Modern Conservatism includes an extremist perversion of liberalism
Last edited Tue Feb 5, 2013, 06:24 PM - Edit history (1)
Modern conservatism has two competing and often contrary cores.
The first is a loutish form of original conservatism—reaction to the French Revolution. Whatever the French Revolution is, I'm agin' it. Extremist and simplistic original conservatism is monarchist/fascist/otherwise-autocratic, and theocratic. Class stratification of society is seen as a good thing to be preserved. Tradition is to be maintained for its own sake.
The second is fundamentalist Liberalism. Liberalism is a way of ensuring liberties to the people and liberalism takes a very skeptical view of government as a necessary evil. America is a Liberal nation, in that sense. Our Constitution is a document crafted to restrain government, not invent it. It was not formed to bring order from chaos. There was already plenty of order. It was an alternative to Monarchism.
An expasion of the idea into the realm of extremism would be an infinite skepticism of government. The economic libertarian is an extreme, a fundamentalist extrapolation.
Take these two contradictory strands (Monarchism, class-ism, feudalism, theocracy // opposition to government & regulation) and we get, "The government should ruthlessly control everyone except me and mine, along lines I perceive as traditional."
The patch-work Frankenstein of American conservatism has done tremendous harm to liberalism. There really is no human freedom without restraint of government (though there is also no real freedom without government.) And government does, quite naturally, tend toward tyranny. These ideas are unexceptional to almost every modern person who has thought much about the nature of government. It is sad, sad, sad that these homely truths sound, to some modern ears, like RW talking points because of the RW co-option and repetition of these ideas that they don't even really believe in.
But despite the wingnut perversion of things, the basic idea that government is dangerous is a necessary idea, and especially necessary if government is to do big things.
The more we expect of government, the tighter the reins on government must be... the more absolute the protections of individual freedoms must be. Rachel is right that only a government can build Hoover Dam. Unfortunately, however, most historical human works equivalent to Hoover Dam were built by slave labor of one sort or another. That's the problem... how to build Hoover Dam while keeping people above the government.
Only with a sturdy capsule of rights around the individual can government be allowed to be big enough to be useful, while not becoming the master of its creators.
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During the 90s I thought I was a Libertarian, which always led to people assuming I was RW. It led to some confusion. 
Political Compass puts me solidly in the southwest quadrant, however. I'm very much on the economic Left. I think the two-axis model could help many people understand their actual stances. I rather wish it would catch on a bit more in our culture.
We live in a (increasingly) diverse country, and that diversity is along many lines-economic class, race (as a social construct), culture, ethnicity, religion (or no religion), gender identity, sexual orientation, nation of origin, and last but not least, personalities, beliefs, values, and experiences (individual or as a member of a group or culture).
With so many different individuals in our increasingly diverse and inter-connected society, only a strong government, accountable to the people, and democratic in process, can protect and expand every individual human being's rights, opportunities, and liberties.
That's what a truly modern, innovative version of liberalism can and should be about. 
