The distinction the conservative would make is that liberal guilt tends to be collective whereas conservative guilt is individual. Ergo, a conservative really doesn't see the need to redress problems that he or she didn't contribute to.

Of course, if your notion of reality tends to be so fragmented that you begin describing society as an abstraction, that's entirely understandable. What isn't understandable is this constant back-and-forth movement from hyperindividualism to rigid social mores. Conservatives themselves don't know because they won't even acknowledge the inherent tension between the person and the group.

Republicans weren't the party of slavery or Jim Crow, that was the Democrats. So, they have nothing to be sorry for or apologize over.

No, they weren't.

However, Republicans are -- not were, are -- the party of racial polarization and minority vote suppression. Among the party's continuing high priorities is decreasing minority turnout and as much as humanly possible, eligibility. That's not even to speak about the party's other legislative behaviors aimed primarily at minorities.

So, yes, the GOP has no business apologizing for its behavior in the '50s, bad (cough, HUAC, cough) though that behavior was at the time. The GOP first has to confront its current behavior and reform itself.

Only after correcting current misdeeds does the schedule turn to apology.

joe, joe, joe. you're behind on your talking points! Republicans are not the same thing as Conservatives as of last week!

I think the problem with guilt - liberal or otherwise - is that it's a not especially useful emotion. And, by extension, "feeling guilty" makes a great substitute for, you know, actually doing anything. We are a nation that spends an inordinate amount of time, in our culture, figuring out issues of blame and guilt that are often quite beside the point. "Liberal guilt" for racism, or slavery, or such, doesn't actually do anything about them. And saying, as is noted above, that liberals, and no one else, should feel guilty, misses a great deal about our history as a nation. Slavery leaves such an ugly stain on our society and our cultural life because no one, really, is untouched, even more than 100 years since the Civil War. That's what underlines the whole "conversation on race" discussion we don't have, even as we contemplate the Presidency of Barack Obama. We don't talk about race because it's difficult, and uncomfortable, and these questions of guilt and blame linger in ways we can't ever really solve. What we need to do, really, is actually integrate our society, our culture, our lives. If guilt will get you to do that, then by all means, apply liberal guilt, er, liberally. But for me, it's not guilt that gets me moving. Ever.

It's not about guilt. The problem with any real understanding of history, which is what I suspect is the point of this exercise over "conservative guilt," is that one is forced to understand what's happened or else be doomed to repeat it.

Guilt over Vietnam would mean that liberals were right, and that in turn, means that liberal idealogy maybe right. That can't happen. We can only be right decades after the fact when it becomes societal orthodoxy. Ie, that racism is now perceived of as wrong doesn't mean that it was always perceived of as wrong. But, we can't bring that up because- well- again, it means the conservative idealogical perspective is wrong, doesn't it?

Modern conservatism thrives on pretending history, such as how they construct their argument, is not essentially repeating itself (ie, gay marriage arguments absolutely nothing all to do with their arguments over marriage between the races, and how dare you even suggest such a thing). To admit liberalism has actually done some good- that's heresy. Afterall, if you discussed Jim Crow, you must also discuss how liberals were right. If you discuss how gay marriage is analogous to marriage between the races then you link their role in once again (rather than just now) being the force holding society back in a bad way.

In other words, you aren't asking them to feel guilty. You asking them to admit they screwed up, and were wrong. That their idealogical perspective is flawed.

Oh, OT- but weboy- you are becoming as derranged as other Clinton supporters. How is this diary about Obama or Clinton? You know they are only the center if you require them to be.

Guilt over Vietnam would mean that liberals were right, and that in turn, means that liberal idealogy maybe right.

Well...it would mean that the leftists were right, or the progressives... The liberals started the wicked fucker and prosecuted it at its maximum intensity.

I think the problem with guilt - liberal or otherwise - is that it's a not especially useful emotion.

Mothers around the world disagree!

If one is driven to sit around smoking pot and feeling sad over guilt, then guilt isn't useful. However, if guilt makes people want to change things, then it is useful. War guilt in Germany has helped make Germany a much more tolerant place than it was not too long ago. Emotions by themselves have little value. The value comes in what those emotions help drive you to do.

Reality Man adds the element I left out. What would be those actions, if not progressive in nature? How could one remain a conservative as Americans define it without all the denial?

to follow up on weboy's comment look at what liberal guilt has got the black community. Housing projects, welfare, inner city schools, and inadequate and poorly designed programs like food stamps. If Liberals felt any more guilt for slavery and racism they would have killed off the african american population by now.

Give a man a fish, even if out of guilt, he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. As long as Democrats can confuse minority populations with the fish line and voting like they will continue to do so. Taking credit for their humility in enslaving generations to poverty and failure is just a sick progressive character flaw.

Give a fish a man and he'll eat for weeks!

Actually, contemporary conservatives have learned a lot from Buckley. He never apologized in any meaningful way. He also didn’t just write one pro-Jim Crow editorial. He wrote reams of material on Jim Crow – in which he made it abundantly clear he considered blacks inferior to whites. A couple decades later – after he and his acolytes had been thoroughly beaten by far better people on this topic – he issued a false apology which was nothing more than rhetorical sleight-of-hand. What he pretended was he had always supported equality, but he had chosen the incorrect mechanism to bring equality about.
How is that any different then the VDH’s of the world saying they were right about Iraq, but some of the mechanisms chosen may have been wrong. Sounds to me like they learned quite well.
Hell, anyone who has been on Bush’s side from the start has had to play these games for years now.

I do not think that guilt is the problem it is relative guilt. Some see the evil of slavery in a universal thing that by giving such power of others to someone will result in cruelty. That blacks and whites are equally guilty because had blacks been that much more powerful than whites that they would probably have done the same thing.

I think the lack of conservative guilt goes to the hart of what it means to be a conservative.

This is something I struggled with in my undergrad days when I was trying to define myself. I consider myself a liberal progressive, but unions make bile rise in my throat, Obama's NAFTAgate and ethanol quotas position really dissapoint me, I'm a free trader, I'm against insurance mandates, the list goes on. I once spoke at a pre-WTO protest event and told everyone they didn't know what they were talking about.

So I was confused about my identity; until I finally worked it out.

Conservatives are defined by a lack of empathy. Not caring about other people is what it means to be a conservative.

This is partially justified by denying reality. Conservatives can't deal with the cognative disonnace, so they do things like claim the bible tells them to hate gays, or that Iraq has WMD or that lowering the gas tax is actually a good policy.

When you're unwilling to acknowledge central aspects of yourself, you become a chronic liar to cover up for it. This is where conservatives are today.

Walt says: "The distinction the conservative would make is that liberal guilt tends to be collective whereas conservative guilt is individual. Ergo, a conservative really doesn't see the need to redress problems that he or she didn't contribute to."

But conservatives who pushed for the Iraq war, and who admit today that it was and is a disaster, feel no guilt and at best engage in fingerpointing. Even though their responsibility was an individual one.

Admitting individual guilt is a difficult thing for anyone. As regards the admission of collective guilt, conservatives find that much more difficult than liberals, because unlike liberals, they haven't discovered a mechanism to derive satisfaction from it. Liberals feel proud when they admit a collective wrong: it proves they've gotten better. It is part and parcel of being progressive. Conservatives by contrast don't adhere to the idea of ethical progress and so cannot disassociate themselves from the crimes of a glorified past.

People don't like to feel guilt, particularly over actions they didn't directly commit.

That's a revealing formulation. I myself don't feel guilt over actions I didn't commit, because there is no reason to. You appear to allow for guilt arising from indirect culpability. The notion that I should espouse a politics that seeks to make me -- the product of an Italian immigrant and Jews who fled the pogroms -- indirectly responsible for Jim Crow and similar crimes is offensive without the help of conservative legerdemain.

except you do live in this society, and you are more than willing to benefit from the fruits of Jim Crow and every other bit of past and present discrimination, but all the while pretending you are not a part of the system- when it suits you. All the benefits, none of the obligations. That maybe liberty and freedom in some loose sense of the word. That's the defining aspect of conservatism.

Sorry, I'm not a part of your "system" in which the racist deus ex machina shakes the snow globe and opportunities just fall off the tree for me. You know nothing about me and apparently nothing about how the real world works. And you have a rather circumscribed sense of historical justice.

If you live in the US and are partakng of living here, then you are by definition a part of the American system. Your kind of stupid is part of the reason why this country is being run into the ground. I don't give a shit about historical justice. I am talking about now. The only reason history matters is that you live off of the backs of those who came before you. Again, just the reality of you living in this society. I don't give a shit whether you can handle that reality or not. Your denial doesn't change the fact you are still living off of living in the US, and therefore take the budens with the benefits. The constant whine about "it's not my fault" is just so much misdirection. You are in a country of millions. Not a country of yourself. When you form the country of John Paul then you may have a point.

" the racist deus ex machina shakes the snow globe and opportunities just fall off the tree for me."

That is a gloriously mixed metaphor. Realistically speaking, your parents would have had to be almost ridiculously inept or unlucky not to benefit at least a little from the numerous special privileges conferred on those who at least eventually came to be viewed as white, etc.

But what I meant to say: so, do you feel pride over historical American achievements besides those that you or your family were directly involved in?

"So I was confused about my identity; until I finally worked it out.

Conservatives are defined by a lack of empathy. Not caring about other people is what it means to be a conservative."

I'd say you've got quite a bit more learning to do if that's your conclusion.

The argument is that I should feel guilty about something I had nothing to do with, and thus I owe something to somebody else who had nothing to do with it either. It is a shakedown scheme. Race-based extortion.

If there is any sleight of hand here it is coming from the snake-oil salesmen trying to sell this race-based guilt-trip. The inversions and lectures are very craftily phrased, but it is essentially an after-the-fact rationalization for what has been codified and practiced now for decades.

Sorry, I already gave at the IRS, school, mortgage, and insurance company. I would like to stop the anti-White race-based extortion rather than continue or expand it.

By the by, please explain why anyone should be more upset about a Jim Crow regime that no longer exists than about the Screw Whitey regime we have right now.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, guilt is useless, because it is an emotion felt in relation to something about which you can, practically speaking, do nothing. Far more valuable, to my way of thinking, is shame, which is felt in relation to something about which you can take action. If you feel shame at enjoying riches you have not earned, do something about it. If you feel that we have a "Screw Whitey regime" right now, you are probably either incapable of feeling shame or seriously deficient in the ability to observe facts and draw rational conclusions from them.

So you support the "Screw Whitey" regime. Who are you to judge me? You know nothing of my life. Which riches haven't I earned? What kind of psychopath thinks like that?

Focus on your own shame. You can start by being ashamed of telling others what to feel and what to do.

"By the by, please explain why anyone should be more upset about a Jim Crow regime that no longer exists than about the Screw Whitey regime we have right now."

The fact that you use the term Screw Whitey pretty much nullifies your argument.