Kesler: “What McCain did Right and Conservatives Wrong”
It will take a major overhaul to revive the conservative movement. As in 1964, it will not come from the establishment, but must depend on openness to new participants and leaders. Of course, that does not mean fringe elements or ideas. The crucial role that National Review played post-1964 in guarding against that will require a new central forum of conservative sanity and principle.
No one can predict where they will come from. But they must be encouraged, welcomed and supported when they appear. Indeed, each of us must see in ourselves the willingness and determination to be those participants and leaders
Wise words.
American conservatism needs a substantial overhaul – perhaps even a 12 Step program – to recover it’s essence as an optimistic philosophy that profoundly empowers individuals and trusts them to make their own choices. Then, in my opinion, conservatives need to harness that spirit to a thorough comprehension of how globalization changed the world to operate in terms of metasystems and networks, so as to balance economic dynamism with resiliency (and learn how to get that point across in normal English). Then go on message and do not deviate.
The other side, if Senator Obama wins Tuesday, will be so consumed with jerry-rigging top-down, hierarchical, statist, solutions out of a fantasist version of the New Deal that they will inevitably overreach and create an opening for a new brand conservatism four years from now.
Or perhaps just two years. Time to get busy.
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Eddie:
November 4th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I am sorry but at times he seems to regurgitate discredited blah-blah. I wanted to comment at his post but given the raves about Sarah Palin among some of the commenters I could not bear to waste my time.
"McCain earned none of the points he should have for trying to tackle the credit-economic meltdown, even by comparison to Obama’s passivity."
Well, actually no. This was a plan concocted by his campaign manager for him to look presidential and it bombed, mostly because McCain sat in that meeting at the White House and contributed zilch to it.
He did not even come with questions or try to find other options on what the Treasury Secretary and POTUS were asking for. He deserved no points because he did nothing, and then sat on his hands while the "deal" he rushed to save was scuttled by his own party in the House (and rightfully so!).
Neither did McCain draw attention to the Congress’ tainted hands in creating it, but there are many Republican members who sat by and prospered from the false sense of well-being that preceded the deluge
Is this an allusion to the favorite boogeyman of the "know-nothing about modern economics and capitalism" wing of the party: Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae? They played a minor role as symptoms of an ailment (housing bubble/mortage fraud) caused by a cancer (a systemic unregulated, misunderstood and underappreciated market).
Where is his talk of the role the more than 50 Trillion dollar CDS markets played? Or how financial instituions across the board simply threw caution to the wind, abandoning long-standing advisories and rules regarding investment risks? How muncipalities around the West (especially in America) seemingly lost their collective common sense and borrowed money to invest in schemes they barely (or did not) understand?
These are problems much, much bigger than the Congress or politics can be blamed for or even do much about. It sure as heck wasn’t George Bush or Barney Frank’s fault that so many people lost their minds when it came to investing, borrowing and evaluating. No its not the death of capitalism but surely the death of common sense….
The think-tanks we built and many major donors have been cringing or avoiding confrontation.
With rare exception they interalized the Bush/Cheney policies and outlooks whole for years and discredited themselves as "conservatives". Look at the record of say, AEI or the Heritage Foundation on matters of budgets, foreign policy and torture. At least the Cato Instituite was usually a sanctuary of conservative principles on domestic and foreign policy (if a bit too isolationist in some cases).
I also enjoy how conservatives seem to think Obama will get away with any Far-left meandering. I do not see it, especially when 1/3 or more of the House delegation will be Blue Dog Democrats who have and will continue to buck the party on its most liberal or outrageous ideas. I used to fear card-check legislation being passed but I see no way possible they will be able to get the votes even in the House. Given that Obama has shown himself to be usually pragmatic and ruthless, I doubt he will screw up his chance at re-election by embarking on a nostaglia tour of the Left’s greatest disasters. And he would not have the votes anyway.
Lexington Green:
November 4th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Mark, I agree with every word.
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The next few years will be devoted to rebuilding, whoever wins the election today.
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It is is Barack, we have 1,463 days until November 6, 2012 to oppose him on every utterance, every act, and every initiative, except the Easter Egg hunt on the White House lawn and throwing out baseballs.
Eddie:
November 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
The only good news I can find out of his campaign was the last three weeks showed there was a serious resonance with voters about the message of free markets and taxes. We need candidates across the board who can drive that home and actually enact it. Jindal, Sanford and McCrory could be those candidates in 2012.
Though one could also find hope in that most of the House seats are being potentially won by Democrats who sound and act like Republicans of the 1980’s. The ideas are still strong.
Moon:
November 6th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
How ’bout some sharp card here rig up "The Bastiat Lens", a blog or other medium that — as a monolithic Austrian theme — clarifies Henry Hazlitt’s "Economics In One Lesson"? Every post to the blog must conform to the following pattern:
I. What Is Seen
<discussion of 1-order effects>
II. What Is Not Seen
<discussion of n-order effects>
zen:
November 7th, 2008 at 4:49 am
A bastiat blog is an interesting concept- I think the stridently anti-market noise with come more from the House than the White House so long as Rahm Emmanuel is Chief of Staff, ex-trader that he is.