Brain-dead Conservatives

CATO ^ | 2009-10-04 | David Boaz

[rabscuttle385]

"The heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism," Ronald Reagan said on many occasions, including a speech at Vanderbilt University when I was an undergraduate.

I'm not so sure. But at least the conservatism of Sen. Robert Taft, Sen. Barry Goldwater, and Reagan stood for a limited constitutional government in opposition to the federal aggrandizement of the New Deal and the Great Society. Back in the FDR-JFK-LBJ years, conservatives even stood for congressional government and against the imperial presidency.

But what does conservatism stand for today, other than opposition to President Obama? President Bush expanded entitlements, increased federal spending by more than a trillion dollars, federalized education, launched "nation-building" projects in two far-flung regions, and accumulated more power in the White House than any previous president.

Yet the masses assembled at the Conservative Political Action Conference chanted "Four More Years!" at him in the eighth year of his reign. Is that really a record that conservatives wanted more of?

Steven F. Hayward suggests in today's edition of The Washinton Post that one reason for conservatism's having gotten off track, one that I've heard from other, mostly older, conservatives: A movement once led by William F. Buckley Jr., Russell Kirk, and Milton Friedman now gets its intellectual direction from talk show hosts and bloggers. Where are the tomes of yesteryear?

Well, it's a fast-paced, market-driven world. If celebrities and rabble-rousing are what sell, then we'd better hope for some smart ideas on the airwaves. And it's not like conservatives are alone in this trend.

Buckley jousted with John Kenneth Galbraith and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter face off with Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore. Six years ago the Boston Globe noted that liberal books were, at least briefly, dominating the New York Times bestseller list.

Along with Hillary Clinton's autobiography, those books were "Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them)," "Big Lies," "Thieves in High Places," and "Stupid White Men." Not exactly a sign of the intellectual depth of American liberalism.

The good news about the Obama era is that the president has returned the issue of the size, scope, and power of the federal government to center stage. And that in turn has revived the long-dormant small-government spirit in American conservatism.

In that regard, I'm more positive than Hayward is about the "tea party" movement. True, it is somewhat "unfocused," without a clear "connection to a concrete ideology." But it reflects and galvanizes the natural American antipathy to big government.

Now the responsibility of the conservative media and political leaders is to give the tea partiers a positive cause to rally around, by shining light on scholars with good ideas. There are plenty of free-market intellectuals today, far more than in the era when Milton Friedman dined alone. Glenn Beck does indeed sometimes devote significant time to a single intellectual; other talk show hosts should do the same.

Conservatives often prefer the prudent and cautious spirit of Edmund Burke and F. A. Hayek to the more libertarian and "progressive" vision of Thomas Jefferson. But neither Burke nor Hayek believed simply in standing athwart history, crying "Stop!"

Burke, after all, was a Whig, not a Tory, and a supporter of the American Revolution. And Hayek insisted that he was not a conservative:

"Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society, is not a social program; in its paternalistic, nationalistic and power-adoring tendencies it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism; and with its traditionalistic, anti-intellectual, and often mystical propensities it will never, except in short periods of disillusionment, appeal to the young and all those others who believe that some changes are desirable if this world is to become a better place."

He called himself a liberal, and he thought that Margaret Thatcher, with her vigorous program of free-market reform, was also a liberal. By whatever name, modern American conservatives would do well to take to heart Hayek's rallying cry:

"We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. What we lack is … a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty …which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible."

The trick for 21st-century American conservatives, conservatives in a country founded in libertarian revolution, is to decide which traditions are worth holding on to. I would suggest as a good first rule that we allow the natural evolution of society and market, while limiting coercive intervention into those processes.

Conservatism should make its peace with natural social change, before it loses the entire younger generation, while reaffirming its commitment to freedom and limited government.

[hocndoc]

You didn’t read up on the Federal actions of the organizations I referenced.

The Justice Foundation, besides having won several hearings before the 5th Circuit Court and at least one at the SCOTUS representing women who have been harmed by Roe v. Wade, has worked for liberty and property rights and to control Federal and State Government:
http://www.txjf.org/pages.asp?pageid=27635

Add:

An oldie-but-a-goodie - Phyllis Schlaffly and the fight against the ERA. The Eagle Forum has continued to bar even *international* and Federal social experimentation by law at the UN, notably by fighting the CEDAW from ratification and superseding US law.

Successful lawsuit that struck down part of the Violence Against Women Act by the Independent Women’s Foundation, founded by Lynn Cheney. (the IWF President and one of the Board members - in addition to me, one of the many who have supported the IWF over the years - were appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women in 2002)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37952-2002Sep4&notFound=true

While leaning toward (big L)ibertarian, historically, the AAPS has been conservative. We won our lawsuit against Hillary Clinton for her closed door meetings on Health care in ‘93-’95.( We were heard, but denied standing in our suit agains HIPPA, for which I wrote a Declaration that was part of the amicus brief)

[hocndoc]

To be fair, the CATO has done good work in the past, standing for limited government and the unalienable rights of the individual - and may continue to do so. For some reason, in the last 2 years, they seem to have joined with the forces that would divide Conservativism and - at least in the Mainstream Media and most public of venues - seem to have advocated more for individual license, rather than individual liberty.

(I’m still going to give them the benefit of the doubt for a while. Even I tried to be a “Christian Libertarian” for a few minutes, before I realized that in-congruence .)

[A.Hun]

When all was said and done, GWB did more for border enforcement than anyone since Eisenhower. 600 miles of fencing, stepped up workplace raids, NG on the border, more BP...even though he did not get the comprehensive reform he thought we needed.

Closing the border and sending illegals home was impossible. Trashing Bush because he wouldn’t try was just stupid. It tore the Republican Party apart and helped usher in Obama and Pelosi. There was nothing conservative about it.

What would Al Gore or John Kerry done about illegal immigration? They would have told you to f off. Bush listened and acted to improve border security.

[rbmillerjr]

An interesting article to start off the New Year with.

It also sparks off a “what to read” track for the New year.

If you are interested start off a Reading List of required reading for conservatives or names of conservative thinkers to read.

I’ll start if off basic:

The Bible: God gives us our rights.
US Declaration of Independence
US Constitution
The Founding Fathers.

[EBH]

You just stated very succinctly what is attempted to be revealed in the first 5 chapters of the 5,000 Year Leap.

Freedom, liberty cannot exist in an immoral society.

It is also what allows true capitalism to exist providing value for value in honest trade.

[andy58-in-nh]

Re: "Natural social change"

What is "natural" about a liberal political elite using its powerful influence in the schools, trade unions, bureaucracies, funding institutions and news media to promote socialist economic policies, an expansion of Federal power, moral relativism, disdain for religious values, and a breakup of the traditional family?

The Progressive project has been intentionally promoted and has proven unyielding to reason, science, or history. For Conservatives to abandon their principles because the tides of history have been driven by foul winds would be suicidal and irrational.

[RoadTest]

I agree.

[mad_as_he$$]

First, Bush trashed me and millions of others with his remarks about immigration. Second, were I in charge I could get 95% of illegals out of the country within 6 months. I also could seal the border VERY tight within those 6 months. It is a matter of will. Bush could of easily slowed the flow with several policies. He clearly WANTED illegal immigration. 100 times more American have died from illegal immigrant crimes than died on 9/11 so your fundamental argument is flawed. OH and Bush did not want the fence. Fought it tooth and nail and backed KBH getting the law gutted.

AND a large part of the current economic mess MUST be laid at the feet of him and the flood off illegals - everything else aside. So he also lost economic security.

[algernonpj]

Thanks, beat me to it.

[rbmillerjr]

You critique conservatism as ineffectual, some of which I agree. Particularly in the ream of information and media.

However, conservatives/Republicans are in the political theater, they are in there fighting in large enough numbers to be a factor.

Liberterianism with a big L is not to be found.

They are the pie in the sky “intellectuals” of just one aspect of conservatism. Reagan did a great job of marrying social conservatives and economic conservatives with national security conservatives.

In reality libertarians are simply one aspect of economic conservatism and lost on national security.

So, some of your criticisms are valid but many off the mark. I’d suggest looking to shore up the Libertarian cause first before such wholesale attacks on conservatives.

It shouldn’t be that hard to do because your numbers are so low.

That’s just Randian rational truth.

[Surtur]

This fool equates Republicans and conservatives. He is dead WRONG.

[pallis]

Reagan only succeeded after Bill Buckley and company purged the Birchers from the Republican party, ending their efforts to undermine any possible successful Republican. Paulism represents a similar malignancy.

True, but don’t forget the impact of Jerry Falwell and moral majority that turned the South. Without that, Reagan could not have won, and the Republican victory in 94 would have been impossible. We need to rekindle that fire, and start appealing to the conservatism in working, Catholic families.

Rather than purging the Ron Paul faithful, it would be preferable to get them on board with turning the tide of the left. I understand the frustration with the Republican Party, the corruption of welfarism, big government, the whole Neocon, Rockefeller love affair with government solutions to problems that aren’t the business of government, but it should be obvious to all but the terminally stupid that the Republican Party still has good, honest people, and it is the only tool we can use to beat the radical left. Third party foolishness will do nothing but help the leftists win the whole shooting match. The only real question worth asking right now is whether or not that is what America wants. If not, get into the Republican Party, and find ways to push it in the right direction.

[BykrBayb]

President Bush was not anti-stem cell research. That isn’t a conservative position anyway. Liberals think conservatives are anti-stem cell research. That doesn’t make it so.

[Leisler]

The libertarian monthly magazine Liberty and The Freeman, are, about, fifty years old. So, who’s on first, first?

[Leisler]

LBJ said he lost the South. Nixon sealed it, long before Reagan or Falwell.

Since Lincoln,Big gov, self dealing Republicanism has been, not an anomaly, an error, but the core, and practice of the GOP.
You are historically in error.

I have no frustration with RINO(ism) with in the party. Because that is the party, and has always been so.
It may not in the future( I’m not throwing in the towel on Big Gov, big debt, big tax Republicanism until the party ‘shows me the money’, so to speak. I expect more conservative dressing, speeches, atta-boys, proposals, plans, and such from the party, but mostly in a sales, con, boob bait for Bubbas way. Somehow the GOP has to rebrand its IMAGE for dispirited base and conservatives. I think they will, a bit. I don’t expect other than a few crumbs. I can see the foot dragging, go away you peasant arguments. That the majority is too fragile, go slow, let’s reform first, maybe some palaver about paying off the debt that popular conservative GW Bush, Hastert and Obama ran up. You know, for the children, just like the left does it, for the children.

RINO’s have always been the party. Everybody else has been in error, delusional. Even within the GOP, GW was able to sell himself as a Compassionate Conservative. GW Bush was able to take the mantle of Conservatism because there was no established institutions within the GOP to defend the idea, the brand, the image, the values of conservatives. And, who’s fault is that?

[hocndoc]

Do you see that Conservatives have been active in fighting unConstitutional actions, laws and court rulings?

[Kenny Bunk]

Somehow, the American voter has come to believe that the purpose of government is to help people.

Of course, it is not. The role of government is to run the country in a manner that best allows people to help themselves. That leaves a lot of people who seem to need help of one kind or another.

Those people who need help should be helped by other than governmental organizations. That leaves many who will not be helped. That difficult fact has become too hard for the voters to accept, especially in the face of politicians who promise that they, and only they, can help everyone. Of course, for a while, the politicians can make it appear that they are helping some people.

Then, all of a sudden there are 100 million new Americans who are able to exchange the votes they cast, whether legally or not, in exchange for help they are taught to feel they immediately deserve.

This is no mystery. The ancient Greeks saw that all democratic republics begin to fail at the point that they start to run out of the public money politicians pass out to their supporters, and then they begin the slow, inexorable turn back into oligarchy and then eventual tyranny. The Founders knew it, too.

After the first Constitutional Convention, a lady asked Ben Franklin, "Well, Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy?"
"A Republic," replied the Doctor, "if you can keep it." We can keep it, but only if we have enough intelligent voters to halt the slide. It's painfully obvious that in the GOP's official opinion, we do not. Hence the RINO ploy of government largesse, combined with "family values." The GOP platform, "We can give you just as much, and we ain't left-wing godless crooks like those bad people over there."

That is exactly what is NOT needed to preserve the Republic. Will the electorate vote for a party that will swear to do what is needed?

[Leisler]

Very little, and pathetic compared to the money, lawyers, law professor, institutions and foundations of the left.

What is the conservative equivalent of the ACLU? I can’t think of it.

Why?

Why are conservatives so weak?

Anyways, I’m looking forward to the elections. I think the inter fight of conservatives vs the GOP is going to only get stronger. Good. I think it is a fight that has just started, and needs to be fought.

We are still at the very beginning. Reagan was a peak, an opening and closing of the door, for a moment in time. I think/feel that conservatives are just beginning to enter the mass public arena with a voice, which was excluded by the MSM, but now with cable, Internet, like water we found a way.

I think the players, the methods are very young, rough, unknown. It will take time, decades. But, the key is to push on all fronts. Make all politicians in the GOP feel heat, any kind you can. Short and hot, or warm and steady.

I think we need real victories, like at the beginning of WWII. Anywhere. Be flexible. I think we have done well on the 2nd, and should keep pushing. I think we have to destroy, end public schools as we know them. I’m flexible to anything other that what is.
I think what has not happened with Cap and Trade, and I think Obamacare is a victory.
I think Mitt’s loss, and McCains bewildering stress is good. They are both too old, too institutionalized with being doormats.

I look forward to Palin. (What the heck, she already seems better than GW, and I am unfairly, unreasonably disgusted with anyone that went to Yale or Harvard.)

Anyways, here we are, I like to fight, feel it is a ethical thing to do, so I have that, which is nice.

I

[Leisler]

I read somewhere that there is in history no known record of a Republic that becomes a democracy of ever returning to a Republic.

I think we should attack the state anywhere we can, even wrongly. Just the action is good, even if misplaced.

I’d like to see us remove money from the control of the state. That is it’s oxygen. No money, no state.

Really though, I don’t know. I only see a year or two clearly.

I can not trust the GOP, other than to, to be polite, disappoint.

But where else to go? So I, you, we go on.

[Kenny Bunk]

IMHO, Where the COTUS is the most seriously out of whack, is in the issue of State's Rights. The States have ceded too much of their reason for being to the Federal Government.

It means that there is no local control over important areas of governance.