Katrina and the New (Old) Conservatism

Brian Tamanaha takes note of conservatives' post-Katrina embrace of aggressive government action in securing the citizenry's health and welfare, and bolsters the understanding of conservatism as more than a "don't tax me" mindset with extensive quotes from the work of Friedrich Hayek.  Tamanaha concludes that Hayek:

identifies a minimum baseline of shared expectations from government that conservatives and liberals can agree upon as a starting point. Today the conservative dominated government is not meeting this minimum. Never mind disaster relief, what about the millions and millions of Americans without health insurance?

The irony of Bush's "compassionate conservatism" slogan is that its mere formulation is a reminder of how cold conservatism has become. Former conservatives, before conservatism was captured by ideological extremists, built compassion into their conservative ideas, so adding the word would have seemed redundant to them. Hayek constantly referred to the primacy of the general welfare, which his conservative doctrines were designed to serve.

In Hayek--one of the most important conservatives of the 20th Century--conservatives might find a guide for the new (old) conservative view of government.

Read the whole thing here.