The Christian Century reports on a recent speech by Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, a staunch conservative Republican, warning against overconfidence in our power to remake the world:

“It is a truism that power breeds arrogance. A far greater danger, however, stems from the self-delusion that is the more certain companion. For individuals and countries alike, power inevitably distorts perceptions of the world by insulating them in a soothing cocoon that is impervious to what scientists term ‘disconfirming evidence.’

[…]

“There is no evidence that we or anyone can guide from afar revolutions we have set in motion. We can more easily destabilize friends and others and give life to chaos and to avowed enemies than ensure outcomes in service of our interests and security. . . . In a world where the ratios of strength narrow, the consequences of miscalculation will become progressively more debilitating. The costs of golden theories will be paid for in the base coin of our interests.

[…]

“To allow our enormous power to delude us into seeing the world as a passive thing waiting for us to re-create it in an image of our choosing will hasten the day when we have little freedom to choose anything at all.”

Meanwhile, libertarian Jim Henley ruminates on the decline of limited government conservatism. The culprits? War, resentment of the left, and nationalism.

If you had asked me in, say, 2000 I would’ve said I was basically a small-government conservative: pro-free trade, pro-limited and accountable government, in favor of a “more humble” foreign policy as promised at the time by candidate Bush. I voted with little enthusiasm for Bush in 2000, sensing that he was far more comfortable in the pro-business, country club wing of the GOP (with a few sops for the Christian right) than anywhere else.

But what “actually existing” conservatism under a Bush White House and Republican-controlled Congress has turned out to depart from tradtional conservatism even more than I expected: massive increases in pork spending, giveaways to well-connected friends and donors, pro-corporate (as opposed to pro-free-market) economic policies, assertions of unchecked executive power, and a globe-straddling military presence.

I think I’ve probably drifted leftward in the last few years, but I’m not sure how much of that is genuine ideological evolution and how much is simply finding myself opposed to what the current administration is doing (particularly when it comes to things like war and peace, torture, civil liberties, etc.), and therefore ending up “on the left” sort of by default.

Addendum: I haven’t read it yet, but the Cato Institute recently released a report (PDF) on the Bush Administration’s record on that whole “defend and uphold the Constitution” thing.