YAF, or Why Conservatives are not Evil
Posted on 18. Nov, 2009 by Peter Katz in Campus
Americans have no concept of politics.
Dr. David Trim, a visiting professor from England, in explaining his political affiliation, told us, “In England, there are two parties. There are the Whigs, who are like the Democrats, and the more conservative Tories, who are like the Democrats.” In short, the American notion that Democrats are liberals and Republicans are conservatives—perhaps more importantly, that those equations can be reversed, yielding the notion that conservatives are Republican and liberals are Democrats—is unfortunately US-centric.
A quick political science lesson. “Conservative” has nothing inherently to do with religion, having a lot of money, being from the South, or owning rifles. “Liberal” has nothing inherently to do with global warming, health care, being from New York, or being anti-war. Conservative philosophy, which is what concerns this article, has to do with retention of tradition and community through continuity. Much of conservative philosophy has roots in Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he outlines a position claiming that society is the giving up of rights in order to protect from mob rule, and that the government gives back certain rights; he ridicules the French for throwing off tradition in favor of abstract rights he claims do not exist as natural givens.
One of the major players in modern conservatism was William Buckley, who constructed a conservatism based on principles the retention of American traditions such as free market, limited federal power, and social order. These notions are, ironically enough, principles of political liberalism (absolutely not in the sense of American politics), which stresses individual freedom and free market; clearly, no definition is stable, since the definition of the modern conservative rings true with the early French Revolution and the policy makers following American Revolution—who were labeled as liberals by the rest of Europe. Liberal and conservative, in practice, are not even necessarily opposites; our tradition was two centuries past’s liberalism.
Our campus recently started a chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a national organization that supports a model similar to Buckley and Burke’s conservatism (but, of course, different; history, contrary to popular opinion, does not repeat itself so linearly as to make ideological clones). YAF’s statement of purpose includes declarations that “political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom,” that, “when government ventures beyond these rightful functions [internal order, national defense, justice], it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty,” and that “when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation.” In short: free market, small central government, and personal liberty as perceived through economic agency. In shorter: conservatism.
The primary problem with American politics, if I may be so bold as to declare such a ridiculous statement, is not partisanship, but rather, blind partisanship. The notion that to be a conservative (and therefore, in the American mind, a Republican) to the American means that one must be anti-gay-marriage (and therefore a homophobe), anti-big-government (and therefore hate poor people), anti-abortion (and therefore a misogynist), and pro-social-order via morality (and therefore a religious nutcase). Conservatism as an ideology says nothing explicitly about homophobia, nothing about abortion, nothing about religion, nothing about class. But the American political mind feels that, since conservative = Republican, all of these assumptions must be true.
What makes this problem so virulent is the reactionary nature of American politics, and politics in general. It is safe to assert that many Americans did not much appreciate George W. Bush’s administrative policies; it is unfortunately more accurate to assert that a good deal of Americans hated George W. Bush because it was the thing to do. After Clinton, it was cool to be conservative; after Bush, it is cool to be liberal. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan had little to do with conservative politics – except the notion of aggressive foreign policy – and more to do with the Bush administration. One would note that there are still troops in both countries; clearly, the real world is a little more complicated than Republican and Democrat. Nevertheless, because we are so reactionary, somehow, to be a Republican is to be closed minded, to hate humanity in general, particularly minorities and freedom (ironic, no?).
My point, therefore, is that conservative does not yield evil: Republican does not yield evil, and more importantly, conservative does not yield Republican. American political parties are (supposedly) an amalgamation of stances on specific issues that may or may not have to do with conservatism or liberalism, and may even be contradictory (abortion and the death penalty being the pedantic examples). YAF represents a modern conservative ideology regarding the market, the power of the federal government, and American tradition. To claim that a conservative group is a hate group is to be blind to the greater questions of politics and the recognition that “Republican” and “Democrat” as we know them are recent inventions with only tangential correlation to the fundamentals of conservatism/democracy/liberalism.
YAF is an organization of students who believe in American tradition, free market, and limited federal government, not a hate group. There is perhaps no one so closed-minded as the American alleged liberal who hates the very notion of conservatives (or Republicans) simply because they are not Democrats. Such a person is neither liberal, nor conservative – simply ignorant.
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