Prompted by many things – Vivian’s question about the size of the Democratic Party tent, and commenter James’ objection to my post about the failure of conservatism included – I’ve been thinking about the intersection of party, ideology, and actual results lately. In the midst of that, I checked out this nifty tool. Put out by The Public Whip, a UK non-profit dedicated to improving the civic process, it tries to help citizens understand whether the party that they’re voting for agrees with them on the issues. While I wasn’t really surprised by the result – I didn’t line up with the part that I’ve historically identified with (and still do) – I was certainly surprised by the distance separating me and that party these days.
CG
Perhaps you can still fault conservatism. There’s this *ideal* that people want to live with as little government intervention as possible.
…Until there’s trouble in River City. Then they wonder why the government doesn’t do more about illegal immigration, gas prices, food prices, health care, education, and terrorists etc. I don’t think you can blame just blue state liberals for market forces whether those market forces incur the forces of social intervention rather than just economic.
Maybe that is the failure of conservatism. Would conservatism practiced at whatever it’s ideal form is really keep all these areas fixed (read as: keep the people as a whole satisfied) I seriously doubt it.
MB
I recently wrote something similar in a private email. I really don’t think anyone outside of freshman dorms and hash bars can honestly argue ideology without accounting for its impact on (and influence from) people. Of course, this means that most defenses of conservatism end up being pretty dishonest, I think.
MB
And, also . . . CG! You should drop by more often.