A little while back, we began a post with the claim that Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the Tories, was "intelligent." Having looked at today's Wall Street Journal, we're off to say ten Hail Marys and one Our Father ... because Smith makes the unwise decision to put his name to an opinion piece co-written with Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, an inept reactionary facing a very tight re-election race.
The purpose of the article is to market a supposed new movement of social justice conservatives, which seems to be just a recognition that Dubya's compassionate conservatism has collapsed under the weight of its own cynicism. From Smith's perspective, it should be called on-yer-bike conservatism, because that's all it is:
That means helping the poor discover the dignity of work, rather than making them wards of the state. It means locking up violent criminals, but offering nonviolent offenders lots of help to become responsible citizens. It endorses a policy of "zero tolerance" toward drug use and sexual trafficking, yet insists that those struggling with all manner of addictions can start their lives afresh.
In America, this vision emerged a decade ago with bold conservative initiatives aimed at empowering individuals and grassroots groups helping the nation's neediest ... Likewise, the Bush administration's plan to create a Gulf Opportunity Zone after Hurricane Katrina would offer tax relief and small-business loans to support a culture of entrepreneurship.
Note by the way the definition of "entrepreneurship" that now circulates on the Right -- someone who needs a government leg-up to get started.
Smith is clearly bringing one thing to the writing -- the requisite references to Edmund Burke:
Policy must also deliberately foster the growth of what Edmund Burke called "the little platoons" of civil society: families, neighborhood associations, private enterprises, charities and churches ... "The most important of all revolutions," Burke wrote, is "a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions." Yet we believe that social-justice conservatism can produce societies that are more humane than anything liberalism could accomplish.
What Smith is not bringing is any memory of his contribution to the same WSJ pages a few months ago, where (see the sensible part of our linked post above) he was preaching the virtues of parliamentary restraint on the executive and avoidance of hot-headed TV-driven legislation -- the same weekend that Rick Santorum was at the vanugard of passing a law to deal specifically with the case of the already-dead Terri Schiavo.
And his impeccable sense of bad timing strikes again:
Compared to the U.S., most European economies are struggling with inflation, unemployment, low growth and a declining tax base; nearly all European societies are burdened with increased crime and family breakdown; and there is a draining away of hope and opportunity.
This, three weeks after the gaping social fissures of New Orleans, and on the day that America discovers that having a million people get into their SUVs and head north is not a good evacuation plan. One can only hope that there aren't any more embarrassments between now and "the first international conference of social-justice conservatives ... next week in Washington."
The purpose of the article is to market a supposed new movement of social justice conservatives, which seems to be just a recognition that Dubya's compassionate conservatism has collapsed under the weight of its own cynicism. From Smith's perspective, it should be called on-yer-bike conservatism, because that's all it is:
That means helping the poor discover the dignity of work, rather than making them wards of the state. It means locking up violent criminals, but offering nonviolent offenders lots of help to become responsible citizens. It endorses a policy of "zero tolerance" toward drug use and sexual trafficking, yet insists that those struggling with all manner of addictions can start their lives afresh.
In America, this vision emerged a decade ago with bold conservative initiatives aimed at empowering individuals and grassroots groups helping the nation's neediest ... Likewise, the Bush administration's plan to create a Gulf Opportunity Zone after Hurricane Katrina would offer tax relief and small-business loans to support a culture of entrepreneurship.
Note by the way the definition of "entrepreneurship" that now circulates on the Right -- someone who needs a government leg-up to get started.
Smith is clearly bringing one thing to the writing -- the requisite references to Edmund Burke:
Policy must also deliberately foster the growth of what Edmund Burke called "the little platoons" of civil society: families, neighborhood associations, private enterprises, charities and churches ... "The most important of all revolutions," Burke wrote, is "a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions." Yet we believe that social-justice conservatism can produce societies that are more humane than anything liberalism could accomplish.
What Smith is not bringing is any memory of his contribution to the same WSJ pages a few months ago, where (see the sensible part of our linked post above) he was preaching the virtues of parliamentary restraint on the executive and avoidance of hot-headed TV-driven legislation -- the same weekend that Rick Santorum was at the vanugard of passing a law to deal specifically with the case of the already-dead Terri Schiavo.
And his impeccable sense of bad timing strikes again:
Compared to the U.S., most European economies are struggling with inflation, unemployment, low growth and a declining tax base; nearly all European societies are burdened with increased crime and family breakdown; and there is a draining away of hope and opportunity.
This, three weeks after the gaping social fissures of New Orleans, and on the day that America discovers that having a million people get into their SUVs and head north is not a good evacuation plan. One can only hope that there aren't any more embarrassments between now and "the first international conference of social-justice conservatives ... next week in Washington."
No comments:
Post a Comment