Disclaimer: I try to keep this blog non-political. I am essentially a political centrist — I tend to judge each politician, plan and party on its merits rather than by any rigid ideology or party-line. I generally find most politicans, political plans and political parties to be less intelligent and less long-term-oriented than I would wish them to be. As a result, from my perspective, choosing among them is often a matter of choosing the lesser-of-evils. So by posting this article I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I am a partisan person or that this site is partisan. Far from it. In fact, as you can probably see from this site’s content, having an open mind is one of my core values. I also have lots of friends on both sides of every major issue, and they’re all intelligent people whom I respect. There are liberal ideas that make sense to me and also a lot of conservative ideas that make sense to me. May the best memes win!
An article has just come out that is so significant I think it deserves wide exposure. The American Conservative Magazine — the voice of conservatives in America — has officially endorsed John Kerry instead of Bush. Now that’s unprecedented. It shows that there is a tremendous split taking place among conservative voters.
Read it yourself, here. It’s really something. I would be interested in hearing comments on this article from both conservatives and liberals.
Social tagging: Current Affairs > Defense and Intelligence > Democracy 2.0 > Government > Military > Politics > Society > The Future
this article represents the split between the view of america first/no foreign entanglements versus the view that the only defense to terrorism is a strong aggressive offense. there are several issues which don’t necessarily fall neatly into a democratic or a republican camp. immigration and fiscal management, abortion, gay marriage, school vouchers, property tax/education are finding opponents and supportes in both camps. I don’t know if issue creep is significantly expanding or not but I speculate that if there was a viable third or fourth political party then there would be candidates with a more of a cafeteria style selection of positions on issues then presently exists. I think clinton did a pretty good job of herding the middle. also it is refreshing that the writer does not feel the need to accept a party line regardless. I wish there was a litle more discussion of nader’s positions.
how do I trust a magazine that says it’s conservative, but leads every magazine with anti- conservative views ?
Quoth steve: “how do I trust a magazine that says it’s conservative, but leads every magazine with anti- conservative views ?”
I’m not familiar with the magazine on an ongoing basis, but it seemed to me that the article supported Kerry after applying conservative views and determining that Bush was more of a radical than a conservative.
I believe there’s another article in the same issue that brings up many of the same points but still sides with Bush because they want him to be the one selecting judges for the Supreme Court (disclaimer: analyzing this from a Republican co-worker’s take on the article, not from a first-hand read).
That edition of the magazine presents the conservative case for all of the candidates; as it says on the front cover. The article about Bush says that a vote for Kerry would be a vote not only against Bush, but a vote against America. So I would hardly say that the magazine is anti-conservative.