Posted on 01/08/2019 8:27:18 AM PST by SeekAndFind
This week, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson generated a veritable firestorm over his pitch for a new brand of American populism. In truth, his brand of populism isn’t particularly new — it’s a merger of Pat Buchanan–era paleoconservatism and Bush-era compassionate conservatism. It’s an attempt to rally government behind preferred conservative causes — rebuilding the family chief among them — rather than recognizing that government is typically an obstacle to those causes; it’s an attempt to fill a gap in the soul with a policy-based solution.
Here’s Carlson’s explanation of markets:
Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You’d have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
This sounds far more like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than it does like Ronald Reagan or Milton Friedman. That’s because the democratic socialist movement has a lot in common with the economic populism of the Right. The Marxist Left claims that human failings are the result of private property–based economic systems; therefore, private property–based systems must be destroyed. Social democrats like Sanders and Warren agree, but also acknowledge the inherent power of markets (although Sanders speaks more like a Marxist than a social democrat). Social democrats believe that shackling the power of the market to the redistributive and regulatory power of the state represents the best way forward. That’s why Sanders and Warren use the Nordic states as their models, rather than Cuba or the Soviet Union.
The populist Right largely agrees. Carlson explicitly states, along with Sanders and Warren, that voluntary decisions can amount to exploitation; he blames rich Americans for somehow, in unspecified fashion, convincing poorer Americans to conceive children out of wedlock. The free-market system, according to Carlson, has provided us with a lot of stuff, and “yet drug addiction and suicide are depopulating large parts of the country.” Therefore, free markets are responsible for our empty souls as well as for our fuller fridges.
But that’s untrue. Typically, religious thinkers, as well as our founding fathers, recognized that prosperity could not exist without freedom, and that freedom could not exist without virtue. Free markets, in fact, were a result of certain virtuous underpinnings and fundamental conceptions about the value of individual human beings: Human beings were made in the image of God, had special value, were masters of their own labor, and could freely alienate that labor in voluntary transactions with others. Separating freedom from virtue would undercut freedom itself — we would inevitably begin to twist freedom to harm others as well as ourselves. As George Washington put it, “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. . . . Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” James Madison agreed: “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”
Without religion and morality we could, for a time, remain rich. But we would then begin to subject our freedoms to our own tyrannical impulses. In the founding view, the chief threat to freedom came from lack of virtue; perhaps the chief threat to virtue came from desire for material gain, disconnected from the virtuous social fabric. If we became addicted to stuff rather than to virtue, if we began to think that stuff could replace virtue, then we would inevitably undercut the basis of our own commercial republic.
Ironically, though, Carlson’s claim that material gain isn’t enough to provide happiness doesn’t lead him back to virtue, which would bolster additional freedom. It leads him to the same material solutions that undercut virtue in the first place.
It’s easy to reduce governmental debates to questions of resource allocation and governmental priorities. That’s essentially the fight between Left and Right in Europe: a fight between populists who wish to hijack government for their own ends and Leftists who wish to hijack government for theirs. But that was never the American discovery. America guaranteed us adventure, not happiness. To succeed in that adventure — to maintain the possibility of that adventure — required a social fabric built on virtue. If we fail to make virtuous decisions on an individual level, we can’t blame that on tariffs or payday lenders. And if we do, we’re part of the problem.
Correction to the above quotes: The first two are from Benjamin Franklin, the last one from Thomas Jefferson.
I remembered that Adams had a similar quote, so I googled “virtuous people” with “Adams”.
Internet search engines have their limits. *HARUMPH*
But what is virtue? Is it purity of intent and deed? But politics must address having to do evil sometimes to save a nation in an emergency: wars, insurrections, fighting corruption and stopping invasions by immigration. So virtue for national leaders must require that leaders sometimes do bad to bring about good (ex: Truman dropping A-bombs on Japan). But in all other matters, like raising children, conventional religious morality should prevail.
Someone has to do the murdering, lying, betraying, coercing and scorning for us, whether it is cops, politicians, soldiers or others so that we, and our children, can remain innocent. We are all complicit in original sin. But leaders must refrain from using gratuitous (self serving) evil, such as Hillary Clinton enriching herself with her Clinton Foundation to accept bribes from foreign nations in a pay to play scheme.
Thus, virtue is bravery, boldness, action more than words, valor, skill, cunning, bad-mouthing to protect the state; and acting generously, with piety and compassion can be detrimental to the nation (ex: Jimmy Carter). A virtuous leader is one who will risk their soul and their virtuous reputation for the nation, not some pious person who cannot stand up to evil. Thus, political virtue contains an element of willingness to sacrifice one’s soul and reputation. That is what Christianity is about: taking on the sins of the world.
Virtue is fine for one’s family and church but not for running a state.
Tucker's right on this issue - Shapiro doesn't understand what Tucker's saying... it's not a warmed over Bernie - it's an underlying truth.
Shapiro has lived a quite sheltered life. Tucker’s comments reflect the people of America who make America work.
Shapiro’s commentary is from the textbook. He is wooden and is incapable of seeing a shade of grey.
Shapiro offers no solutions to the gutting of Middle America. his brand of conservatism is an abject failure. He has billionaire backers also so he doesn’t need to worry about prosperity.
Shapiro should be shunned and rejected wholeheartedly.
Shapiro is an Israel-firster, open-borders neocon, and a coward.
Some folks here have been bamboozled by this controlled-opposition fraud. They need to do research on this chicken-hawk.
You're right about Shapiro - BUT unlike George Will and Goldberg he's still young - and might be able to turn around... take a saner position. But yeah, right now he's clueless - and a jerk.
RE: Shapiro is an Israel-firster, open-borders neocon, and a coward.
1) If he were an open-borders guy, explain to me why he supports Trump on the Border Wall.
2) If he were a Coward, explain to me why he goes on hostile college campuses to debate liberals even when he gets threats from the left.
3) Yes, he supports Israel, but so does Trump.
Donald Trump is Harry Callahan(Dirty Harry).
Flawed but HONEST. Wanting the right things. Willing to do what he has to be done.
The forces of corruption are arrayed against him. Times are more desperate than folks realize.
I support him to do what is necessary to save the republic.
” Like William Krystal, he’s making sausage by using adulterated logic. “
Yep
He doesn’t have to ‘splain’ what Tucker meant.
I can understand without his help.
All of this article sidesteps the fact that our country as founded was morally connected to religious freedom. The current situation is that the denominational religions, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc., along with non denominational churches, have been subverted by non virtuous, non religious, non God believers. Universities that were founded by denominational churches have been so diluted over the years as to be unrecognizable to their faithful supporters. There is still the natural law that human beings are born with, the inborn and instinctive knowledge of right and wrong. Many of us just ignore that instinct and substitute our own interpretation of virtue as being flexible. As all of this pertains to Donald Trump, the current national peril America faces is not theological confusion but a tangible fight to the death for the survival of this Republic. It is immediate and Pres Trump in leading this fight must combat the forces of hell that are against him and this Republic.People can dissect his behavior and the depth of his religious convictions but he is obviously very high above his antagonists when it involves fighting to save this country. God bless and protect Pres Trump
Oh, I am well aware of his sorta flip flop on the matter. Its “sorta” since he thinks making it not about religion is what makes it nice and kosher again, despite his own hardcore Zionism and distaste for Muslims.
“Shapiro and NRO are never-Trumpers and their links should not be allowed on this site.”
ROTFLOL!!
You’ve been listening to Shapiro only since the election then.
Listen to his stuff during the primaries.
Tucker is definitely not the sharpest knife.
No, Shapiro was straight up contradicting his own stated positions to attack Trump. You don’t go all high minded about Muslim bans, decrying attacks against people because they are Muslim, when you are on record supporting ethnic cleansing.
I believe this article totally misrepresents Tucker Carlsons words and beliefs.
He was simply positing the idea that the way taxes and regulations are configured to maximize money, and minimize the nuclear family are wrong. Instead of directly paying Mothers to stay at home and raise children, while the Father works. American society encourages both parents to work, and the State raises the children.
One could argue that open borders, and importation of workers is a large part of the drop in wages that makes it nearly impossible for one person to provide for his family.
Of course I disagree with his idea that you must fund a College for your children. The idea of a “manufacturing plant” you send your kids to for 2-4 or 6 years, to have a chance at prosperity is ridiculous. There is nothing that teaches like hard work, and any book learning necessary should have taken place by the 12th grade anyway. Few are the trades and professions that require a degree. In the “Wizard of Oz”, the Scarecrow is seen to become well educated when he is given a diploma. That is exactly what our Colleges do. They hand out diplomas, and the receivers are then deemed worth of hire.
All this philosophy and sophistry about free markets and virtues are BS to me. You can’t buy or sell anything without a burden. You can’t own property without a burden. You can’t earn an income from your labors without a burden.
There is no private property.
There are no free markets.
Virtue is a word that means many things to many people, from the greeks to the puritans, it can practically mean the opposite.
RE: You’ve been listening to Shapiro only since the election then.
He was on our drive time radio only after the elections. You have to tell me why his support for Trump’s policies AFTER the elections somehow makes him a NeverTrumper.
THAT makes no sense.
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