Dream it all up again

Here's one piece of some short originality. It's part of an email letter I wrote today:

"Dr. Fleming had interesting article in the February edition of Chronicles that said that the elements of movement are out there, what it takes to bring together is hate and fear and that ideas are really an overrated aspect of politics compared to sense of "what's in it for me." I think a lot of it is true to a certain extent, but I would just dismiss the idea people because they have shown that small bands of persons working together and motivated by ideals can take over a party like the Goldwaterites did to the GOP or the McGovernites did to the Dems and neoconservatism did for U.S. foreign policy. Now this sense of control may very well illusionary and it may be true that the idea people need the politicians to engineer their takeovers, but again, it has happened.

"Let's face it, demographics and changes in society did much to power the conservative movement as "ideas" did. Any movement is a reflection of the people in it or involved and what motivates them. It may be that hate and fear ultimately motivates a person vote when you boil it down, but voters also WANT to believe they are voting for the right reasons even if they are not. You could spin together a movement made up of those who are traditional, don't like big government or high taxes, want something about immigration on the premise that 1). U.S. foreign policy endangers U.S. security with foreign alliances, 2). Immigration must be controlled for economic, social and environmental reasons, 3). Reducing the size of the federal government preserves liberty and increases reliability of government services; 4). Communities should be allowed to develop as they see fit "Let Utah be Utah and let San Francisco be San Francisco." 5). The West's traditions and heritage must be preserved. This kind of movement should be anchored by "Crunch Cons" types but be able to reach out to ordinary conservatives, libertarians paleo or otherwise, and even leftists concerned about the environment or who are "Power to the People" types. Economically it should be encompass professionals but also manufacturers and farmers. Socially it should encompass most Christians but with an emphasis on Orthodox faiths, European ethnic groups but also traditional Hispanics and traditional African-American as well. It should encompass conservationalists as opposed to environmentalists.

"In short, it's a naturally conservative movement opposed being ideologically conservative."

Indeed what's needed is to dream it all up again. What's needed is to move conservatism away from being an ideology back to beaing a state of mind.

--Sean Scallon