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Add Murray Rothbard to the "Intellectuals" list[edit]

Add Rothbard to the Intellectuals list, OR replace Hoppe with Rothbard. Rothbard should be part of the "Intellectuals" list, if necessary replacing Hoppe. Rothbard was Hoppe's mentor and it is straightforward to prove that he has exerted much more intellectual and institutional relevance than Hoppe. If only one of the two were to be included in the intellectual's list, it's Rothbard. 189.93.247.59 (talk) 18:58, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree that if Hoppe is on the list, Rothbard belongs there too. OTOH, I could argue that neither of them belong as I more associate them with libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism--and specifically the Austrian school--than I do American conservatism. That said, libertarian conservatism is under the "schools" section of this template, so it's not a stretch. There was an earlier discussion on this page about bloat, so we might be in one or the other territory, but I have only passing familiarity with either of them--not enough to choose.
TL;DR: I think this change requires consensus to make, and technically I should close the request on that basis. But I'll leave it open for a bit to attract other opinions. Xan747 (talk) 19:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Xan747 is absolutely right that Rothbard is a libertarian, not a conservative. The most prominent American conservative intellectual, Russell Kirk, drew clear distinctions between the two ideologies in Libertarians: Chirping Sectaries (1981):

"What else do conservatives and libertarians profess in common? The answer to that question is simple: nothing. Nor will they ever. To talk of forming a league or coalition between these two is like advocating a union of ice and fire."
"Conservatives have no intention of compromising with socialists, but even such an alliance, ridiculous though it would be, is more conceivable than the coalition of conservatives and libertarians."
"When heaven and earth have passed away, perhaps the conservative mind and the libertarian mind may be joined in synthesis, but not until then."

Hoppe, however, is a classical conservative on many issues: he preaches family values, speaks of a "natural aristocracy," thinks monarchism is superior to majoritarianism, criticizes postmodern liberal norms etc. And unlike Rothbard, he was influenced by conservative philosophers such as Karl Ludwig von Haller and Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. Trakking (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, do not add. Rothbard represents the very essence of Libertarianism in the United States (and worldwide). There already exists a perfectly good info-box template (Libertarianism in the US) for people like Rothbard and his friends. We should be taking steps to separate Libertarianism from Conservatism however we can, rather than mixing them up. Yes, there is some (perhaps in some cases, a good bit) of overlap (here and there). I can understand the appeal of Rothbard as being somehow conservative, but he is not really at all what is considered conservative for the United States. Rather than facilitating mixing up political philosophies to the point that there are only two polar opposites (Liberalism and Conservatism) we should be trying to separate out different political philosophies as much as we can. Separating the philosophies serves the encyclopedic readership much more so than fixing everything and everyone into only two polar opposite philosophies. In my view, there is already a good bit of philosophical mixup already within the this template (Conservatism in the US). Adding Rothbard to this template is like adding Adolf Hitler to this template as an intellectual. Using this add-Rothbard thinking, since Adolf Hitler shared one or two points with conservatism (like an element of nationalism), he should therefore be added to the conservatism (in the US) template. That is ridiculous thinking. Yes, conservatism already has a -- so-called -- school of libertarianism within it. But totally conflating all of Libertarianism with Conservatism (by including the central figure of Libertarianism into Conservatism) is over-the-top counterproductive to readership understanding of the different philosophies. Rothbard is already in the template Libertarianism in the US. That is where he belongs and I think that is where he should exclusively stay. --L.Smithfield (talk) 21:13, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Not done: Closing request on the basis there are objections, which precludes the edit request process. A consensus or compromise will be needed to implement this material. —Sirdog (talk) 12:22, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 7 October 2023[edit]

“Add Supreme Court Justice Pierce Butler To The List Of Jurists” 24.179.241.58 (talk) 00:43, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done by GreenLoeb. Thanks, all. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 01:56, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Jurist"[edit]

It's apparently "controversial" to say Leonard Leo, a man who has never tried a case or sat on a bench, is accurately described as a "jurist" and trying to find a broader term like "legal movement" is something worth reverting. Therequiembellishere (talk) 23:17, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And Ed Meese described as a "jurist"?? Honestly think he'd be surprised by that. Therequiembellishere (talk) 23:18, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A jurist is an expert at law, a person who is educated in law. What makes you believe these people do not qualify for the term? Trakking (talk) 04:15, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Movement conservatism pushing a political agenda through the court system is not legal expertise or scholarship, and it's insulting to legal scholarship to say it is. Therequiembellishere (talk) 13:35, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"A person educated in the law" is every lawyer ever. Every lawyer is decidedly not a jurist. Therequiembellishere (talk) 13:36, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

why not fuentes?[edit]

just asking because i intend to add him StrongALPHA (talk) 12:14, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fuentes is a very fringe person. He does not sympathize with American conservatism. Trakking (talk) 12:21, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of Jackson Hinkle[edit]

Now another person has added 24-year-old Jackson Hinkle, who is described as a communist pro-Russian troll in his article. (I will assume it is not one user making this addition with a sock puppet.) I am not allowed to revert more than once. @GreenLoeb: Could you please make the reversion? Trakking (talk) 11:00, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to help, I have reverted this addition, which to me seems disingenuous and nonconstructive. GreenLoeb (talk) 17:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What happened to WP:AFG? I even checked the last page of edits in case he had already been added. There was no mention as @Trakking failed to reference the individual removed, given that StrongALPHA didn't provide follow WP:FIES which wasn't really factored into WP:REVEXP. The reason I added him is because I added the template to his page [1], because he's an AC so it makes sense to have this.
StrongALPHA hasn't made a single edit on the Hinkle page, so not sure where that came from either. [2]
As for Hinkle, sure he has crank-politics, but is otherwise an American conservative with them, but I do understand if he remains too obscure for now given he only reached notability in the past month or so. I'll leave it at that, maybe someone else will bring it up another time if he continues to gain notability. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 01:01, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have made several edits on the Jackson Hinkle page, but not very many. StrongALPHA (talk) 08:02, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Add to "intellectuals" section?[edit]

Biohistorian15 (talk) 14:56, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am fine with some of your latest reversions, but Repplier is simply too obscure, and Dreher is already included in the Commentator section. Please remove those two from the Intellectual section. Trakking (talk) 16:24, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm opposed to basically all of these. Counting them as intellectuals reduces the word "intellectual" to complete meaninglessness (although maybe doing such a thing is characteristically American; as a people we have never known how to distinguish thought from a sales pitch). My objections:
- Hazlitt is a newspaper publisher; his claim to fame is Economics in One Lesson. He's better understood as a libertarian, and maybe an economist (though I think that title vastly overestimates the cogency of Economics in One Lesson as anything more than bad propaganda for the simpleminded). If he's to be included here, I would put him under activist.
- Meese is primarily a politician. Whatever intellectual contributions he made were minimal. Same goes for Lodge.
- Podhoretz is notable as a commentator. Counting him as an intellectual would do violence to a category that ought to be reserved for thinkers like Harvey Mansfield, Leo Strauss, and so on. The same goes for George Will.
- I am not even sure why Crichton has been suggested, except maybe that he was a climate change skeptic and that George Bush liked his novels. He is a writer of NYT Bestseller pop-fiction, not a thinker, and he should not be included in any categories. The other people you list are already included where they should be.
I'm not really sure that Timothy Cardinal Dolan is important enough to merit inclusion, but I'm fine with keeping him. I would personally put Bozell under commentators, but can see a case being made for intellectuals. GreenLoeb (talk) 18:45, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 30 May 2024[edit]

Request to add Hispanic and Latino conservatism in the United States under the category "Movements" and Anti-Islamism under the category "Principles".

129.126.202.49 (talk) 11:35, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done for now: Please clarify why this change is needed. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 11:43, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Hispanic and Latino" added. But most of the world is firmly anti-Islamist, which makes the term rather vacuous. Trakking (talk) 12:31, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add Elon Musk?[edit]

Musk, however, may neither perfectly fit in the category of "activists" (in lack of special philanthropy outside of demographics research...) nor the "commentators" one (as Twitter otherwise doesn't suffice either...)

Proposed course of action: add him to both sections (major public figure after all...)

Biohistorian15 (talk) 01:19, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Compact (American magazine)[edit]

It feels a bit oversimplistic to include this magazine in this list, given the sort of eclectic makeup of its founders and contributors. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 05:12, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Its eclecticism is no argument against its inclusion, but rather a feature of the post 2016 right, which has seen broad interest between opponents of liberalism both right and left in collaborating. Most of Compact’s contributors are right coded, two of their three founders are solidly on the right (and the third founder left in a storm of dissatisfaction because Compact took an editorial line against abortion), and the skepticism of the market that the Compact set embodies is quite frankly where the American right is (thankfully) headed. You can find the exact same eclecticism in American Affairs (indeed, many people who publish in the one are published in the other), which no one has objected to including. GreenLoeb (talk) 11:35, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like we're bridging too far into WP:OR in that analysis. Our personal analysis of who is "right coded" can't be the basis for including a particular periodical in this sidebar, nor can our personal comparison of X periodical to American Affairs be the justification for inclusion here. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:40, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not making a “personal comparison”; objectively, both AA and Compact regularly have the same authors. That Compact publishes some Marxists who are allied with the right in the culture war no more makes it irrelevant to this template than does the fact that WSJ publishes pro-homosexual and pro-abortion opinions, or that The Dispatch endorses and drums up support for liberal Democrats. In any case, I would be curious to hear @Trakking’s thoughts, as well as @Biohistorian15, as both are, like me, regular and long-standing contributors to the template. GreenLoeb (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some authors published in Compact: Christopher Caldwell (Claremont Institute), Matthew Schmitz (First Things and The American Conservative), Sohrab Ahmari (NY Post), Nathan Pinkoski, Timothy Cardinal Dolan (conservative bishop), Darrel Paul, Dan Hitchens (son of Peter and editor at First Things), John Milbank (progenitor of radical orthodox theology), Dan McCarthy (ISI), Ryszard Legutko (prominent Polish conservative), Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley (US Senator) and Peter Hitchens.
Recent articles have criticized gender ideology and transgender genital mutilation of children, endorsed Trump’s bloodbath comments, criticized EU attempts to suppress right wingers, criticized pandemic social control methods and the biomedical security state, spoken well of Josh Hawley, criticized the crackdown on religious schools by administrative state equity czars, positively reappraised Intelligent Design, spoken well of European right wing populist victories in the EU elections and in Portugal and Spain, heaped disdain on the idea of “white rural rage,” called for immigration restriction, criticized the lawfare being waged against Donald Trump, called for ending support to Ukraine, called for banning pornography, and published an eviscerating review of Judith Butler’s latest book. GreenLoeb (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As explained by GreenLoeb, this magazine predominantly expresses cultural and national forms of conservatism. I am in favor of readding it to the template. Trakking (talk) 21:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with @GreenLoeb as well. Good call. Biohistorian15 (talk) 07:36, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On some recent additions[edit]

I made some recent additions that were partially reverted. Here I'm including my rationale for each:

Mel Bradford: Bradford was an important paleoconservative scholar. In 1980, he was tapped by Reagan to chair the National Endowment for the Humanities. Bradford's nomination was fiercely opposed by neoconservatives in Reagan's circles due to Bradford being in many ways a defender of the Confederacy and the antebellum South, causing Reagan to eventually withdraw his support for Bradford's nomination. This event is to this day seen by many paleocons as a definitive "stab-in-the-back" moment which ignited the feud between paleos and neos, the "original sin" of the Reagan administration against traditional conservatism, and was widely decried by other prominent conservatives on Bradford's side, like Kirk and Buchanan. Besides the importance of this event, Bradford himself made interesting contributions to conservative theory through his novel interpretation of the Declaration of Independence (he interpreted Jefferson as a fundamentally conservative thinker, reading "men" in "All men are created equal" to mean not an equality between individuals but rather between peoples), and made a staunch defense of the Anti-Federalist tradition in conservative thought. I think his inclusion is important also to give balance to the list; paleocons are underrepresented, as are Southerners. To a non-US reader this may not seem important, but the American South forms basically a distinct nation within the nation, with its own folkways, traditions, patterns of life and thought, and these are often in some degree of tension with the broader US. It is a representative of an older, more aristocratic and European order.

Willmoore Kendall: I think this should be the least controversial. Kendall was a founder of National Review, the most important organ in the history of the American conservative movement. He strongly influenced his students and fellow NR cofounders Bill Buckley and L. Brent Bozell. He articulated a distinctly democratic conservatism highly influenced by a conservative reading of Jefferson which privileged the position of land and place over numerical majoritarianism. And he has an entire chapter devoted to him in George H. Nash's "Conservative Intellectual Movement in the United States since 1945," widely considered the standard and still definitive history of the conservative movement in academic historiography.

R. R. Reno: This might be a recency bias, but he is the editor of First Things and has been for well over a decade. FT is the leading journal of the religious right in America. Reno has not been a mere suit, but has indeed shifted FT's editorial line away from the magazine's traditional neoconservatism and towards national conservatism / populism. He has spoken at all of the National Conservatism conferences, he has written a well-received book ("The Return of the Strong Gods") which explains and defends the rise of national conservatism in the past decade, and he sits on the boards of FT and American Affairs. In any case, he certainly seems more deserving of inclusion in the commentators list than, for example, Brandon Tatum.

Let me know what you think. Feel free to also ask me about any other additions, I'd be happy to provide my reasoning for any of them. Thanks! GreenLoeb (talk) 22:33, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would be curious to hear what you think, @Trakking, since you reverted these originally. I wouldn't want to revert your reversion without a discussion, as you do a lot to keep these templates in order. Please do let me know your thoughts. GreenLoeb (talk) 07:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for presenting the rationale behind your additions. Biohistorian is making many interesting edits, but he often makes the mistake of adding non-conservatives such as libertarians or fascists. The three additions above are true conservatives without a doubt, as you've demonstrated. Yet, I would prefer not readding them since they seem only moderately important; they're not major figures like most of the other people on the list. If you want, we could make a compromise: you readd the one or two you deem most important to the movement—and we leave out the other(s). The risk of bloat has been raised several times here in Talk, and we should only add the people who are most relevant. Trakking (talk) 20:48, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a fair point. Bradford and Reno can certainly be left out. I do think Kendall should be added, given that he helped found NR, was the teacher of Buckley and Bozell, and is documented as a major thinker in Nash's definitive history of the movement, so I will re-add him. GreenLoeb (talk) 21:07, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Trimming down the politicians section[edit]

I think we've done a lot of good work over the past couple years to make this template one of the best politics templates on Wikipedia; it is in any case in far better shape than the US liberalism template. But I still think the politicians section is plagued by bloat, and recency bias. I would think that, to be included on the pols list, one would need to have been a major US conservative politician who is widely agreed to have had a significant impact either on the nation or on the conservative movement. Some of the current choices do not, to me, appear to meet this: Steve Forbes (a never-elected and twice-failed Republican presidential candidate who was more a libertarian Republican than a stalwart conservative), Masters (I campaigned for him and think he's a genuine conservative, but he has never won any office and has disappeared from public life since his last election bid), McDonald (a conservative no doubt and even a Bircher, but I'm not sure he's notable enough for inclusion), and Dan Quayle (a faintly remembered one term VP from thirty years ago), to name but a few.

There are also plenty on here who are currently in office but their significance is not really determinable. Haley, the two Scotts, Scalise, Kevin McCarthy, Mark Meadows, Mike Johnson, Liz Cheney. I'm fine with keeping these so long as they hold office or remain relevant public figures, but we need to be sure they are duly removed once they lose relevance.

I have gone ahead and removed a few who I see no argument for keeping, like Kevin McCarthy (he is no longer in Congress), Masters, and Forbes. But let me know what you think. Perhaps the best route is common sense, or perhaps we wish to hammer out a way of determining relevance for inclusion more strictly. GreenLoeb (talk) 18:50, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great initiative; I support it. Yes, we should not commit the error of WP:RECENTISM. I have also been wondering whether we should purge the list of more moderate centrists. What do you think of this suggestion? Trakking (talk) 20:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree fully when it comes to purging more moderate centrists. Looking at the list now, I think the following should be struck: Liz Cheney (mostly notable for being an anti-Trump darling of the liberal media, she is widely not seen as a conservative and she is not in the Congress any longer), Nikki Haley (neoconservative in foreign policy but otherwise a centrist, though I'm willing to keep her until her failed 2024 presidential bid is further in the past), Abbott and DeSantis (both conservatives who I have positive feelings about, but again, recentism), the two Scotts (no reason to include them rather than any other currently sitting US senators), Cantor (not a major figure historically and he has been out of the Congress for a decade at this point), Graham (again, recentism), Huckabee (recentism of a sort; he is not a relevant figure today, and is mostly here as a holdover from his brief period of popularity a decade ago), Mike Johnson (recentism), Meadows (recentism), Quayle (not a major figure historically), Scalise (recentism), and Sessions (not notable as a senator, and he is better included already in jurists).
I lean towards purging Romney, given that he is a centrist moderate, though I can see an argument for keeping him since he branded himself a conservative during the 2012 elections. I've left a few figures who are more recent but who I think have enough importance to merit staying, like Rubio and Hawley. Happy to provide justification for that decision if asked.
I also would say we should consider removing a few historical figures who predate the conservative/liberal divide in American politics. Including a figure like Calhoun or Hamilton makes sense, as they had a huge effect on the development of conservative thought decades later and they remain noted parts of the conservative heritage, but Fillmore, Cleveland, and Tilden are not really figures who get widely touted by any major conservative thinkers from the 1920s on (the American conservative movement largely being a product of that time period). GreenLoeb (talk) 21:19, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Although as an uninvolved Brit I cringe a bit at the notion of "purging" centrists and moderates - if they have left some sort of Conservative legacy then their place should be assured, regardless of whether US Conservatism has shifted since then - Moderate Conservatism is still Conservatism. But yes, there are some such as Liz Cheney who notably opposed more recent Republican leadership but are not going to be lauded as key Conservative politicians in 30 years like Adams or Nixon.
I would also hazard that should US Politics continue to polarise then it may be necessary to develop a new Fascism US template. With hindsight, some individuals here may end up there, which would thin the more extreme end of this template (subject to WP:LAGGING of course).
I would welcome the removal of some WP:RECENTISM inclusions. For instance Ramaswamy is included in Politicians despite never being elected to any political office and having withdrawn his candidacy. Similarly Haley has actually held office (elected and appointed) but only became widely known as a result of her Presidential campaign and is unlikely to stand the test of time in a list with notables like Hamilton and Reagan. Including this cycle's candidates who didn't make it onto the ballot seems to fall foul of RECENTISM. Hemmers (talk) 09:40, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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