Looking Forward, Not Backward, through Conservatism November 6, 2015
Posted by intellectualgridiron in Politics.Tags: conservatism, Constitution, culture, Engels, family values, forward, free market, goal, Karl Marx, liberty, marriage, Obama, Obamacare, option, reform, Revolution, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Jefferson, traditional
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The essence of conservatism, in general (i.e., not through any particular nationalist lens) is defending the existing order of things. Thus, conservatism means different things in different countries, depending on what is, or was until recently, the status quo. In Russia or China, for example, being conservative means that you are a communist, and have disdain for the new order brought on my free[er] markets in those respective countries. Same goes for the countries in the Balkans, where some people still, oddly, long for the days of communist rule because it guaranteed them some sort of employment. Perhaps when one has been a serf for more than a millennium, one tends to be quick to sell off one’s birthright for even the most meager messes of pottage.
But in any case, the American version of conservatism is to defend that which you already have, that being, individual liberty and a free market, both defended by a limited government. Indeed, the citizens of the original Thirteen Colonies already had this in the 18th Century, and was not until after the French and Indian War concluded in 1763 did the British have the bright idea to arbitrarily mess with this good thing the colonists in North America already had going at that time. For example, the standard of living in the American colonies was already higher in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. Therein lies a key thing to remember, that the colonists did not separate from Great Britain and risk blood and treasure in so doing to create something radically new, but to defend that which they already had.
The same impulse in this shared ideology continues strongly today, as well it should. After all, Thomas Jefferson famously reminded us in all times to come that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. The only problem is, electorally, it can sometimes be a double-edge sword.
Two recent examples are the redefinition of marriage and Obamacare. Those who care for long-held traditions that have been established over millennia, and established for good reasons born out of experience through the ages, have been understandably dismayed at the development of five Supreme Court judges arbitrarily changing that sacred definition. To suggest that marriage should be redefined as being legitimate if it is between two men or two women instead of the traditional definition of one man, and one woman, shows incredible arrogance in that this generation is wiser than all the collective wisdom of all of our forbearers. Such a thinking is reckless for the present and outright destructive for the future.
Moreover, Obamacare has caused far more problems than it solved. Yes, it allowed previously uninsurable people access to health insurance, but it has come at considerable cost. Everybody’s insurance premiums have skyrocketed on account of this Orwellian-named Affordable Care Act. One family can pay as much as $20,000 a year, and if you do not buy the insurance, you pay a fine (albeit much less than the aforementioned gouging). This Act, which is considered to be Obama’s greatest achievement, gives many people the perverse economic incentive to pay the fine.
For those of us who were happy with the insurance we already had, we ended up losing some of our doctors on account of sudden changes in insurance networks, but our premiums continue to go up and up, not only on account of having to insure the expensively uninsurable, but, more to the point, having to pay for “options” we do not even want. Why should men, for example, be forced to pay for an insurance policy that offers birth control? Why should all of us, man or woman, we force to pay for a policy that provides for acupuncture?
So what to do? The impulse to defend can misguide us to often look back. But to be electorally viable, we must look forward. Young people especially are not concerned with some supposedly idyllic past. Even the recent past of Clinton and (eventually) Obama in the White House is certainly no past destination to return. Moreover, it has been almost 27 years since the late, great, Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
Conservatism’s strength comes in two major dimensions: its practicality, and its optimism. For this piece, let us focus on the latter as a winning tool to win elections and to create a winning vision moving forward.
Start with marriage. The institution of marriage has been the central unit of society since before recorded history (which started around 3500 BC, fyi). It has proven, over the course of centuries and millennia, to be the cornerstone of solid, functioning families, which themselves are vital to a well-functioning society. Within the institution of marriage, it has proven over the same immense span of time that the institution functions best when it is comprised of one man and one woman. The reason is twofold: for one, it takes a man and a woman to be able to get together so as to procreate. For another, the partnership of a man and a woman is mutually beneficial to both sexes, as such a union helps both mates help curb the excesses sewn into the nature of both sexes. Most importantly, the central reason for marriage is for the successful raising of children, so that society’s values and culture can be as successfully passed on through a married couple’s children. The different kinds of love that originates from father and mother respectively help put children in the best possible positions to be well-adjusted, productive members of society. Family break-down hinders both the successful raising of children, and consequently it creates defective, instead of functional, cultures. Just look at the high illegitimacy rates in the black-dominated inner city neighborhoods; such high out-of-wedlock birthrates, combined with an alarmingly high rate of absent fathers negatively affect those children’s lives. Such family break-down those leads to the forming of bad-warped values that leads to high crime and poverty rates.
The solution? As conservatives, we must not try to fight increasingly old battles about same-sex marriage, but rather work to strengthen traditional marriage, especially within the context of how it best benefits children in particular and families in general. Fighting old battles is a losing proposition. Looking forward is a winning one.
Concerning Obamacare, instead of fighting to repeal it, let us concentrate our energies to move forward by way of reforming it. By doing so, we conservatives can seize an even greater macro opportunity by positioning ourselves as people who stand for reform in general. Big government has proven not to work time and again, especially in an age where most companies are becoming less bureaucratic and more nimble, and technology gives us more options than ever before. We are therefore perfectly positioned to fight to reform government by making it more streamlined, less bloated and rigid, and allow people more options.
Obamacare is a perfect place to start. Its central problem? In classic, big-government fashion, it is a one-size-fits-all model, and thus allows for no options. We cannot decide what we want on our policy and what we do not want. Government dictates what we must buy for our policies, even if it is too expensive for most discerning buyers. If we do not like it? Tough. Why not allow for people to decide for themselves what they want to buy and what they do not want based on what they can afford and what they actually need? Again, as conservatives, we are in the perfect position to offer reform policies in government that would thus allow for people to have these common sense options. Doing so would be perfectly in line with government upholding liberty (a conservative tenet) by allowing for such common sense solutions-as-options.
Defending that which we have (our families and liberties) does not mean we must always look backward, either. Being conservative does not, nor should it automatically equate to being reactionary. Part of being a conservative is being practical: that is to stay, understanding what works and what does not work, and to act accordingly. The Constitution, for example, might not be a perfect document, but it certainly is a practical one, and has proven to be for more than two centuries and counting. Moreover, the human being as an organism is goal-oriented in its very nature. Such a nature was conveniently overlooked by Karl Marx, who, along with Friederich Engels, had his head in the clouds about an unattainable ideal of economic equality. It never works because it ignores this central tenet to human nature.
But more to the point, being goal-oriented means that one instinctively looks to the future, since therein lies the goal that the individual wishes to attain. Our Constitution was constructed on the idea to create the best possible system of government and economics within the confines of human nature. Why not therefore use this conservative tendency constructively in the same way?
Therefore, look forward and sell the voting public on why conservative principles of a free market will create a better economic system now and in the future for people of all walks of life. On the social side of the equation, we must, as cooperative individuals, work to strengthen traditional marriage. Politically, we must dismantle policies that give perverse incentives for families to disintegrate so as to cut off what is in effect the funding of inter-generational social problems in the inner city and elsewhere.
Back to the free market side of things, we must look forward to a freer economy that creates better opportunities for people of all walks of life – including those in the inner city – by scaling back and streaming regulations so that people addicted to welfare who are otherwise able-bodied will have ample opportunity to act on another conservative tenet, that of self-reliance. Looking at it another way, as a purely pragmatic way of looking at things, young people of today are becoming an increasingly large portion of the electorate, and their sole focus is looking forward, not looking back to try to recapture the past.
The genius to the central messages of Ronald Reagan was that conservatism works just as well in modern times as it did when America was founded in the late 18th Century. Reagan was always optimistic about the future because he recognized that, as long as these same principles were headed now and in the future, things will continue to work well.
Though it was been more than three decades since Reagan was re-elected in an historic landslide, our best political solution as conservatives is to take the same approach and look forward with winning, practical policies that promise, and invariably deliver, a better future.
Some thoughts on the Bowls as of Dec. 28 December 29, 2012
Posted by intellectualgridiron in Sports.Tags: ACC, Arizona, B1G, Bearcats, Belk, Bengals, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, Blue Devils, Boise State, Bowl, Brent Musburger, Capital One, Champs Sports, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Citrus, college, Duke, ESPN, football, Golden Gophers, helmet, Hokies, Holiday, Independence, Kirk Herbstreit, Las Vegas, LeGarrette Blount, Little Caesars, MAACO, Meinecke Car Care Bowl, Minnesota, Mountain West, NCAA, Nevada, New Mexico, Ole Miss, Pac-12, Red Raiders, Ronald Reagan, Russell Athletics, Rutgers, Scarlet Knights, SEC, Tangerine, Texas, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, Washington
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From azstarnet.com; try to ignore the Arizona player bumping into the ref and instead, focus on how cool their unis look, along the with the awesome color contrast between Arizona’s and Nevada’s helmets!
The New Mexico Bowl kicked off the season to a surprisingly auspicious beginning. I say “surprisingly,” because let’s be honest; nobody thought that the first bowl game of the year would be that swell, and moreover, it seemed as though Nevada had the game well in hand by the end of the 3rd quarter before Arizona managed to make a pretty good game out of things yet and scored 18 unanswered points to pull ahead at the end, 49-48. And to think that I predicted that the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 27 would be the bowl season’s “offensive explosion,” yet so far, the results of the New Mexico Bowl have fit that distinction more than any other of the 2012-2013 bowl span.
But wait, there’s more! As more teams unveil special bowl game helmets (read: Cincinnati, Virginia Tech), the jury will still be out until Jan. 7 to decide this ultimately, but thus far, the Arizona-Nevada matchup is definitely the “most aesthetically pleasing helmet contrast,” with the Wolfpack sporting their dark blue helmets on one side, and the Wildcats sporting their special red domes on the other!
Moreover, it will be very difficult for any other team to top the Wildcats for the “sartorial splendor” award, as they have set a new precedent. Normally, if a team has dark blue and red for their colors (technically, Cardinal and Navy Blue, as is the case for both Arizona and Ole Miss), the modern precedents have been something along the lines of 1) dark blue helmets, dark blue jerseys, and either white or gray pants, or white helmets, or 2) white helmets and pants with dark blue jerseys, or 3), dark blue helmets, red jerseys, and white or gray pants. What Arizona did was break through normal precedents and set a whole new one with red helmets, dark blue jerseys, and red pants. It does not get much better than that!
Speaking of good games, this year’s MAACO Bowl of Las Vegas turned out to be a ‘dandy’ of a game, folks! There are times when you swear that ESPN does actually have a crystal ball in some secret location on their Bristol, Conn., campus, because they sent their front-line crew of Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit to call the game, reflecting on the fact in real time that it was worth tuning in to see! Either that, or it was an elaborate rouse to get Musburger in touch with Chan Lo and the Chinese Triads to settle his gambling debts: who knows? That having been said, what on Earth was Boise State doing wearing those god-awful matte black helmets instead of their pretty metallic blue domes? Sometimes it pays to leave well enough alone; such is what Washington did with their tasteful combination of metallic gold helms, white jerseys and purple pants.
The Belk Bowl also exceeded expectations in terms of a competitive, watchable game. Only two things overshadowed Duke’s first bowl game since the mid-1990s: 1), Cincinnati’s garish, red, carbon fibre-colored helmets, a first in football helmet decor, and 2), the Bearcats ultimately won. Still, it was nice that the Blue Devils wore their tasteful royal blue helmets instead of their generic-looking white ones, which overall made for a nice helmet contrast between the two teams as they played each other in Charlotte. Moreover, keep in mind that the Bearcats pulled off the win with basically a five-man coaching staff (for purposes of comparison, college teams usually have about 10 coaches on staff, not including graduate assistants).
Another very interesting teams’ helmets contrast took place on Dec. 28 in the Russell Athletic Bowl, formerly the Champs Sports Bowl, formerly the reincarnated Tangerine Bowl (basically, the other bowl game they play in the Citrus Bowl before the real Citrus Bowl game, which is now called the Capital One Bowl. Got all that?). Rutgers put up one heckuva fight against Virginia Tech, but came up a field goal short in overtime of tying the Hokies after the first round in overtime. But the contrast was nevertheless unique in that the Scarlet Knights had their newly characteristic chrome shells, while the Hokies sported new, matte maroon helmets with an orange decal of a “Hokie,” which, from what us fans can deduce, is basically a turkey bird on a roid rage. Virginia Tech has undertaken numerous helmet styling experiments during the 2012 season, some kind of interesting, some downright head-scratching. The white helmets with turkey feet clearly belonged in the latter category!
Oh, and the guys at EDSBS, you boys have some ‘splainin’ to do! You ranked the Meinecke Car Care Bowl of Texas last among your list of the 35 bowls for this season. In the words of Musburger, the game turned out to be a real ‘dandy.’ Thanks to the realignment of bowls, this Texas Bowl is about the only B1G vs Big XII matchup we have to look forward to, as the Alamo Bowl no longer affords us that luxury. The game did not disappoint, as Minnesota and Texas Tech butted heads in dramatic form practically from the whistle giving the green light for kickoff. The game remained close and competitive for the whole 60 minutes, though a turning point came when a Red Raider receiver pancaked a Golden Gopher defensive back in the end zone and walloped him — right in front of the back judge. That led to the player, No. 22, to be summarily ejected from the game (and due to an arcane NCAA rule, he shall also have to sit out the opening game next year, too). LeGarrette Blunt would no doubt be proud. A third and goal near the one became a third and goal at about the fifteen. The next play was botched, leading to a field goal. Minnesota called a timeout just as the ball was snapped, and on the next, true snap, the Gophers blocked the kick! A sure TD was reduced to, well, nothing. Yes, in the end, the Red Raiders won on a last-second field goal. Still, the game was riveting from the opening kickoff to the very last play, and that’s all we fans can ask for in any of these bowl games.
In all frankness and honesty, the 2012-2013 bowl season has been overall underwhelming this far. The Little Caesars Bowl and the Independence Bowl (oh, my, have the mighty fallen!) have been nothing about which to write home, and similar things can be said for most of the other bowls up to this point. But having said all that, it is worth pointing out that there have been some high points thus far, and odds are, it can only get better from here. After all, Ronald Reagan himself was known to joke that if one searches through enough mounds of manure, sooner or later one is bound to find the pony!