Defeatism Among Conservatives
For almost my entire lifetime, the friends of liberty have been in retreat. They have accepted the welfare system, and they have temporized with the administrative state. With regard to domestic affairs, they have been in competition with the progressives – but only in one particular. The battle has been over who can better manage the system. In effect, what we have witnessed is a struggle between two species of progressives – managerial progressives who for the most part come out of the business world and intellectual progressives drawn from the academy. Only rarely in the last century have we had a genuine conservative as President – a man guided by an understanding of what the Founders had in mind when they adopted the Declaration of Independence and framed the Constitution. Only rarely has the Republican Party presented itself as a party of principle. The prospect terrifies many of those who consider themselves conservatives. They cannot imagine our departing from the New Deal order. All that they really want to do is to slow down the liberal juggernaut.
It is not always wrong to temporize. That is precisely what one should do with evils likely to disappear if one leaves them alone. That is what one should do with evils beyond one’s capacity to change.
But occasions do present themselves in which institutions and practices that once seemed entrenched and impregnable can be disposed of, and on such occasions temporizing is disastrous. We spent much of the Cold War attempting to accommodate the Soviet Union – and rightly so. In the beginning, they had the best artillery in the world and a great many divisions; later, they had nuclear weapons.
But a time came when shrewd observers recognized that the revolutionary generation had passed from the stage, that the Soviets had lost their élan, and that their economy was imploding. These men persuaded Ronald Reagan that what had always been deemed impossible was well within our grasp – that it had become possible to roll back communism without a nuclear war. And he, in turn, had the courage and the resolve necessary if an American leader was to seize the occasion and subject the Soviets to pressure that they could not bear. The proponents of Realpolitik recoiled in horror, but Reagan pressed on.
We now live in the worst of times. We are subject to a President and a party intent on fixing elections; on denying to workers faced with unionization the secret ballot; on shutting down conservative talk radio; on marginalizing Fox News; on demonizing Rush Limbaugh, the Koch brothers, and John Boehner; and on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives.” This is the meaning of the massive expansion of federal expenditure and regulation under Obama; it is the likely consequence of Obamacare; and it will come to pass if we do not reverse course, repeal Obamacare, radically cut back federal expenditure, pare regulation, and balance the budget without imposing – except perhaps for a short time – additional taxes.
We also live in the best of times. At no time in the last sixty-four years has American public been as fed up and aroused as they are now. At no time have they been as well-informed. At no time have they been as open to genuine change. The onslaught of Barack Obama is the last gasp of the welfare state. The Social Security Administration is now paying out more than it takes in. Medicare and Medicaid are dependent on general revenues. If we do not cut back, we will have to pony up – and if we choose to pony up, we will soon discover that marginal tax rates affect conduct – that you can raise taxes and collect considerably less, rather than more, in revenues. This is a time for decision, and the American people know the score.
If we could roll back communism, we can roll back the welfare state. We can eliminate the administrative state, restore the separation of powers, re-establish constitutional government, provide for legislative accountability. We can do this, or – out of timidity or a disgraceful taste for running other people’s lives – we can acquiesce. It is not a time for half-measures. Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have unwittingly opened the way for a return to first principles and a political realignment. If we do not seize this occasion now, we may never have another opportunity to change the direction in which this country has been tending for almost a century now.
In the order imagined by Woodrow Wilson and the progressives, set in motion by Wilson’s great admirer Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and extended by Lyndon Baines Johnson, we were destined to drift in the direction of what Alexis de Tocqueville called soft despotism. But Barack Obama has awakened us from our slumber, and we have an opportunity to become again what we once were – free women and men governing ourselves within a republican order characterized by federalism and the separation of powers. At this point, the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself. The only obstacles are the ambition of the would-be managers in our own camp and the timidity of those who mistake temporizing for prudence.
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Aug '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
We have at hand a rare opportunity to recover our national purpose and shine a beacon for the world. The progressive/statists saw in Obama their one big opportunity to go for total victory and subvert the last nation capable of standing against them. They took their shot, hit the brick wall of reality, and are suffering an epic failure.
Turns out the socialist model - as imagined by the utopians - is deflating all over the world; along with the green movement and enviro-religion. The huge Copenhagen Climate Summit last November - dubbed 'Hopenhagen' by its organizers - was intended to sweep the 'greens' into influential positions everywhere. But it flopped wonderfully, due to a serendipitous leak of emails from various climate 'experts' in Britain and elsewhere that showed falsification and distortion of data.
We have a lifetime of rebuilding to do, and there's danger, but positive signs abound. The view from the enemy's camp is murky, confusing, and dark.
Aug '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
I want to agree with your broader argument that, at certain points, the unthinkably entrenched can be dug up and disposed with. But I have two problems:
(1) The Cold War was a delineated struggle against external foes--a clear Us versus a clear Them (domestic lefty holdovers notwithstanding). Internal ideological struggles are different, and are defined more by politics than by militaries. It's easier in a war, cold or otherwise, to find that Clausewitz-ian point of momentum where you can push the other guy's center of gravity and topple him. Not so simple when the RoE is defined by your own Constitution and culture.
(2) Mark Steyn has pointed out that the welfare state reaches a tipping point where its constituents are infantilized by ceding power to the technocrats. They come to depend on the nanny state so much that they don't wish to give it up, even after becoming aware of its creeping influence. So, not to sound too pessimistic, but how do we know the moment of truth isn't going the other way--that what is being uprooted here isn't the New Deal, but a core American concept of self-reliance?
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
BlueAnt:
(1) The Cold War was a delineated struggle against external foes--a clear Us versus a clear Them (domestic lefty holdovers notwithstanding). Internal ideological struggles are different, and are defined more by politics than by militaries. It's easier in a war, cold or otherwise, to find that Clausewitz-ian point of momentum where you can push the other guy's center of gravity and topple him. Not so simple when the RoE is defined by your own Constitution and culture.
(2) Mark Steyn has pointed out that the welfare state reaches a tipping point where its constituents are infantilized by ceding power to the technocrats. They come to depend on the nanny state so much that they don't wish to give it up, even after becoming aware of its creeping influence. So, not to sound too pessimistic, but how do we know the moment of truth isn't going the other way--that what is being uprooted here isn't the New Deal, but a core American concept of self-reliance? · Sep 11 at 12:42pm
It is the Tea-Party Movement that gives me hope, the defeat of RINOs in primary elections, and the polls.
Aug '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Thank you, Mr. Rahe. We must begin serious talk of how this roll back will occur. We must have actual proposals, time tables and budgets for how to roll back bureaucracy. For two Federal agencies, the EPA and the FDA, I would propose strengthening state agencies interlinked by private, professional, watchdog and industrial associations. This will require people to understand that, in some cases, reducing central (and even globalist) control will not be the elimination of government, but will require and permit--by subsidiarity--increasing regional and local control and the creation of diverse and healthy experiments in government. Concerning the social and welfare roles that the Federal government has taken on, I believe that simply eliminating the 900 pound gorilla of Washington bureaucracy will result in religious and private initiatives expanding quite independently and almost spontaneously to address those needs. Where will such forums be located? How will they be funded? How can they be implemented? Analogous to the role played by osteoclastic cells in the remodeling of living bone, can government be reshaped by an agency devoted to reducing government: a bureauclastic agency, as it were? It might be a temporary, government agency well worth its budgeted cost.
Edited on Sep 11, 2010 at 1:20pmJun '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Politics is more like a tug of war that never ends. You can get ahead...sometimes significantly...by convincing people in the middle to turn around and start pulling the other way, but those that expect quick overwhelming changes are always deceiving themselves. It's a war of inches. You win by being tough and consistent. Normally, you measure your progress over decades.
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
There are moments, however, when things change rapidly. Necessity really is the mother of invention, and right now we face some grim necessities.
Moreover, altering the direction we subsequently drift -- that is a signal accomplishment. FDR did that in and after 1932, and we can do it again.
Thing of the transformation of Europe after 1989. History moves at a glacial pass, then it surges. Right now, everything is in motion. Consider what it would look like if Obamacare were not rolled back.
Aug '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Mr. Rahe, Yes, it would be terrible not to roll back Obamacare, that sentiment is why I have a "STOP Obamacare!" sticker on the rear window of my truck. Getting rid of Obamacare simply gets us back to where we more comfortably were last year. That will be great given our recent loss, but it is not going to be good enough. Further I know what will happen if we merely send a crowd of enthusiastic, green politicians to D.C. with nothing in their pocket than vague sentiments and “government shall-nots.” The D.C. machine will eat them alive. We are agreed that government should not do a lot of things. Making that happen will require brains, a plan, and courage--oh and did I say a plan? This is why, in Comment #4, I encouraged you and others to start the discussion on how specifically we can reshape government. You ignored that set of questions. Let's encourage people with particular expertise to give us some brainstorming, rough ideas of how this can proceed.
May '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Politics is a battle. Culture is the war. I have hope that we might witness a sharp political turnaround, but it can only be a lasting victory if our culture as a whole returns to the moral and philosophical foundations which made the Constitution a symbol of American character. The Constitution cannot serve us if it does not represent us.
All cultures inevitably change. When a nation's government is no longer an expression of its culture, the nation falters. A cultural awakening is occurring in the United States today, but that is not the only change that is occurring. Among others, the influx of immigrants from Mexico (legal and illegal) brings with it Central American ideas of government; Euro-socialist ideas permeate the arts and our schools.
Political leadership in this time could inspire cultural leadership beyond the scope of government. It must. We need another Reagan, Thatcher or Churchill.
May '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
I'm OK with trusting the American people, if the rules are followed and everyone plays fair. It is this that bothers me, because it threatrents to turn us into yet another overblown banana republic a la Chicago:
Prof. Rahe: We are subject to a President and a party intent on fixing elections; on denying to workers faced with unionization the secret ballot; on shutting down conservative talk radio; on marginalizing Fox News; on demonizing Rush Limbaugh, the Koch brothers, and John Boehner; and on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives.”
I still disagree with the broad statements about turning RINOs out of office as a simplified policy. 1) Someone a little left of me with an ACU rating of 55 or 65 isn't really a RINO- Specter was a RINO, Murkowski (who lost fairly and should gracefully exit) was not. Bennett was not. 2) Their defeats are fine where the True Right candidate wins. In a True Blue state, you only win with a Castle. Period. And if you squeak by once, you lose next time (James Buckley).
May '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
I join other commenters in hoping for a rollback of President Obama's health care legislation, and more small government conservatives in Congress. But I cannot help but marvel at someone born in the early 1950s writing, "For almost my entire lifetime, the friends of liberty have been in retreat."
This is unduly pessimistic.
In this lifetime, the United States has gone from Jim Crow to electing a black president. It's gone from Richard Nixon, a Republican, imposing price controls, to an American left partly reformed by neo-liberalism.
Our spending problem is frightening. It must be gotten under control. But it is incorrect to see the post-WWII history of America as a succession of losses for freedom. There have been losses, but many gains too.
Lastly, I wish that conservatives, when they worry about lost freedoms, would include our growing surveillance state, President Obama's assassination list that includes American citizens, police agencies demanding that pharmacies turn over the prescription drug records of innocent citizens, asset forfeiture, and other civil liberties problems.
I hope that the GOP takes the House this November, but these points I've made strike me as dissents worth grappling with.
May '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Yet another fine essay, many thanks for that. Our conversation here has been very much enriched by your visit, Paul. I hope you'll drop in now and again.
I fully agree with your comment on the need to stand forward as a party of noble principle, unashamed and unwilling to cede the "high-ground" to progressives, who, even when well-meaning, have brought real misery and unhappiness to once great countries. We defend freedom because we respect individuals and will not compel them.
That said, I agree with the point Duane made about too much fratricidal conflict. There are two axes or dimensions at work here, the deep principals, and the specific policy questions of the day. These fruitless debates over who is a "true conservative" tend to get mired in the specific issues of the time, over which thinking people will always find cause to disagree, and lose the common committment to foundation principals. As you said, Paul, what results is a contest between different sort of progressives.
We must be willing to join hands with anyone committed to Constitutional government over the administrative state, and to a politics of free individuals rather that contending identity groups.
Aug '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Are you in a position for the job, Mr. Miller? You've got my attention.
Aug '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Mr. Oyen, your concerns are reasonable. There is something at play this time that I optimistically believe will counter your "squeak by & lose" model: the shift in awareness among the public. Oh, certainly we could shlep our way back to being political couch potatoes. I warned a crowd of a few hundred at a rally of conservatives in San Francisco about that ten years ago: regrettably that is exactly what happened in the time since. So, your point is well taken. The solution is to fight on all fronts. If Castle wins, there will still be plenty of work needed to fix Delaware and if conservatives there think that any election is the goal, then they are wrong. Getting the "right" people in office is merely a way of providing some cover while we do the real work of changing hearts and minds. It is tiring--I know--to think about, but we have to get our minds around the fact that there are multiple levels of this war to be fought. Thanks for your comments--they are stimulating, indeed.
Edited on Sep 11, 2010 at 4:42pmMay '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
An interesting way to put it. The political battles over rolling back the welfare state and the nanny state can not be won without turning around the culture of dependence. This is where "Sherpa Conservatives," as Jonah Goldberg calls them, do us such a disservice: they advocate "cautious advance" toward the progressives' goals rather than use their energies to turn the culture in a direction of more self-reliance.
May '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Conor, you think that someone who was born in the US, but rejects that citizenship by fighting on the battlefield for the enemy shooting at our military, should be granted the same rights to which he is entitled if he were caught burgling the 7-11? I share the rest of your concerns and hopes, but this one makes no sense to me on a Constitutional law basis.
I know, I know. There is no legitimate GWOT, just a law enforcement nuisance caused by Israel being beastly to Gaza and exacerbated by what Fareed Zakaria describes as our overreaction to peace-loving, no-real-threat members of MB.
Edited on Sep 11, 2010 at 5:48pmJul '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Great post. I have slowly come to the conclusion since 2004 that republicans are at best only part of the long term solution. I get the feeling that part of the leadership is almost afraid to regain the majority. If they regain leadership, I am not sure they will know what to do with it.
This is good news and bad news. The fate of republicans and the fate of the republic isn't the same thing. But it also means that not all of our eggs are in one basket. The threat of the tea party morphing into a 3rd party is an excellent way to keep republicans honest.
Jul '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Aaron Miller has it right. Politics is the handmaiden of culture. We can tweak here and tweak there, but until we manage to regain the culture we are just - to be polite - spitting in the wind.
One cannot win back the culture with negatives. Saying No, No, No,Not so much will not do a thing. We need to create a positive cultural influence based on liberty. Beck is one of the few who seem to really get this.
Anybody else remember the heady days of the '80s, when Gilder and Wanniski et al created a truly positive "conservative" cultural statement? THAT is what we need. Arthur Brooks is about the onlyone I see doing that today.
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
One parting thought. Everything turns on public sentiment, as Abraham Lincoln long ago suggested. It is less important how many elections we win than that we win the public argument in a convincing way. Had Ronald Reagan thought it insufficient to run on his record in 1984, had he divided the house that year by putting the conservative argument to the people in a forceful way, had he won fewer states but carried more Republicans into the House and Senate, he would have had more success with his domestic agenda.
What makes this the best of times is the fact that Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have given us a golden opportunity in which to remind our compatriots of this country's first principles and to reshape public sentiment in a lasting way. I realize that Murkowski and Bennett were not all that bad, and, if I lived in Delaware, I would probably support Castle. But the purge that has taken place has this virtue: it has put fear into the hearts of the Lindsey Grahams of this world, and only fear will make them toe the line.
This could be our finest hour.
Aug '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Patrick Shanahan:
One cannot win back the culture with negatives. Saying No, No, No,Not so much will not do a thing.
If I may chime in as a woman here, one can do a great deal to win back the culture with negatives.
One of our cultural problems is that people (and young women come instantly to my mind here) have lost the sense that "no" is a respectable word. But "no" has to be respectable for a culture to function. "No" is the boundary word. And in order to truly say "yes" to one good thing, you must be willing to say "no" to any number of things that are not that good thing.
Our culture needs more "no"; our young women in particular. There is not only a need for a "party of no", but also a "culture of no" at this point.
Edited on Sep 11, 2010 at 7:31pmAug '10
Re: Defeatism Among Conservatives
Paul A. Rahe, Guest Contributor: ...if I lived in Delaware, I would probably support Castle. But the purge that has taken place has this virtue: it has put fear into the hearts of the Lindsey Grahams of this world, and only fear will make them toe the line.
This could be our finest hour. · Sep 11 at 7:25pm
Here, here. Thanks for the well written contributions this week.