I know Avo is of the opinion that any op-ed which uses television to make a point turns the argument into farce; however, Albrechtson is arguing for a permanent state of exception and directly repudiating liberalism.

Since marxism collapsed as a political and economic competitor to liberalism in the 1980s, conservatism has arisen as the new doctrine of governance to challenge liberal and republican forms of democratic governance. Liberal republicanism being a system predisposed to maximum liberty and with government balanced by three equal branches who act as checks and balances on each other.

Modern conservatism espouses government by exception, this is where the executive is elevated above the legislative and judicial and can act without checks or balances in the name of emergency. This is the closest thing we have to organised tyranny in a liberal democratic system.

Because the executive can act independently it becomes free of the rule of law, free from constitutional checks and balances, and free to act arbitrarily. The conservative conceit is that the executive philosopher kings will act in good faith to solve the emergency (usually national security concerns) and like cincinnatus give back the constitution in a time of non-emergency.

This a fallacy as new enemies are constantly being fabricated at home and abroad. A good example of emergency governance is in Washington DC - a local council - that uses all manner of emergency legislation to get past public oversight, regulations and even get to meetings on time. Permanent emergency has become a style of governance which Australia is not immune to.

Republicans, liberals, progressives and libertarians are going to have to be aware that this form of governance breaks the very components of liberal democracy. Modern conservatism and liberal democracy cannot co-exist they are different forms of government. Once a government goes into a state of exception, it is no longer liberal democracy - it is a new form of governance.

Nationalists need to be aware that this form of conservative governance affects them as well. Citizenship is not the protection from state discrimination any more. The executive is free to define the 'enemy' that requires the exception, and as Hicks shows, citizenship has no bearing on determining who the state will choose to isolate into a legal never-world.

I am not saying that conservatism is the enemy. I am saying that it is an inefficient form of governance that directly repudiates and trashes the liberal republican/democratic principles. As a system of government, republicanism and conservatism cannot co-exist.

Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments
  • avocadia . # .
    Moral relativism to the rescue:

    Like any good Democrat, Jed is troubled. Let\'s bring him to court, he says. Can\'t happen, responds Leo McGarry, the tough-minded chief of staff. He tells the president: \"This is the most devastating part of your liberalism. There are no absolutes.\"

    I believe an important part of the rhetorical tool chest of any writer is the ability to spot a contradiction.

    \"Can\'t happen\"...why, that appears to be some kind of absolute position, one that affirms that in absolutely - ooh, there\'s that word - no way can he - an ambassador, if you must know - be brought to court. And then somehow, in the next sentence, ooh, that filthy liberalism says it has no absolutes.

    A reader somewhat less dismissive of an already farcical might point out that in this case it is the pro-assassination argument and what it represents that lacks any absolutes. No longer can the citizens of the US, or the resident ambassadors rely on the absolutes of the law. No. Now they are subject to the whims of President Jed  Bartlett. Moral relativism to the rescue!!
  • avocadia . # .
    Ambassador: Minister. Ambassador? Meh, either way there are still laws against the assassination of them.
  • adam . # .
    I think the conservative label is misleading: Bush, after all, is happily tearing into two hundred year old constitutional guarantees. I think the idealisation of the Executive is close to the heart of it.
  • cam . # .
    I dont think so: the old style conservatism, Burke, or Goldwater, has been absorbed by liberalism, what is left is a Schmitt style of conservatism that is internally conflicted and incoherent; with no genuine answer to liberalism. Modern conservatism is in the model of Carl Schmitt.

    cam