I Want a New Right

Neo-neocon has a new post about political changers. Changing political alignment is one of her core topics. And she holds that change is almost always in the same direction, away from left/liberal toward right/conservative.

I read the post and the comments, then dashed off this contribution to the conversation:

I’m in the midst of a change, too.

“Conservativism” is poorly defined, but I seem to be moving away from it. And part of the problem with conservatives is that they then presume I must be going left. That’s silly, if you could be inside my mind.

I despise Progressives and their agenda of comprehensive control. Yet, conservatives have stopped fighting them. They talk a big game, but they’ve failed. For decades.

Reagan had great personal qualities, but his record isn’t that great. He got played. And if Reagan failed to achieve the liberty-minded goals of which he spoke so well, conservatism has no hero. It is an impotent ideology.

The right would be wise to become more self-critical. Deeply, philosophical self-critical. Not the finger-pointing litmus-test kind of crapola that we see during campaigns like the current one. No candidate that conservatives respect is making arguments from principles. They’re all just slogans and haze.

Walter E. Williams says he is pushing back the frontiers of ignorance and showing the moral superiority of liberty. That’s where I want to be, where I want to go.

I want a New Right.

I would be remiss not to credit the blog I Want a New Left for the frame though which I have come to see conservatives. Like the lefties, the righties have gone adrift from their core. Both the policies and the mindset have become insulated and corrupt. In practice, the conservative factions don’t help create the kind of world they claim to prefer.