Next Generation Conservatives

Jay Nordlinger's "Impromptus" (which he has been producing at a delightfully rapid pace this week so far) included (scroll down a bit) a letter today from "someone with a close knowledge of Harvard Law School." This paragraph in the letter struck me:

One thing that really bothers me is that the brightest students seem to really want to have a cause to pursue. The Left gives them many causes, but the Right offers little — very few alternatives. I guess conservatives generally just go to the business world (or big law firms, in the case of law-school graduates). Maybe this works out in the end, but it still feels like this generation of college students is being lost even more to the left-wingers than before.

There is a stereotype out there that has some small truth to it: Last generation's conservatives just wanted the government to leave them alone while they worked at their jobs and raised their families. This generation, as a whole--conservatives and liberals--want a sense of wider community. And rightly so. But I don't think modern conservatism--which, of all "political philosophies," ought to be the most about community--has done a good job of offering that. And conservatism, of all "political philosophies," is the least about ideology, the most about lifestyle and relationships.

We younger generation of conservatives need to find ways to be involved in our communities, find causes that are about people. We've all seen how many people the Left is willing to hurt in their crusade for abstractions--equality, liberty, fraternity, as it were. How is it that they are the ones who are seen as having a monopoly on compassion? It's time to stop blaming society for seeing liberals as the compassionate ones, and ask ourselves what we can do to change a perception that we know to be false.

Conservative Revolution

Since I seem to have come under some scrutiny for my posts recently, I thought I'd write a bit about where I am now that the election is over and we've all had some time to think about conservatism going forward.

My staunch conservative friends who read this blog know I'm not one of those mushy-headed folks who thinks that Republicans should sacrifice principle for electoral gain. Not in the least. And the seeds of my change in thinking were not planted by my moving to Ann Arbor, but during the summer when I read, among other things, The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk.

No, I do not think Republicans in general are heartless, or that they don't care about the poor. I think they are extremely well-intentioned and personally charitable people, more so than their left-wing counterparts. But as far as politics goes, they lack vision, and seem to exist largely to try to stop the advance of socialism. For that reason, it seems that, these days, conservatives are just libertarians who also want to stop abortions.

But conservatives have a competing vision for society. We believe government exists to advance human dignity. We believe human dignity is composed of many things, things which cannot be summed up in a political program or tract. They include, but are not limited to, certain freedoms, obligations, and relationships. These things that comprise human dignity are best worked out on a local, community and family basis; the results of these negotations--tradition--generally ought to be respected. We believe dependence on government, family and community breakdown, and callousness toward the most vulnerable in society destroy human dignity.

But since the introduction of welfare especially, the game has changed. Those local-level negotiations have gone out the window as government has subsidized an overly individualistic, materialistic lifestyle. Social institutions that could take the place of the government dole hardly exist anymore, having been crowded out by government. These are truths that conservatives cannot afford to ignore.

The game has changed. The danger with left-wing politics is that it doesn't just destroy what could be a truly liberal society...it also destroys the foundations upon which the entire edifice of a healthy civilizations stands. Before we rebuild that civilization, we're going to have to lay many of the foundations anew.

Lowering taxes and eliminating federal programs is desirable, but not in the short run. We may not like people being dependent on government, but we should be similarly conscious of the human toll that blind implementation of ideological programs will exact.

Moving Beyond the Three Legs of the Stool

(I reserved this critique for a new post instead of attaching it to the last one, for the sake of posting brevity. Anyway, read on.)

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.

Cogitationes, 8-4-2008

• A friend of mine, with whom I often talk about politics, history, philosophy, and the like, shared an idea with me that he'd been pondering.  He believes that the concept behind Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" has come largely to dominate the modern consciousness.  The hierarchy, taken from Maslow's 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation," proceeds thus:  physiological needs, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization.  Each need must be met before a human can proceed to the next.  Specifically, my friend noticed that people seem to have the idea that material needs must be met before one can meet spiritual needs--what Maslow placed under "self-actualization."  Of course, as he pointed out, history and experience do not support these claims.  Material privation often fosters spiritual strength.  Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20), and, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!" (Mark 10:23).  Karl Marx hated religion because of its role in keeping the poor relatively content with their economic lot, and expressed as much when he said that religion was the opiate of the masses.  When do we most turn to God:  when life is good, or when we have nothing else to depend on except Him?
• A few of my friends and I traveled to Stevensville, Michigan, Friday and Saturday to visit a friend of ours who is a summer intern at the nuclear power plant there.  While getting ready for the rest of the day, I happened to glance out of the window in the shower in our friend's apartment; my eyes met a wild conflagration of native, untended flowers and trees that helped me to appreciate anew the natural splendor of our state's western half.  But then something stopped me in my tracks:  Towering above it all were the golden arches of corporate empire, the ubiquitous McDonald's "M."  It's a source of some amusement to me that the same people who want universal economic equality deride large producers of mediocrity like Wal-mart and McDonald's, since Wal-mart and McDonald's are the only methods whereby that universal equality could be attained.  To paraphrase Tocqueville, equality lessens suffering through the propagation of mediocrity.  The empire of equality cannot afford to leave any beauty, any excellence untouched in its unstoppable expansion.
• In Stevensville, we watched one of my favorite movies of all-time:  UHF, starring "Weird Al" Yankovic.  Goofy humor, TV and movie parodies, a line-up of low-profile actors (including a pre-Seinfeld Michael Richards), and a David-versus-Goliath story--it doesn't get much better than that.  For listeners of Rush Limbaugh, this movie is the source of the "Spatula City" commercial.
• I just remembered this.  My friend from the first bullet-point also told me something interesting about conservatism and conservatives.  It seems to me as though conservatism will have trouble finding a foothold as large government and large business tear down traditional and local institutions.  My friend reminded me that conservatives must have a sense of the tragic, of the passing of old things.  And I do.  And as nostalgic as I can get, consevatives are not here to keep things the same--and who would want things to be the same?  Rather, we're here to ease the transitions through which society proceeds.  After all, as Burke would remind us, those transitions are divine in origin, and cannot--nor should they-- be stopped.  Our job is to keep society from precipitous plunges and violent convulsions, and to be living reminders of the timelessness of certain bedrock principles.

Later, guys!

The Prospects Of The Political Right

PowerLine Blog's Paul Mirengoff continues a debate between himself and Peter Wehner over the prospects for conservatism. Read his entry here.

Real conservatism recognizes the truth that a moral citizenry is more important to a nation than good laws. It also understands that bad laws can encourage vices among the citizens that create problems that legislation is unable to remedy. Conservatism is a force for stasis, whereas liberalism is a force for decadence, and the nation--with rare exceptions--lurches leftward politically because it lurches downward morally.

Liberalism, at worst, calls on your desire for material comfort and security, and at best on your wish for material comfort and security for others. In no case does it--or can it--call on something higher than the self, than the individual, and its material wants. Implicit in its arguments is the fact that moral progress is impossible without economic comfort.

Conservatism, on the other hand, calls relentlessly on something higher than the self. It insists that the moral fiber of the nation is more important than its economic stat sheet. It believes that family, community, religion, and tradition are more important to the encouragement of responsibility and morality than economic security.

Our laws have increasingly operated under the assumption that pain is the only absolute evil, and it has taught us as a people to be cowards. A nation in which a quarter of high school girls has contracted an STD regards an economic depression as the worst imaginably calamity, but doesn't realize that it is more than halfway under the quicksand already. Can such a nation turn back and reject the idolatry of comfort?

The smart money is, long-term, on "no." And the evidence is a striking lack of conservative principles among modern "conservatives." John McCain is running against the big-company CEOs who shouldn't earn so much more than you and against big money in politics, crowding out the "little guy"; his appeals are purely to envy. It was George W. Bush who said that when someone hurts, government needs to move. Congressional Republicans and their please-the-people pork binges are hardly distinguishable from Democrats anymore, and they pay the price at the polls. We've come a long way from the stirring words of Ronald Reagan.

But appeals to a higher principle don't work in a democracy except in times of crisis. During our last major national crisis, a leader stepped up and inspired a nation. How long will we have to wait for the next such crisis? And when the next one does come, will we have the moral strength to stand up under it?

The Moral Power Of Ideas

ALERT: Before reading, please understand that this book's opinions and conclusions are not exactly or necessarily my own. I shall comment on them after I finish explaining them. They are summarized here, gentle reader, for your curiosity and reflection. End alert.

Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford, has compiled research in his new book, Makers and Takers, that purports to show that conservatives are pleasanter, more responsible, more ethical, and more productive members of society than are liberals. Here is a column he wrote for the Daily Mail Online about it. A portion:

The statistics I base this on come from the General Social Survey, America's
premier social research database, but they are just as relevant to the UK, as I
believe political belief systems drive one's attitudes, regardless of where you
happen to live.
Those surveyed were asked: 'Is it your obligation to care
for a seriously injured/ill spouse or parent, or should you give care only if
you really want to?' Of those describing themselves as 'conservative', 71 per
cent said it was. Only 46 per cent of those on the Left agreed.
To the
question: 'Do you get happiness by putting someone else's happiness ahead of
your own?', 55 per cent of those who said they were 'very conservative' said
Yes, compared with 20 per cent of those who were 'very liberal'.
It's been
my experience that conservatives like to talk about things outside of themselves
while progressives like to discuss themselves: how they are feeling and what
their desires are. That might make for a good therapy session but it's not much
fun over a long dinner.

Read it all; there are a lot more interesting statistics to look at, all with the same conclusion drawn by Schweizer: in almost every way that a citizen can be considered to be so, conservatives are better people than liberals.

Okay, gentle leftist reader, that's the end of the part where you clench up like Jimmy Carter in Tel Aviv. Well, maybe the end. Soon more like Frank Rich in Kansas. Anyway.

I'm sure that Schweizer is aware that such research does not show that all conservatives are better people than all liberals, and it would be ridiculous to think so. But the point, and I think Schweizer's point here, is not to call liberals selfish and evil people; instead, the point is that the political philosophies that animate the Left are often both symptom and cause of a grinding materialism and self-centeredness. It insists that human happiness, and thus the efficacy of government, can be read from a series of statistics about wage trends, income inequality, and employment; it insists that social obligations are an impediment to freedom that cannot be allowed to stand.

As people break from the bonds of family and church for the sake of freedom, and as they sink into economic bondage for the sake of egalitarianism, they seek meaning more and more from material sources: leisure, comfort, longevity. Indeed, all these things are increasing rapidly; it is a testament to how wrong the liberal philosophy is that our ever-wealthier society is growing even more rapidly in discontentment and despair. Those of us who hang on to our social responsibilities and duties, our traditions and customs, seem to be closer to finding real happiness.

This is why I place such an emphasis on Obama's speech to the San Francisco liberals: it is terribly revealing of his materialism, his insistence that the blue-collar workers of Pennsylvania ought to find meaning from money and possessions rather than from God, family, and tradition. He never considered that they might be happier that way. Barack is the exciting new priest of an old and failed philosophy, a vain hope for people whose lot is unending despair.

Wow, serious post today. Well, cheers!

Liberals And Conservatives Just Have Different Moral Values...?

A friend, who has become increasingly liberal as he has progressed through college, recently sent me an article that purports to shed light on why conservatives and liberals have honest misunderstands that lead to name-calling. I wish I still had it--and I may be able to coax it out of him again--but its title was something like, "'Are Conservatives Stupid, Or Evil?" The article's surprising (to its readers) conclusion: Neither! Liberals are simply more concerned with how proposed policies will affect everyone involved, while conservatives are more concerned with in-group loyalty, purity, and respect for authority.

Now, I'm a strange conservative because I'm a strange person. By that, I mean that I have made political philosophy a much deeper area of study and thought than the vast majority of Americans. My liberalism--that is, American conservatism--is grounded in a conception of the proper scope of government that also happened to be the major contributor to the United States Constitution. It has its roots in John Locke, the Baron de Montesquieu, and several others. This conception was transmitted to me partially through my father, and partially through a man I consider to be an intellectual hero nearly unparalleled in American history: William F. Buckley. It is not based on feelings or good intentions; it is a intellectual belief.

Doubtless, the political views of some conservatives stems from a respect for authority, purity, and the in-group. But my classical liberalism, and those of many of my friends, is based specifically on government non-intervention, and none of those moral values from which conservatives' views supposedly stem. But it is easy to see how a liberal, like those whose research is used to support the article's argument, would perceive conservatives' values in this way.

When progressives look at policy, they do indeed look at its effects on various groups. In fact, this is their main viewpoint for policy. Their intent is to make groups equal; thus, affirmative action counteracts the corrupt power relationships between race and gender groups, progressive income taxation counteracts the corrupt power relationships between rich and poor, etc. From this standpoint, it is easy to see how conservative views could be seen as deliberately unequalizing. In some cases, particularly the issue of gay marriage, this might possibly be a fair characterization. But in the case of flat taxation, lowered government spending, and decreases in government services, conservative concerns are not about power relationships between citizen groups, but simply between the government and the citizenry.

This concept is so foreign to most modern liberals' minds--and to the minds of people in general, often--that it usually does not even occur to them. When it is made explicit, it is more often an object of wonder than a position seriously to be debated. More harmfully, history has been often written by Progressives--whose devotion to cartoonish images of reality that constitute a sort of modern Big Lie is legendary and continues to this day--who have forgotten many important details of that important time in our nation's history when progressivism overtook classical liberalism as the nation's most influential political philosophy. (This is the reason that I consider Jonah Goldberg's book to be so crucial to a real understanding of America's political history, as well as modern liberalism in general.)

Are conservatives evil? Dumb? Morally different? Not at all; they are the out-group of an elite cultural liberalism that, contrary to conventional wisdom, favors above all things purity, the in-group, and respect for the authority of government.

Whither The GOP: Positives and Negatives

Yuval Levin wrote a piece for Commentary recently, entitled, "Not Quite Dead," in response to an obituary written by George Packer of The New Yorker for a political philosophy--you can guess which one. Here's an interesting bit:

Let me suggest two things he might have noted. First of all, the kind of
intellectual turmoil and self-searching he cites would be almost unimaginable on
the left, today or at most points in the past half century. Conservatism is an
intellectual movement in a way that American liberalism generally hasn’t been.
For a long time, American liberals could draw their ideas from the European
Left, and from the socialist experiment. The fall of communism—which certainly
ended an era for the Right, and left many conservatives searching for a clear
purpose—was far more of a challenge to the Left, and one the left has yet to
recover from, or even fully engage. Clintonian triangulation helped pass the
time for a while in the 90’s, and anti-Bushism has helped since, but what is the
worldview underlying Obama’s and Clinton’s platforms today? The relative absence
of heated arguments about that question on the left is not a sign of strength.

As Jonah Goldberg would point out--what? I'm reading his book, alright?--modern liberals (i.e. progressives) would rather not probe their philosophical foundations, since it has a genealogy that goes back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the French Revolution, and more recently Karl Marx, with the discomfiting philosophical off-shoots of fascism and communism. Moreover, progressivism is all about improving mankind, both in its external environment and internal character. Thus, they have no need for a political philosophy beyond this; there is need only for science to tell us what government ought to do, and do it. Fascism, Communism, and the Wilsonian experiment, the New Deal, and the Great Society are all experiments toward this goal.

Conservatism--that is, classical liberalism--on the other hand, is uniquely an intellectual and philosophical entity. Unlike progressivism, it has always been fed through discourse and argumentation rather than action. This is undoubtedly a time in which progressives see the door open for bold new experimentation in government problem-solving, but with the continuation of conservative stalwarts such as National Review, Commentary, and The Weekly Standard, as well as the burgeoning blogosphere and new and important thinkers, it is also a time of intellectual rebirth for classical liberalism.

Take heart; here are a few past presidential elections that featured only progressives, after which liberalism lived on:

1912 (Progressive Party endorsed Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson ran as the progressive hero of Princeton)
1916 (Charles Evans Hughes had a progressive track record, Wilson was Wilson)
1928 (revered progressive Herbert Hoover won this, no politcal conservative he)
1932 (Hoover wasn't going fast enough for progressives anymore)
1936 (Republican Alf Landon supported much of the New Deal)
1944 (Thomas Dewey accepted most of the New Deal)
1948 (Thomas Dewey vs Truman)
1952 (Eisenhower continued the New Deal, and Adlai Stevenson was a famed progressive leader)
1956 (see before)
1960 (leftist Nixon vs militarist Kennedy)
1968 (Nixon vs revered progressive Humphrey)
1972 (McGovern. Nuff said.)
1976
1988
1992
1996
2000
2004

Okay, that leaves 1920's Harding, 1924's Coolidge, 1940's Wendell Wilkie, 1964's Barry Goldwater, and 1980's and 1984's Ronald Reagan. Harding was philosophically better than Wilson and certainly left the country in better shape, but hardly distinguished himself. Coolidge basically represented the American resentment toward progressivism that lingered after Wilson's suppression of domestic dissent. Thereafter, Wendell Wilkie managed to win nomination only because of Republicans' distrust of its party's more distinguished but dovish aspirants. 1964 was a watershed moment, as the first truly classical liberal nominee in forty years managed to become the Republican nominee. The New Conservatism, by now the intellectually robust movement it is today, then gave us Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Some leading lights have faded, but new ones are coming. Until then, keep standing up to those who would take away your freedoms.

Helprin Barges Clumsily In

J. C. Watts's reasonable, somewhat pro-McCain column is followed by this piece of garbage from Mark Helprin.

This is perhaps the worst part:

Along comes John McCain, who has an 80% positive rating from the American Conservative Union but who as a truly independent soul does not fit, at the margins, some of the transient notions of what makes a conservative. Because of his independence and flexibility, he is the only Republican candidate who has a chance of winning, and thus preserving the core principles of conservatism, in relation to which he is unimpeachable. They are national security (in particular the strength of the military after Iraq and vis-à-vis China and a resurgent Russia), Constitutionalism (as in individual vs. collective rights), and the economy (free markets vs. government industrial policy).

...although his words for talk radio are absurd, as well. (Still..."transient notions." Ugh.) Mr. Helprin's column is by a wide margin more vitriolic and angry, and simultaneously contains less depth and erudition, than the average monologue from Rush or my personal favorite Rush stand-in, Jason Lewis (whose show podcast you can listen to on the sidebar over on the left). It's the same Old Media trope: those crazy people who don't write for newspapers or appear on network news! Thinking they have a right to comment on issues! This cannot stand! This is just more evidence that McCain represents the old, country club wing of the party: all the old-timers and conventional-media pundits are telling everyone else to shut up and get in line.

By the way, Mr. Helprin, conservatism's core principle (singular) is this: freedom at home, strength abroad. How exactly do restrictive global warming measures and an open-borders policy advance those goals?

Most absurdly, he talks of Huckabee as talk radio's savior against John McCain. Incredible.

A Little Levin-ing...

(Via Michelle Malkin)

Mark Levin discusses McCain's putative nomination.

To say, from one's computer keyboard, that the Reagan coalition should unify behind McCain to prevent the specter of a Clinton or Obama presidency is, I believe, wishful thinking. Even here, where the smartest minds are trying to make the case, some use the perverse argument that Reagan wasn't all that conservative anyway, and that's a reason to back McCain. Not only does this defy history, but it offends those who lived through that history and were shaped by it. Moreover, Republican voters won't buy it. McCain is sitting on a one-legged stool, having broken the two other legs.

I think one important focus of Reagan conservatives should be to do all they can to protect as many Republican seats in the House as possible. There needs to be at least one elected part of our government that might be in a position to stem what could be a very unpleasant four years.

Bingo! More on this later.

Some thoughts on conservatism

Yesterday I asked the question, what is a conservative? Now, I want to offer at least a few musings of my own on the subject.

At the outset, a distinction needs to be made. There is a difference between categorizing people's beliefs by their views on many different issues and categorizing people based on their core philosophy. Using the former method, conservatives can be arranged into three distinct groups: social conservatives, economic conservatives, and foreign policy/military conservatives. (I would qualify as all three. Take the poll on the upper left hand side of this blog!)

However, each person must decide their stance on these issues according to some central philosophy, and mine would be classified as federalist republican and liberal. The first term has to do with how I think government should be constituted and the second has to do with my stance on specific issues taken up by the government.

By "federalist republican" I mean two things. First, local and provincial/state governments should have much more power than the national government; that's the "federal" part. Second, all citizens should have representation in every government that has authority over him; however, citizens should not be voting directly on issues. So, for example, I do not support the ability of citizens to initiate recalls, referenda, or ballot initiatives. I also support the electoral college and want to return to the days when U.S. senators were elected by state legislatures, not by the people directly. This arrangement, concentrating power locally rather than nationally and favoring representation and a slow legislative process over quick action and direct democracy, suffered serious blows under Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.

Now, to take up the question of what our constituted government should do: Liberalism is a commitment to individual freedom with extremely limited intervention. This is confusing for Americans, because the people we think of as liberal are in reality from two separate philosophies. They are either socialists or social democrats. Socialism is very nearly opposite to liberalism; social democracy, while it shares capitalist roots with liberalism, is also very different. As a liberal, I support legalizing marijuana, eliminating Social Security, welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid, eliminating the estate tax, the corporate income tax, the capital gains tax, and all tariffs, and stopping all corporate welfare and other subsidy programs.

Tell me what you think! I may write more later; the topics of foreign policy, immigration, and national security remain untouched as yet.

Republicans: What is conservatism?

Wow, it's been quite a little while now!

I just got back from visiting a very good friend in Des Moines, and now I'm back in good old East Lansing, Michigan. Now, Des Moines is a nice city, the people there are very nice. But when you're in Michigan, you can drive west for the Lake, or east for a big city, or north for a camping trip in the woods. You can sail, hike, and canoe, but you can also see a symphony, or an opera, or a professional basketball, football, hockey, or baseball game. In Des Moines, there's none of that. Ah, the virtues of my home state. It's a good thing I'm not biased.

Anyway, while I was visiting my good friend (a fellow FredHead, by the way), the South Carolina Republican primary returns came in. While I was not surprised, I was a bit disappointed; John McCain came in first place and Mike Huckabee took second. Together, the two least conservative candidates (excluding, always, Dr. Paul) garnered around two-thirds of the Republican vote in one of the most true-blue conservative states in the Union. The two truest conservatives in the race, to my way of thinking, garnered about one-third of the vote.

Now, after dispiriting election returns, where else can I turn to but talk radio to soothe my ailing conservative heart? Jason Lewis, one of my all-time favorites, asked his listeners what I believe is a very interesting question: what is a conservative? A lot of people seem to think that Huckabee is a genuine conservative; a lot of voters are holding their nose somewhat to vote for John McCain, despite his open disagreements with the conservative base about the Bush tax cuts and illegal immigration.

If anyone would like to comment, I'd love to hear what people think a conservative is. It's a term that's been claimed by many different types of people, so I don't think there's necessarily a wrong answer. But I do think it may be time to clarify just what "conservatism" means, who is and isn't one, and how the Republicans can move forward as a party.

I don't have time right now--school and other duties intrude, I'm sorry to say--but perhaps soon I shall write what I think it means to be a conservative...or at least write about what my beliefs are and are properly classified as, and see where the candidates fall.