POUNDS, in yesterday’s comments, noticed that I had limited the definition of conservatism to primarily economic factors. He’s right; I consciously limited it to economics, not because that’s the sum total of conservatism, but rather because it was the easiest way to set a working definition.
My point was that naming great conservatives is easier to do when you broaden the definition of conservatism to include more than just “resistance to change.”
But in the case of social conservatism, “resistance to change” becomes part of the discussion, and I didn’t want to get sidetracked. And “foreign policy” conservatism calls to mind a very large, very muscular government a la the military, so that complicates things even further. By today’s standards, FDR and Truman were clearly “foreign policy” conservatives. But the Right has no claim on them. And where does that put LBJ who was both Mr. Great Society – wildly liberal – and Mr. Vietnam – not so liberal?
But POUNDS has made some wise stipulations, to which I agree. To be on the list, a great conservative had to have had a) a profound and lasting impact on society and b) have generated that impact as a result of their political philosophy, i.e. conservatism.
POUNDS suggests, then, that religious icons should be excluded, and I’m cool with that. Questions like “how would Jesus vote?” tell you a lot more about the person answering than it does about Jesus. Pat Robertson will tell you God is a Republican; Cornel West will tell you God is a Communist. You sort it out.
POUNDS also wants to exclude the founders from the discussion, but I think that’s a little trickier. Certainly all of them would be termed “social conservatives” by today’s standards, but I think Hamiltonians would be considered economic leftists, although Jefferson had profound leftist sympathies too, particularly for the French. I’d say Washington and Adams were men of the Right, but once you start going back that far, shifting societal mores get in the way. Even Lincoln, the first Republican president, would be seen as very much a racist if he were magically transported to the 21st Century. Although, racism aside, I think a strong case can be made that he was a conservative, although many credit his unwillingness to allow secession as the beginning of the bloated federal government we have today. So it’s all a bit nebulous.
It gets easier if you stick to the 20th and 21st Centuries, where you can measure a person against a world that isn’t so foreign to us. POUNDS put Churchill on his list, and he’s an easy call. He was essentially the savior of Western civilization in World War II.
But does that mean FDR and Truman should be on there, too? FDR is the father of modern economic liberalism, but he was quite the hawk militarily. And Truman is the only person who has ever dropped an atomic bomb on a population center. You think the lefty peaceniks were OK with that?
How do you classify Soviet resistors like Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel? The Left’s sympathies were with the Soviets, and these guys fought the USSR tooth and nail. But are they really, on the whole, conservatives?
If POUNDS is unwilling to recognize the greatness of a Reagan or a Thatcher, then how about John Paul II? Too religious? Maybe. But he was also a fierce political opponent of the Soviet Union, and he, as much as anyone else, was instrumental in the Soviet Union’s collapse.
If you look among U.S. presidents in the 20th Century, you see a lot of mediocre ones in both parties, and very few who could be considered “conservative.” Calvin Coolidge? Yeah, probably a conservative, but hardly great. Teddy Roosevelt? Republican, yes, and Beavis McCain’s hero, but hardly a conservative. (And, I don’t think, nearly as great as his hype would have you believe.)
See, it’s not an easy list to make, but not because conservatism is incompatible with greatness. It’s because it’s very difficult to fashion a definition of conservatism that anyone fits perfectly. I’m as big a Reaganite as anyone, but I have to concede that Ronnie was the guy who raised self-employment taxes by over 200%, which hits me squarely in the pocketbook.
Anyway, if I make a list, I think I can defend this one:
1) Abraham Lincoln
2) Winston Churchill
3) The John Paul II/Margaret Thatcher/Ronald Reagan trifecta. (Pick one.)
Let’s see what POUNDS does with that sucker.
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