Conservatism is a Reactionary Movement

The emergence of western Conservatism can be traced to the “reaction” of the traditional Monarchial and Clerical elites, and their dependent Aristocratic class, to the excesses of the French Revolution. The word “conservative,” was first used to describe the practical measures that were adopted in France during the era that followed the fall of Napoleon. From France, it spread throughout Europe in the 1820s and 1830s, then to England, and by the 1840s had reached the U.S.

The French, and later, the Russian revolution, and other 20^th Century upheavals produced among middle class Europeans, a reaction against violent and abstract innovation; that greatly increased the popular appeal of traditional Conservatism; but this would not last.

Intellectual Conservatism has been defined as a body of ideas about politics which claim to hold a preference for the “old and tried” (Monarchy and the Catholic Church), in the civil society, rather than the new and untried (revolutionary people’s movements, including; the Protestant Reformation, Democracy, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, etc.) Thus when the French political propagandists were searching for a name to call their reactionary movement, which was designed toward a social order that would preserve the best of “Old Europe” with the realities of the 19^th Century; they remembered the old latin title of the “Custodis Pacis” or conservator of the peace. They then assigned the name, “Conservateur,” or Guardian of the Heritage of Civilization, to their reactionary political counter-revolution.

This political philosophy of conservatism was popularized in England by the Quarterly Review, in the 1820s; and finally entered American usage in the 1840s. The writings of Edmond Burke furnished both English and American traditional-conservatives with most of their principal theories, which persist to this day. Burke also influenced the development of 19th Century Liberalism, and never actually called himself a conservative.

At this time there were no sharp differences between a conservative and a liberal. The European revolutionary movements of 1829 and 1848, for the first time, emphasized the differences between conservatives, liberals, and radicals. Throughout Europe, the ancient regime, or Old Order, in all countries, orchestrated the conservative philosophy to mean; hostility toward the principles which drove the French Revolution, as the Royalists struggled to regain their hold on the people.

While the Liberals had sympathy with the people and their revolutionary concepts of; Liberty-Equality-Fraternity, and Progress, they did not support the violent overthrow of the social orders of Monarchy and the Church, preferring political action, representative government, and popular support of Liberal philosophy. Liberals at this early stage were already the moderates that counseled negotiation, compromise, gradual progress, and above all reason.

Intellectual-Conservatism- the Loyal Servant of the Ruling Class

Intellectual-conservatism was co-opted by the ruling class early in its infancy. The establishment believed strongly that there was a need for a counterbalance to the radical movements that were always ready to use force, such as finally happened in the Russian Revolution of 1917.

These early Intellectual-Conservatives admitted that their body of convictions was not a political system, or an Ideology, but was a way of looking at the social order. It is a fact that conservative principles have been followed in various political systems including; Constitutional-Monarchies, Empires, and Authoritarian and Totalitarian Dictatorships, as well as Democracies.

It is only in the last half of the 20^th Century that a radical Ideology has perverted the principles of Intellectual traditional-conservatism.

Intellectual-conservatives agreed with Plato and Cicero that there exists a natural law, that is above and more than humanity, to which any society ought to conform. This view contrasted with the liberal’s Utilitarian view of the state, (the greatest good for the greatest number) and with the radicals who detested the corrupt abuse of the monarchial and theological power.

These reflective Intellectual-conservatives claimed to believe that Order, Justice, and Freedom were the byproducts of the long history of civilization developed by the wisdom gained in many centuries of trial and error. They argued that the continuity of this societal development must not be interrupted, and change, if any, ought to be gradual and reluctantly undertaken. They cited Burke’s maxim of a statesman as;

“one who combined a disposition to preserve with an ability to reform”

(this continuity was of course to be provided by the Monarchy and the Church)

Conservatives again called on Burke for their principle of prescription, or respecting the Wisdom of Our Ancestors. They held that modern men are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, able to see further only because of their ancestor’s high stature.

Of course their prescription included maintaining the; Ancient Rights (of the Monarchy) the Moral Precepts (of the Church) and the Social Customs (of society’s aristocratic elites).

The principle of Prudence accused liberals and populist radicals of being imprudent, by advocating reforms, however necessary, which may bring, unintended abuses, worse than the evils that the reformers hoped to abolish.

(of course the ruling class of society would not benefit from any of the reforms)

Calling on the religious idea of original sin, the early conservatives embraced the principle of Imperfectability of man. Since human nature suffers certain uncorrectable great flaws or faults, and is imperfect, man can never create a perfect social order. (unless he is an absolute ruler, blessed by the Church)

These conservative principles were obviously invented by theoretical thinkers in the pay of the ruling classes; as a counter to the revolutionary movements against the feudal system that was crumbling in Europe. Under various names, political parties founded on conservative concepts appeared throughout Europe at the beginning of the 19^th Century. These parties were closely associated with; the Clergy, the Military Professionals, the Landed Aristocracy, and the Monarchies. However, in the face of liberal popular appeal and the coming Industrialism, the old style conservatism inevitably declined, along with feudalism.

These liberal changes undermined the habitual acceptance of conventional wisdom, which was the foundation of the conservative doctrines of; authority, community, tradition, discipline, and order. By the mid-nineteenth Century, European liberalism, built on the philosophies of what became known as the Age of Reason or The Enlightenment, had won repeated victories over the old conservative order, and its conservative defenders.

American Immunity Until the 20^th Century

Americans enjoyed comparative immunity from the political upheavals which dominated European history until the 20^th Century, because American society had gone from a Monarchial-Colonial system and Mercantilist economic system (mostly independent of England) directly to a Democratic Republic, skipping the inequalities of Feudalism, and an entrenched privileged class.

Because of their knowledge of the religious persecutions and wars in Europe, and their own painful experience with the British Monarchial government, the American founders built into our Constitution all of the best of all schools of thought, including; limited government, individual liberty, private ownership of property and the free marketplace. However, they were also a part of, and identified with, the traditional-conservative institutions of American society, such as; the political elites, the clergy, the judiciary, the wealthy merchants, and the emerging, increasingly Aristocratic, upper class.

These traditional intellectuals recognized a need for government, but insisted it should be limited; and dispersed power broadly throughout the political and social structure to avoid great concentration of power at any level or branch of the Federal government. They believed that; the primary purpose of government was to serve the people, and to maintain the framework of a fair system of laws and order, within which other private institutions could operate effectively.

Traditional American conservatism has its moderate historical roots in the political philosophies of John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and their Colonial contemporaries. Other respectable American traditional-conservative thinkers have included; John Quincy Adams, John Marshall, John C. Calhoun, John Randolph, James Russell Lowell, Henry Adams, and George Santayana.

America went through a colonial period, a period of Civil War, an Industrial Revolution, and became a world power in the first half of the 20^th Century. During this time the concepts of conservative and liberal politics evolved with the issues of the time. However, the American cultural tradition has generally been for greater liberty, progress and change, and the freedoms and opportunities of the little guy, against the entrenched power of the wealthy and powerful.

The conservatives because of their philosophical alignment with the ruling class; have traditionally been for the opposite; the status quo, the wealthy and powerful, the business interests, and those who favored the use of military and economic power to achieve national objectives. Even a great reformer like Lincoln had an idealistic traditional-conservative inclination.

“What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?”
Abraham Lincoln, at the Cooper union

Precursors to American Neo-Fascism

The earliest phenomenon that can be identified as an organizational precursor to Fascism in America is the 19^th Century Ku-Klux-Klan. Following the Civil War and the Federal Reconstruction program; some former Confederate Officers; fearing the consequences of the blacks being given the vote in 1867; set up a secret Militia to restore the social order in the South. Like the Italian “Fasci di Combattimento” and the German “Freikorps” and “Brownshirts” of the 20^th Century; they became extra-legal alternatives to established authority; which the Klan leaders believed no longer pursued the best interests of their culture and society Like the Italian “Arditi” in Mussolini’s Fasci who wore Black Shirts ,these former hardened and battle seasoned soldiers of the Civil War, employed techniques of intimidation and violence, dressed in distinctive white robes and hoods, adorned with the Christian Cross.

The term liberal was seldom invoked in the U.S. until WWI, and did not become truly popular until the New Deal policies of the FDR administration. By that time, traditional-conservatism became viewed as a fringe movement, clinging to old ideas, and as demonstrated by the Republican Hoover government, totally incapable of responding to the needs of the American people, during the period leading up to, and during the emergency of the Great Depression. (Read a congenital conservative lack of humanity demonstrated again during the Hurricane Katrina Disaster

In the period of the Great Depression, and until after WWII, the Democratic Party was responsible for implementing many major popular reforms of government and business; that insulated the U.S. from the European extreme radical movements of the conservative Totalitarian National-Fascists on the right, and the Collectivist Totalitarian Bolsheviks on the left. By the end of the war, the uniquely American power balance of Liberal Democracy and social justice had been vindicated.

Until the period following WWII, moderate traditional-Conservatives, known as The Conservative Revival continued to believe that the functions of the Federal government should be limited to defending the country from foreign enemies, to preserve law and order, enforce private contracts, foster competitive markets and encourage free and fair trade. They held that it was the nature of human beings to cooperate, and this is what has advanced civilization, not the coercive and punitive arm of government. Lincoln’s Liberal views would get him thrown out of the NFC Republican Party today:

“The legitimate role of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.”
Abraham Lincoln, July 1, 1854

In this regard Conservatives were in almost total agreement with Liberals, but politicians of both sides of the aisle were becoming increasingly obligated to the huge American corporations and wealthy interests that were bankrolling their increasingly expensive campaigns.

Conservatives continued to hold the old pessimistic view of the masses of human nature, maintaining that most people need strong laws, and strict moral codes to keep their appetites under control. They had a preference for the status quo, and desired change, only in moderation. They opposed high taxes and resisted all but the most necessary anti-trust, trade, and business ethics regulations.

For most of our history, these traditional-conservatives, and traditional-liberal Democrats shared an understanding and mutual respect for Republican principles, Democratic representative government, individual Liberties, a Defensive military posture, bi-partisan foreign affairs, and free market capitalism. A liberal could be conservative on fiscal issues, and a conservative could be liberal on social issues. Traditional-conservatives might be for a strong National Defense, and the constraint of Federal spending, but they were not necessarily; anti-poor, anti-black, anti-gay, anti-women, or anti-social justice. There were representatives of both views in each party, and there were shifting majorities for any one issue being considered.

There was less partisan rancor; that later became prevalent after the Fascist era when orthodox ideology became a weapon of far right politicians, and was substituted for genuine debate on the issues of the times.

In WWII the British and American Democracies and their allies were happy to ally themselves with the Russian Communist Dictator Josef Stalin; to fight the powerful military forces of the Fascists. In 1945, Americans celebrated the victory of the Liberal Democracies over totalitarian Fascist-Conservative dictatorships in Europe, and a Japanese Militarist Imperialist-Conservative dictatorship in the Far East. However, it was not long before a new menace emerged.

By the end of WWII, Marxist-Leninist Russia, had been in the grip of a totalitarian Bolshevik dictatorship since the revolution of 1917. This Internationalist-Conservative Marxist-Leninist government called itself “International Communism,” but it became a very Conservative Internationalist-dictatorship, ruled by an elite political Oligarchy, until its demise in 1991.

After the war, the Russians, having suffered horrendous losses against the Germans, decided to hold on to the Eastern European countries as a buffer against any future German ambitions. By a combination of subversion and military domination; the Russians absorbed these nations into their sphere of influence. This coalition of the coerced became known as the Warsaw Military and Economic Pact. An Iron Curtain, of tyrrany equal to the Fascist tyrrany descended over Eastern Europe.

Socialism-the Perpetual Bogeyman

Socialism and its militant Conservative Bolshevik Communist extremism has been a Bogeyman for the U.S. Government for many decades. In 1920, the Palmer raids (headed by the Paleo-Fascist Conservative J.Edgar Hoover), three years after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia; resulted in the arrest and deportation of thousands of innocent U.S. residents on the suspicion of “Communist affiliation.”.

After Hoover’s death we learned that he had become the U.S. equivalent of Lavrentia Beria (Head of the Communist Secret Police, and KGB).

Hoover had for decades, kept vast secret files on the lives of many public figures, and their families. Senior Federal Judge Laurence Silberman who was one of the few to read the “sanitized version” of Hoover’s private files, called it the “worst experience of my long service” He stated that Hoover’s abuse of his office paved the way for Watergate, and wants Congress to rename the FBI building to help erase the dishonor Hoover brought to law enforcement.

Russia’s military hegemony in Eastern Europe, and aggressive efforts to convert other countries around the world to their version of International Lenin-Stalinist Bolshevism, caused great alarm in the Western Democracies, and forced the U.S and its allies in Western Europe to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to oppose the Soviet Union in Europe. The U.S. political parties, urged on by an Ultra-Conservative Anti-Communist movement, and public opinion, adopted an all consuming anti-Communist Foreign policy, resulting in what became the Cold War, between East and West; which lasted for most of the remainder of the 20^th Century.

The writings of conservative classic thinkers, such as John Locke, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer rekindled discussions, in the years following World War II, about individual liberty and the state, but these ideas were overpowered by the overriding national pre-occupation with the real and sometimes imagined threat of the Soviet Union’s Communist Conspiracy.

No Radical group had ever been able to win the votes of sufficient Americans to break down the barriers of the established Republican and Democratic Parties. However, that began to change in the 1950s, in the period of the Cold War, when extreme brands of Movement Conservatism, called; “Arch-Conservativism,” “Ultra-Conservatism,” “The New Right,” and “The Radical Right” began to emerge. The Ultra-Conservative John Birch Society, which had chapters in virtually every state, enjoyed political success, especially in Southern California.

In the U.S., traditional-conservative President Eisenhower demonstrated a dislike of extremes, and endeavored to steer a middle-of-the-road course between Reaction and Radicalism, but history has demonstrated time and again that radicals of conservative political movements are capable of ignoring their own principles and progressing into authoritarian and totalitarian extremes.

President Eisenhower was a moderate Republican in the traditional-conservative mold. In the eight years that he was President, no American soldier was killed or killed anyone else. It was more than luck. He made it clear to all Commanders in the field that he did not want “a single shot or bomb fired without my order.”

“The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground in my administration. We kept the peace. People ask how it happened—by God, it didn’t just happen, I’ll tell you that.”
President Dwight Eisenhower

The warmongering Neo-Fascist Birchers were not happy with that record and went so far as to declare that Eisenhower, Charles DeGaulle, and other eminent western statesmen were agents of Communist subversion. Alarmed by Communist espionage at home, and subversion abroad, the Arch-Conservative anti-communists frequently went off on binges of witch hunts. The Birchers and other groups, most prominently led by demagogues, such as Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, were more concerned with chasing liberals and Communists in the Arts, and rooting out internal sedition, than in deterring the military challenge of the Soviet Union.

Whitaker Chambers, a former Communist, who was once a senior editor for Time Magazine, wrote a hair raising 800 page tell all book, called “Witness” in which he characterized a melodramatic struggle for survival between East and West, arguing that modern society could only escape the totalitarian boot if it chose;

“God over man, and recognized that secular, pragmatic, liberalism was but a way station on the road to Communism.”

The fierce Arch-Conservative Anti-Communist ideology required that we must fight them militarily everywhere, at once, in the world. This resulted in a massive military buildup and eventually, the tragedies of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The Vietnam War degenerated into an industrialized killing machine; that required that we destroy the land and six million of the people of Vietnam, in order to save them.

By the mid 1960s, the issues that divided Americans were cultural and economic, and included; the Vietnam War, Drugs, especially Marijuana, Abortion rights, Crime, Poverty, Religious Bigotry, Race Prejudice, and Foreign Policy. These are virtually the same issues in 2005, if we substitute the War on Terror for the Cold War, the Iraqi War for the Vietnam War, the war on culture by the Christian Right, and the Bush Unilateral Preventive War Foreign Policy for the Containment strategy of the 1960s.

Arch-Conservative Senator Barry Goldwater published his book “The Conscience of a Patriot” and his extreme radical rhetoric lost him the Presidential race. Many conservative college students were recruited to work for Goldwater, and conservative societies had been formed on some 200 college campuses in the U.S. Numerous institutions were now in place for a new conservative “Counterkulture”: to oppose the liberal culture.

“Senator Goldwater is in fact a radical opponent of conservatism who, under the banner of personal freedom, would compound that moral disorder which is a paramount problem of the modern age…they are not conservative in the American tradition… their outlook is neither conservative nor Republican.”
Walter Lippman