small note on conservatism

[eirias]

I think the greatest irony that this administration has wrought in my own life is that it's actually made me more conservative. I have become so incredibly cynical about the relationship between principle and power that I can't conceive of a good government anymore. My electoral goal now: Minimize the damage. Don't worry about progress -- just minimize the damage.

This is, of course, true conservatism at work. I no longer believe that any administration will hold to principle, given unfettered power. So if your party manages to sweep elections and one-party rule emerges, you have to be aware that whatever it is they say they're about is almost completely irrelevant to what's actually going to happen. They will throw you crumbs, of course -- but what's really going on will be something else entirely.

I don't actually know what practical lesson I can take from this. It means I'll support our Democratic governor even though I don't trust him, because one-party Republican rule in WI would just be too awful to contemplate (and I'd probably start having to smuggle birth control in from elsewhere). But in some situations it could make the lesser-of-two-evils type choice even worse, because I might be forced to vote nominally against my own principles in order to keep a balance of party power and avoid the Creeping Tyranny of Unopposed Self-Interest.

There is another level of cynicism entirely that would suggest that balancing power between two virtually-identical parties is a farce anyway and so I shouldn't even worry about that aspect of strategy. But I don't think I agree. Any time that the government wastes arguing bitterly with itself is a win for me -- even if the arguments are just for show.

In other news, I will be volunteering all day Tuesday in the Warner Park region to get out the vote for preserving our constitutional status quo. Play hooky and come join me!

Comments

[rms10.livejournal.com]

Ha! I take it you've been reading lots of Andrew Sullivan?

What is the ballot issue in Wisconsin that you're worried about? Is there a gay marriage one? Or something else?

[eirias.livejournal.com]

You got me. *G*

Yeah, there's an anti-marriage-and-civil-unions-and-anything-that-might-even-slightly-resemble-a-sneaky-attempt-at-a-marriage-like-substance amendment on the ballot. It's pretty ugly, and would have made life less nice even for boring straight little us, and tons of couples like us. Not to mention that it directly affects some close friends of mine, who don't have the legal marriage option like we did :(.

There's also a referendum on bringing the death penalty back to WI, for the first time since like 1854 or something equally primitive, but I've been told that it's only advisory -- not binding. Not sure what the purpose is (but then I've felt the same way about all the advisory antiwar referenda, and voted against those too).

[leora.livejournal.com]

I don't consider the two parties to be at all the same; they have very different goals. Democrats want to get power into the hands of the Democratic party. Republicans want to get power into the hands of the Republican party. I don't think all of that fighting is for show. Even if they'd use power identically from the people's point of view, they each want control, and that means they'll fight each other for it.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

*lol* Jooooooin ussssssss.... :)

Also, you have discovered why the last n governors of MA have, in fact, been Republican, despite overwhelming Democratic dominance of the legislature and, well, the fact that this is MA.

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

ya know, once upon a time, i figured that no matter how bad a president we elected, or governor, or whatever, they were only in office for 4 years, so the damage they could cause in that time had to be fairly limited.

i feel like i've been proven wrong, with some of the political stuff that's been going on now. d:

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I felt the same way in '00. I couldn't conceive of how it would matter who won since B. was obviously too stupid to accomplish anything and wouldn't be reelected. So I voted third-party.

Didn't make a difference in my state. But I would make a different calculation today.

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

you're doing better than me... all this crud's been getting me to the polls, since i didn't bother vote before (what's the point in voting if you know nothing about anyone running or any of the issues?). i still don't think i'm as educated about political stuff as i should be, though.

[vfoxy.livejournal.com]

You say something interesting. Last night I listened to a lecture on NPR, 2 linguists who specialized in communication patterns and dynamics. They started out of the lecture/interview with questions about the difference between Democrats and Republicans and how they used speech. The 2 linguists both commented on how the Republicans use speech to dangle carrots for their support bases, and then do whatever the hell they want. Opposed to this was the totally naive and well-meaning Democrats, who are so honest that they don't need to learn how to use language disingenuously.

They assumed that Democrats were good and Republicans were bad. they did not consider the possibility that the Democrats would do the same thing if they were in one-party power.

[cos]

That's really sad, especially because it's so extremely incorrect.

Republicans don't believe government works, or can work, so they don't take it seriously or try to make it work. Their cynicism breaks down the system. And the result is, they convince a lot of people that that's just the way it is. They defend their poor performance by saying "ha, you think anyone else would be different?" - and it's so easy to believe that because it's so simple. Well, it's easy to believe as a broad generalization. It ceases to make sense the more you participate in the system, but the vast majority of Americans are looking at it from the outside, and the simple cynical storyline is compelling. It's bitter poison, but it works.

[upsilon.livejournal.com]

I do agree with this... To an extent, at least. I think that, yes, you are going to run into some corruption when one party holds power for too long. But historically, such Democratic corruption has been much less... problematic than similar Republican issues. Just compare Dan Rostenkowski to the Iraq war, for example.

Though I admit it's hard to judge -- we've only had two years of entirely Democratic government since 1980, and times (and people) were different back then. But I don't think it would be so bad, for the first four years or so, at least... and we do get the chance to re-adjust every two years, so I'm willing to take this risk.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I gave some thought to this, but decided it was too complicated to address in this post. I think you're probably right that there is some limited time over which the advantages of not having someone with whom you violently disagree in office trump the disadvantages of no longer having any natural economic incentive for government to police itself. But I think the time limit on this is probably very short. The Republicans under Bush have managed to do a lot of damage to our self-governance, and they've only had the majority in both houses plus the presidency for just under four and a half of the last six years.

[feuervogel]

I'm a flaming progressive (what? shocking, I know). Right now, I agree that our biggest worry is stopping things from going backwards, so progressive change is a back-burner issue, in a way.

I had the thought today (just now, which is why I'm replying) that NC has a Dem governor and a 66/54 Dem majority in the House, and a 30/20 Dem majority in the Senate. Did you know that? Surprising, isn't it? It's not like NC is a bastion of Dem Party principles or progressiveness. No, it's that a lot of the western NC dems are really conservative socially: the guy running for US House in NC-11, Heath Shuler (D), against incumbent [censored] Charles Taylor (R), is running on populist ideas and is pro-life. So having one-party (dem) rule in the south isn't nearly as homogenous as one would expect. One-party R-rule, however, would be horrifyingly awful, since Republicans don't have that heterogeneity.

Southern Democrats are a different breed. At least two, really: your Party-line progressives (Price, Edwards, etc) and your Christian populists (Shuler, etc). One could argue that there is also a third batch, the progressive populists. NC is the only Southern state not to have anti-gay-marriage amendments on the ballot, because it never makes it out of committee (the Party-lines and populists lining up to prevent it), but we do have parental notification for abortion.

Politics in the South are really fascinating.