted by eriks | May 21, 2008 1:37 PM

Elvis,

The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings.

Of course, the Republicans voted for the farm bill too. So I might as well pick the party that will only callously starve brown foriegners, opposed to the party that also wants to bomb them outright.

Posted by David Shor | May 21, 2008 1:39 PM

As if the completely unworkable "solutions" posed by the "progressives" are an improvement over the conservative impasse.
Obama's solution for a failing invasion is indistinguishable from John McCain's: stay the course and count on things improving.
Obama's healthcare solution is to expand entitlements which can't be payed for much less be passed even by a Dem controlled Congress.
Obama has no solution to high gas prices, indeed he believes prices should rise yet more by the imposition of higher taxes which he'll dispense to "deserving" technologies.
At best his solutions to the credit and mortgage crises postpone the true day of reckoning and shifts the financial burden to renters and the bulk of owners who acted responsibly.
As to his fuzzy solutions for global warming I defy anyone to demonstrate that they in fact will solve anything. The US could end its emission of greenhouse gasses tomorrow and China and India and the rest of the rising industrial powers will continue to take up the slack and expand their contributions.
The reality is that Obama's plans all boil down to staying in Iraq (for which Bush will be blamed) and raising taxes and fees on the middle class with no concurrent rise in our standard of living.
Obama wants us all to wear more sweaters, bike to work, and eat too much spinach. That's not so bad except that he's going to tax us out the arse for the privilege.
All the rest of his "progressive" politics is as empty as his "change you can believe in" bs.
As they say, Obama is actually referencing the bit of change left in your pocket as he taxes us all to feed the growth of a failing nanny state.

Posted by JTHB | May 21, 2008 1:40 PM

LFC, the major spending component, indeed the major function of the Federal Government, is the transfer of wealth from the young and poorer, to the old and wealthier. It doesn't get much more malign than that, and while the Republicans have certainly played along, it is the Democrts who have been the prime supporters of this process.

Elvis, no, one need be fundamentally malign o support this Farm Bill, as much a you try to rationalize it.

Posted by Will Allen | May 21, 2008 1:40 PM

Matt, you're right on the facts here, and it's true that much good could be done under the banner of conservative deregulation. But honestly, you can do better than presuming to know the minds (and souls) of your political opponents.

I'm not trying to be insulting, but the last line of your post here is pretty much a reverse of the Rush Limbaugh theory of liberalism: Liberals don't actually believe in what they advocate. All liberal policy is aimed at acquiring liberal power,so they can pass more liberal policy to acquire more liberal power.

This kind of reasoning has never made sense to me. First of all, I don't see much logic in acquiring power if you don't have some notion of something valuable to do with it. More to the point, it glosses over real disagreements on matters of fact. Of course conservatives aren't interested in reducing global warming through changing land regulation. They believe global warming is a liberal conspiracy!

Obviously that idea is ludicrous, and deserves to be challenged. It's not hard to challenge, either, because the facts are on your side. But the facts do no good if the state of our discourse is such that we can't argue in good faith. If we view our opponents as fundamentally morally suspect, they will do the same, and then why should they view the facts we bring to support our arguments as anything other than lies?

Posted by lackluster | May 21, 2008 1:41 PM

"They believe global warming is a liberal conspiracy!"

Actually, they don't. To believe in something requires at least a little bit of thought, especially if that belief runs counter to the prevailing orthodoxy. Conservatives don't think about global warming, they feel. And what they overwhelmingly feel is a sense of childish spite. If Al Gore suddenly came out as a global warming denier, instead of celebrating being proved right, many conservatives would instantly find global warming much more credible.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | May 21, 2008 1:45 PM

" the problem with the conservative movement is that it's fundamentally malign"

"The ideas have some merit, it's the actual moral character of the people able to move the levers of power that are the problem'

This is actually the fundamental problem with Matt Yglesias. The fact that he sees his political opponents not as people who honestly disagree with him, but who are just evil (where is all that nuance he keeps yapping about).

So on the one hand all republicans are fundamentally evil and irational while the leaders of Iran, for example, are just logical actors who can be persuaded with a bit of talk.

Posted by Dave | May 21, 2008 1:46 PM

Most developing democracies have parties that don't break down around ideology, but around ethnicity and factions. I think (somewhat because of naive idealists in the media) we often underestimate the degree to which this is true in the US. The Republican party represents the entrenched powerful, and on social issues that's a majority. The Democratic party represents everyone else.

Posted by Shock Mouse | May 21, 2008 1:46 PM

Elvis,

The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings.

Of course, the Republicans voted for the farm bill too. So I might as well pick the party that will only callously starve brown foriegners, opposed to the party that also wants to bomb them outright.

Posted by David Shor | May 21, 2008 1:47 PM

"The problem isn't with conservatism so much as it is with Republicanism."

Theoretically, this is probably true. In practice, not so much.

If you disregard how conservative political theorists have attempted to define conservatism and just take the word literally, then there's little or no basis upon which to make a moral judgment about it as an ideology. That is to say, if we lived in an actual utopia, then clearly conservatism would be the good ideology and those which oppose it, "bad". (Assuming there are not equivalent, but distinct, utopias.)

If you accept how highly regarded conservative theorists (e.g., Burke) have attempted to define conservatism, then it may or may not be morally corrupt, depending upon how you evaluate its tenets.

But if you look at what conservatism has actually meant in America in at least the last half century by looking at its actions and, recently, by looking at the psychological tendencies of those who subscribe to it, I think a very strong case can be made that it's a evil ideology. Its strongest traits in this context are paranoia, selfishness, chauvinism, xenophobia, belligerence, and close-mindedness.

The way it likes to think about itself need not correspond to those traits. Being suspicious of change is not intrinsically related to those traits (abstractly—but they are arguably related psychologically). Certainly preferring small government is not intrinsically related to those traits (but, again, psychologically, they arguably are).

Personally, I think that if you apply the same analytical technique to liberals and progressives, we don't come out 100% squeaky clean. True, many of the actual psychological traits of liberals/progressives in American are morally good. But not all.

I have a strong sense that it's true for both sides that to the degree that they're angrily against something/someone, it's the degree to which they are likely (but not necessarily) ascribing to the ideology on the basis of malign motivations and worldviews. Are you a progressive because you're openminded and want what's best for the greatest number of people, worldwide? Or are you progressive because you've identified a villain that you despise and wish to vanquish? Are progressives your "tribe"? Are you, in fact and not just rhetoric, openminded and accepting of difference?

Even so, I think that, on balance, the political left in the US is considerably more morally correct and benign than is the right.

Personally, I believe that the strongest sorting mechanism involved here is the capacity for empathy. And I can imagine a political context where the main things we consider essential to both economic and cultural leftism are not deeply related to the capacity for empathy. I think, for example, that this is less true of European politics than it is here.

But to the degree that there is a deep correlation between capacity for empathy and political affiliation there is, I believe, a deep correlation between morality and political affiliation. Empathy is is good, a lack of empathy is bad. The lack of empathy leads to bad moral choices. A conservative will argue that empathy can obstruct correct moral choices (as in criminal justice); but I think that looking at the consequences of its extremes in individual people is revealing: one who completely lacks empathy is a sociopath, while one who has a great deal of empathy is someone like a Mother Theresa.

It's also important to note that many, most, or all religious traditions emphasize empathy and its moral correctness. Individual believers pick and choose what they will recognize as essential components of their belief system, of course. But it's important to recognize that Christianity has a long tradition of elevating universal empathy to a core moral principle and using that principle as the impetus for social and political activism. Therefore, while religious belief and extremism are currently associated in the US with conservatism, this is not an essential relationship. It is, indeed, a relationship fraught with conflicts. The GOP's reliance upon the relationship between extreme cultural conservatives and evangelism is probably going to break them in the coming years because the evangelical young (and other young believers psychologically like them) have internalized many of the culturally progressive values such as tolerance of homosexuality (not approval, but tolerance). With these young people, the attraction to those things which act against empathy is not nearly as strong (with the singular and important exception of abortion) and they are more and more turned off the GOP because of its antipathy to empathy. These young believers want to feed the poor and heal the sick and see the GOPs indifference and even hostility to the poor and sick as moral bankruptcy.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | May 21, 2008 1:50 PM

I agree. But it's also important to remember that there are decent, conservative people out there are who have been genuinely bamboozled. Conservatives haven't always been morally bankrupt. I have conservative family members that just haven't realized that their party has been taken over by crooks and I feel sorry for them. It's my hope that Obama can change the game enough to bring them back to their senses.

Posted by AGT | May 21, 2008 1:51 PM

It's unclear what Matt means by "the conservative movement" in this post. Is it supposed to be identical to the Republican Party? I should hope not.

He is surely right that a number of Republican officials are corrupt hacks, that the Bush Administration isn't fundamentally interested in the merits of ideas and that some of its officials are malign. Of course, George Will and Peggy Noonan have been saying a lot of the same things in their columns of late. Are they somehow not part of the conservative movement? Or consider citizen bloggers who post their rants to Red State. Does it make sense to suggest that their political beliefs, whether right or wrong, are fundamentally motivated by a desire to seize personal power and wealth? It's hard to see how that's going to happen.

Either Matt is casting aspersions on a group so vague that it's impossible to tell what his point actually is, or else he is casting aspersions at a vast swath of citizens so numerous, diverse and at odds with one another that any effort to assert that all share some malign motive is ridiculous.

It's also worth noting that conservatives generally believe that power is corrupting whatever your political affiliations -- see the posts on this blog about Hillary Clinton for a proof -- and that the right favors limited government in part because it doesn't trust even its ideological fellows to avoid the temptation to seek power rather than public good.

I suppose you can believe only Republicans do this if you like. What I never understand is the willingness of the left to give so much power to the federal government knowing that in a two-party country the Republicans are inevitably going to be in power from time to time. Wouldn't you all have preferred a world where, when the Bush Administration entered office, they controlled many fewer levers of power?

Posted by Conor Friedersdorf | May 21, 2008 1:53 PM

Republicanism has evolved into a movement with a genuinely malign attitude towards government and government services, so I don't think MattY's post can be said to be unfair. It's like claiming that Communists are a genuinely malign force when it comes to private property and using that as a reason not to hire them to be property managers and collect rent-- ie, a pretty self-evident statement.

Posted by Tyro | May 21, 2008 1:53 PM

As if the completely unworkable "solutions" posed by the "progressives" are an improvement over the conservative impasse.

So conservatives have proven themselves to be complete and total f***-ups, but we should re-elect them because we don't think progressives can do better? Now THAT's at least an honest campaign slogan for the GOP.

Obama's solution for a failing invasion...

A failed invasion that the GOP is responsible for, and continues to support whole hog.

Obama's healthcare solution ...

A healthcare problem that became increasingly worse under the GOP, and has been virtually ignored by the GOP.

Obama has no solution to high gas prices...

Much of which was caused by GOP overspending and the intentional creation of a real estate bubble with ridiculous interest rates, crushing the dollar and making us pay more than 50% more per barrel for oil than countries using the Euro. ($1 = .634 Euros as of today)

News flash: McCain's plans would add twice as much debt as Obama's. Want to see gas prices skyrocket? Implement McCain's morally bankrupt (and fiscally bankrupt) plans and watch the dollar plummet further.

indeed he believes prices should rise yet more by the imposition of higher taxes which he'll dispense to "deserving" technologies.

Technologies that the GOP won't lift a finger to support, while they poor hundred of billions into the debacle that is Iraq. If we were 6 years ahead in those technologies, they could be making a difference.

Repeat after me, nitwit. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE IS A NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE. What part of 15 Saudi hijackers on 9/11 is so hard for you to grasp.

At best his solutions to the credit and mortgage crises...

A crisis created by bad GOP policy. Look up what Bush's OCC did when the states tried to stop predatory lenders.

Funny how your entire argument against progressive politics is that you don't believe they'll be able to solve the problems that we wouldn't have in the first place except that we had a GOP majority and president that screwed up time and again with a grin on their face and their hands on my wallet.

Sorry, but your gang had their chance and they f***ed up ... BIG TIME. Now it's time to give somebody else a try. One definition of insanity if repeating the same thing over and over, hoping for different results. I'm not insane, so I won't vote GOP.

Posted by LFC | May 21, 2008 1:57 PM

"The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings."

I'm no fan of the farm bill, but what you are saying is asinine. How are "third-world" children starved by SUBSIDIZING food? The critique in the past has been that the US's (and Europe) subsidizing food has lowered the world price of ag commodities--hurting developing world farmers. But now that world prices are high (due to East Asian countries growing wealth, various supply constraints, an increase in the price of oil, exogenous shocks such as droughts, and increasing biofuel use), developing world farmers should benefit (as least somewhat) and US's subsidizing of crops should increase the world supply higher than it would have been without subsidies. Now, it is true that ethanol is a complicating factor, but it is not the sole or even most important reason for current high prices, but it does contribute. If you mean ethanol, however, you should be specific--as the farm bill does subsidize crops which, as I think I have shown, mitigates at least some of their effect.

Posted by David | May 21, 2008 1:57 PM

Elvis,

The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings.

Of course, the Republicans voted for the farm bill too. So I might as well pick the party that will only callously starve brown foriegners, opposed to the party that also wants to bomb them outright.

Posted by David Shor | May 21, 2008 1:57 PM

Elvis,

The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings.

Of course, the Republicans voted for the farm bill too. So I might as well pick the party that will only callously starve brown foriegners, opposed to the party that also wants to bomb them outright.

Posted by David Shor | May 21, 2008 1:58 PM

When I was younger, Kentucky had a Republican senator named John Sherman Cooper. Those were the days, my friends. Because of Cooper, I thought I was a Republican.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sherman_Cooper

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 21, 2008 1:59 PM

"The farm bill will most likely kill more innocent people over the next decade than the Iraq war. Starving and impoveishing third world children for the benefit of rich and upper-middle classfarmers for political benefit is just as evil as pandering to racists to win an election, or invading a country based on lies to prop up approval ratings."

I'm no fan of the farm bill, but what you are saying is asinine. How are "third-world" children starved by SUBSIDIZING food? The critique in the past has been that the US's (and Europe) subsidizing food has lowered the world price of ag commodities--hurting developing world farmers. But now that world prices are high (due to East Asian countries growing wealth, various supply constraints, an increase in the price of oil, exogenous shocks such as droughts, and increasing biofuel use), developing world farmers should benefit (as least somewhat) and US's subsidizing of crops should increase the world supply higher than it would have been without subsidies. Now, it is true that ethanol is a complicating factor, but it is not the sole or even most important reason for current high prices, but it does contribute. If you mean ethanol, however, you should be specific--as the farm bill does subsidize crops which, as I think I have shown, mitigates at least some of their effect.

Posted by David | May 21, 2008 2:02 PM

How are "third-world" children starved by SUBSIDIZING food?

Because we're really not subsidizing food, we're subsidizing farmers. The subsidies undercut the production of 3rd world farmers by keeping them out of our market.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 21, 2008 2:07 PM

Jeffrey Davis:

Go read Dani Rodrik on the matter and see if you still think that:

http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2008/04/syncretic-zoell/comments/page/2/

I already conceded that subsidizing food, when it leads to low world prices, hurts developing world farmers. Your comment, however, does not address the fact that world prices are high, subsidies increase production (and are therefore ameliorating those high prices), and the urban poor in developing countries are helped by lower prices and hurt by higher ones.

Posted by David | May 21, 2008 2:16 PM

The ideas have some merit, it's the actual moral character of the people able to move the levers of power that are the problem -- they're not fundamentally interested in the merits of ideas, even their own ideas, they're interested in power and greed.

Sure, but the Democrats are no better. Politics is a nasty business.

Posted by right | May 21, 2008 2:27 PM

Sure, but the Democrats are no better.

I disagree. While the Dems ain't great, there has been no worse group of politicians in this country during my adult lifetime than the Republicans of the last decade. They are the worst of the worst, and have done horrible things to this country.

And this is from a guy who originally registered Republican because I loathed the Dems of the late-70s and 80s. They were really bad. The current GOP crop is far, far worse.

Posted by LFC | May 21, 2008 2:33 PM

"Conservatism is fundamentally malign" - sounds good in today's climate, but is actually pretty shrill and shallow. There are plenty of principled conservatives who regard the Bush-Cheney style of conservatism with horror, and would be quick to suggest that an authentic conservatism would not be negative, reactionary and financially corrupt. I'd suggest that this sort of rhetorical posturing ultimately does more for partisan hacks than for the country overall - just as caricaturing liberalism as being about gay marriage and bureaucracy is a gross distortion that ultimately advances no-one's interests except those of the pundits who get paid for scribbling such graffiti on the surface of public life.

Posted by jaswant | May 21, 2008 2:36 PM

The good ideas you mention are actually more libertarian than "conservative," at least given the present connotations of those words.

Posted by Christopher Monnier | May 21, 2008 2:36 PM

...I loathed the Dems of the late-70s and 80s. They were really bad. The current GOP crop is far, far worse.

That may be true; I'm not sure on what basis we can compare who is the most corrupt or power-mad. I do, however, think it demonstrates the truism that entrenched power is fundamentally corrupting.

Posted by right | May 21, 2008 2:40 PM

Sorry for the multiple posts, my EDGE connection is a bit screwy.

David,

In the very short term, Rodrik is mostly right. Eliminating agricultural subsidies and trade barriers will increase food prices(Though eliminating the ethanol subsidy would increase food production a good deal, but I'd have to crunch some numbers to see how the two effects compare). Most free trade advocates don't think these effects through.

But over a larger time frame, the rising prices send a signal to farmers to raise production, making food production quite a bit higher than it was before. In fact, the good professor said as much.

http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2008/05/does-the-food-p.html

Posted by David Shor | May 21, 2008 2:45 PM

The problem isn't with conservatism

What was it that Digby always said? That "conservatism can never fail; it can only be failed?" Very interesting. Despite the complete lack of any successful, truly conservative policy, conservatism doesn't have any problems, it just can't ever seem to catch a break.

Posted by Chet | May 21, 2008 2:54 PM

I do, however, think it demonstrates the truism that entrenched power is fundamentally corrupting.

I agree. That's why I'm hoping the GOP gets crushed in 2008, reforms around what I view as actual conservative principles (where war is taken seriously, fiscal conservatism means more than tax cuts, flag pins aren't important, etc.), and comes back to create a power balance in 2012 or, more likely, 2016.

Divided government works best, but only if both sides are sane. The GOP is not currently sane.

Posted by LFC | May 21, 2008 2:54 PM

I think MY is onto something here as long as it has clear limits put on it (including the neocons, the business yet anti-free market conservatives and the racists in this analysis while keeping the likes of Zakaria, Drezner and Fukuyama out). The post-war GOP has had two primary strands that first emerged explicitly in the 1950's: Eisenhower Republicans (who often overlapped with Rockefeller Republicans) who were sane and wanted a small government (Eisenhower was also rather good on civil rights as well) vs. McCarthy Republicans.

However, the Eisenhower, and especially the Rockefeller, Republicans were a bit elitist and believed in things like being a gentleman, thinking things through, against the military-industrial complex for just its own sake, not running around afraid of brown people, etc. Hagel and Chafee almost the last remaining major Senators of this strand, pretty much only leaving the two Senators from Maine. The McCarthy wing has been angry and populist. It tells angry white people they are perfect, they never have to change, women and minorities should know their place, etc. It's guiding principles seem to be blind nationalism in foreign policy and confusing whatever rich people want for capitalism. The problem is that the high-minded Republicans were a bit too elitist for the "truthier" McCarthyites. Once the Dems split on region over civil rights, the Dixiecrat populists went to the GOP and over time the Rockefellers often found themselves in as Democrats or as Republicans so liberal from blue states that former Dixiecrats like Helms would block them from assuming ambassadorships. The Southern Strategy, which the former RNC chairman admitted not too long ago to the NAACP was racist, was based on a type of cultural populism while serving the purposes of rich people who care more about lower taxes than a small deficit or decent infrastructure. Conservative populism today is mostly cultural, against foreigners abroad and different people at home, so it is rather anti-intellectual and thus is suspicious of any ideas based on book-learning to improve life in America. The GOP today is basically the McCarthy-Dixiecrat populist party.

Posted by Reality Man | May 21, 2008 3:57 PM

I tried to read this post, but the actually existing writing was so sloppy and full of typos that I couldn't.

you should try reading the not-actually-existing writing. that's where the decemberists command 75,000-strong audiences and make them pledge fealty to the exquisite corpse of josef stalin.

Posted by marc h. | May 21, 2008 4:10 PM

As has been said, conservatism is defined by conservatives, the majority of whom, self described tho they may be, are Republicans in lock step with the Pary of Bush.

I know many Republicans, and they seem to come in two flavors - those who have always been Republicans and are are not particularly into self examination and reflection and so feel no need to change, and those who come to their Repuboicanism because the attitudes and policies of the existing Republican party suit them just fine. I even like them as people (I like most people) but I find the members of the second flavor uniformly incapable of seeing themselves in someone else's shoes, uniformly feeling vicitimized by taxes - ANY taxes - and uniformly uneducated about the world and their brothers and sisters who share it with them. Most of them are not bad people, they just lack any sense of empathy, or even any interest in someone else's life.

Any large enough collection of people (say, corporations, or even nations) tends towards the sociopathic. When the people making up this sociopathic mob are borderline sociopaths to begin with, the result is malign in fact and theory.

People who claim to be conservatives and are supposedly aghast at what Bush has done but continue to vote Republican simply prove the point that modern conservatism is not different from Republicanism, that it is equally malign.

Jake

Posted by Jakebnto | May 21, 2008 5:11 PM

I loved your mention of deregulation in health care, Matt. Although actually, I'd call for reforming the regulatory regime. Dentistry is an excellent example. Here we have an art that we know can be taught on different levels - most dental care could be done more cheaply by paradentists, such as in the experimental program in Alaska. However, this would have the effect of causing dental salaries to fall considerably. Of course, having monopoly control over dental licencing, the professional dental group actually tries to thin the number of new dentists.

Now, of course, if we were talking about the salaries of workers in car factories, conservatives would be hopping up and down, talking about those Soviet style unions. But since dentists are in the income group that is at the core of conservative political activity, they will not ever propose a sensible reform of dental licensing, and they would block any reform that is proposed. We should have twice as many people in the dental industry, we should have para-dentists, and we should have a significant collapse in the cost of visiting a dentist, because the cost is the direct result of a monopolistic squeeze. As a result, American dental care is getting worse, nationally. This is one of those absurdities where conservative economists are theoretically right, but the right wing basically exists, at the moment, to protect the monopoly rents of the entrenched rich and the military welfare state that employs so many white males, the core rightwing constituency. That is all they are good for.

Posted by roger | May 21, 2008 9:42 PM

Let's not kid ourselves, the "conservatives" were all in favor of the Republican Party until it implemented conservatism and conservatism was exposed as a malign force supported only by the truly stupid.

For example, we have here someone who whines about how the Federal Government spends money, but is perfectly happy to use the power of taxation to compel everyone on this board to pay for the slaughter of innocents. When pressed, he will even admit that the reason why we need to slaughter those people is because they sit on a commodity we need - oil.

As for the asinine complaint about Social Security, the less said the better. No program has done more to ease the burden on both the elderly and those who would otherwise be required to support them (that would be the young - and not necessarily at their peak earning power, which is when Social Security now takes the greatest bite). That some lackwit hates it is hardly a valid critique of the program.

Posted by Not as stupid as Will Allen | May 21, 2008 10:13 PM

The only thing that is malignant is liberalism. It isn't conservatives who are against deregulatory measures that would improve access to health care and such things; it's liberals in the Republican Party and the liberals that are the Democrat Party that keep these things from happening. After all, there's never been a liberal who wouldn't want to throw more regulation on anything, whether it needs to or not.

Posted by SteveIL | May 21, 2008 10:14 PM

The only thing that is malignant is liberalism.

Really? Murdering people with bombs because you want their resources is less malign than suggesting that it's not okay to put your pig shit in the water table?

No wonder conservatism has no ideas - its supporters are total fucking morons.

Posted by Not as stupid as Will Allen | May 21, 2008 11:00 PM

Yglesias captures in this post why there is a split today between Republicans and libertarians.

Posted by thehova | May 22, 2008 12:29 AM

the problem with the conservative movement is that it's fundamentally malign.

Coming from the side of the aisle that won't look at any education reform that upsets the NEA, thereby abandoning the poor to their awful schools, I would say that is rich.

Oh, well - I was convinced through the 70's and 80's that libs were not at all concerned about the impact of welfare on black families, as long as it bought them black votes. Malign, indeed.

Posted by Tom Maguire | May 22, 2008 12:44 AM

Tom Maguire;

Abandoning children can take many forms - like, allowing the parents of the wealthy to opt out for free. Like creating a second education system only available to the not-poor, and perhaps not-middle class. To which state college, for example, edges ever more perilously close.

Our education system has problems, no doubt. The NEA, OTOH, is not the root of all the ill in the system.

Still, it's good to see you read here. You may struggle (and lose) mightily with your own confirmational biases, but at least you do read.

Jake

Posted by Jakebnto | May 22, 2008 8:35 AM

Coming from the party of perpetual war, complaints about the destructive power of the NEA ring mighty hollow.

Did the NEA destroy Cambodia? Did it wantonly invade Laos, Grenada, Panama, Iraq? Did it sell arms to Iran in exchange for hostages?

Sorry, all this whining about how malign liberalism is and not one of the assholes doing it seems to consider the malign effects of bombing the fuck out of nations, murdering their men, women, and children, and generally destabilizing the world.

Sorry idiot conservatives (but I repeat myself), a philosophy that desires respect and pay for teachers is in no way more malign than a philosophy that desires the slaughter of brown people for the entertainment of Republicans.

Posted by Not as stupid as Will Allen | May 22, 2008 10:10 AM

"Coming from the side of the aisle that won't look at any education reform that upsets the NEA, thereby abandoning the poor to their awful schools, I would say that is rich."

That's really the best you got? So attacking teacher's unions is going to make schools better? Part of what unions do is fight for higher pay for their members. Higher pay means that you can attract higher-skilled people. Having better teachers means having a better educational system. In addition, outside of California, states with really weak teachers' unions also tend to be towards the bottom in education, like Alabama.

Posted by Reality Man | May 22, 2008 2:59 PM

If you want to know why conservatism is dead intellectually and what can be done to restore the ideas of individual rights, limited government, and laissez-faire capitalism, I would recommend that you read this essay on "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism," which just about says it all:

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-fall/decline-fall-american-conservatism.asp

Posted by Peter | May 22, 2008 10:27 PM

If you want to know why conservatism is dead intellectually and what can be done to restore the ideas of individual rights, limited government, and laissez-faire capitalism, I would recommend that you read this essay on "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism," which just about says it all:

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-fall/decline-fall-american-conservatism.asp

Posted by Peter | May 22, 2008 10:28 PM