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Originally posted by astralis
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Conservatism is not about going back to the past. It's a vision of government as distinct as the liberal vision. Each defines the other always. Together, they form a unified whole, the body politic, and they share most basic values. But they do clash at times, mainly over the question of what government can and ought to do to solve social and other problems and over how government should manage its fiscal house.
The dynamic between them is not a struggle between past and future. It's about the present and how it came to be shaped. Over time, both visions take turns dominating the body politic. So if you say conservatism is about turning the clock back, you have to say the same about liberalism.
Politics is wheels within wheels. The biggest wheel and the slowest is the one that turns right to left, conservative to liberal, and then around again Sometime in the future, when the conservative vision has run its course, the liberal agenda will be laid before the voters. Then people will say liberals want to go back to the past. :)
the ultimate goal is not to substitute a liberal version of social security or medicare for a conservative market-based method (although that may be an intermediate step), but to undo it altogether.
that's actually something we Third Wayers like to say.
... the problem with the conservative-liberal split; it's more concerned about the size of government rather than the competence of government. solutions tend to be predicated on size. this dept sucks? conservative view tends to be, 'let's cut funding/eliminate it.' liberal view tends to be, 'it is underfunded.'
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