Torture Is Not Conservative? Well Yeah, Torture Really Is Not Conservative
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Neo-con Ken Adelman has an interesting and admirable blog post over at one of Foreign Policy's blogs. He makes a conservative case against torture.
It's somewhat outrageous for real conservatives not to be outraged by all this. Conservatism has never been, and should not become now, the pro-torture movement.
He cites the core of conservatism: limited government.
The conservatism of Goldwater, like all American conservatism, stressed limited government -- not only in programs and budgets, but also in the power and reach of the state.
That's old-con. There are also, he points out, neo-con reasons to be against torture:
Neo-conservatism meant -- to me, at least -- that there is and should be a moral element at the center of foreign policy. ... Torture is not only immoral; it's not conservative. And conservatives shouldn't be defending it.
Oh yeah, that was an element of neo-conservatism, wasn't it?
Anyway, the whole post is worth reading.
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Reader Comments
The Republicans Conservative?
The Republican Party hasn't been Conservative for at least the last 40 years. People are just starting to realize that. Even on Social Issues like Gay Rights and Abortion they are Big Government, No individual Freedom, Government decides. Republicans as "Conservatives" should be pro-gay rights as a freedom and Seperation of Church and State issue. The Republican Party is dying because they have no compass, even with the Bible, they pick and choose some parts and not others. With their "rebranding" they should finally come out and be honest and call themselves the "Pope's Party" or the "Southern Baptist and Vatican Party" or something that truly defines who they really are: a fractional Right Wing Religious Third Party. The REAL Republicans should take this as an opportunity to form a moderate Party of Fiscal Conservatism, Social Liberalism and Foreign Policy Conservative(and non-reactionary). They could call themselves The American Populist Party and quickly become the dominant Party in America (taking a near majority of Democrats with them. But they won't because at heart most politicians are cowards.
Re Conservatives
Conservativism is a glittering generality it means a whole lot and not much at all,which is why so many politicians like to describe themselves this way on the one hand it could mean sensible and practical or it could mean little or no governmental restrictions on trade or business or it could mean all kinds of restrictions to new ideas and policy which would upset the status quo and the good old boys network....conservatives tend to think in authoritarian ways and liberals are more broad minded,democratic and are far more humanitarian than the average conservative person.... useing torture to get information out of prisoners of war has nothing to do with our Constitution and Bill of Rights.....
You don't understand
You cite the "core of conservatism" as being limited government. Wrong. The core of Conservatism is the idea that the role of government is to protect individual life and liberty - an end goal to which limited government is a critical means.
But there are other necessary means to fulfil government's most basic function. War is one of them. So is an effective police force - anarchy destroys liberty. And where innocent individuals' LIVES are in substantial danger, and evil men are refusing to give information which would protect them without being sleep deprived, slapped, or having water poured in their face (calling that "torture" deprives that word of any real meaning) absolutely shoudl be considered - especially since we now know that it DID work.
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