Conservatism reconsidered. (The Last Word).

Conservatism in America has reached a defining moment in its history. The political party with which it is associated is firmly entrenched in the halls of power. The White House is occupied by a Republican president who enjoys widespread support among the American people. The Republican Party holds a majority in both houses of Congress.

Nevertheless, at the moment of what appears to be its triumph, American conservatism is undergoing an identity crisis. Those conservatives holding the reins of power advocate and execute proposals and plans that traditionalists would have opposed until recently. The Bush White House, for instance, has advocated massive federal outlays for developing alternative fuel vehicles, has overseen the creation of a bloated new bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security, and, despite favoring tax cuts, has presided over the continued growth of government spending. Indeed, the current crop of supposedly conservative Republicans has so abandoned traditional conservative values that liberal Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel could write of their economic policies that "the Republicans have become the party of fiscal irresponsibility, trade restriction, big government, and failing-grade microeconomics."

To understand this phenomenon requires reexamining the definition of conservatism. This is no simple task. As Whig lawyer and orator Rufus Choate once said, "too many minds have been trying to 'conserve' too many things for too many reasons." Still, conservatism is best understood by looking to the object, structure, or institution to be conserved. In the case of the current crop of conservatives, their actions clearly indicate that rather than working to preserve personal liberty, they are attempting to conserve and consolidate governmental power--both at the national and international level.

On the international level, the Bush administration's advocacy of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) fits this pattern. On April 21, 2001, at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec, President Bush said, "We know from NAFTA [precursor to the proposed FTAA] that open trade works.... The time has come to extend the benefits of free trade to all our peoples and to achieve a free trade agreement for the entire hemisphere." Free trade is an issue close to the heart of many traditional conservatives. Unfortunately, few realize that NAFTA/FTAA has little to do with free trade. In remarks on May 16, 2002 in Madrid, Mexican President Vicente Fox revealed the FTAA's real purpose. "Eventually," he said, "our long-range objective is to establish with the United States, hut also with Canada, our other regional ...