Conservatives Without Conscience

99.

Bob Altemeyer, Right Wing Authoritarianism (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1981), 4.

100.

Al Kamen, “Scooter Finds Fellowship at the Hudson Institute,” Washington Post (January 6, 2006), A-17.

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I do not record telephone calls. I do make notes, and after the conversation, if appropriate, I reconstruct the call. Most of the conversations relating to Silent Coup were written up within twenty- four hours of the conversation. In reporting them I have employed Bob Woodward’s technique of converting them back to dialogue and the salient points.

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Throughout I use the term “cultural conservative” interchangeably with “social conservative.” While I am aware of efforts to define them separately, conservatives, the news media, and others use them interchangeably. So I have done likewise.

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E. J. Dionne, Jr., pointed out in his book on American political history, Why Americans Hate Politics (1991), that Buckley wrote in Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? that Richard Weaver’s definition of conservatives was “as noble and ingenious an effort as any I have ever read.” Buckley was referring to Weaver’s definition when responding to Chris Matthews.

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Jay M. Shafritz (ed.), The HarperCollins Dictionary of American Government and Politics (1993) defines “ideology” as

(1) A comprehensive system of political beliefs about the nature of people and society; an organized collection of ideas about the best way to live and about the most appropriate institutional arrangements for society…. But the term has evolved to mean the philosophical bent of true believers of whatever belief. The mainstreams of American politics have never been rigidly ideological; only the extremes of both major parties—on the far Right and far Left—are much concerned with correct rules of thought for the party’s most faithful…. But ideology seems to be making a comeback with the new Right. (2) Whatever one believes about the political process, whether it is articulated or not. (3) An interrelated set of ideas or a world view that explains complex social phenomena in a relatively simple way. (4) The selected and often distorted notions about how society operates. A group may adhere to such notions as a means of retaining group solidarity and of interpreting a world from which they have become alienated.

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Kirk’s canons are concisely explained on the Web site of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, which is devoted to his thought. See http://www. kirkcenter.org/kirk/thought.html.

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Burnham found that conservatives believe: 1) there is a transcendent factor vital to successful government; 2) human nature is corrupt, and therefore conservatives reject all utopian solutions to social problems; 3) tradition must be respected, and when change is unavoidable it must be undertaken cautiously; 4) governmental power must be diffused and limited by adhering to the “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” of the Constitution; 5) direct democracy must be rejected because people are not well informed and are easily misled; 6) in states’ rights; 7) each branch of government must be autonomous and must resist encroachment or usurpation by any other; 8) public support of limited government must be encouraged in order to keep government in check; 9) the Constitution’s principles have permanent value; 10) government must be decentralized and localized so that power is diffused; 11) private enterprise should be encouraged; 12) morality begins with the individual; and 13) Congress should be more powerful than the executive branch. An expanded summary version of these statements are found at Appendix A.

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Princeton sociologist Douglas S. Massey, speaking for liberals, explains that what “distinguishes liberals from others is the belief that the rights and privileges outlined in the Declaration of Independence and enumerated in the U.S. Constitution are guaranteed to all people regardless of their characteristics, inborn or acquired. Thus, equality of opportunity should be offered to all persons resident in the United States, whether male or female, black or white, gay or straight, rich or poor, owner or worker; and liberals believe that equality of opportunity should exist not only in theory but in reality.” Douglas S. Massey, Return of the “L” Word: A Liberal Vision for the New Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 12.

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Other examples of his belief in equality are evident in his efforts on behalf of women pilots from World War II, who flew transport missions just as men had, but had not been treated equally; he got them the same pension and benefits men had received, assuring them equal treatment. And he quietly pushed for racial integration of the Arizona National Guard before the armed services had done so.

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This breakdown does not include such factions as the so-called South Park conservative—a term credited to conservative blogger and pundit Andrew Sullivan. Marty Beckerman writes in Playboy (December 2005) that in addition to “low taxes and high times,” the South Park conservatives “oppose the drug war, obscenity laws, abstinence education and marriage protection acts, but support” President Bush and the Republican party “with religious fervor.” Jonah Goldberg of the National Review reportedly finds South Park conservatism a poisonous trend that kids will grow out of when they become parents. Goldberg is correct, I suspect, that South Park conservatism will be short-lived.

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Motivated cognition refers to thinking, or beliefs, that are based on factors other than pure reason or logic. As Dr. John Jost explained it: “Basically, the idea is that there are [normal] psychological reasons for why someone believes what he does, above and beyond the purely rational or informational reasons for believing something. People are motivated to believe that they are better than average drivers, that most of their opinions are correct,