This blog post is in response to an article by a leading mainstream conservative thinker, in which he gives ten recommendations for how the country can be moved in the right direction. The article appeared at a left-leaning website, but the man really is a conservative rather than a liberal or neoconservative (neoconservative means a liberal wolf in conservative sheep’s clothing).
I have read none of his books (although I own one) but I know he is much better than many conservatives in regard to foreign policy. He is a non-interventionist. Heaven bless him for that! He is “by temperament a conservative and a traditionalist” and elsewhere has called himself a Catholic conservative. I don’t want to name him. While you will see that I disagree with some of his recommendations, I like others of them. I don’t want this to be a personal attack on this gentleman. What his recommendations indicate to me is how generally empty is the playbook of mainstream conservatism in general.
I will summarize his points one by one, and respond with my own opinion of what he recommends.
1/Abolish the Electoral College. Response to 1/It is difficult to imagine a more wrong-headed idea for anyone of conservative temperament. The electoral college was the only thing that kept us from Hillary Clinton being president. Donald Trump may not be the best man for the job, but Hillary Clinton is one of the most mindless and evil people this country has ever nourished up to viperous adulthood. Abolish the Electoral College, and suddenly the party that is best at cheating is the party that has a great natural advantage in winning the presidency. Register enough of the denizens of the graveyards to vote, and suddenly the nation is at the mercy of conscienceless scoundrels. Granted, voter fraud will still help scoundrels win state elections–but the Electoral College means that such fraud will not necessarily swing the national election to the biggest crooks.
2/Rollback gerrymandering. Response to 2/This sounds like a solid idea to me. Both parties try to set up districts so that they have an edge in as many places as possible, with all the “bad voters” isolated in one district, and the “good voters” spread out in plenty of places so that the party controlling the gerrymandering can win as many seats as possible. Why not just have districts arranged in strictly practical geographical ways? Hard to implement this good idea, of course, but if it could be done it would be helpful.
3/Limit the impact of corporate money on elections. Response to 3/This would be hard to do. Would it help if it could be done? Frankly, I doubt it. As a nation, we are too far gone in corruption. We are going to have to become a much better people morally, before we begin to see politicians who are not bought and sold at the national level.
4/Require a balanced federal budget. Response to 4/A great idea. He wants us to see that we need to “choose between guns and butter.” We are not ready to choose. We want lots of butter and lots of guns (by which I mean we want a huge military), both paid for by the other guy’s tax dollars Again, we are too corrupt a people. But this idea is on the side of the angels. Maybe after the nation implodes, there will be a handful of smaller countries arise from the ashes, a few of which will effectively put this idea to use.
5/Implement a program of national service. Response to 5/Quit trying to boss everyone around. Leave people alone. This is an horrific idea.
6/Enact tax policies which will promote greater income equality Response to 6/This sounds like a plan to soak the rich. Promoting greater income equality is a euphemism for “take from the productive and give to those who are not productive.” That is another very wrong-headed idea.
7/Increase public funding for higher education. Response to 7/Public funding means the ordinary person is going to be taxed to pay for more higher education for other people. This is another absolutely horrific idea. So Joe Six-Pack working at McDonald’s, barely getting along on his income already, is supposed to pay for more potential snowflakes to go to college to be corrupted by the politically correct evil scumbags in control of higher education, and thus become snowflakes for life? Wow. Just wow.
8/Find meaningful work for those without advanced science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degrees. Response to 8/This sounds like another opportunity for the central government to spend a lot of money to interfere with our lives. “Meaningful work” is honest work which people want to hire us to do.
9/Treat climate change as the first-order priority which it is. Response to 9/Unfortunately, this gentleman has swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, the leftist twaddle on “climate change.”
10/If there is no progress on the nine reforms recommended above, create a new party system which ends the Republican/Democrat duopoly which currently limits policy options. Response to 10/This is an excellent idea. The Republican and Democratic parties are “the two wings of the two-winged bird of prey,” to quote Murray Rothbard approximately. I love the idea of new political parties. I would like to see them spring up locally, one here, another there, dozens, hundreds, thousands if need be. If highly principled people dedicated to small central government begin to be active in politics and begin to challenge the duopoly, that will be a step in the right direction. As a people, however, we are deliriously corrupt, so we may not be ready to begin to take back our nation from the duopoly. Still, a fine suggestion by the gentleman making his ten recommendations.
To summarize, the ten recommendations by a well-known mainstream “conservative and traditionalist” thinker, a man whose books get published, whose ideas get spread around the Internet, who teaches in prestigious universities, who is by no means a warmongering idiot intent upon trying to run the world with the U.S. military–these ten recommendations break down in this way: one sort of neutral (#3), three very good and helpful (#2, #4, #10), and six ranging from bad to horrific (#1, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9).
I find this to be terrifying. This is mainstream conservatism? No wonder leftism is so powerful. If this is all mainstream conservatism has to offer, we are in deep doo doo.
Of course I know that this gentleman makes no claim to speak for anyone but himself. Also, there are branches of conservatism which are more thoughtful–the paleoconservatives immediately come to mind. But the contrast between the reforms offered by our mainstream conservative featured today, and the reforms needed by our nation, is stark.
We are going to have to think for ourselves, and act for ourselves. Which, after all, is only fair.