The Radical Changes in Conservatism since Goldwater

Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought.

William James

HBO is currently running, "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater," a brilliant documentary on the life and times of Barry Goldwater. Though produced by his granddaughter, it’s as fair and critical as anything in its genre. In addition to tracing Goldwater’s career, it illustrates how today’s fundamentalist/neoconservative intellectuals and politicians calling themselves conservative have very little in common with Goldwater’s libertarian beliefs. Yet few pundits or critics point out the difference, which gravely hurts the liberal cause.

So-called liberals have taken the heat for decades because the term, liberal, has been successfully besmirched by clever right wing propagandists. If, as the Republicans claim, there is, in fact, a liberal bias in the media those liberals have been woefully inept at revealing how profoundly corrupted the meaning and the political nature of conservatism has become over the last 40 years. Apparently, the shoe’s on the other foot; it’s the enormously influential right wing bias in the media and within society at large that managed to demonize liberals and sanctify conservatives. In the process decency and humanity were hijacked.

What’s especially odd about all of this is that the prevailing concept of liberal hasn’t changed much since the New Deal, for better and for worse - mostly worse since the redistributive New Deal model became widely seen as Tax and Spend, Bloated Government, Cheese Programs, and countless Pork Barrels. What got lost in mistranslation was the humane sensibility fortifying traditional liberal agendas, i.e., homes for the homeless, shelter for the insane, health care for society, limited military involvement. Once, however, the concept of Conservative became coin of the realm, those objectives were extraordinarily difficult to defend.

Too often the term, conservative, is used now as if it means the same thing as it did when defining Goldwater. What’s overlooked is that the prevailing sense of conservatism is actually a transformed variant of Goldwater’s model - the skeletal framework of the founders, which permits a woman’s right to choose and distinct separation of State from Church - to an expansive neoimperialistic, intrusive, fiscally reckless, proto religious model that’s often in opposition to Goldwater’s model. Kevin Phillips and a few other writers have made this clear, yet the media and society at large continue to neglect its significance. As do most Democrats.

If the difference between the two schools were made crystal clear, the American public would have a better chance of understanding the true nature of what commonly passes for being "conservative" in today’s convoluted political arena. They might then truly understand what they’re supporting rather than being fooled into believing that they’re supporting a 40-year-old model that’s, for all intents and purposes, obsolete. In this regard, today’s so-called conservatism is the political equivalent of 3-card Monty. Which way did it go?

If you’re willing to explore the issue even more deeply, you might grab the Dramamine; it’s a dizzying trip through Abiguityville. After all, just what does being a conservative mean? Many "conservatives," and even a fair number of "liberals" would have you believe it represents a rock solid belief in immutable, irreducible values, basically consisting of law, order, civility, limited government, and fiscally conservative policies.

If you’ve admired the Federalist writings, Jefferson’s perspective, Hamilton’s financial acumen, and Franklin’s entrepreneurial genius, you’ve also shared a "conservative" sentiment or
two. But what were the founders actually conserving? The most liberal government in history, which segregated State from Church, established checks and balances that prevented one class or political body from seizing control without electoral support, constitutional equality that gradually evolved into equal rights, and term limits on politicians, ideally to prevent entrenched power bases.

With this in mind then, What was Goldwater’s brand of conservatism conserving? A very liberal government, which, through its minimal involvement, permitted, arguably, the most liberal culture to have ever been cultivated. Greece certainly was liberal in many ways, especially sexually, but its stratified classes and dependency on slaves limited its liberal potential. So, unavoidably, Goldwater’s old style conservatism was, nonetheless a political agenda for conserving liberalism. Then if that’s the case, What did political liberalism consist of?

In George Will’s astute, neglected "Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does" he notes, "I will not pretend that the careers of, say, Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt involve serious philosophical differences... (They represent) versions of the basic program of the liberal-democratic impulse that was born with Machiavelli and Hobbes." In other words, the answer to the question above is, To a great extent liberalism and conservatism were inextricably bound to the point where they were more similar than different, if for no other reason than they were united by necessity: political conservatism became the dominant set of values dedicated to protect the founder’s liberal model.

The key exception to this standard was the rise of populism - widely perceived as the antidote to industrial powers and vested interests, which became increasingly aligned with the Republicans during the 19th century. Consequently, the basic dialectic, the masses versus the upper classes, emerged and resulted in more clearly delineating "conservatives" from "liberals" Republicans from Democrats. The chief animating force for this shift, however, wasn’t based on a significant change in political dynamics but rather on the advancement of technology, science and industrial manufacturing, which fueled the greedy desires of the robber barons.

In George Will’s conservative model, as well as Goldwater’s, the ideal mechanism for controlling such behavior would be the culture at large. Their model begs the question, Why create more laws, add more bureaus, take more tax dollars to achieve change when society at large could pressure the violators to change. Unfortunately, the robber barons, many of whom believed they were empowered by God to rule mercilessly over their subordinates, required the strong arm of the law and a few good unions to establish more humane conditions. Why? Because those Dickensian characters took advantage of a liberal society that allowed them to conserve every penny of profit at the expense of the exploited workers. And so that liberalism was restricted accordingly by none other than so-called liberals.

For the sake of attempting to achieve linguistic accuracy, the original "conservatives" aimed to conserve a liberal government and liberal culture. Meanwhile, the "liberals" aimed to conserve a respectable living for the middle and lower classes, while trying to conserve a broader sense of community, while also conserving the liberal government by adding the necessary duties required to keep up with technological advancements. This model lasted with few changes up until Reagan when the Neocons first started to exert widespread influence.

The liberal culture that old style "conservatives" defended had gotten more liberal by the 1960s, and, with student rebellions, more anarchistic at times. This incensed a group of professors and intellectuals, the principal one being Irving Kristol, who shifted from leaning left, as far left as Marx in some cases, to shifting right. They boldly embraced Locke, Adam Smith, Friedich Hayek, and Milton Friedman to name a few. And their assault on Keynesian economics helped undo the viability of "liberal" policies, which today, includes Social Security. In fact, AFI’s Charles "the Bell Curve" Murray is currently completing a political strategy to eliminate Medicaid and Medicare as well as other redistributive programs, targeted for as early as 2012.

The second part of the Neocon agenda, which far exceeded the economic aims in terms of expanding way beyond traditional conservatism, was the foreign policy and military realignment initiatives that, ultimately were articulated by the PNAC. Riding the wave of a reactionary movement that became quite popular thanks to propagandists like Rush Limbaugh, the Neocons were emboldened to reshape the world in order to make it friendlier to "democracy." First, the Neocons beat back the domestic anarchists; then they went after the "welfare state," while increasing the military budget; then, after 9/11, they pursued their fantasies of "making the world safer" with smart bombs, spent uranium, and neoimperialism - a formula for disaster. The old style conservatives, especially Goldwater, would never have approved of such foolish grandiosity.

It’s about time that the incongruity between Neoconservatism and traditional conservatism be understood on a massive scale. No longer should these pugnacious chicken hawks who want to change the world through violence and oppression be allowed to credibly
associate themselves with conserving anything worth conserving. They’re reckless, immoral, immodest, and even worse, they’re systematically ruining what traditional conservatives and contemporary liberals have been attempting to preserve: a true democracy that doesn’t presume to squander billions for the sake of reshaping the world to meet the perverted ideals of a small civilian class - the Neocons - who have ascended to power through a coup via ideology.

If you want integrity restored politically, first restore it linguistically. As it stands now, too many political debates are corrupted by misleading terms and faux allegiances. Neoconservatives are not, and could never be, conservative - according to the traditional meaning of the term.