IS HE ONE OF US?--- WONDERING ABOUT JONAH

IS HE ONE OF US?
WONDERING ABOUT JONAH

By: Red Phillips

Recently, Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online Editor at Large, wrote an article for National Review Online (go figure) entitled "Is He One of Us? Wondering about Bush." He questions whether President Bush is in fact a conservative. Of course most Ether Zone readers knew the answer to that question was "no" back when Bush ran for Governor of Texas, but I guess Jonah and the boys (and gals) at NRO are a little slow on the uptake and have only recently started pondering this essential question.

I wonder if the irony of the NRO gang questioning the conservative bona fides of Bush was lost on ol’ Jonah. For years real conservative have been writing National Review and Jonah off as hopeless libs, and mourning the loss of the old National Review that actually had something interesting to say. Like when Joseph Sobran was still writing for them before he was "purged" for being too sufficiently what the magazine was supposed to be. If squishy soft Jonah and National Review are now the arbiters of who is and is not a "conservative," then use real conservatives might as well pack it in and go fishing.

That said, contrary to the derisive label of "Animal House conservative" which is often used by his right-wing detractors, Jonah is not infrequently a helpful "conservative" to read. He, more than some, seems very at ease with the big-government sentiments of that current mass movement that calls itself "conservative" and hence is often quite candid about the movement’s liberal tendencies. To read Jonah is to truly gaze into the belly of the Beast that is the pretend conservative establishment.

I highly encourage readers to take a look at the linked to article. Jonah makes some very interesting observations about the sorry state of modern conservatism. Unfortunately, poor Jonah seems unaware that his defense of Bush and the movement is in fact a stunning indictment.

He writes, "Neoconservatives, for example, are famously comfortable with an energetic, interventionist government as long as that government isn't run by secular, atheistic radicals, and socialists (I exaggerate a little for the sake of clarity)." I would add that he exaggerates only a very little, but I thank him for the candid revelation. That little confession will come in handy in future columns skewering the phony cons.

Jonah writes, "Contrary to most stereotypes, conservatism is a much less dogmatic ideology than modern liberalism. The reason liberals don't seem dogmatic and conservatives do is that liberals have settled their dogma, so it has become invisible to them. No liberal disputes in a serious philosophical way that the government should do good things where it can and when it can." This statement is right on. I have since I initiated this column been crying in the wilderness to a small band of the like-minded that conservatism is in desperate need of a heaping helping of dogma. It is a lack of dogma that has partially contributed to the feeble resistance that conservatism has been able to manage against the continuous leftward drift of this once fine Republic.

Goldberg continues, "Within conservatism, however, there are enormous philosophical arguments about the proper role of the state. This debate isn't merely between libertarians and social conservatives. It's also between conservatives who are ‘anti-left’ versus those who are ‘anti-state.’" Again, Jonah has hit the nail on the head. It is only with his nomenclature that I have a dispute.

Goldberg is essentially conceding whether he realizes it or not, that there is a debate with-in conservatism between those who are actual conservatives and those who are liberals. But why include big government "conservatives" (i.e. liberals) as a part of the right at all? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to label them as a faction of the left? And isn’t the debate he is describing actually between less state "conservative" Republicans and more state liberal Democrats on the left vs. a small (for now) band of real conservatives on the right?

It is absolutely true that many in the "conservative" movement are more precisely labeled by what they are against, what they call the left, but the so-called "anti-left" is not in fact "anti-left" because how can you be anti something that you are a part of? They are better labeled as anti-Democrat. The sycophantic way that many Bush and Republican party supporters rally around their guy and their party and vilify anyone who criticizes the President, whether it be Kerry or Reid or even Bush’s paleoconservative critics, despite the fact that Bush and the GOP have done almost nothing to advance conservative issues and have in fact frequently acted contrary to conservative principles, proves that they are more concerned with who is in charge than they are about real ideas. Their battle is as Pat Buchanan said last year, more like a feud between the Hatfields and McCoys than it is about left vs. right.

If it can be said of liberals that none "dispute in a serious philosophical way that the government should do good things where it can and when it can," then is it not fair to ask how Goldberg’s "anti-left" conservatives or his "energetic, interventionist" neocons differ at all from the folks they are supposed to be opposing? If they differ, they differ by degree not essence. I sure did not see a lot of disputing "that the government should do good things" when Bush and his gang of GOP thugs were twisting arms so they could pass a vast expansion of Medicare. Would not a serious questioning of the role of government force a true conservative to reject hugely expanding a redistributive entitlement program? Wouldn’t it in fact cause one to question the existence of the program all together?

Goldberg makes the same mistake that so many modern "conservatives" make. He sets the bar for what constitutes conservatism extremely low. He acts as if the only reference point is today and this country does not have a several hundred year history to help us define what authentic American conservatism should look like. He writes, "What has so confused liberals, meanwhile, is that they are still talking about Bush like he's primarily an anti-state guy, a la Reagan or Gingrich, even as he's spent lavishly on education, labor and regulation." But why not cite Jefferson, Henry, and Calhoun as his example of anti-state theoreticians? Why cite Reagan and Gingrich as the quintessential anti-state guys? Both used some anti-state rhetoric, but would Mr. Goldberg kindly point out to me any government departments that either one abolished. What Democrat budget that was presented to Reagan should he not have vetoed? Mr. Goldberg, Rep. Ron Paul is anti-state. The afore mentioned Joseph Sobran is anti-state. Mike Peroutka who wants to abolish all federal programs not actually authorized by the Constitution is anti-state. (While I am not prepared in this brief column to elaborate sufficiently on the libertarian vs. social conservative debate that Mr. Goldberg mentions, suffice it to say that real conservatives like Peroutka are certainly extremely anti-state by modern standards even if they are not Rothbard style anti-statists.) Gingrich is not anti-state. Gingrich is an anti-Democrat who is slightly less liberal than the folks he believes he opposes.

Until Mr. Goldberg and the staff of National Review wake up to this reality, they will continue their weak opposition to an imaginary opponent in a make believe battle. I will continue, and I hope I can count on my Ether Zone readers to continue as well, the battle against the left whether in the guise of Democrats or National Review style "conservatives."

Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

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Red Phillips is a physician from Georgia. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.

Red Phillips may be contacted at: redphillipsmd@yahoo.com