"Fides quaerens Intellectum' which is Latin for "faith seeking understanding " was the tem used by Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033 -1109) to convey the duality of his (Christian) faith and reason (classical Greek philosophic traditions) and express the priority of the primary and the necessity of the latter in their marriage. St Anselm was arguing that it was good for and not antithetical to your Faith (what you believe without proof) to seek to better understand that Faith through the use of reason (an explanation or justification).
Now that you are thoroughly confused, let me make a political analogy and apologize to serious scholars for my invoking of Anselm of Canterbery to make a crude political statement regarding our current affairs.
With the victory of Barak Obama to the office of President and the great success of the democrats in congress and at the state level, the Republican Party is collectively wondering: what next?
My advice would be first and foremost not to give up faith in the conservative cause or the Republican Party. Yet we need to re-examine or positions and re-apply those positions to our current reality. While using reason and understanding helped strengthen St. Anselm's faith it may have the opposite effect on conservatives. We may find that blind faith in conservative principles regardless of the particular political, economic and military realities we face and acting accordingly can be disastrous.
One example is our current economic state which can be traced back to the greed and deregulation in the credit and housing markets. Clearly the ‘free market" did not work the problem out. It required the government to provide welfare to billion dollar investment banks and an overall ‘bailout' to many other industries with a price tag in the billions, more corporate welfare. The problem and many economists including Alan Greenspan are to blame for this form of Darwinian capitalism.
To be fair conservatives and Republicans use the mantra of deregulation and bestowed the virtue of the ‘free market' more often and with greater fervor than the democrats. But as a recent article in the New York Times Magazine Article pointed to, out of the hundreds of thousands of professional economists in the nation very few predicted this level of disaster including the aforementioned Mr. Greenspan.
Conservatives need to spend the upcoming months and years re-examining our principles and positions. We should do this to find the weakness in the chain and to thereby strengthen it.
Because of our collective faith in Darwinian capitalist behavior which led to the economic meltdown does not mean we ought to become socialist. But it does mean that we ought to look toward more effective regulation in certain area. And if the democrats push for overregulation we can regain our niche as bureaucracy busters. And if the Democrats who now control both houses of congress and the White house do not learn from this mess and push for particular and unwise deregulation as they have in the past, see Fannie Mae, then we fight that too. This would allow the Republican Party to play the role of the taxpayers watch dog while we are in minority status.
For Republicans to play this role sincerely it takes a believable and honorable leader that can give the party a new face during a time when there is so much cynicism and despair with the Republican brand. We also need to find and cultivate young leadership from the bottom.
These are no easy tasks to be sure but we should relish our position in the minority. To quote John McCain" We have ‘em right where we want ‘em". As underdogs we can flush out the non believers and start to build again. This time we will build with the lessons of past mistakes to guide us.
Conservative columnist David Brooks once remarked that Republicans did well as outsiders contending that government was the enemy. But he said, when they came in to power in 1994 and 2000 they found it paradoxical to be holding the reins of power while simultaneously subscribing to an anti government philosophy. Needless to say this caused for serious dysfunction.
In fact many would argue that much of Bush's failure stems from his inability to keep spending down. His violation of this tenant of conservatism hurt him politicaly and is a Republican no-no. By spending like a drunken sailor, Bush hurt the brand name and made us look contradictory while the ship was burning. All the time a banner behind him reading "Mission Accomplished ".
We have to keep the faith and seek to understand how we can use a conservative approach to serve modern dilemmas. We can learn from Bushes mistakes. In many ways Bush's all time low approval rating (the lowest ever), the recession and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan made it almost impossible for Jon McCain or any Republican to win this year.
McCain for his part can go back to the senate and be the next lion of the party. We are now the Rebel Alliance and he can be our Yoda even though Yoda was younger. He can be the Cicero of the Senate and offer his Grandfatherly wisdom to our new young leaders to what will clearly become the next Grand New Party.
Next week: The McCabe Doctrine Part II: The Grand New Party
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by Chance Haywood , November 12, 2008
Free market wasn't the problem with the housing issue. It was the governments instance that lenders provide loans to people living in finacially repressed area so that minorities could own homes. This started with the Carter terms and was pushed further by the Clinton administration to the point that leaders feared reprisal if they didn't .
So please go correct that error.
written by Will McCabe , November 12, 2008
But i metioned it in paragraph 8 line 4:
". And if the Democrats who now control both houses of congress and the White house do not learn from this mess and push for particular and unwise deregulation as they have in the past, see Fannie Mae, then we fight that too. This would allow the Republican Party to play the role of the taxpayers watch dog while we are in minority status."
Read the full post
written by Chance Haywood , November 12, 2008
This is one of the core problems with the GOP. Sure calling for less regulation is fine but not mentioning the exact regulations that caused this problem, and putting the blame where it lies, is really not helpful. If we want to be the party that protects economic freedom then we need to hammer the opposition with the bad legislation and regulations they've forced on us.
As an example when I someone ask me to point to expansion of federal government reach I love to use the 1996 Church Burning Act as my example. It was based based fear that the KKK was targeting churches of the black community. This fear was unfounded of course. However I always ask people this question if the crime wasn't committed by a federal employee or against federal property why should the federal government be involved in prosecuting the case? People almost always agree with me that is a perfect example of reaching instrusion in State's Rights.
In your article you should have done a bit of history on how industry got sucked into this situation by talking about the legislation that force it to lend money to people who should have been getting loans.
written by Will McCabe , November 12, 2008
and feel free to add the points you liked mentioned, while caching my flaws.
thanks
written by Jay Golub , November 12, 2008
good points, Will and I think there is much to build off of in this post.
I would state that the present economic "crisis" was created by government action, not by free markets. Regulation of the markets is not by definition against conservative, darwinian free-market principles, just as lack of reguation does not by definition create a "free" market.
All political parties and political leaders deserve "blame" for our present situation.
I completely agree that the GOP's, new or old, depends on having a clearly expressed vision for the future of our capitalist democracy. Bush, as you pointed out, did much to confuse the voter/citizen in this regard. He spent, along with the GOP Congress, like any Democrat who could have been elected in his place.
Im working on a post related to this, but the essential issue with the "bailout" is more of a currency issue than a legislative/political issue. In the end, neither side has the upper hand in rhetoric going forward.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
