Don't Fix My Intentions
I've read this series of tweets on conservative thought, and why it is currently the weird thing it is right now. It's insightful, but I don't think I completely buy it, because:
* I don't think it's just intent vs. consequences. That smacks of grace vs. works, and the current Evangelical take on that question was a response to the question of the morality of slavery, attempting to allow people to quiet and soothe their own consciences after doing one of the worst things it's possible to do to another human being (or group of human beings). The consequences and the intent were both terrible -- so it can't be as simple as one versus the other.
It seems more likely that intent vs. consequences is a result of some prior axiom of conservativism -- one I've often heard expressed as "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The problem liberals have is not the result of some compulsion to change the way we do everything; it's the recognition that even if something works well for the people in power, that doesn't imply that it works well for everyone involved, and it needs to be changed if some people are being taken advantage of. If all parties don't agree that it "ain't broke", then, conservativism has to come up with some way to justify "it". This need for justification often manifests as an emphasis of intent over consequences, because a look at consequences shows whether or not something is broke(*).
Rather than engineer the system to achieve justice, they'd rather engineer justice to justify the system.
(There's a small part of it, I think, that is attributable to their desire to be the saviors of society, to be the only ones who know how to make it work smoothly -- and knowing something is much easier when you don't have to demonstrate it to be true, and being a martyr is much easier if any evidence is unthinkingly opposed. But for the most part, I think it's just wanting to implement things that make life better for the people in power, and devil take the hindmost.)
* I don't necessarily accept that they are attempting to be moral in good faith. We know it to be false, by their own admission. Consider "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."
The closest I can get is that they're redefining "moral" to be equivalent to "tribal rule follower".
Part of the problem in discussing this is that large chunks of the people who call themselves "conservative" aren't. They're reactionary. To refer back to the principle above, if they claim that it's broke, they often blame the liberals for breaking it. Exactly when it broke depends on the temperament of the individual. The more moderate tend to point to the Civil Rights Act; the more extreme tend to point all the way back to the Thirteenth Amendment.
There's also the weird notion that if it breaks, it must be because government is inherently dysfunctional, so it needs to be broken more.
And it's a shame that discussion on this is so badly warped, because the weird thing is that if we lived in a more reasonable timeline, I'd probably be conservative. I prefer to try policies on a small scale before federal implementation. I want the things we have to be funded before we tackle big new programs. I like fiscal responsibility. I like moral responsibility. I like personal responsibility. But "conservative" doesn't refer to any of those things here and now.
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(*) This, to me, stems from a failure to understand basic engineering -- test the output to see if you get out what you think you're going to get out. If it turns out that your design is flawed, and you don't bother to analyze the consequences, your house might fall down. The reaction that it's your house's fault for falling down because it didn't stay pure enough with respect to its design is ridiculous.
* I don't think it's just intent vs. consequences. That smacks of grace vs. works, and the current Evangelical take on that question was a response to the question of the morality of slavery, attempting to allow people to quiet and soothe their own consciences after doing one of the worst things it's possible to do to another human being (or group of human beings). The consequences and the intent were both terrible -- so it can't be as simple as one versus the other.
It seems more likely that intent vs. consequences is a result of some prior axiom of conservativism -- one I've often heard expressed as "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The problem liberals have is not the result of some compulsion to change the way we do everything; it's the recognition that even if something works well for the people in power, that doesn't imply that it works well for everyone involved, and it needs to be changed if some people are being taken advantage of. If all parties don't agree that it "ain't broke", then, conservativism has to come up with some way to justify "it". This need for justification often manifests as an emphasis of intent over consequences, because a look at consequences shows whether or not something is broke(*).
Rather than engineer the system to achieve justice, they'd rather engineer justice to justify the system.
(There's a small part of it, I think, that is attributable to their desire to be the saviors of society, to be the only ones who know how to make it work smoothly -- and knowing something is much easier when you don't have to demonstrate it to be true, and being a martyr is much easier if any evidence is unthinkingly opposed. But for the most part, I think it's just wanting to implement things that make life better for the people in power, and devil take the hindmost.)
* I don't necessarily accept that they are attempting to be moral in good faith. We know it to be false, by their own admission. Consider "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."
The closest I can get is that they're redefining "moral" to be equivalent to "tribal rule follower".
Part of the problem in discussing this is that large chunks of the people who call themselves "conservative" aren't. They're reactionary. To refer back to the principle above, if they claim that it's broke, they often blame the liberals for breaking it. Exactly when it broke depends on the temperament of the individual. The more moderate tend to point to the Civil Rights Act; the more extreme tend to point all the way back to the Thirteenth Amendment.
There's also the weird notion that if it breaks, it must be because government is inherently dysfunctional, so it needs to be broken more.
And it's a shame that discussion on this is so badly warped, because the weird thing is that if we lived in a more reasonable timeline, I'd probably be conservative. I prefer to try policies on a small scale before federal implementation. I want the things we have to be funded before we tackle big new programs. I like fiscal responsibility. I like moral responsibility. I like personal responsibility. But "conservative" doesn't refer to any of those things here and now.
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(*) This, to me, stems from a failure to understand basic engineering -- test the output to see if you get out what you think you're going to get out. If it turns out that your design is flawed, and you don't bother to analyze the consequences, your house might fall down. The reaction that it's your house's fault for falling down because it didn't stay pure enough with respect to its design is ridiculous.
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