Is a Conservative Crack-Up On the Horizon?

[EasyAce]

The intellectual poles of the American Right are growing ever-further apart. What comes next?
By Samuel Goldman
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447324/conservatism-intellectual-divide-classical-liberals-reactionaries-political-right
(Editor’s note: The following article originally appeared at Law and Liberty, under the title “What Is the Future of Conservatism?” It is reprinted here with permission.)

In his 1936 essay “The Crack-Up,” F. Scott Fitzgerald proposed that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability
to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be
able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

This strikes me as an illuminating description of the conservative mind, least in its American incarnation. Since its emergence
in the decade following the Second World War, the American conservative movement has been characterized by a dramatic
combination of pessimism and optimism. Think about what it means to stand athwart history yelling stop.

Yet the point of Fitzgerald’s famous Esquire magazine essay, which is more often quoted than read, is that this philosophy is
untenable. In the long run, even a first-rate mind has a limited capacity for paradox. At some point, it becomes impossible
to hold intellect and will in equilibrium. That is when the crack-up occurs.

Like the middle-aged Fitzgerald, intellectual conservatism has entered its crack-up phase. It was always a product of competing
motives and sources, and now the tension between its fundamental elements has become too sharp to sustain. Events have
moved so quickly since the emergence of Donald Trump as a presidential contender that prognosis may well be foolhardy, but
here goes: The patient is unlikely to be cured.

Conservatives’ inconsistent attitudes toward the future are reflections of more fundamental tendencies that were once safely
contained within the conservative mind but now strain its boundaries. These cannot be reduced to the familiar distinctions
between libertarianism and traditionalism, neoconservatism and paleoconservatism, establishment and base. For the sake of
simplicity, call them liberalism and reaction.

Start with liberalism. It hardly needs to be said that I mean the philosophical movement retrospectively dubbed “classical
liberalism.” This term, familiar to the point of cliché, means different things to different people. So I beg the reader’s
indulgence of a brief explanation.

Although it is often associated with the doctrines of natural right, the essential feature of classical liberalism is its distinction
between public and private. This distinction was originally deployed in favor of religious toleration. Over time, it became a
more expansive argument that certain activities are of concern only to those directly involved. It followed that such activities
should be protected against restrictions imposed for ostensibly general purposes.

Among the activities considered as private is the production and exchange of value. Unless they pose direct threats to the
essential interests of others, liberalism places making and doing, buying and selling beyond public control. This application
of the public/private distinction has an instrumental justification: that free markets promote prosperity. But it was, in its
origins, a moral claim.

An extensive private sphere could, in principle, be secured by a benevolent despotism. Indeed, there have been situations
in which despots were more favorable to liberalism than were peoples. But skepticism toward absolute power is deeply rooted
in the liberal tradition. Although liberals have sometimes been tempted by dictatorial shortcuts, liberal thought emphasizes
rules and institutions — including mechanisms of democratic accountability — that prevent arbitrariness.

But if liberalism fears that power corrupts, it also promotes a certain confidence in reason. The pendant to private freedom
is a public sphere in which common enterprises are open to scrutiny and debate. The exercise is useless, even dangerous,
if it is not based on sufficient information or conducted by citizens unskilled in reasoning. Liberalism is therefore traditionally
protective of formal education and — more concretely — of the political influence of persons who possess it.

This collection of assumptions and dispositions generates a particular combination of optimism and pessimism. In a sense,
classical liberalism is a hope that human beings will develop reasonable solutions to their problems if they are left free to
do so. At the same time, it warns that these solutions cannot be determined in advance or effectively imposed on those who
do not accept them. Reversing Antonio Gramsci’s famous motto, liberalism could be described as optimism of the intellect
and pessimism of the will.

Notwithstanding all the Adam Smith neck ties and ceremonial tributes to Alexis de Tocqueville, classical liberalism is not the
only pole of American conservatism. If liberalism is American conservatism’s Antarctica, reaction is its Ultima Thule. The
liberal landscape is solid and open to exploration. The topography of reaction is shrouded by mists and shifting seas.

Intellectual history is an unreliable guide because the masters of reaction — Joseph de Maistre, Thomas Carlyle, Friedrich
Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt — exercised only an attenuated influence on American conservatism. A few native
intellectuals, including H. L. Mencken and Robert Nisbet, studied and wrote about the reactionary canon. European-born
scholars like Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin adopted some of its themes in their teaching and passed them on to American
students. On the whole, however, these were very recherché tastes. Despite the recent surge of interest in figures like Julius
Evola, whom Trump adviser Steve Bannon has apparently read, we are looking for elective affinities rather than direct
inspiration.

The political theorist Mark Lilla provides a useful starting point in his recent book The Shipwrecked Mind (2016). He describes
reaction as the yearning to overturn a present condition of decadence and recover an idealized past. The pursuit of social
transformation distinguishes reaction from the conservative inclination to cherish and preserve what actually exists.

If reaction is temperamentally unconservative, it is also historically anti-liberal. In the 18th and 19th centuries, reactionary
thought challenged the public–private distinction, free markets, constitutional government, and the public authority of reason.
These critiques were often brilliant and remain major accomplishments of political theory. For all their insight, however, the
reactionaries struggled to propose appealing alternatives to liberalism. Some defended the old prerogatives of altar and throne.
Others articulated a kind of aristocratic anarchism that held some literary appeal but was hard to accept as a guide to practical
politics.

The historical opposition between liberalism and reaction has led some analysts to impose a sharp separation between an
essentially liberal Anglo-American conservatism and a reactionary European Right. Because it is politically flattering as well
conceptually clarifying, I have been tempted to make this distinction myself. But I now think the opposition between liberalism
and reaction is only contingent. When reaction is defined as the attempt to recover a lost golden age rather than commitment
to a specific historical order, it becomes compatible with liberalism.

Liberalism and reaction can overlap in a specific kind of decline narrative — one according to which private conduct used to
be protected, government was properly limited, reason ruled. There was a veritable golden age of freedom. But this paradise
was interrupted by a calamity that undermined liberalism and imposed different principles of social order. Unless confronted,
the substitution threatens to become permanent.

This decline narrative is not just an abstract possibility. Although it can be presented in several versions, it provides a template
for the self-understanding of American conservative thought. It does not matter precisely which period is identified as the
golden age or what event serves that intervening calamity. Whether the point at which things went wrong is the Civil War,
the Progressive movement, the New Deal, or the Great Society, the basic structure is the same.

It might be objected that even if American conservative thought involves a reactionary pattern of historical reasoning, it does
not seek classically reactionary ends. Few American conservatives admired early modern absolutism or ancient paganism
(although more expressed affection for the antebellum South). But they have dabbled in the endorsement of non-liberal means
to liberal ends.

In the American context, that usually means adopting populist strategies that cater to the prejudices of the public. Conservative
intellectuals have been willing to accept support where they could find it, without inquiring too deeply into its sources. In
particular, the role of conspiracy theories and racism in generating support for putatively liberal candidates and policies tends
to be downplayed or ignored. Conservatives have also been less than vigilant about limited government when sympathetic
figures are in office. Concerns about executive power, for example, have a way of disappearing when Republicans occupy
the White House. (Emphasis mine.---EasyAce.)

The divergences are not simply lapses from principle. Reaction is, in a paradoxical way, more hopeful than liberalism. Instead
of placing its faith in the long-term salutary effects of countless private actions, it depends on the acquisition and assertion of
power. Like Gramsci’s Marxism, reaction could be characterized as pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.

Despite the tension between them, liberalism and reaction are not mutually exclusive. They coexist not only as factions within
the conservative movement, but even in the thought of individual conservatives — maybe most of them. That is where the
political theorist Corey Robin goes wrong in his perceptive if polemical book The Reactionary Mind. Robin depicts conservatism
as inherently reactionary and only situationally liberal. Rather than the inner truth of conservatism, however, reaction is part
of a dynamic tension that helps explain its vitality.

That tension has been sustained for longer than Fitzgerald’s 39 years of sanity. But now the conservative mind is coming apart.

Some of the centrifugal forces encouraging a separation of liberalism and reaction are technological. As the political scientist
George Hawley (about whom David B. Frisk has written instructively for Law and Liberty) has argued, innovations in media have
made it more difficult to hold any coalition together. The preservation of balance within the conservative movement owed a great
deal to the ability of a few institutions to exclude figures and ideas they judged kooky, cranky, or otherwise unacceptable. Talk
radio, cable news-entertainment, and especially the Internet make this task virtually impossible.

The international setting for conservative thought is also different from what it was 30 years ago. Anti-communism no longer acts
as a force field holding together disparate elements of the Right. Economic libertarians and foreign-policy hawks, for example,
shared an enemy in the Soviet Union. Our current geopolitical challenges — including Islamist movements, Russia, China — do
not exert this unifying effect.

Domestically, Reagan-era concerns about excessive personal taxation and inflation are not as salient as they used to be. As a result,
conservative obsessions with cutting marginal tax rates and hard money seem more like ideological fetishes than serious responses
to today’s problems.

The aforementioned causes of the conservative crack-up have been widely discussed. But there are deeper causes that have received
less attention. One is a growing skepticism about the sufficiency of classically liberal means to classically liberal ends. Conservatives
have published books, established think tanks, served in Congress, and staffed the White House. But has anything really changed?

Given the centrality of anti-communism to the development of conservatism, it is ironic that concepts derived from Marxism have
become central to understanding its failures. Originally developed by James Burnham, the theory of the administrative or managerial
state holds that our country is actually governed by institutions with no basis in the written Constitution. This unelected fourth branch
is composed primarily of the federal bureaucracy. But it also includes representatives of the legal establishment, media, academia,
and major financial interests.

There is nothing inherently reactionary about the theory of the managerial state, which offers considerable insight into the reality of
American government. The theory only acquires that connotation when it becomes the basis for political strategy. Because the
administrative or managerial state is not elected and operates through regulation not statute, the argument goes, it is impossible to
overturn this shadow government by winning congressional majorities, passing laws, or even raising challenges in court. Since
Leviathan cannot be restrained, it must be smashed.

The classical liberalism I have tried to describe is characteristically skeptical of executive power, particularly as an instrument for
renovating constitutions whether written or unwritten. The reactionary tendency, by contrast, sees a strong executive as the only
viable weapon against managerialism. This analysis has become a central feature of the theoretical case for Donald Trump. His
combativeness, unpredictability, and indifference to expert opinion are seen not as defects of character but as tactical advantages
over the bureaucracy.

Approving radical tactics of opposition to the administrative state need not involve sympathizing with authoritarianism as such.
Some conservatives see Trumpian intransigence as an unpleasant but unavoidable precondition of any revival of old-fashioned
liberalism. But there is no longer a consensus around that goal. One reason that the dispute between the libertarians and
traditionalists of the 1950s could be resolved was that they agreed about their preferred social form: an idealized version of the
federal republic that existed before the New Deal. As it slips out of living memory, this vision no longer brings together elements
of the intellectual Right.

The breakdown of the consensus may have been inevitable. For psychological reasons, most people recall with fondness the
period of their youth. It is not coincidental that the early conservatives could actually remember the arrangements and mores
that many of them wished to restore. The presidency of Calvin Coolidge (1923–29) was nearer in time to the heroic age of
American conservatism than that period is to our own.

The focus of political nostalgia has shifted accordingly. Today, it is the comparatively socially stable, economically egalitarian,
and culturally homogeneous America that flourished from roughly the end of the Second World War to the mid 1970s that
stands out in the popular imagination as a golden age. Intellectual honesty requires us to acknowledge that these conditions
were not the result of classically liberal policies. On the contrary, they were sustained by the very processes of nationalization,
bureaucratization, and regulation that American conservatism arose to challenge.

Generational shifts are not the only reason for the waning appeal of the brand of conservatism derived from classical liberalism.
Some intellectuals on the right have always questioned whether the likes of Smith, Tocqueville, and Mill were right in the first
place.

It goes without saying that there are important differences between these thinkers. Even so, their arguments for limited government,
free markets, and a rational public sphere presuppose a shared anthropology. According to this conception, human beings in full
command of their faculties are capable of recognizing, if not discovering, the conditions of their own flourishing. We need governments,
on this view, to protect our lives and property, adjudicate disputes, and perform other tasks that are hard to accomplish on a voluntary
basis. But it is morally illegitimate and generally ineffective to coercively impose a specific vision of the good life.

Yet this assumption is dubious. Consenting adults often make very foolish decisions. And many of the societies conservatives admire
were far more coercive and intrusive than classical-liberal principles would permit. The desire for a more powerful sense of purpose
and moral direction calls those principles into question. This deeper nostalgia, when it is not expressed as what Peter Augustine Lawler
calls “polis envy,” often fixates on medieval Christendom. An uglier version defends the old South as a model social order.

The conclusion that classical liberalism is based on fundamentally mistaken premises is part of the reactionary inheritance that has
always played a role, if a submerged one, in American conservative thought. In the past, however, it was rarely asserted consistently
or used as the point of entry to wholly independent currents of political thought. Vaguely absurd expressions of anti-liberalism like
Brent Bozell’s affection for Francoist Spain are exceptions that prove the rule. What is new is the emergence of illiberal movements
that cannot easily be dismissed as marginal. The influence of the so-called alt-Right should not be exaggerated. Nevertheless, the
growing popularity of neo-reactionaries, white nationalists, and men’s-rights activists, to say nothing of freelance provocateurs like
Milo Yiannopoulos, demonstrate the appeal of joining an opposition to the modern Left that is not liberal and, because it is not liberal,
also not conservative.

The stresses on the conservative mind that I have described in this essay predate Trump’s emergence on the political scene. But his
election made them acute. For the first time since Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose indifference to classical liberalism prompted the
creation of the conservative movement, a Republican president barely pretends to care about the philosophy. Eisenhower, however,
had compensating virtues not found in Trump.

In this unprecedented situation, tendencies that once coexisted are being resolved into independent alternatives. For some
conservatives, Trump’s hostility to institutions and formalities, markets, and expertise is impossible to accept. For others, Trump’s
gaining the White House is an irresistible opportunity to throw off stale orthodoxies. The result is a decomposition of conservatism
into opposed factions. One group basically accepts a classically liberal conception of how the world works — and how it should be
governed. The other rejects one or both of these premises.

These factions are comprised of more intellectually various members than one might expect. The conservatives drawn toward opposition
include neoconservatives, libertarians, Catholics influenced by natural law, theologically serious Evangelicals, conservative legal
activists, and East Coast Straussians. Many Trump skeptics share, in addition to an philosophical inclination toward classical liberalism,
a relatively favorable assessment of the current state of constitutional government. They tend to see the Constitution as diminished
but far from a dead letter.

The sociological homogeneity of this group belies its intellectual diversity, however. Trump-skeptical conservatives are often products
of prestigious universities and comfortable in major political and cultural institutions. The academics and lawyers among them, especially,
tend to regard themselves as custodians of majestic structures in a condition of severe but remediable decay.

Classical liberalism is at home in the classroom, courtroom, and boardroom. It is — and always has been — less effective at the
hustings. One of the most important lessons of Trump’s success is that classically liberal rhetoric and positions were not very important
to voters. It turned out that they wanted a candidate who promised to help, not one who knew his Hayek. The institutional advantages
that the liberal strand of conservatism enjoys are thus the mirror image of its political weakness. It excels in producing journal articles,
legal briefs, and business plans, but struggles to win popular support.

The group drawn in a reactionary direction is also intellectually diverse. It includes (among others) the surviving paleoconservatives,
the heirs of the Reagan-era religious Right, traditionalist Catholics, Orthodox Jews, West Coast Straussians, as well as the alt-Right.
These conservatives either do not believe that strategies of education, legal maneuvering, and market competition are going to secure
conservative goals any time soon, or believe that those goals were misguided in the first place.

Then, too, as with the Trump-averse conservatives, the connecting thread among reactionary conservatives may be as much
sociological as ideological. Although not necessarily members of the working class they often claim to defend, conservatives drawn
to Trump are typically outsiders to the educational, legal, or economic establishment. Both as a cause and a result, they have no
affection for elite institutions or the norms associated with them. These are not monuments to be defended but obstacles to be
demolished.

This taxonomy is more like a spectrum than a hard-and-fast division. Some conservatives lean more to one side, some to the other.
A few seem determined to remain in the middle. But the balancing act is growing more challenging as the distance between the
poles expands. In the future, the diverging tribes of conservatism may have less in common with each other than with formations
outside the Right as we have known it.

Having failed (along with many, indeed most political observers) to accurately predict the outcome of the election, I hesitate to
offer forecasts of the development of conservatism. Too much depends on what happens over the next few years. It is possible
that the administration will avoid major crises, develop a coherent legislative agenda, and find ways to insulate the president
from the aspects of his duty that he seems to find overwhelming. But I doubt it.

So I will conclude by sketching a scenario that I regard as plausible, if far from certain. It involves the comprehensive Trump-
ification of “official” conservatism. That would mean the ascendance of certain reactionary features, including demotic style and
an emphasis on executive power.

As it grew more reactionary in these respects, this conservatism could at the same time moderate in other respects. In particular,
it could coopt the labor movement with its promotion of protectionism, and it could attract the religiously unaffiliated, who were
alienated by the ostentatious religiosity of the old conservative movement. The danger is that the bond between these constituencies
and traditional Republican voting blocs would be white-identity politics. And that danger increases the more that Trump and his
supporters deny that this bond exists.

Would a Trumpified American Right have room for intellectuals? Yes, but their role would be more retrospective than original. Their
task would not be charting new directions; it would be making sense of accomplished facts. That is not necessarily a bad thing.
The habit of deducing law and policy directly from an abstract anthropology is a congenital vice of philosophical liberalism. On
the other hand, the pragmatic assessment of decisions that have already been made can also degenerate into the sycophantic
application of a rubber stamp.

What about those left behind by the Trump revolution? Some will find ways to reconcile with existing centers of opposition to
the Trump administration, including the Democratic party. “Liberal-tarians” who see economic freedom and the protection of
individual liberties as means for securing social justice have pioneered this realignment. Neoconservatives may also find that
they share more with their Wilsonian cousins than with Trump’s revival of America First.

Other conservatives will conclude that Trump and his supporters are unacceptable but find it difficult to make common cause
with non-classical liberals and progressives. Their inclination will be to hunker down in their own communities and institutions.
The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher’s just-published manual for riding out the storm, is addressed to orthodox Christians, but it
may prove useful to nonconformists of other kinds. Associations that were conceived as beachheads in advance of a larger
invasion can also be refuges for those waiting for more favorable opportunities.

This is not a happy scenario and I hope to be wrong about it. Trump has promised to make America great again, but his hostility
to freedom, to the rule of law, and to disciplined thought suggest that his conception of greatness is very different from any that
I can share. Nonetheless, one can believe that things are hopeless and remain determined to make them otherwise. In some
sense, that is what is necessary for those of us who retain the unfashionable opinion that classical liberalism, for all its imperfections,
is the best available guide to the means and ends of politics. It is also part of what it means to be a conservative.

— Samuel Goldman is an assistant professor of political science and the director of the Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom
at George Washington University. He also serves as the literary editor of Modern Age. The opinions in this essay are his
own and do not represent George Washington University or the Loeb Institute.

[Cripplecreek]

I'm getting used to calling myself a federalist.

Federalism holds most firmly to the constitutional conservative ideals that I support.

[Bigun]

I'm getting used to calling myself a federalist.

Federalism holds most firmly to the constitutional conservative ideals that I support.

I like that! I think I will adopt it as well!

[ABX]

The crack has been spreading for a while. It is just amplified lately. It is now a rift.

[Cripplecreek]

The crack has been spreading for a while. It is just amplified lately. It is now a rift.

More of a chasm really. It will soon be a gulf.

[geronl]

Conservatism hasn't changed a bit, there is nothing intellectual about the cult.

[geronl]

More of a chasm really. It will soon be a gulf.

and then it'll take a starship to get to the other side

[INVAR]

Is a Conservative Crack-Up On the Horizon?

Well, in terms of what the average Joe Republican would consider to be 'Conservative' - that crack-up happened last year.

The chasm is just widening to a point of irreconcilable coexistence.

[roamer_1]

I'm getting used to calling myself a federalist.

Federalism holds most firmly to the constitutional conservative ideals that I support.

I have long been a federalist. But federalism is not all of Conservatism. It is not only about the form of government. Nor is it only about fiscal and market sanity, nor is it only about social mores. Each intellectually requires the others. And always will. To redefine is to retract, and the battle now waging is on all fronts.

[r9etb]

This is the first time in a long time that I've seen a writer actually try to lay out some of the general features of "conservatism," and the varying flavors of different belief sets, all of which claim the mantle of "conservatism."

So much of what we call "conservatism" these days, is really just a set of assumptions and assertions that mainly correspond to our personal view of the world.  How often do we see "debates" among conservatives devolve into contests of people shouting slogans past each other?

So of course "conservatives" have trouble agreeing on even the basics, not to mention our inability to come up with some sort of coherent political strategy.

[Sanguine]

For later.

[Free Vulcan]

I consider myself a 3 legged stool conservative. A Federalist, as mentioned above.

I walked away from Federal politics a long time ago, and now twice in a decade we have all three branches and are flopping around turning out socialism-lite bills. They to me have this final chance before that caked is baked.

My state like many others is getting it's act together finally. I even walked away from state politics because the state senate GOP weren't doing what it took to win back the majority. It finally took 3rd party PACs to get it done. With all three they've been doing a bang up job, so if I ever re-engage it'll be there.

Most of my energy now is going Galt. I'm more comfortable relying on myself than political solutions.

[roamer_1]

This is the first time in a long time that I've seen a writer actually try to lay out some of the general features of "conservatism," and the varying flavors of different belief sets, all of which claim the mantle of "conservatism."

So much of what we call "conservatism" these days, is really just a set of assumptions and assertions that mainly correspond to our personal view of the world.  How often do we see "debates" among conservatives devolve into contests of people shouting slogans past each other?

So of course "conservatives" have trouble agreeing on even the basics, not to mention our inability to come up with some sort of coherent political strategy.

That is Neoconservatism for you.

Actual Conservatives know each other and agree with each other just fine. The definition thereof, and the principles thereof have not changed a whit. They can't because they are principles writ large as way-of-life, handed down in the blood. If you can't define Conservatism, you probably aren't one.

[r9etb]

That is Neoconservatism for you.

Actual Conservatives know each other and agree with each other just fine. The definition thereof, and the principles thereof have not changed a whit. They can't because they are principles writ large as way-of-life, handed down in the blood. If you can't define Conservatism, you probably aren't one.

 

Oh?  Really?  Then why don't you prove you're a conservative by defining it for us?

[LateForLunch]

Oh?  Really?  Then why don't you prove you're a conservative by defining it for us?

Well, I notice that one feature of conservatism was not even mentioned in the original article, the sense that conservatives seek to conserve (preserve) those things which are worthy of conservation.

Some seek to imbue conservatism with an ideological identity but that itself is unwieldy for conservatives, because as mentioned by the previous poster, conservatism is a way-of-life more than any sort of doctrinaire rote ideology. Good conservatives are frequently idealists but not ideologues.

The distinction between an idealist and an ideologue may be nuanced, but it is essential to the understanding of the doctrines conservatives follow and believe in.  An ideologue tries to alter reality to fit into their conceptualizations, whereas an idealist tends to try to modify their concepts to conform to reality in order to better influence and shape the reality.

Another feature that seems to be missing from the original purport of the lengthy article (although I admit I may have missed it) is that conservatives (being generally pragmatists, not Utopians) are aware of the value of manageability as a value in an of itself.

Trying to deal with or to construct systems, concepts or machinations that are too complex to be managed effectively is not something that appeals to a  conservative mind set - and that extends to the conceptualization, definition and refinement of the concepts and precepts of conservatism itself.

[roamer_1]

Oh?  Really?  Then why don't you prove you're a conservative by defining it for us?

Conservatism is made up of three (really four) distinct factions:
Fiscal Conservatism http://www.conservapedia.com/Fiscal_conservatism
Social Conservatism http://www.conservapedia.com/Social_conservatism
Defense/Foreign Policy Conservatism http://conservative.org/found-conservatism/foreign-policy/ (long, but good)

and the fourth, usually lumped in with fiscal, civil-libertarianism, which, rightly defined, has little to do with fiscal matters. It is not easily referenced, but springs from Goldwater, and is hallmarked by constitutional constructionism. federalism, states rights, individual liberty, and can generally be considered to hold foremost the conservation of the literalist view of the Constitution, and the separation of powers as defined and resulting thereof.

Conservatism in America rises specifically out of the Goldwater wing (read far right wing) of the Republican party, unlike Neoconservatism, which arises from the moderate wing.

Conservatism is defined by (one is a conservative if one has) adherence to the principles of at least one of those factional groups.
Reagan Conservatism is defined by those who embrace ALL the principles of all the factions, with the emphasis toward meeting the basic principles of every faction, rather than throwing any faction 'under the bus' wrt compromise, especially wrt election.

The only other conservatism falling within Conservatism itself is PaleoConservatism, which, by it's original coining, is just pre-Reagan Conservatism... the three legged stool as it originally stood... Fiscal Conservatism, Defense Conservatism, and Goldwater (Civil) Libertarianism sans Social conservatism.

[Bigun]

Conservatism is made up of three (really four) distinct factions:
Fiscal Conservatism http://www.conservapedia.com/Fiscal_conservatism
Social Conservatism http://www.conservapedia.com/Social_conservatism
Defense/Foreign Policy Conservatism http://conservative.org/found-conservatism/foreign-policy/ (long, but good)

and the fourth, usually lumped in with fiscal, civil-libertarianism, which, rightly defined, has little to do with fiscal matters. It is not easily referenced, but springs from Goldwater, and is hallmarked by constitutional constructionism. federalism, states rights, individual liberty, and can generally be considered to hold foremost the conservation of the literalist view of the Constitution, and the separation of powers as defined and resulting thereof.

Conservatism in America rises specifically out of the Goldwater wing (read far right wing) of the Republican party, unlike Neoconservatism, which arises from the moderate wing.

Conservatism is defined by (one is a conservative if one has) adherence to the principles of at least one of those factional groups.
Reagan Conservatism is defined by those who embrace ALL the principles of all the factions, with the emphasis toward meeting the basic principles of every faction, rather than throwing any faction 'under the bus' wrt compromise, especially wrt election.

The only other conservatism falling within Conservatism itself is PaleoConservatism, which, by it's original coining, is just pre-Reagan Conservatism... the three legged stool as it originally stood... Fiscal Conservatism, Defense Conservatism, and Goldwater (Civil) Libertarianism sans Social conservatism.

IMHO your category four encompasses all the others.  The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and powers not specifically granted the fedgov therein are reserved to the states and the people.  The fedgov has no authority to act in any area not specifically granted it.

[roamer_1]

IMHO your category four encompasses all the others.  The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and powers not specifically granted the fedgov therein are reserved to the states and the people.  The fedgov has no authority to act in any area not specifically granted it.

@Bigun
The funny thing about principle things - Timeless truths - They tend to interlock. I would submit that every one is every bit as important as the next.

Our fathers recognized that in the Federalist Papers. For instance, without adherence to the Judeo-Christian Ethic, a people is not self-governing, and civil-libertarianism in it's essence (read individual liberty) is impossible, regardless of whether the fed or the state. A lawless people will receive tyranny.

I used that example purposefully, As I believe these two particularly must form the conscience of a Conservative mind, at least as defined by Western, and certainly American civilization.

But even so, one cannot ignore the principles of frugal accounting anywhere, not even the least form of government - the kitchen table.
And a military functioning without honor and a just cause is a danger no matter who you are, to include the interface of foreign policy.

So I would submit, as Reagan did, that principle things are not thought of as one being foremost among the others. lest the others be left out. principle things are always true, and there is always and ever, but one truth.

[txradioguy]

The only crack up there is going to be is the Conservative base breaking away from the GOP...who are now the DNC Lite...and moving elsewhere.

[Sanguine]

IMHO your category four encompasses all the others.  The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and powers not specifically granted the fedgov therein are reserved to the states and the people.  The fedgov has no authority to act in any area not specifically granted it.

That's what I consider a conservative.

[Bigun]

That's what I consider a conservative.

I knew you would!   

[roamer_1]

@Bigun

I would add that it was surprising how hard it is to find compiled, a strong definition of Conservative libertarianism - that civil-libertarianism (number four)  as mentioned above. There is a reason for that. Can't have people reading stuff about limiting the Big Fed, now can we?

It is a caution, and I think Neoconservatism has pointedly attempted to destroy Conservative libertarian thought.
In my early career, Right-facing (Goldwater) Libertarians were thought of as political brethren. Nowadays, they are spat upon.
That ain't right. 

[WhatWouldReaganDo]

The only crack up there is going to be is the Conservative base breaking away from the GOP...who are now the DNC Lite...and moving elsewhere.

Why should I change my party?  He's the one who sucks.  /michaelbolton

[Smokin Joe]

The only crack up there is going to be is the Conservative base breaking away from the GOP...who are now the DNC Lite...and moving elsewhere.

I see that as the core of Conservatives shedding the slag of pretenders to the moniker.

Many are those who have come forth with claims to being Conservative, either to prove themselves untrue, or to be corrupted because they rely on ethics and not a moral compass.

[Bigun]

@Bigun

I would add that it was surprising how hard it is to find compiled, a strong definition of Conservative libertarianism - that civil-libertarianism (number four)  as mentioned above. There is a reason for that. Can't have people reading stuff about limiting the Big Fed, now can we?

It is a caution, and I think Neoconservatism has pointedly attempted to destroy Conservative libertarian thought.
In my early career, Right-facing (Goldwater) Libertarians were thought of as political brethren. Nowadays, they are spat upon.
That ain't right.

@roamer_1

Indeed it isn't!  Goldwater is the guy who awakened me politically.  Although I was still in HS at the time, I literally cried when he lost to Johnson.   It's as though I somehow unconsciously knew what was about to befall us.