Progressivism: May 2006 Archives

A quick break from directly campaign related news...

Jen and I went to a campout event, WineCamp Calaveras, this past weekend. This was a lightly structured "unconference" that you can read more about here, but the basic gist is that you get a group of people together for a weekend, feed them, and let them make up their own agenda for what they want to talk about. In this case, an enormous quantity of really spectacular wine was involved, too. There are tons of pictures tagged on flickr. Click for more...

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man."
   -Thomas Jefferson

One of the most destructive legacies of the conservative movement is the diminishing they have inflicted on the concept of freedom. This seems counterintuitive, perhaps, but all the relentless yammering that emanates from conservatives about freedom is perhaps a signal of their weakness on this issue, one of fundamental and historical importance to the American project.

Since the beginning of the conservative movement, the conservative conception of freedom has been intimately and intrinsically tied up with property rights, almost to the point of excluding anything else. This goes back all the way to Russell Kirk: "...conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked" is one of his ten principles, and the only mention of freedom throughout his ten conservatives principles.

One of the obvious attributes of the idea of freedom that this misses is its incredible breadth. True freedom goes far, far beyond just the connection to property, or stuff. The connection between stuff and true freedom is even tenuous since we don't just own our stuff, our stuff owns us as well. Who is more free: the apostle who owns nothing and lives in an intentional community, or the typical American, surrounded by the amazing output of our consumer economy, but saddled with levels of debt not seen since feudal Europe?

There may be no answer to this question, but conservative thought would have us believe the answer is definitely the latter...

Some of the more substantive of the points brought up in the discussion in the comments recently is this issue of legality. It's an important issue so I'm going to address it up here and try to keep the conversation going.

The first thing to keep in mind is the difference between morality and legality. I have a hunch that those who posted probably have a love for law and order that only extends so far, and maybe wouldn't include issues with a President who has decided to ignore 750 someodd laws over the past six years. There is an imperfect overlap between what is moral and what is legal. Take the civil disobedience during the first civil rights movement: illegal acts, but not immoral ones, although there were certainly those who disagreed with their morality at the time.

But beyond that, there's a simple but important question that has to be considered in thinking about this issue...

[Crossposted on dailykos]

About a year ago, I came across a couple of references to conservative thinker Russell Kirk. His ten conservative principles, first published in 1957 and last updated in 1993, was reportedly a great influence on the thinking of Barry Goldwater and others at the dawn of movement conservativism.

Apparently, no one on our side ever wrote a response. I'd like to be proven wrong, but if someone did, it isn't showing up on google.

I've drafted the first part of such a response, a ten progressive principles approach that answers Kirk point by point. But I want to start with just one principle...