RealCurrents

Blogging creator Dave Winer, who I believe once lived in New Orleans, gave a link on his Scripting News site to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which is using a blog to keep folks up to date on breaking news.

This is a great example of the power of blogging technology, and should help to quiet the naysayers who think blogs aren’t really a form of journalism.

While the death toll remains unclear, a few of the other highlights:

When the clock radio goes off in the morning, the news occasionally brings something that shocks or surprises enough to make my mind race past all the fog and actually focus. Sometimes it’s something tragic, sometimes just stupid, but it’s generally bad news. Well, Tuesday was the latest instance of this, as I woke up hearing of Pat Robertson’s call to assassinate Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

There’s so much wrong with this, both theologically and politically, that I immediately wanted to write about it, but after a while I figured most everything had been said. Marvin Olasky has a pretty good article, for example. As often happens, though, I realize after a while that there’s another side to the story that’s not really being told, but needs to so we can understand what’s truly going on. Of course, that’s the main reason I started this blog.

Because assassination is generally an act of war, the real issue here is the definition of war, and what it means to enter into and to end a state of war. Unfortunately, since the end of World War II and the formation of the U.N., the constitutional process of Congress’ declaring a war has been set aside. This has caused all sorts of problems, with various ill-defined “police actions”, both large and small, ensuing over the past 60 years.

Since 9/11, things have gotten even more muddled, as we fight a “war on terrorism”. I don’t use the quotes sarcastically, but simply to point out that nobody really knows what a “war on terrorism” is! This is a new kind of war, at least at the level of weaponry terrorists either have or are thought to be seeking. It’s understandable that things must be worked out somewhat as we go along.

On the other hand, there’s a tremendous danger here as we pursue such an ill-defined “war”, and Rev. Robertson’s unfortunate comments point right to it. The danger is, the longer we go without clearly defining what the war on terror is, the easier it will be to justify all sorts of mischief. Chavez supposedly is friendly to terrorist types, etc., so if we simply brand him a terrorist, then we can justify getting rid of him. Never mind that we’re not at war with Venezuela.

This is a serious problem. As we muddle along, ultimately we effectively risk putting the U.S. at war with potentially most everyone and everybody. Is there not really a point at which even the British would say we’ve gone too far? Would we then label them friends of terrorists for disagreeing with us? Obviously I’m exaggerating to make a point, but there’s a sort of open-ended logic that needs to be closed, the sooner the better. In other words, we can’t really define what a war on terror is until we clearly define what it is not. We need limits, and since we’ve chucked requiring a congressional declaration of war, we don’t have any except public opinion.

Indeed, we don’t really have enough political will to efficiently carry out a long war, yet we do have enough to start a lot of things. Surely, the goal behind requiring a congressional declaration of war was just the opposite of our present situation: to make it politically difficult to get into a war, but then easier, politically, to stay in it and carry it out properly once the line was passed. Now we cross the line back and forth and don’t even know where we are much of the time.

It doesn’t take a lot of reading between the lines to figure that the Bush administration is trying to strike a delicate balance between applying enough resources in Iraq to do the job, but not so much as to cause a political backlash. Unfortunately, this this kind of politics-driving-strategy will eventually break down. The longer a war goes (and they have indicated the overall war on terror will be long), the more resources (and lives) will be squandered, and the weaker our position will become.

Pat Robertson’s remarks beg the question, “Do you want to start a war with Venezuela?” Of course, this sounds preposterous, but without a clear structure for defining why and how we would decide to start a war, is it just a matter of time, or pressing circumstances, before the U.S. stumbles into a dumb call such as this?

I’m rather conservative in my political views. At least that’s how I see myself. But I’m frustrated using that term because it seems to me that so many groups have pre-empted it that it means little in practice. Everyone from the Libertarians to the Neo-Cons is using the term conservative, so there are few principles that it embodies anymore.

On the other hand, it wasn’t much more than a century ago, I guess, that the term liberal meant something quite different as well. I’m not really sure exactly what it stood for, in this country or in England, but I find it interesting that the term “liberal arts”, so derided by later technocrats, meant the fields of history, communication (language, literature, composition, rhetoric, etc.), political theory, law and the like that were considered necessary grounding for life in a free society. Of course, these are the very disciplines that are much neglected today, a dangerous situation.

My point here is that it’s common for conservatives in the U.S. to take a rather arrogant, holier-than-thou outlook, while not even bothering to define what the “conservative” position stands for. For that reason, I want to set out some basic characteristics for how a true conservative thinks about things and so approaches the formulation of policy. In my view, a conservative is by nature:

Gradualist Perhaps most importantly, a conservative strongly prefers gradual change. Now most folks see this meaning that conservatives oppose change, but this is an unrealistic position. We must recognize that change is often inevitable, but that it is best for the effects of change to be gradual enough so that it can be managed. When change is gradual, a great deal of its negative effects can be mitigated, if there is sufficient leadership to do so.

When we try to deny that change is coming, it’s like building a dam that will eventually burst, with catastrophic results. It’s better to let the water out bit by bit, which means we establish a pace of change that can be sustained, rather than try to avoid it.

Of course, the most obvious place where gradualism applies today is in our policy toward China. China is changing with breathtaking speed, even by Western standards. Nevertheless, there still seems to be a lot of folks who are strangely dissatisfied. Of course, I’m aware that there are many problems remaining, but when you consider the church growth in China, the economic liberalization, and many other rapid changes, what’s happening there is certain to be one of the great historic events of our time.

Conservatives are by nature prudent, understanding that sudden change is usually dangerous. As a concrete example, many folks have been pressuring China to revalue its currency by at least 15%. It probably should be adjusted that much or more, eventually. Recently, though, they finally made a smaller revaluation, about 2%. It needs to do more, but if China had moved by the entire 15% all at once, it might destroy the thriving dollar store business in the U.S. (not to mention the 100¥ stores in Japan). This wouldn’t help either them or us.

Thrifty The very term conservative implies thrift, i.e. that valuable resources need to be conserved. The practical abandonment of this outlook is perhaps the biggest failure of the “conservative” movement in the U.S. today. The U.S. has always been a wasteful country, in many ways, but in the last 25 years things have really gotten out of hand.

Thrift implies many things, including a desire to moderate taxes and regulations, whenever possible, and eliminate obsolete or redundant programs and bureaucracy. Thrift is likewise characterized by a future-orientation, a willingness to make short-term sacrifices in order to secure a better future. I will have more to write on the subject of thrift (and its decline in American culture) later.

Reverent Washington, D.C., from what I can tell, has developed something of an irreverent culture, and this is causing some real problems nowadays. I don’t mean by this that people there are any worse than the rest of us Americans, but it’s dangerous when we start equating a desire to be/do good and right with simplistic naivete.

Reverence implies a respect for all parties. The U.S. is still the biggest power in the world, both economically (for at least a little while longer) and militarily, and it’s important, for ours and the rest of the world’s sake, that we be a good and righteous people. Of course, it’s difficult to agree on anything since we’ve lost a common value system, but we must make the effort to think through things in these terms, and avoid neglecting legitimate interests of other parties, such as the recent National Security Strategy seems to do.

Distrusting A conservative knows that power is potentially corrupting, and that it is essential that a balance of powers be maintained. I do think this is why Bush won re-election, because a lot of folks think the judicial branch of the federal government really is out of control. I suspect the recent Kelo v. New London ruling has opened the eyes of a lot more moderates as well.

Conservatives are distrustful of grandiose plans and of the consolidation of power. The U.S. has a long history, back to Washington’s presidency, of granting extra powers to the federal government during a crisis, but then revoking these later, which is why a sunset provision should be part of any broad grant of powers such as the Patriot Act.

Conservatives instinctively prefer a local or private solution where it makes sense. Nevertheless, a practical balance must be struck, and much of the history of U.S. domestic policy has revolved around this concern.

Humble Finally, a true conservative is humble. Conservatives realize that real life is complex, and that idealism generally must yield to practical compromises in order to get anything done. Humility implies that no one has all the answers and so listening is a key part of reaching a solution to any problem.

Humility also dictates a recognition that we need one another, and likewise we need, both individually and as a society, the blessings of God. A true conservative is actively involved in making the world a better place and is under authority themselves. A guy out in a shack in the wilderness with his own little paramilitary outfit may be an anarchist, but he’s not a conservative.

While conservatives generally do want the civil government to leave them alone, they carry a sense of duty that keeps them active and involved in a purpose larger than themselves. True conservatives are pro-active in building something for the future that will make the world a better place.

Welcome to RealCurrents. I’m going to focus this blog pretty much on current events and commentary. Of course you’ll find commentary on my other blogs as well, but this one will be more about the news, politics, and various issues. You’ll find my discussion of many different topics and interests of mine, mostly technical, at my blog All Things. I’ve also got a personal blog, Light Side.

This blog is mostly short-term in orientation and diagnostic in nature, analyzing current events. While bad news seems to make up the bulk of what is reported in the media, I’m hoping this blog won’t get too negative. I do hope to start another blog before too long that will take a long term, prescriptive view offering suggestions for how to actually makes things better.