I am a cautious progressive of conservative temperament, with neither "progressive" nor "conservative" being used in the current vernacular of our political climate. I am not progressive in the current political sense of the word. I do not favor the dread hand of state regulation, I do not believe that we can wave a magic wand and poof! everything will be better. I am not conservative in the current political sense of the word. I do not favor the dread hand of state military intervention, I do not believe that we can use a military application of a forward policy to meddle, to liberate, to force Qataris to become Kansans, or Afghans to become Arizonans.
I am progressive in that I believe in progress. I think we can make things better. Here I speak not only of things, but of ideas as well. Our things have gotten vastly better, in many ways. Our ideas? Not so much . . . but, in many ways, yes, better. I think that if we use faith and reason, two of God's greatest gifts, we can make progress. "We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . " and all that.
I am conservative in that I am afraid of making a misstep. I have had many ideas, some of them were quite good. Some of those quite good ideas? They were simply incompatible with reality. They didn't work. Great ideas put me in mind of Thomas Edison and the (soon-to-be-banned-by-federal-law) incandescent light bulb. How many times, again, did Edison come up with incandescent light bulbs that didn't work? Doesn't the number "ten thousand" stick in the mind?
What if our grand new ideas are wrong? (Whatever they are.)
Folk wisdom, I think, mostly comes down on my side. Yes, there is "he who hesitates is lost" but there is also "look before you leap" and the wonderful congruence between Anglo-American and Russian wisdom, expressed in the parlance of the building trades. The Anglo-American version, with which I grew up, is expressed as "measure twice, cut once." The Russian version is even more cautious: Отмерь семь раз, отреж один раз. Measure seven times, cut once.
The concept of federalism in the United States was, I think, a concept of allowing fifty little laboratories to try out different approaches to life. (Fifty today, of course, latterly many fewer.) Federalism would allow California to be California, and Maine to be Maine, Texas Texas, and so on. If Texas (for instance) came up with a good, workable plan, a new idea, a better way, a great leap forward, and it worked out, then perhaps Maine and California and those other states could watch its progress, learn from its mistakes, and adopt a similar but hopefully better policy. If Texas' policy was bad, however, or misguided, short sighted, or just plain stupid, the other states would not necessarily be forced to suffer through those policies. If California sneezed, the rest of the nation would not have to catch cold.
It seems to me that today we have cast not only federalism, but conservatism, indeed, caution itself, to the winds. In almost every sphere of life, we have overturned the verities of the past in favor of grand new ideas. We press on, hurly burly, seemingly convinced that no one in the past has grappled with the issues we now face, or, at least, never grappled with those issues with the insight, wisdom and moral clarity we bring to bear.
A belief in progress says we can change things for the better. A belief in conservatism asks the green eyeshade questions: what will this get us? what will this cost us? what could this get us? what could this cost us? what are we overlooking? (Note: those are all different questions.) Faith, you might say, and reason.
Hopefully without being reduced to a Hamlet-like level of incompetence, inactivity and indecision, one must ask "what if I'm wrong?"
What about, say, immigration? Do we want high levels of immigration into America? If so, what kind of immigrants do we want? If we were to bring, say, millions of low-skill Mexicans into our country, as indeed we seem to have done, what are the probable and potential upsides, and what are the probable and potential downsides?
(Note: while there is not always an upside, there is always a downside.)
What about, say, the invasion/liberation of Iraq? Do we want to become involved in a land war in Asia? (Even Southwest Asia?) What are the probable and potential upsides? What are the probable and potential downsides?
Did we measure seven times, or even twice, before we took up the saw and cut?
Some actions, once taken, cannot be undone. I remember the old saying, "When you draw your sword against the king, throw away the scabbard." "Crossing the Rubicon" has the same connotation: when you take your army across the Rubicon, you declare yourself in opposition to Rome, and you'd best throw away that scabbard.
When I was working construction many years ago, I cut a board, neat and clear, with a circle saw. It turns out that I cut it too short. The crew chief clapped me on the shoulder and told me to go and find the board stretcher. There is, of course, no such thing.
Measure seven times, cut once.
Oh, and the mass immigration thing, and the liberation of Iraq? How have those worked out for us? Has the upside we were promised come true, and even if it has, has the downside we were cautioned about come true as well? Have there been blowback, unintended consequences, unforeseen circumstances?
Perhaps the immigration example is not to your taste, nor the Iraq example. Gay marriage? Global warming, a la Kyoto? The Great Society, or welfare reform?
"And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire," indeed.
