Posner on the Intellectual Deterioration of the Conservative Movement

SamFisher · May 16, 2009

Worth reading the full, but here's a good excerpt and this mirrors what a lot of people have been saying:

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/05/is_the_conserva.html

By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States. I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism," the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded. All these became causes embraced by the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004.

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.

By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.
Click to expand...

I don't know what it will take for them to revive but it ain't the direction that they are going in currently.

And I especially enjoy the shot he takes at the right wing "originalism" pseudo-jurisprduence. Owned.

A_3PO · May 16, 2009

SamFisher said:

Worth reading the full, but here's a good excerpt and this mirrors what a lot of people have been saying:

I don't know what it will take for them to revive but it ain't the direction that they are going in currently.

And I especially enjoy the shot he takes at the right wing "originalism" pseudo-jurisprduence. Owned.
Click to expand...

For about the 6th or 7th time, I'll paraphrase a statement William F. Buckley made in the early 80s that is no longer true about most conservative politicians/commentators:

When you disagree with a conservative, he will call you dense for not seeing it his way. If you disagree with a liberal, he will attack your character and call you anything but a decent human being.

The advent of the Religious Right, the cult industry of right-wing radio and the demagoguery of the Bush administration against those who disagreed with it's Iraq policy has lobotomized a huge chunk of the "conservative movement" into childish name-callers who scream louder than anyone else to invoke fear.

Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Michael Steele, etc.

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Posner on the Intellectual Deterioration of the Conservative Movement

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