For some time now, we've talked about the three legs of conservatism: social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, militarist/nationalist/hawkish (take your pick) conservatives. Most people have wanted to talk about how to unite the three, but the truth is that the Bush presidency may have splintered that coalition for good. Hawkish conservatives had to feel happy at first, but then perhaps felt slighted because of the Bush administration's severe mishandling of the beginning of the occupation of Iraq and endless difficulties in Afghanistan. Bush originally took office as the president of social conservatives, but never delivered much on that promise, and in fact social cons have come to realize that the War on Terror presents its own sticky moral dilemmas. Fiscal conservatives loved the tax cuts, but those cold-blooded profiteers never realized that the raised temperatures of lower taxes were never offset by the chilling effect of federal spending, and now they're too lethargic to jump out of the pan: bailouts, here we come.
It's time to get over these things. We need to be honest with ourselves. Any of these three alone is inadequate. Social conservatives are right that we need strong families, strong communities of faith, and strong local communities in order to have a strong nation. Fiscal conservatives are right that economic liberties are inseparable from the other ones, and also that the free market has no rival as a wealth-creating force. And who can argue that our country needs its leaders to be committed to its defense? Conservatism isn't about stopping abortions, or getting rid of welfare, or killing terrorists. It's about people, about human dignity. And if there's one thing that opposes itself to human dignity, it's ideology, and especially ideological snobbery. It's time to make the Republican Party, to make conservatism, about people again.
What does this mean? It means recognizing that ending welfare programs, although admirable in principle, is not attainable or even desirable in the short term. The support mechanisms--local communities, families, etc.--are no longer what they were before the introduction of the dole. Fortunately, welfare programs can be retooled to promote these things and to introduce some degree of obligation, much like welfare reform in 1996. In other words, we can simultaneously reduce social spending and make it help regular people more.
It means recognizing that protecting natural treasures is very important to conservatism. Although we need not buy into the full-blown global climate change frenzy, we must also recognize that natural beauty and clean air and water are important to humankind. Yes, the environmental movement is full of many crazy people who are genuine and violent radicals, but that doesn't mean we need to disagree with every tiniest thing they believe.
We have to recognize the importance of education in people's lives. The Democrats have controlled this debate for no reason at all. Republicans have been lax in promoting the good ideas they've produced and ceded this important territory. We need greater accountability in public schools, more entrepreneurial practices, merit pay, modification of tenure. Private school vouchers alone could help thousands of children stuck in particularly terrible public schools. Too many Republicans see education as a smallball issue, and anyone who has kids should know better.
We have to understand why it is that African Americans and Hispanics reliably vote Democratic. Affirmative action may be an affront to our principles of equal justice before the law, but there are bigger fish to fry. We conservatives ought to be ashamed that we have not produced or advertised any great plans for restoring inner city and other poor and disadvantaged communities. If conservatism cannot be made to work for them, can it really be a legitimate governing philosophy?
We have to understand this about health care, national defense, and so on. It's all about people, not your ideology. It's all about communities, not about purity. And until we come back to that, people won't be all about us.
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