{"id":270,"date":"2011-08-13T22:16:29","date_gmt":"2011-08-13T22:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bakeramitchell.com\/?page_id=270"},"modified":"2011-08-13T22:16:29","modified_gmt":"2011-08-13T22:16:29","slug":"conservatism-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/conservatism-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservatism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Understanding Conservatism: From Principles to Policies<\/strong><\/h1>\n

As summarized from Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke, John Locke, and Plato.*<\/p>\n

Don’t Start with Policy<\/strong><\/h3>\n

No new taxes. No corporate bailouts. No apologies to dictators. No terrorists released. No
\ndeficits. No enslavement by government handouts.<\/p>\n

Conservatives will say \u201cNO!\u201d to half-baked quick fixes satisfying the demands of the special interests.<\/p>\n

But what is the thought process that leads to these policies as articulated by most
\nconservatives?<\/p>\n

First, it must be clearly understood that the above positions are merely policies<\/em>; they are not, in and of themselves, core conservative principles<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Instead, these are the policies that result after carefully applying the core principles of
\nconservatism.<\/p>\n

So to understand the derivation of policies that sometimes require a “No!” one must learn
\nthe principles that drive the policy-making process.<\/p>\n

Never confuse policy with principle.<\/p>\n

Conservative Principles<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Russell Kirk says in his 1953 The Conservative Mind <\/em>\u201cprudence is the chief virtue\u201d and is thus a foundational principle of conservatism. And prudence frequently demands a \u201cNo\u201d or at the least, a \u201cNot yet.\u201d\u00a0 Advocating the primacy of prudence goes back thousands of years through Edmund Burke to Plato and requires a behavior of looking outward with broad scope and timeless depth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Conservatives are people that follow conservative principles in reaching policy decisions.\u00a0 Conservatism is a set of guiding principles that constitutes a framework for policy-making.<\/p>\n

Thus, a conservative decision process values history for its ability to reveal which policies help, and which policies hinder, a society in its quest to be vigorous and innovative yet stable and secure.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Russel Kirk and Friend<\/p>\n

Ignorance of history condemns one to blindness, robs one of the ability to be prudent, and enslaves one to a victimhood of whims and fads.<\/p>\n

People see or hear slogans from the political right such as \u201csmaller government\u201d or \u201clower taxes\u201d or \u201cmore personal freedom.\u201d\u00a0 They are mistakenly led to believe that these slogans are some of the so-called conservative principles.<\/p>\n

What should be clarified is that these sound-bites symbolize only the resulting policies of applying the conservative principles and do not constitute the founding principles, themselves.<\/em><\/p>\n

In like manner, the listed \u201cNo\u201d items at the beginning of this article are the results of applying<\/em> the principles.<\/p>\n

The conservatives principles are very broad, general guidelines and have no specific remedies or solutions embedded within them.\u00a0 The conservative principles should be viewed more as providing a starting point along with a pathway to be followed when deriving public policy.<\/p>\n

In other words, when faced with the need for a policy decision, applying a conservative decision process begins at a nexus of several axioms as a starting point and then proceeds
\nto fit the particular issue at hand into various guidelines.<\/p>\n

Conservative Axiom No. 1<\/strong>: Humans are imperfectible. [RK-6]<\/p>\n

Not only are humans imperfect, they cannot be made perfect.\u00a0 Any policy goal that is based on perfecting society or on perfecting humans is doomed to failure.\u00a0 Any proposed problem solution that assumes human perfection or perfectibility, or that strives to achieve such, will fail.\u00a0 Any true conservative process has this fact of human nature as a foundation.<\/p>\n

Conservative Axiom No. 2<\/strong>: There are only two equalities: at the Last Judgment and at the bar of a just court of law. [RK-5]<\/p>\n

All attempts at leveling outcomes must lead to stagnation.\u00a0 Any vigorous society
\nmust embrace variety and differences with the concomitant freedoms that these
\ndifferences allow.\u00a0 Imposing equality of outcomes destroys equality of rights and freedoms.<\/p>\n

As the Declaration of Independence states, all men are created with equal and unalienable rights to their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.<\/p>\n

Conservative Axiom No. 3<\/strong>: \u00a0There is a universal thirst for freedom in every human.<\/p>\n

All humans have a yearning to breathe free as guaranteed by the Lady Liberty with her torchlight who replaces the pompous Colossus of Rhodes and his conquering might.<\/p>\n

Conservative Axiom No. 4<\/strong>: \u00a0Our senses can fool us. In addition to optical illusions, there are auditory illusions and cognitive illusions.<\/p>\n

All humans share the common trait of being fooled by their perceptions.\u00a0 For
\nthis reason, the scientific method requires that many scientists repeat the
\nsame experiment many times before its conclusion can be accepted as trustworthy
\nknowledge.\u00a0 Our jury system requires\u00a0twelve people to hear the same evidence.\u00a0 Many
\ncultures require at least two witnesses and sometimes more before a testimony is considered fact.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From Axioms to Principles<\/strong><\/p>\n

The above axioms serve as gatekeepers for determining what sorts of policies should even be considered.\u00a0 If it is proposed to bring about some perfecting quality or leveling of some material or social asset, such a proposal should be dropped \u2013 these axioms are a litmus test of realizability.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As history has repeatedly proven, utopia is unrealizable, and all attempts to achieve it
\neventually result in societal destruction.<\/p>\n

The genius of many sovereign states each having the right to try variations on a central theme leads to successful trials being imitated and increasing and unsuccessful trials being
\navoided and diminished.<\/p>\n

Conservative Guideline 1: Prudence is the chief virtue<\/strong>. [RK-4]<\/p>\n

Be careful! In considering a new or different path, prudence demands a thorough
\nreview of history searching for exemplars.\u00a0Prudence demands for data \u2013 for solid evidence – that the proposed policy has had salutary effects in past situations.<\/p>\n

This guideline is easily traceable back to Plato and could probably be found in our hunter-gatherer fore bearers.\u00a0 It is enshrined in such homilies as \u201cdon\u2019t upset the apple cart\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t rock the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

As recognized by the Founding Fathers, our own Declaration of Inpedpendence asserts the primacy of prudence. In the second paragraph, after declaring the equality of every man to the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness\u00a0they state: “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Conservative Guideline 2: Voluntary local community always trumps involuntary centralized collectivism.<\/strong> [RK-8]<\/p>\n

Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger. <\/em>Whatever is beneficent and prudent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the
\nfunctions of community are transferred to distant political direction\u2014why, real
\ngovernment by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process
\nhostile to freedom and human dignity.<\/p>\n

Conservative Guideline 3: Grant authority to long established custom \u2013 immemorial usage is prescriptive.<\/strong> [RK-3]<\/p>\n

As Russell Kirk puts it: \u201cThe human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man\u2019s petty private rationality.\u201d<\/p>\n

It makes no sense to worship precedent and stare decisis<\/em><\/a> in the practice of law but then to ignore it in other pursuits. When the winds of change are trying to blow us onto an
\nuncharted rocky shore, we should anchor to custom until the weather calms.<\/p>\n

Conservative Guideline 4: Both permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. <\/strong>[RK-10]<\/p>\n

Without a confident sense of permanence, a society is in constant turmoil with a dangerous tendency to slip into anarchy.\u00a0 Without a prudent spirit of progress
\nand change, a society can stagnate and wither or engage in revolution.\u00a0 The conservative is ever alert to the requirement for balancing these two societal needs.<\/p>\n

Conservative Corollary 1: Custom, convention, and continuity must be adhered to.<\/span> [RK- 2]<\/p>\n

Customs allow us to live together peaceably. Conventions allow us to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties. Continuity links us generationally and helps to give meaning to our existence.<\/p>\n

Kirk reminds us: \u201cWhen successful revolutionaries have effaced old customs, derided old conventions, and broken the continuity of social institutions\u2014why, presently they discover
\nthe necessity of establishing fresh customs, conventions, and continuity; but that process is painful and slow; and the new social order that eventually emerges may be much inferior to the old order that radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservative Guideline 5: Freedom and property are closely linked.<\/strong> [RK-7]<\/p>\n

Policies that result in forcing the separation of a citizen from the fruits of his labor impinge liberty to the same degree and fray the fabric of a free society.<\/p>\n

Again, Kirk puts it well: \u201cTo be able to retain the fruits of one\u2019s labor; to be able to see one\u2019s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one\u2019s property to one\u2019s posterity;
\nto be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one\u2019s own\u2014these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

The volunteer small-farm owners of the ancient Greek city-state democracies maintained their culture at its pinnacle for centuries whether as voting citizens or as part-time
\nfighting warriors.\u00a0\u00a0 Philip and Alexander\u2019s conversion of these societies into an empire with a landed aristocracy initiated the decline of this culture into oblivion.<\/p>\n

A nearly identical scenario occurred in the rise of the Roman Republic based on the free farmer and merchant which pivoted into its downward spiral with the conversion to a property-usurping Empire by Caesar.<\/p>\n

Conservative Guideline 6: Prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions are needed.<\/strong> [RK-9]<\/p>\n

A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic.<\/p>\n

Conservative Guideline 7: There exists an enduring moral order.<\/strong> [RK-1]<\/p>\n

That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Policies Must Rest on Principles<\/strong><\/p>\n

If a self-described conservative disagrees with a policy that has been based on conservative principles, then he is obligated to point to the specific principle which has been misapplied.<\/p>\n

The policy can then be discarded or revised to correctly align with that principle and the
\nprocedure then carried forward.<\/p>\n

In the event that the policy does align with all of the principles, it must be either accepted as a well-founded conservative policy; or its opponents will have thereby exposed themselves as non-conservatives.<\/p>\n

Those not claiming to be conservatives should point to the specific principle or principles with which they disagree.\u00a0 That is, do they believe that Utopia can be achieved or that history can be ignored?\u00a0 It is useless to debate policy, until all debates about the underlying principles are resolved.\u00a0 A lack of resolution on principles nullifies
\ndebate on policy; the vote must be called.<\/p>\n

The next article will examine some policies – debated both past and present – and illustrate how they may be scrutinized through the filter of the principles outlined here.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

*The author makes no claim to originality of thought and cautions that his interpretation of Kirk, et al is probably not error-free.<\/p>\n

Notations with “RK-n” refer to one of Russell Kirk’s principles as enumerated in his
\nlatter writings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Understanding Conservatism: From Principles to Policies As summarized from Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke, John Locke, and Plato.* Don’t Start with Policy No new taxes. No corporate bailouts. No apologies to dictators. No terrorists released. No deficits. No enslavement by government handouts. Conservatives will say \u201cNO!\u201d to half-baked quick fixes satisfying the demands of the special […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-270","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}