Thursday, September 27, 2007

Up from Conservatism

A friend sent me this interesting article, in which an objectivist tries to define conservatism.

It's useful reading for those of us trying to define the Canadian brand of conservatism.

6 comments:

Iain G. Foulds said...

... An excelent article... thanks!
... However, it is pointless to attempt to define a specifically Canadian conservatism (a form of tribalism).
... Economically, there is conservatism, and there is communism. Conservatism respects and defends the right of private property- the foundation of individual liberty. Whereas, communism considers individual's incomes as collective property- to be "fairly" redistributed by the state.
... Be ever vigilant against the wiles of dishonest politicians who claim themselves followers of the mysterious, meaningless Middle Way.

Anonymous said...

“social conservatives,” “traditional conservatives,” “economic conservatives,” “religious conservatives,” “neoconservatives,” “paleoconservatives,” “compassionate conservatives,” and, more recently, “South Park conservatives,” “crunchy conservatives” (see the book review in this issue), even “big-government conservatives”

.................

Ok, so now we can add "objectivist conservatives" to the above list of identifiable collectives who consider their vision of Conservatism (which must also "work" to the advancement of their "right" collective morality in this instance??) to be UP from Conservatism.

Useful? Collective claims to moral superiority continue to corrupt politics and "capture" Conservatism for the advancement of political opportunism. Zzzz...

Robert McClelland said...

Andrew Coyne just defined the Canadian brand of conservatism this morning.

How sweet to be a Tory today. Untethered at last from any principled mooring, they are as light as feathers.

Anonymous said...

"untethered" or just "unprincipled"

The jury is still out.

Next conservative party, please!

Anonymous said...

To anonymous:

I believe what you are saying is:

"So, let's just be Liberals???"

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

This article is an interesting one although conservatism in Canada, at least historically had a very different meaning than in the United States. Up until the 60s, it was liberalism that stood for less government while conservatism was about preserving institutions and maintaining social order. In the 60s the Liberals took a sharp turn to the left and focused more on expanding the welfare state while conservatism was more about expanding the welfare state at a slower pace, however there was pretty much a unanimous consensus that bigger government was the way to go. This changed in the 80s when the idea of smaller government began to take root in Canada, but it wasn't until the deficit reached out of control levels in the early 90s that the idea of smaller government became a popular and mainstream idea. Once the deficit was eliminated, selling the idea of smaller government became more difficult. After all, when things are going poorly, people will vote for radical change, but when things are going well, people stay with the status quo.