Where have the “real” conservatives all gone?
Arne Kildegaard and I are using Lawrence Lessig’s Free culture as one of the texts in our Open Source/Network Economics course this semester. Last time (two years ago), we used his Future of ideas, which worked out quite nicely, so I’m optimistic about Free culture. (It’s also cool because it’s freely available on-line under a Creative Commons license.)
In Free culture’s preface, Lessig quotes William Safire writing about his experience protesting in 2003 against proposed FCC changes to relax limits on media concentration:
Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of power — political, corporate, media, cultural — should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy.
Whoo, yah! I don’t often feel like quoting Safire with enthusiasm, but I’m all with him this time.
So where the hell are the conservatives who ought to enthusiastically object to the many types of power concentration currently being supported with all too much enthusiasm in Washington? They only have themselves to blame if they fail to oppose this wretched hijacking of the Grand Old Party by fundamentalistic religious zealots who are all about concentration of power as long as it’s the “right” kind of power (i.e., concentration to them). This is at its core an undemocratic trend and should be vigorously opposed all across the political spectrum.
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January 23rd, 2006 at 03:11
If you’re having your students read “Free Culture”, why not let them know about FreeCulture.org, the student movement for free culture? :-) We only started about a year and a half ago, but we’ve already got 25 chapters around the country and we’d love to have one wherever you’re teaching… apparently at the University of Minnesota Morris? Cultural participation and digital rights are worth fighting for ^_^