Conservatives, Obama and Me.

Why do American conservatives insist on this worn link between Obama and Islam? It is clearly the case that he is not a Muslim, what else are they going to do? Fabricate some story of a family member being racist? Oh wait.

Roger Kimball, a conservative art critic and social commentator, referred to Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama” and, though I respect his art criticism and his engaging style (Tenured Radicals remains a much-loved book to me), it’s just a cheap shot. I’ve had this continual battle as to where we, as libertarians, stand. From my personal perspective in the past, I’ve taken the strains of thought from people like Leo Strauss or Allan Bloom to place me as more conservative-leaning.

The more I think about it, the more I feel I can draw a distinction between my reasons and the neo-conservatives’ for coming to the same conclusions. We both have a strong rejection of moral relativism, but the fact is that moral relativism is rejected by the majority of the world’s populace and most of them are not neo-cons and represent a variety of reason for doing so. My rejection of moral relativism pre-dates my reading Strauss or Bloom and lies on the simple fact that moral relativism is an epistemologically shaky doctrine that has, in the history of ideas, become more and more watered down as the attacks mount up.

I have a great deal of respect for educational theories and programmes associated with neo-cons (though have support for home schooling rights), but this is also for other reasons. It rests largely on the fact that liberals in the academy indoctrinate students to the extent that you get students who cannot get marks unless they write from a liberal perspective and liberals in academia exceed the conservatives in close-minded bile. I argue against conceptual art and popular culture, but this is not to advocate banning or restricting them as the neo-cons might. My conservative alignment with the Enlightenment is simply that I hold they form the basis for the very best Western Civilisation and humanity (rights theory being the height of this) have to offer and are the groundwork for an objective set of values, not merely a configuration of power. There is no real need to talk of the neo-con influence, because my ability to draw intellectually from them is no different from my ability to draw from any intellectual tradition.