I'm starting a new series of articles on how Conservative Values have Failed. It's obvious that conservative ideas and policies have failed, but the failures go even deeper to the very heart and essence of the conservative movement, to their Failed Conservative Values. In this series, we will pull back the mask of Conservative Family Values, Conservative Traditional Values, individual freedom, individual responsibility, individual liberty, Compassionate Conservativism, etc. to reveal the underlying Failed Conservative Values of fear, authoritarianism, secrecy, dogmatism, greed, indifference, self-righteousness, arrogance, hypocrisy, etc.
I ask for your assistance to systematically build the arguments and tell the stories that reveal how Conservative Values have Failed. Join in our effort to create a documentary and book on the subject by contributing articles, posts, chapters for the book and video clips. Check our website for more information and a growing outline of tasks that need to be done on this project. http://progressivespirit.com/Projects/FailedConservativeValues
The first failed conservative value we will look at is dogmatism. I interviewed Barbara, Carole and Nina at a conference of Democratic Clubs in Los Angeles. When I asked them to contrast conservative and progressive values, they all talked about conservative dogmatism and rigidity. Conservative dogmatism starts with the beliefs first and fit the facts to support them. The war and occupation of Iraq is a case in point. If the facts don't fit the dogma, they are ignored.
My own feeling and my own prejudice is that people on the right are believers rather than thinkers. And they start with the belief, and they fix the facts around their beliefs. That’s how we got into Iraq, under the memo that says, as you know, we’re fixing the facts around the policy that’s already established.
You start with a belief, then you fix the facts to go with your belief. And they do that with gay people, they decide that it’s a chosen lifestyle, because they start with a premise that it’s wrong, and if it’s wrong, it can’t be something you’re born with – it has to be chosen. That is a classic example of fixing the facts around the policy.
And I think they do that with a number of things. I think they listen to code words, and then don’t think through what these things actually mean. So family values – what does that mean? To most people on the right, I think it means anti-gay, it used to be anti-black, anti-woman, anti-change. Because they’re used to the universe as they believe it was created. And they think the universe was created as the way they see it existing. And therefore, any change is against the natural order of things. Because the natural order of things is what’s already there – what they’re used to.
Progressive, as the name implies, is always pushing for change, which conservatives, who are anti-change, hate. They are uncomfortable with it. And progressives look for progress – as the name implies. Progress means change of a specific kind, not just any old change, but change to improve people’s lives. Change for betterment, change for economic justice. Change for legal justice, for social justice. Change that will improve conditions for the most number of people.
That’s what progressive values are all about, as the name implies. And conservative values are about, “I’m used to this. Change is threatening. I don’t want change.” I mean, the right likes to have their version morality as very static, “God wants things this way, and this way is the way it is”. And that’s their idea of morality. They start with the rule, and then they use their idea of morality which is to use morality to judge people. So people are bad if they don’t obey the rule.
Progressive values start with the premise being people. That which helps people is good. That which hurts people is bad. And then they use people to judge the rule. So, if the rule helps people, it’s a good rule. And if the rule hurts people, it’s a bad rule and should be changed.
Conservatives values, just um, are very ridged and they deal with almost religious family. From a certain type of religion, which I'm very well aware of because I'm from Okalahoma. and I know the religion, I know why they frame it that way.
We need an enlarged support system around our families - education, health care.
More expanded caring feeling, much more accessible to humans, and egalitarian so to speak. Whereas republican values is very ridged, very focused, you have to be a certain type of religion or mind set. Whereas we are this large supportive caring type of feeling.
Conservative values are based on beliefs, not the world around us. This has nothing to do with religion, because I think there are religious progressives, and there are religious “conservatives”. There is a belief among the conservatives that I know that there is right and wrong, and those people that are not in their mind right, have no rights.
the biggest failure of conservatism is greed.Money is all that matters to a con servative.they claim they are for human life but their support for profits belies this fact.they cut regulations in drug testing,food safety and we have read articles upon articles about the deaths this has caused because they put profit first.the same for health care,50.000 people a year die from the lack of health care yet conservatives don"t want to jepordize a billion dallor health profit industry.the iraq war has caused more then a million iraqis deaths all for their oil.For supposedc Christians whose bible says money is the root of all evil they sure worship money.i forgot about all the mining collapses which were due to the government not enforcing mine safety.
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liberalsrock (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 108 comments)
on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 7:55:53 AM
Economic libertarianism is a failure too. Conservatives and Libertarians promote Laissez-faire economics meaning free market capitalism. They're not willing to support any economic policies that go against their definition of the "free market." They believe anything that violates the free market is bad.
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Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 587 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 6:51:29 PM
I don't know what libertarians you've been talking to, but no libertarians I know support any dictatorships. True, there are some who call themselves libertarian but aren't (Glen Beck comes to mind).
Some short answers to what libertarianism is about can be found here.
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Darren Wolfe (3 articles, 77 quicklinks, 52 diaries, 418 comments)
on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 6:52:44 AM
From the libertarians I've met, it also seems to be a valuing of the intellect over the heart or empathy as well.
Ron Paul supports the republican party, which is controlled by conservatives and their Failed Conservative Value of authoritarianism. He may rail against it, but gives his support and votes to support it. Seems like a lack of integrity there.
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Edwin Rutsch (51 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 119 comments)
on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 11:28:52 AM
Why do you think we value freedom? Its how you do best for people. The opposite of freedom is physical force. Nobody benefits from living in a society ruled by force. It just leads to oppression & poverty.
From the libertarians I've met, it also seems to be a valuing of the intellect over the heart or empathy as well.
This is the easiest one. Empathy or compassion must be guided by reason. Sometimes the best thing to do is what seems counterintuitive.
Ron Paul supports the republican party, which is controlled by conservatives and their Failed Conservative Value of authoritarianism. He may rail against it, but gives his support and votes to support it. Seems like a lack of integrity there.
Actually, Ron Paul is very much an outsider vis-a-vis the GOP establishment. He votes against everything the neocons want. Thats why they marginalized him during his campaign. Thats why they always run someone against him in the primaries. He's not perfect, but there's no lack of integrity there.
Economic arguments I could present by the truck load as to why free markets (the real libertarian kind, not the phoney neocon type) are better than controlled ones. Lets save that for another day. When it comes to helping people liberty has done well as this history shows:
Posing the Problem: The rise and decline of American civic life has provoked wide-ranging responses from all quarters of society. Unfortunately, most proposals for improving communities rely on renewed governmental efforts—without recognizing that the inflexibility and poor accountability of governments have often worsened society’s ills. Most would-be reformers seem profoundly unaware of the wealth of historical and contemporary evidence that decentralized, competitive markets can contribute greatly to community renewal.
What is a Voluntary City? It is a community built and maintained by private initiative and cooperation, not by the coercive political institutions that many people assume are needed to make communities work. The voluntary city is a paradigm for the community of tomorrow. It is also a historical reality: All of its key pillars—the physical infrastructure, services, and institutional framework that make communities livable—have at various times and places been provided by private initiative. Current legal, political and social trends suggest that its separate pillars may unite to build complete voluntary cities, allowing us to enjoy the myriad benefits of living in a truly civil society.
Compassionate Mutual Aid: Before the rise of the welfare state, mutual-aid societies provided social services to millions of Americas, Britons and Australians. By 1925, member societies of the National Fraternal Congress represented 120,000 American lodges. Member benefits often included medical care, unemployment insurance, sickness insurance, and other services.
Responsive Law Enforcement: Community policing is seen as responsive to local needs because it is relatively decentralized. Law enforcement in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries was even more decentralized and responsive because the private sector provided for public safety and the enforcement of contracts. When Britain’s Bobbies (public police) later came on to the scene, they were jeered not praised.
Fairer Laws: The Law Merchant was a non-governmental system of commercial-dispute resolution that arose in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Merchants viewed it as fair and abided by its decisions because it was created and administered by and for merchants. The Law Merchant was highly successful until governments began to subvert it and expand their own power. But because government-run legal systems have become increasingly slow and arbitrary, the Law Merchant is returning in the form of private arbitration and mediation services, which now help resolve criminal as well as commercial disputes.
Livable Communities: Private neighborhood associations have grown dramatically in the United States in recent years. An important alternative to government zoning and the tragedy of the urban commons, they represent the most far-reaching trend in privatization today. The hotel, the forerunner of better residential communities, is the prototypical “proprietary community.”
Educational Innovation: Prior to state involvement, literacy and school attendance rates in England, Wales, and the United States were 90 percent and rising. Perhaps more surprising is that private education is enjoying a remarkable ren-aissance in many developing countries today such as India, Brazil, Colombia and South Africa. In these countries, a large private-education industry, often aimed at serving the poorest of students, exists to alleviate the failure of government-run schools.
Government Failures and Market Challenges: Many laws governing cities are based on faulty notions about what governments are likely to achieve. In contrast, the non-governmental alternatives presented in The Voluntary City are based on historical case studies that illustrate the difference between entrepreneurial incentives and political incentives. Private entrepreneurs typically deliver better “public” goods and services than do government bureaucrats, and market failure is less common than government failure.
Synopsis
Civil society has received renewed attention since the Berlin Wall fell and took the ideal of central planning with it. Some observers have suggested that the voluntary institutions of civil society are now, to paraphrase Marx, specters haunting the world—albeit helpful ones that can deliver the health, prosperity and well-being that collectivist economies could not.
The case for civil society is stronger than most of its enthusiasts realize. As the authors of The Voluntary City show, history is replete with enough examples of well-functioning voluntary institutions to merit a radical reconsideration of the presumed need for government involvement in many areas of civic and commercial life. Roads and bridges, education, housing, social welfare, land-use planning, commercial law, even policing and criminal prosecutions have been provided effectively by the non-governmental sector at various times and places in the past.
Urban Infrastructure and Urban Myths
The presumption that markets cannot provide adequate urban infrastructure is an urban myth quickly dispelled by The Voluntary City. Stephen Davies (chapter 2) begins by reexamining the evidence and showing that the English cities during the industrial revolution were not chaotic shantytowns whose lack of zoning and building codes undermined public health and safety. Rather, private-property rights and contracts—key institutions of civil society—made the urbanization demanded by a fast-growing economy and population rapid yet orderly.
David Beito (chapter 3) shows how developers created the private self-governing enclaves (or private places) of St. Louis, complete with private streets, sewers, electricity and even private governance structures. Residential developers of this period anticipated many of the techniques used by modern urban planners. But they faced market-incentives and constraints that spurred innovation and avoided the wastefulness and hubris that often characterize their modern counterparts.
During the early 19th century, private enterprise in both the United States and Britain also produced networks of highways that facilitated travel and trade. Daniel Klein (chapter 4) traces the efforts of turnpike companies of early America to replace the earlier system of governmental highways, which had fallen into decay by the late 18th century.
Private entrepreneurs have also created large-scale industrial communities with complex physical infrastructure and services. Robert Arne (chapter 5) explains the complex workings of Chicago’s Central Manufacturing District, with its well-functioning docks, local and rail transportation, electricity, and many business services.
Law and Social Services
Is law possible without the state? Surprisingly, the answer appears to be yes. Bruce Benson (chapter 6) investigates the Law Merchant: the voluntarily evolved and enforced legal system that governed trade among international merchants. The Law Merchant filled the vacuum left by the fall of the Roman Empire, when merchants themselves created a dispute-resolution system that all parties regarded as fair. Today, arbitration and conflict-resolution businesses, like the Law Merchant of yore, offer many advantages over state systems, and have even spread to environmental mediation and community disputes. Stephen Davies (chapter 7) shows how, in the 19th century, local communities and private prosecution associations provided criminal justice.
Can private initiatives provide crucial social services? David Beito’s second contribution to this volume (chapter 8) discusses the fraternal societies that arose during the 19th century to look after their members before the rise of the welfare state. Millions of Americans received health and life insurance through fraternal, mutual-aid societies. David Green (chapter 9) discusses the “friendly societies” of Britain and Australia.
Like law and poor relief, education is another service that was adequately provided by private initiative in the 19th century. James Tooley (chapter 10) shows that prior to state involvement, literacy and school attendance rates in England, Wales, and the United States were 90 percent and rising. In many developing countries today, a large private-education industry exists to alleviate the failure of government-run schools.
Community and the Voluntary City
Community life is shaped in countless ways by governing institutions. In search of more livable communities, millions of Americans have turned to living in proprietary communities run by private homeowners associations. Fred Foldvary (chapter 11) presents the theory and history of proprietary communities, and explains how they can deliver the “public goods” (and services) that many assumed only governments could provide. Donald Boudreaux and Randall Holcombe (chapter 12) argue that in many respects the governance structures that arise in the market (e.g., condominium associations and corporations) outperform those of conventional cities and towns, which never deviate from the rule of one person–one vote. Robert Nelson (chapter 13) explains how older established neighborhoods can gain the advantages of proprietary communities. His proposed Residential Improvement Districts would give inner-city residents greater control over their neighborhoods, enhance personal safety, and improve the use of land and local resources. Spencer Heath MacCallum (chapter 14) suggests that multiple-tenant income properties are a stepping stone on the path to a hotel model of residential housing. Unlike political communities, private hotels offer some of the services provided by municipal governments but without their coercive wealth redistribution and wealth-draining battles for control. There is no reason why the hotel model should not be applied to residential homes leased for long periods, he argues.
Market Challenges and the Voluntary City
In the concluding chapter, Alexander Tabarrok shows how economists have failed to adequately explain to policymakers the historical scope of private initiative. Theories that assume that the marketplace cannot provide “public goods” are often theories with little empirical basis. The theory of market failure needs to incorporate a theory of government failure. Market-failure theory, in fact, is better understood as “market-challenge” theory.
“Market-challenge theory can identify areas where empirical investigation is likely to be especially valuable and interesting. But empirical investigation may discover market failure, or it may discover practices and institutions that help markets to succeed in the face of challenges.” In sum, The Voluntary City remedies this deficiency of contemporary urban decline by investigating the history of large-scale, private provision of social services, the for-profit provision of urban infrastructure and community governance, and the growing privatization of residential life in the United States. The strength of The Voluntary City lies in its examples of how market-based entrepreneurship, rather than politics-as-usual, has shown itself to be well equipped to provide local public goods. The Voluntary City further suggests that in the process of providing local public goods, market-based entrepreneurship can renew community and strengthen the bonds of civil society.
A refreshing challenge to the orthodoxy that believes that government alone can improve community life, The Voluntary City will be of special interest to policy-makers, business and civic leaders, scholars and policy analysts, and students of urban life, economics, history, law, and government.
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Darren Wolfe (3 articles, 77 quicklinks, 52 diaries, 418 comments)
on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 7:41:42 AM
When you said, " people on the right are believers rather than thinkers", you nailed it. The conservatives are to a great extent made up of far right fundamentalist christians. They by nature are " people on the right are believers rather than thinkers” They live by the 'mushroom theory' of politics, that being, the party leaders feed them BS and they eat it up.
When you have bad leaders, it can get "very deep".
Because of this situation, we end up with Idiot (inteligent NOT) design
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kanawah (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 39 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 7:50:27 PM
First of all, this topic is a horrible can of worms. Your very first respone was from someone (Ty) trying to run you off the road into libertarianism. You will get many more of these. That's the problem with asking for opinions: you will get some...and everybody has one. In this case, you will will probably get many more (and varied) than you need, want, can use or ever asked for or dreamed possible.
Secondly, this is a cheap way to use a public forum to do your research. There are good, admirable, sensitive and professional methods which may be employed to gather, assemble and vet public opinion, and this is not one of them. When this is done properly, it is called "Research". And good research usually yields good results. I don't see any in your fuiture. This approach is neither refined nor well-planned. You've just thrown your hook and line in the pond and waited to see what kind of fish bites. You are asking for cheap labor, and you will get what you pay for. You should formulate your own opinion (thesis) based on what you can cull, carefully, and then write about it. Quote others if you want to, but don't ask everyone else to do the work. For shame.
Thirdly, as I said at the outset, this is a LARGE can of LARGE worms. The essential argument about conservative values vs. just about any other political/cultural/religious value systems/beliefs is as old as mankind. And because politics, culture and religion will all come rushing in together, you will have a mulligan stew-type concoction which will ultimately define nothing at all. It will be tasteless, figuratively and literarily. I doubt you will get to the bottom of this vast sea of imponderables by asking a few bland, open-ended questions, and I'm really surprised OpEdNews let you get away with even attempting this caper on their time. I'll bet you are a closet conservative who is really a bitter elitist who clings to guns and the very values you claim to hope to expose?
What you are proposing here is a strange combination of gossip, populist blather and plaigarism. As a kid, did your mother do your homework? You are giving journalism a bad name. I hear Fox News is hiring.
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Ivan Hentschel (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 100 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 8:03:40 PM
OEN is happy to have this "research" done here. THe web, media websites, hybrid media/blog/link aggregation sites are evolving, emerging experiments and we're happy and proud to have people taking risks and trying new things out. We are, right now, working on building polling capabilities that will blow away all the other blog sites with polling. When it's ready, any article will be able to have one or more polls on it.
One question the writer asks is, What's the opposite of dogmatism? I say flexibility, tolerance and openness to new ideas. Try them on for size. You might like them.
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Rob Kall (728 articles, 3775 quicklinks, 311 diaries, 1521 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 8:55:06 PM
I'm interested in all directions, libertarianism has it's own set of values and I'm interested in understanding them. so no problem there.
Research: have you checked out our website? over 130 video interviews with over 350 videos on youtube (with many more to come). Progressivespirit.com
In my front yard I have a 6 by 11 ft. area that I dug out between some sidewalks. I filled it with wood chips, I go to Starbucks and get their coffee grounds every day and add that, I've added boxes of green compost from the local Natural Grocery store. To this I added 2 pounds of red worms. (about 2,000 worms). Every week a red worm lays 2 - 4 cocoons. In each of these is 2-3 worms that will hatch in a month or so. In one year 1,000 red worms can turn into 1 million worms. Some people (maybe the cynics) are repulsed by worms, but I find them quite interesting. They eat the organic mater and turn it into extremely rich soil. There are neighbor kids that come over and I dig up the worms an tell them about their life cycle and what they do for the soil.. The kids love to dig in the soil and hold the worms and hold them intheir hands. Their eyes light up and they get very excited. If you have problem with worms, I don't know what I can tell you. I guess if you send me your address I could mail you some and perhaps it will change your mind. They usually sell for $20 a pound, but I'd give you some for free.
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Edwin Rutsch (51 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 119 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 11:45:45 PM
You are certainly barking up the wrong tree. Don't go there. Bad Rob!
If we start polling our ideas on right and wrong, well your rite may not be my rite, but it's all wrong.
What I'm trying to say, and not growlll, do all people have the same moral compasses? Are there two, or more answers we get on the Ten Commandments of Love. (sorry for the group harmony shtick).
I wish to get back on the scent of where I am going. I asked the rabbi if thou shall not kill. The pious man said, it is okay to kill. But you must not commit murder!
Is it all boiling down to symantics. It is starting to give me ticks. I itch to find what is the basic precepts of our OEN community.
Wolfie will be lead by the leash of two evils!
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Wolfie (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 980 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 10:56:10 PM
Closing your mind to the discussion just perpetuates it
No one mentioned morals.. No one mentioned right and wrong. Seems to be a major problem with people that they confuse the words; values, ideals, principles, and morals all together. Conservatives have taken advantage of this confusion and that's part of what I'm working to clarify. Closing your mind to the discussion just perpetuates the problem.
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Edwin Rutsch (51 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 119 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 11:59:50 PM
I just saw that one of the interviewees did mention the word morality.. However, that is not what the interviews are about.. I am interested in values and not morality. Values, people tell me over and over again, are something that you feel in your heart, in your soul, in your guts, in your body. Morality is categorizing of these values in simplistic right and wrong columns. As progressives, we need to take on conservatives in this area and know what we're talking about. We can't let them dominate the values discussion, especially when the values they are promoting are Failed Conservative Values.
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Edwin Rutsch (51 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 119 comments)
on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 12:16:52 AM
I'd say principles rest on values. As mentioned, people tell me over and over that they see values as felt body experiences, principles are a higher level of abstraction. Have more an element of reason and thinking to them. I have a model of this I'm working on here:
