Son of Compassionate Conservatism;

It's not your father's Compassionate Conservatism;

A dude's Compassionate Conservatism;

Compassionate Conservatism on steroids;

Compassionate Conservatism, not for kids anymore;

Compassionate Conservatism, Mikey likes it;

A young man's guide to Compassionate Conservatism;

It can't have compassion in it--too gay.

paleoneoconservativism.

nah.

Hand Up Conservatism

Creeping, stealth, or crypto-conservatism would be
the most accurate, but perhaps "Muscular Conservatism" would be more marketable to the target
demographic.

Or just throw a few umlauts on the vowels of
"Compassionate Conservatism" and put a lightning bolt between the words. This presentation always gives a phrase a more "kick**s" attitude.

I suggest 'Texas Conservatism.' Accurate, and inescapably macho.

What's wrong with just calling it liberalism?

The folks at the corner are upset, but the guys over at redstate, I think are worse. Here's very interesting discussion thread that was right up OJ's alley. The comments it generated were certainly fun to read.

ted:

Muscularity has unfortunate gay (body builder) overtones as well.

joe:

Liberals are icky.

Timothy:

You're on to something there.,

How about Longhorn Conservatism?

It's even compensatory.

mc:

Cities have been built by the free market? That's the funniest thing I've ever read.

djs:

Too close to Hand Job Conservatism

Velvet Conservatism. VelCons, for short.

Conserva-pathy. Or Conserpathy (easier to pronounce). Conpaths.

EmpathiCons.

"It's people!! Conservatism is people!!!"

What you are saying OJ is that the people don't want conservatism, so why don't we just scrap the pretense and put the term to rest?

CompassoCons.

Robert:

Pathoconservatism has that hint of Taxi Driver to it--that could fly.

Yes, the extremes of freedom and security have been rejected.

Well, then I guess we're all icky now. Whatever-you-want-to-call-it is basically just liberalism. It's got a little bit less self hatred than left liberalism so it doesn't pander quite as much, but that's really a pretty minor difference. Bush is no more a conservative than you are, not that there's anything wrong with that. But it is what it is.

1) Since many of our ideas are "radical" more than conservative. (Face it, vouchers are a radical idea)

..and...

2) Since there some negative connotations to "conservative" (just what are they trying to conserve) anyway, ...

Why not just take the word "liberal" back from liberalism (they aren't using it). They are more [c]onservative than we are. They are attempting to cement in place the ultimate "conservative" culture (ultra-statism), and they don't want to 'liberalize' anything other than perverse behavior.

We should just start calling ourselves "Radical Liberals" (if only as a rhetorical device).

__

On a slightly more substantive note, I have a friend who is trying to 'brand' the concept of "progressive conservative", which I think is head & shoulders above "compassionate."

Bruno:

How about Radical Conservatism?

How 'bout the Emperor's New Conservatism.

Orrin:

Are you reading the same National Review and the same Jonah Goldberg as I am? The Jonah Goldberg I'm familiar with is no libertarian; in fact, he often gets into some spirited doctrinal skirmishes with the "libertoids." (For examples, look here and here and here. How's this (from the third article I linked to) for a critique of libertarianism:

You don't turn children into responsible adults by giving them absolute freedom. You foster good character by limiting freedom, and by channeling energies into the most productive avenues. That's what all good schools, good families, and good societies do. The Boy Scouts don't throw a pocketknife to a kid and say, "Knock yourself out, kid. I'll be back in a couple hours." The cultural libertarians want to do precisely that.

O.J., I daresay you could've written that!

As for the other NR denizens, William F. Buckley is probably the closest to an honest-to-Ayn-Rand libertarian, but even back when he was running the place, they weren't all that hot on Rand. If anything, today's NR is probably the most orthodoxly Catholic place in the conservative movement. (See, e.g., Kathryn Jean Lopez; Rod Dreher.)

Mike:

Yes, NR has always had a split personality, likely because Mr. Buckley was a Catholic libertarian. No, I don't read it.

How 'bout Just Plain Old Liberalism.

How about bribery?

David:

Except that W is dressed in the robes of power and the libertarians, as always, are naked.

OJ, you really should. NR and BroJudd are probably my two favorite places in the blogosphere (exclusive of Lileks), on account of the quality of the intellects found in both places.

I never understand what the Corner folks, and other "conservative" sites, have against Bush's policies and results. I checked the Congressional Budget Office revenues and expenditures for the period 1962-2004 (that's all I could access). Over the last 42 years, there has not been ONE SINGLE YEAR where the expenditureshave been less than the prior year. In other words, on their biggest bugaboo, he's no different from any other president, Republican or Democrat. The country has been through good times and bad times in the interim, government spending is immaterial.

joe:

Too Ted Kennedy

Mike:

Just about the only people there I can read and respect are Jeffrey Hart, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Michael Novak.

JH:

In a democracy everyone is both the briber and the bribee.

sam:

No one ever said they were smart.

All right then, how 'bout We've Just Given Up and Admitted Defeat to Liberalism Because We Like to Pretend We Have Power Conservatism.

Liberalism lost too.

Joe:

Too long.

You Da Man, Joe, High Five.

Yeah, What Joe Said.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 23, 2005 4:24 PM

OJ: Too true.

Orrin:
As I recall, back in 2000 you hated the phrase "compassionate conservatism" too. You said that it made it seem like regular conservatism wasn't compassionate. You used to get really bent about it. Why the big change?

OJ--

'Longhorn' would lose the Aggies. What about 'Lone Star Conservatism'? It's even got a nice libertarian ring to it.

Gov:

I said it was redundant, but brilliantly geared towards making women feel more comfortable about being conservative.

Timothy:

They'd love the "Lone" part.

Faux Conservatisme (note the ending "e" encouraging a French pronounciation).

Father Flanagan Conservatism

Which, I suppose, is the point. Compassionate conservatism is not the Third Way. Compassionate conservatism is conservatism looking up, realizing that it has won the political battle, and saying, "Now what?"

I like David Cohen's, but here're mine:

Big Government Conservatism
Pork Barrel Conservatism
Crony Conservatism
Wasteful Conservatism
Ineffective Conservatism
RINO Conservatism
Calculating Conservatism
PC Conservatism
Momma's Conservatism
Deficit Conservatism

Do I win a book?

Bret:

Why would those appeal to single white geeky males? They're more like expressions of their angst.

David:

Yes, that is the Third Way--it's won in Britain and Australia as well though Labour hates that it's won in Britain as much as Republicans hate that we've won here.

Overly-Generous Conservatism

Pleasantly Plump Conservatism

HWP Conservatism

Curves-In-The-Right-Places Conservatism

no wait. scratch all those.

Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell Conservatism

If you want to appeal to geeky single white males, call it the "Conservative Continuum", or the "Def Conservo-Jam". Or the "Conservatorship of the Ring".

I'm just playing along to win a book, I still agree with Goldberg.

Main Stream Conservativsm

Majority Conservatism

(Hey, it worked for the Bolsehviks.)

Bring your cares to the gurucon.

Robert:

Conservatorship of the Ring may be a winner. That's mega-geeky.

Single white geeky males, eh?

Uberconservatism
Neogeoconservatism
1337 Conservatism
Limit Break Conservatism
Blast Processing Conservatism
Omgbbq Conservatism
Conservative Pwnology

But for the macho component:

Bulldog Conservatism {Terrier? Pitbull? Wolverine?)

Oh, and "Progressive Conservative" has been used in Canada. Just be cause we've got our own Joe Clarks, Kim Campbells and Brian Mulroneys doesn't mean we need to emulate our Northern Neighbors that far.

What do they call that William Gibson type scifi?

Mr. Moore:

Uberconservatism definitely has potential, especially if the "s" is written with ted's lightning bolt--very Nietzsche.

After the hurricane bribery / reconstruction I think:

Consplurgative

with a soft 'g'

"The Road to Serfdom" Conservatism

Bret:

They do love Hayek, though you could call it Reaganism or Thatcherism too.

Umlauts. Don't forget the umlauts to go with the lightning bolts. Put one over the "n", too. But don't mess with the "c",as that looks too French.

Well, if it works, we can call it "All Your Base Belong To Us" Conservatism.

"What do they call that William Gibson type scifi?"

Cyberpunk. I think libertarians have that term wrapped up. Network Conservatism would have some of that vibe, but remind most people of television networks. Grid Conservatism? Shadowrun Conservatism?

Conservatives who look to the late 19th/early 20th century can use Steampunk Conservatism though.

Transgender Conservatism.

Mr. Moore:

There you go, Cyberpunk Conservatism--they'd love it.

David:

If? No one has lost a national election in the Anglosphere running on it.

ghost:

Hits too close to home for them.

If no one's lost a national election:

Mission Accomplished Conservatism

Uber captures that but has that Germanic twist they'll think makes them sound tough.

We're looking for something to typify geeky, white, single males?

'Comic book guy' conservatism.

Manga! It's the aughts.

Left-Wing Conservatism

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 23, 2005 5:48 PM

Mr. Murphy, nobody wants to be Comic Book Guy, we just quote him a lot. Accordingly:

Best. Conservatism. Ever.

Or, since we want to cut out all the wimpy emotional angst, how about Vulcan Conservatism?

Robert:

Why would libertarians like that one?

I had to hit the thesaurus pretty hard, but I came up with these:

sympathetic self-discipline
charitable conservatism
benevolent reasonableness (that's my favorite)

Along those lines...

Superman Conservatism?
Batman Conservatism?
Green Lantern Conservatism?

We could get Goldberg on Bush's side in a second if we called it "Star Trek Conservatism."

Andrew Moore:

Pretty good descriptive terminology, however -- although I disagree with OJ that Goldberg is within their ranks.

It's easy to picture Comic Book Guy with a stack of Ayn Rand novels in the backroom, right next to his collection of Superman figurines and his breakfast burrito -- which is, of course, "congealing rapidly."

If the idea is to convey toughness and a single-minded devotion to making sure other people do their duty, i.e., getting a job...

Brooke Judd Conservatism.

Is there really a Comic Book Guy?

Matt:

Amen, brother....

Who's Brooke Judd?

The boss.

The Wife.

OJ:

Surely you've seen him on The Simpsons? Fat, ponytailed loser who runs a comic book store? He tells a crowd of his new societal blueprint:

"Inspired by the most logical race in the galaxy, the Vulcans, breeding will be permitted once every seven years. For many of you this will mean much less breeding, for me, much much more."

Matt:

I don't watch much tv. I have the first year of The Simpsons on DVD, replacing the videos the Other Brother used to send me of it.

OJ:

I'm telling you, "Brooke Judd Conservatism" is the moniker you want. The well-connected denizens of this website could fan out to explain Brooke Judd's philosophy to the masses and make you and your family famous in the process. We might even get a reality show out of it.

Matt:

Too scary.

OJ:

The first season is nothing compared to the later ones. The show is surprisingly conservative for an animated sitcom, and isn't afraid to mock the left. Here's a line where Homer asks his hippie mother what's she been up to all these years:

"I had help from my friends in the underground. Jerry Rubin gave me a job marketing his line of health shakes. I proofread Bobby Seale�s cookbook. And I ran credit checks at Tom Hayden�s Porsche dealership."

Confederate Conservatism.

OJ:

Listen to Goldberg and the others -- these guys aren't into "huggable conservatism."

You'd be giving them what they want.

Do all you people actually know each other? Like, in real life?

Matt:

If they could handle wives they wouldn't be libertarians to begin with.

OJ:

Think of it as a Jedi mind-trick -- get them subconsciously thinking about marriage and they'll be on our side before you know it.

Not until they grow up. What woman would give them the time of day?

Bret:

Sometimes it seems like we do, doesn't it? We've got quite a community here.

I've never met Orrin (I live in Nebraska and he lives in New Hampshire) but Peter B. has and he says OJ is his second-favorite member of the Judd family -- everyone else ties for first.

OJ:

Get them married and they'll grow up fast. The more self-indulgent varieties of libertarianism won't survive married life for long. Marriage is the exact opposite of self-atomizing individualism.

What woman would give them the time of day?

Surely there's a "Third Way" solution to this problem somewhere? Subsidization, perhaps? Think of the pitch:

"Marry a libertarian and you get this free state of Kansas Jello-mold!"

We'll work on the incentives later.

Matt:

Seen the movie Trekkies?

Borg Assimilative Konservation.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 23, 2005 8:29 PM

Families First Paramilitary Movement

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 23, 2005 8:31 PM

Rescue SpecOps

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 23, 2005 8:34 PM

OJ:

Nope. Should I?

Matt:

It's very funny. But the couples are frightening.

Empowerment Conservatism!

"Toughness and single minded devotion to making sure other people do their duty"

Linda (my wife) Conservatism or Nurse (her profession) Conservatism.

OJ:

There may be hope for libertarians. I'm not sure there's hope for Trekkies.

Actually, the Simpsons is the worlds first and only anti-communitarian sitcom. The social policy episodes basically follow this plot: Marge sees a social problem, she pushes the community to adopt a conservative remedy, it works perfectly and ushers in a golden age. Marge then realizes that the remedy is overly-fascist and drops it. The problem immediately recurs.

David Cohen:

Hmmm. So do you think of this as a good or a bad thing?

Communitarians? I hate those guys.

David Cohen:

Ah, but the conservative solutions -- being conservative -- do seem to work, no?

The episode where she tried to ban Itchy and Scratchy illustrates your thesis very well. Maggie, influenced by cartoon violence, attacks Homer. Marge starts a letter-writing campaign that forces I&S to cease violence and adopt wholesome fare. Maggie turns into a good girl, and the kids of Springfield do productive things instead of watching TV.

But a liberal psychiatrist throws the hypocrisy label at Marge because she supports censoring I&S, but not Michaelangelo's David. Marge backs down. Every kid in Springfield goes back to wasting their lives in front of the glass teat, and Maggie ends the episode by heaving a kitchen knife at a picture of Homer.

Gibson started the cyberpunk trend in SciFi, but the best cyberpunk novel was "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson. Gibson coined the term "cyberspace", Stephenson's term was the "metaverse". Here are some new entries:

CyberCons
MetaCons
VirtualCons - VirtuCons
SciFiCons
SimCons (refers to the "Sims" virtual world, which is a favorite place for all "comic book guy" types and also alludes to the Simpsons, a favorite show of all geeky males, single or married).

Comic Book Guy's voice is done by Hank Azaria, and he was inspired by a guy who lived in his dorm at college. Whenever he was perturbed by someone, he would announce "you are going on my list".

Decepticonservatism.

Liberal Conservatism.

Posted by: AllenS at September 24, 2005 6:40 AM

Allow me a late comment, for I was away most of the day, using my V-8 SUV to take my boat out

Compassionate conservativism is what John Paul II called "solidarity." Solidarity was his one-word description for his version a Catholic social and economic doctrine, as based on Sacred Scripture. Centesimus Annus spells it out, as does the Catechism. The Michael Novak book, The Caholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism lays it all out.

In a nutshell, the doctrine recognizes that technology makes superflous the all too many and the state must take a role in generating demand for labor.

As a practical political matter, both the social safety net and the generation of demand for labor are absolutely, necessary for it would not be reasonable to expect the all too many to approve of their own extermination to placate the Ayn Rand set.

Now no one seriously disputes this. What compassionate conservatism does is to cut loose social conservatism from the dead hand of pre-1929 economic ideology, which, as we have seen, are seeing and shall see, is a winning combination..

Matt: That's why the Communitarians are evil. They know that the conservative solutions will work and make everyone better off, but they always chicken out before imposing those solutions because they can't bear to be mean.

David:

They're conservatives who buckle to peer pressure.

Well, then they're evil because of whom they choose for peers.

David Cohen:

So the Simpsons is anti-communitarian in that it's not opposed to the solutions per se but rather the squishy types who implement them? And it's the same way with you?

That's what I was unclear on.

"Evil" seems excessive. Can't blame them for not wanting to sit alone at faculty functions.

BTW:

If Andrew Moore and ted welter could e-mail me I'll send your books.

Matt: The Simpsons is anti-communitarian for pointing out that conservative solutions work, and thus that it is silly not to be willing to pay that (minimal) price. Was Springfield really better off with all the kids vegging in front of their tvs, but theoretically able to go see David's penis (and don't think that wasn't strange to type) if their couch potato parents had bothered to drag them to a museum? For that matter, is their really a slippery slope between banning Itchy and Scratchy and Michaelangelo's David, or might conservatives, who don't shy from value judgments, be able to draw a distinction?

OJ: You're right. I was being hyperbolic. The whole point of communitarianism is that they can't matter enough to be evil.

David:

No, the whole point is that conservatism can co-opt them (and other Third Wayers of the Left) so long as we don't require them to acknowledge that they are conservatives. For instance, Welfare Reform was achieved because Bill Clinton and company could claim some credit for it.

Libertarians are a major voting bloc compared to communitarians, of whom there are approximately one.

The Court may be about to have one, which would make them a major voting bloc.

David Cohen:

Right. What's interesting is that conservatives, who are usually lampooned for supposedly only seeing black-and-white, are frequently the only people in today's p.c. world who are capable of drawing distictions. Most of us don't really think that prohibiting Girls Gone Wild ads during certain television hours will lead inexorably to the banning of Ulysees from public libraries.

I'll throw a bone to OJ here and note, however, that both products are essentially crap.

The whole point of communitarians is that they wish the state could impose conservative solutions, but that would be fascism. A communitarian on the Supreme Court would have a voting record indistinguishable from the liberals, except that she would regret it.

Conservative: The death penalty is constitutional.

Liberal: The death penalty is barbaric.

Communitarian: It's too bad that the death penalty is barbaric.

(By the way, which potential justice is communitarian?)

No, communitarians are like neocons in that they don't think that which they know to be morally proper should be imposed.

Mary Ann Glendon

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1007

Amatai Etzioni seems like such a sweet old guy though. Shame on you, David, for hating such a nice, nice old man.

OJ: I think you misunderstand the neocons, but that doesn't change the fact that the voting record of a communitarian would be indistinguishable from that of a liberal.

As for Glendon, she was never going to be the nominee anyway, but your review just puts the final nail in the coffin.

Neuhaus likes her and W likes Neuhaus.