What Is The Appeal Of Conservatism?

by tristero

On some New York Times server, Tobin Harshaw wastes valuable hard drive space rounding up, and lightly discussing, the opinions of some of the people who were dead wrong about everything in the past eight years. And it left me with the question in my title: What on earth is the appeal of conservatism?

I only have the stomach to go through a little of it. Harshaw types;
Defeat tends to bring out the best in so-called movement conservatives, the ideologues like William F. Buckley who provided the intellectual framework for the Reagan ascendance.
Is that the same oh so cultured William F. Buckley whose "intellectual framework" for dealing with the scourge of AIDS was to tattoo the buttocks of every sufferer? And who later changed his mind only when he found out his pal.Roy Cohn, had contracted AIDS, a world-class sleazebag who was fucking as many guys as he could and never told them he was infected? We're supposed to believe there is a "best" side to a man like Buckley who was so morally bereft he would have branded the diseased, and who enthusiastically drew to his bosom some of the most odious men who ever disgraced America? What healthy political discourse would ever take the opinions of a lamebrain like Buckley seriously?

Harshaw continues, now summarizing an article by Tanenhaus. Here, the discussion focuses on classic conservatism:
To make his point, he offers his reading of Edmund Burke’s original conservatism — which he sees as being based “on distrust of all ideologies” and dedicated to the “ideal of replenishing civil society by adjusting to changing conditions”; that is, to compromise. He also stresses that the second great conservative figure, Benjamin Disraeli, “advocated ‘just, necessary, expedient’ policies — that is, the policies the public demanded even when they contradicted his own ideological certitudes.”
Anything strike you as odd about this? Why yes, this is very odd indeed. That's because a distrust of ideology, a dedication to renewing civil society by adapting, and a street-smart pragmatism aren't the values of any conservatism I"ve ever encountered in my life. These are, and have been for at least 56 years, liberal values.

Here, Harshaw quotes some Corner clown who gives us the real conservatism that's created the mess we're in and that we've all grown to loathe:
It’s true Burke believed political change should occur gradually, building on what works about the existing order to address what doesn’t work about it. But the reason was that it should avoid undermining the foundations of future progress, which were political order, family stability, and social peace. The trouble with the welfare state and with aggressive progressivism is precisely that they do undermine these foundations (and often intentionally so, because they see them as unjust) —
That's right. Aggresive progressivism - you know, the theory of politics that is unalterably opposed to extralegal measures like torture, that advocates extending marriage rights to all loving couples, and which is famous for its opposition to putting semi-automatics in the hands of any deranged nut who wants to buy one - undermines political order, family stability, and social peace. Yup, that writer celebrates the conservatism I know: completely wrong on everything.

Go ahead. Read the article. Every positive value, or nearly every one, is a hallmark of modern liberalism. And every single one has been trampled on by the beings who call themselves conservatives. And yet, Harshaw invites us to discuss conservatism as we know it as if it potentially has something good to offer.

Conservatism - the real kind, the kind we've endured at least since Nixon - isn't an intellectual movement in need of reform. It is extreme right thuggery epitomized by the bloated face of a fat, cigar-chomping, drug addict who makes fun of Parkinson victims and proudly boasts that he wants the president of the United States to fail.

I"m sick and tired of these sober, ever so thoughtful, discussions of the direction of modern conservatism. There is only one direction I care to discuss for such an utterly dildo pseudo-philosophy: its journey to defeat. Conservatism in the 21st Century has no intellectual history worthy of discussion - Edmund Burke, my ass. Today's conservatives, like the incredibly influential religious nuts called The Family, are so unbelievably mush-brained they approvingly lump Hitler in with Jesus. Real conservatism is a haven for bigotry, stupidity, ignorance, bad ideas, and an unlimited obsession with violence that is symptomatic of profound deviance. It rots this country's economic, scientific, artistic, and moral health. As the 2000 election, and now Norm Coleman show, It is deeply inimical to democracy,

Conservatism as it is practiced today is not something to reform. It is something mightily to oppose.