Re: [Phys-l] An exception to the usual Bush appointee.

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 07/31/2007 03:02 PM, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:
> BC - I'm afraid that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of
> conservative philosophy. 

I think we ought to cut BC (and others) some slack on this
point of terminology.

The problem is that the meaning of "conservative" has been
distorted dramatically in recent years.  According to the 
dictionary
  http://www.leoyan.com/century-dictionary.com/02/index02.djvu?djvuopts&page=326
conservatism _used to_ mean primarily

    "The disposition to maintain and adhere to the established
    order of things;  opposition to innovation and change."

This meaning is entirely consistent with the obvious etymology 
of the word, and consistent with the notion of "conservation"
as used in physics, and with "nature conservation", et cetera.


However .......  Most of the current crop of folks who call 
themselves "conservatives" are not even remotely conservative 
in the dictionary sense.  Most of them would be more accurately
described as right-wing activists ... where activism is totally
inconsistent with conservatism.

The neocons in particular are not conservative at all;  they
are right-wing radicals, where radicalism is an extreme form
of activism, and wildly antithetical to conservatism.

An example of this can be seen early in the Iraq war.  The
conservative approach would have been to overthrow Saddam but
to leave the rest of the government in place as much as possible,
i.e. to "conserve" the existing institutions, and then make 
changes slowly if at all.  However, the US took the /radical/ 
approach, namely to disband the army, civil service, et cetera, 
i.e. to change as much as possible as soon as possible.

Partisan interference with the workings of the Justice Department
is also an example of right-wing radicalism, wildly antithetical
to real conservatism.

Ditto for the appointment of right-wing activist judges.  Real
conservatives would favor judicial /restraint/, not right-wing
judicial activism.

So much for the typical pseudo-conservatives.  I could say more,
but you get the idea.

As bad as all that is, sometimes it gets even worse.  George
Bush advertised himself as a "compassionate conservative", but
his compassion extends only as far as Scooter Libby.  On the
same day that he explained why the Libby sentence was "too
harsh", his Justice Department was forcing on prosecutors
and judges revised sentencing guidelines that were MORE HARSH 
than the old ones, and which explicitly forbade considering
the factors that Bush used to explain the Libby commutation.

This isn't conservatism;  this is radical hypocritical right-wing 
plutocratic activism.  But they call it conservatism, so we 
shouldn't be surprised if people are confused about the
terminology.