http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/20/2006/2093by David Swanson
July 22, 2006
John Dean, former legal counsel to Richard Nixon, is 95% recovered from a long bout of conservatism, and he doubts that many others can make the same recovery, but I don't.
Dean's published two excellent books on the Bush-Cheney administration's abuses of power. The first was "Worse Than Watergate." The new one is "Conservatives Without Conscience." The title is a play on former Senator Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative," and Dean originally intended to co-write it with Goldwater.
In the new book, on pages 70 and 71, Dean lists in two columns the beliefs and characteristics of "Conservatives Without Conscience" and "Conservatives With Conscience". From my earliest memories, I have been disgusted by the very idea of conservatism, but – with the exception of one of the characteristics – I turn out to be a Conservative With Conscience. That is to say, a "Conservative With Conscience", as defined by Dean, turns out to be a progressive, a leftist, or even a – dare I say it? – liberal, or at least not in disagreement with those people.
If I were to list the characteristics of a progressive, I would add a number of things that are not in Dean's list, but I wouldn't need to change or remove the existing items. One almost gets the impression that Dean is clinging to the idea of an unshameful, non-destructive conservatism simply out of….well, conservatism. I say "almost", because there is an area in which Dean's thinking in this book clashes drastically with my own and with that of many on the left, an area in which he is still a conservative and an authoritarian. A "Conservative With Conscience" actually turns out to be a liberal without a movement, without populism, without any faith that masses of people can do anything to improve their lives...
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