Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00304)

On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, Eldon B. Tucker wrote:
> 
> ><< Your views of liberal and conservative are much different from mine.  My
> > idea of a liberal is someone who believes that people in government are so
> > good, and people who are not in government are so helpless without people
> > in government, that big government is necessary to help people not in
> > government get by.  My idea of a conservative is someone who believes that
> > the most important issue in politics is that, since power so easily
> > corrupts, no one has too much power, preferring as decentralized and
> > limited a government as possible.  >>
> >
> >I have a hard time figuring out who wrote who to whom, but whoever wrote the
> >above passage, I say right on. A nicely expressed view of conservatism.
> 
> I like the quote too. It seems to make a balanced attempt at showing the
> two viewpoints, rather than comparing the best of one view to the worst
> of the other. It's usually possible to tell when someone is angry or
> defensive in their writing, because a strong personal bias will show.
> Other writings may show a more balanced, philosophical, easy-going approach.
> 
It probably only seems balanced if one is a conservative. I know few
liberals who would say people are "helpless" without big government ...
and the definition of "conservative" actually comes much closer to
defining libertarianism than modern conservatism. Modern conservatism has
become, for instance, quite dominated (in practice) by conservative
Christians ... and they don't want less centralized government ... they
want centralized governemnt to support different things than it is now. In
the economic realm they want less restrictions on business, but in the
area of social and cultural issues, they are quite public about their
intention to use government to control behaviour. 

A genuinely
balanced reformulation of that statement might be to say "there are
considerable areas in which as a people we face challenges and problems,
and liberals are more inclined to believe that - in some cases -
government is the best tool to use to provide the solution, while
conservatives are more inclined to believe that - in some cases - the
private market is the best tool". 

But again, modern politics is extremely complex, and I wonder whether any
single paragraph can make an accurate statement. Money now dominates both
parties almost completely, and when either side's philosophy comes down to
being applied in practice, in legislation, it is the opinions of big-money
contributors rather than philosophy that generally determines outcome. 

> One thing from the quote above seems slightly funny. According to the
> definition, a theosophical liberal is someone who believes that people
> in theosophical office are so good, and people who are not in theosophical
> office are so helpless without them, that big government is necessary to
> help them get by. And a theosophical conserative is someone who believes
> that the most important issue in theosophical politics is that, since
> power so easily corrupts, no one has too much power, preferring as
> decentralized and limited a government as possible.

It would be funny if the original definition were accurate. However the
other part of the definition that makes no sense is the statement that
conservatives don't want anyone to have too much power - what does this
mean? *Both* parties want power - the Republican party clearly wanted not
just both houses of Congress, but the presidency as well - as did the
Democrats. "Decentralization" and limited government philosophies are
things some politicians preach, but certainly not things they apply to
*themselves*. 
							Regards, -JRC