The American Tory

John Edwards talks about two Americas, well I have to agree there are two Americas. I have come to the conclusion our society is not divided by wealth, but by how they view the world.

On one side, there are people like myself who are open to innovation and believe things can be better. We are willing to adapt and realize “America” and the world will always change. We want our children to receive an education not just in our culture and its norms, but to have a good understanding of others. We are generally well educated and more nuanced when compared to the other “America.”

The other side is driven by a fear of change. They believe nothing beneficial can be learned from other societies. They fear anything that might be foreign. They oppose innovation because they might have to adapt. They are generally less educated and fear progress will hurt them.

Isn’t this the fundamental division today in American society?

The comments by Ann Coulter over the weekend towards John Edwards are unacceptable. She clearly has the right to be an idiot, but her stupidity is a sign of the intellectual decay affecting the conservative movement and American politics in general. Twenty years ago, her bombastic style would not have been accepted as it was similar to that of the left.

But the bigger issue than the stupidity and bigotry of Coulter’s comments is the intellectual decay of the conservative movement. I have seen this first hand because the brand of political thought I adhere to does not fall  into the new activist driven brand found among most “College Republicans.”

I consider myself a “Goldwater Conservative,” which means I support a limited government in personal and economic affairs. This goes against the spirit of the current conservative movement as it is dominated by people who exclusively care about social issues, but could care less about the size of government and its intrusion into our lives. These people I define as “George W. Bush Conservatives.” They are not true conservatives in the Goldwater or Reagan sense because they could care less about the size of government as long as it suits their ends.

Now I cannot establish why so many of the youth on the “right” fall for this garbage, but it is not a global phenomenon to say the least. In fact, I argue this paternalistic notion of politics falls under what I classify as “Old Toryism,” better known as “Red Toryism” in Canada or “One Nation Conservatism” in the UK. Before the late 1970s and early 1980s, most conservative parties around the world were dominated by this paternalistic socially right wing fiscally left wing brand of conservatism. With Thatcher, Mulroney, and Howard, this strain of conservatism has been destroyed in most respects or relegated to the fringes. Now these parties are the opposite, fiscally right wing and socially moderate in many respects. To describe this change in Canada specifically, they are called “Blue Tories” like the current Conservative Party at the federal and provincial levels. The right everywhere else is moving closer to the Goldwater vision of conservatism while the American right is moving somewhere else.

While this post has went down a different path, but the intellectual decay of the right has led a distancing from rational political pursuits like limited, but good government. Instead it has not become too focused on emotional issues. Coulter’s comments are a demonstration of this emotional non-rational politics we are experiencing now.