L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
I've lived in D.C. long enough to have witnessed more than a few elections. Some have gone very badly for Republicans, some have gone very badly for Democrats. They never go well for libertarians concerned about the size and scope of government. But something about this week was different. Conservatives aren't glum out here. They're somber.
People always talk about how few people lined up behind Mitt Romney initially. That doesn't surprise me at all. What's noteworthy is that after so many people begged, pleaded, and prayed for a better candidate, the moment Romney locked up the nomination, they got behind him. Why? Because they knew that this election was important in a way that a choice between a Bill Clinton and Bob Dole wasn't.
If you don't understand why, you must read Jonah Goldberg's explanation of the gravity of the situation ("Becoming European: The Founders’ vision of the people as sovereign lost on Tuesday"). It also explains the different mood this year:
The words “government” and “state” are often used interchangeably, but they are really different things. According to the Founders’ vision, the people are sovereign and the government belongs to us. Under the European notion of the state, the people are creatures of the state, significant only as parts of the whole.
This European version of the state can be nice. One can live comfortably under it. Many decent and smart people sincerely believe this is the intellectually and morally superior way to organize society. And, to be fair, it’s not a binary thing. The line between the European and American models is blurry. France is not a Huxleyan dystopia, and America is not and has never been an anarchist’s utopia, nor do conservatives want it to be one.
The distinction between the two worldviews is mostly a disagreement over first assumptions about which institutions should take the lead in our lives. It is an argument about what the habits of the American heart should be. Should we live in a country where the first recourse is to appeal to the government, or should government interventions be reserved as a last resort?
The key to "marrying our interests to the state," Goldberg explains, is the decline of mediating institutions, the chief of which is the family:
One of the stark lessons of Obama’s victory is the degree to which the Republican party has become a party for the married and the religious. If only married people voted, Romney would have won in a landslide. If only married religious people voted, you’d need a word that means something much bigger than landslide. Obviously, Obama got some votes from the married and the religious (such people can marry their interests to the state, too), but as a generalization, the Obama coalition heavily depends on people who do not see family or religion as rival or superior sources of material aid or moral authority.
Goldberg notes how marriage has gone out of style among non-elites. Religion, too.
In the aftermath of massive American urbanization and industrialization, and in the teeth of a brutal economic downturn, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised to fight for the “forgotten man” — the American who felt lost amidst the social chaos of the age. Obama campaigned for “Julia” — the affluent single mom who had no family and no ostensible faith to fall back on.
In short, the American people are starting to look like Europeans, and as a result they want a European form of government.
We had a pretty good run, didn't we?
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Comments:
Jul '11
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
I need ej to do a tombstone with this on it.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 3:57pmSep '12
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Yeah, that is enough direness.
Shake it Off Conservatives!
Obamacare is Still Vulnerable
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 3:59pmApr '11
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
The distinction JG is referring to is between seeing the State as coextenive with society and realizing the society antedates the state, historically and ontologically, and that the state is an instrument of society, by which it manages the use of coercive force.
That's why, when social institutions take on the wrong roles, things get messed up. When the central state worries about your school lunch or parenting or wildlife management, they blunder and bludgeon and do harm rather than good. And when the wrong institutions take on governing powers, as with Islam (I like the term "Islamofascism", but it really is redundant), you get oppression. At best in either case you get "soft tyranny".
Dec '10
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Pretty much sums it up.
Sep '10
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Well, someone needs to stand and fight when our Persian and Asian overlords come to claim their spoils.
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Michael Hinton: Yeah, that is enough direness.
Shake it Off Conservatives!
Obamacare is Still Vulnerable · 6 minutes ago
Edited 5 minutes ago
The weirdest thing. I sat down to write a positive post and this came out. I'm totally serious. We don't need to be down in the dumps or anything, but I do think people need to be taking this situation more seriously than they have other setbacks.
Feb '12
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
I've found myself pretty somber the past few days too. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe we should just resign ourselves to becoming wards of the State, and find a way to live comfortably in it. Maybe we should all move to Texas or something? Even with the Constitution pretty much neutered, we'll need *some* kind of power structure to support us, and Texas is famous for it's autonomy.
May '10
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Less reliance on politicians, more on God.
Less accommodation, more principled stands.
Less being nice, more being fierce.
Less interest in money, more in morality.
Dec '10
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Mollie, I think the most important question for us as conservatives/libertarians/republicans is this: why has marriage gone out of style among the non-elites? I think it's the death spiral of government and dependence. More of one requires more of the other which engenders more of the first, requiring more of the second, ad infinitum.
Sep '12
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
The weirdest thing. I sat down to write a positive post and this came out. I'm totally serious. We don't need to be down in the dumps or anything, but I do think people need to be taking this situation more seriously than they have other setbacks. · in 1 minut
e
I think we all are. But it's about time to get past the depression stage and accept our situation and make the most of it. The depression is what's leading people to the "give up" mentality. I was there myself on Wednesday; 2 years of involvement and hope leading to despair will do that to ya. If we cede more ground, things can still get far, far worse.
Oct '11
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Seems to me that it's no longer necessary. Not necessary to men, because women no longer withhold sex without it. Not necessary to women, because government steps into the "provider" role for them and their children, or because they can support themselves very nicely, thank you. How on earth could we possibly combat that?
May '10
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Keep in mind, this struggle between individuals and the state is as old as human history. In ancient Sparta, family was so subverted to nation that children were taken from their parents before the age of 10.
America is an idea. At its heart, it is a radical preference for freedom over security. It is no less radical today than it was when our nation was founded.
The most terrible future I can imagine is not the dissolution of our Union, but its corruption into something fundamentally at odds with the values enshrined in the Constitution; to call ourselves Americans, but not be. Wherever we go from here, we must remember that unity is not more important than freedom and justice.
American ideals set an exceptionally high bar. Let us not lower it.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 4:24pmDec '10
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
katievs: Less reliance on politicians, more on God.
Less accommodation, more principled stands.
Less being nice, more being fierce.
Less interest in money, more in morality. · 0 minutes ago
Katie, have you read Imprimus this month? Norman Podhoretz writes about how America's original exceptionalism (and differentiation from Europe) was our focus on the material. Granted, at first it wasn't at the expense of morality, but one must wonder if it was the first steps on the path that led us to Tuesday.
Sep '12
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
It all comes down to culture. It's politically incorrect now to make people feel bad for poor decisions or for not making the most of themselves.
Back when people who made bad decisions were chastised, it wasn't simply to make the person feel bad, it was to scare others from making the same mistakes.
The elites still do this among themselves; that's why, for instance, our children get pregnant (too early) less often.
I think this may be the only way to reverse the collapse of culture, but I don't know how to make it acceptable again, or if it's possible.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 4:27pmFeb '11
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
.....
The weirdest thing. I sat down to write a positive post and this came out. I'm totally serious. We don't need to be down in the dumps or anything, but I do think people need to be taking this situation more seriously than they have other setbacks. · in 1 minute
I've experienced the same. There seems to be some weird link between optimism and pessimism as if they're circling around to one another, like an emotional moebius strip. I agree with everything Jonah said (I also agree with Jay Cost as linked above). Also part of the dissonance is that while our long term outlook seems to require more effort and is far less certain, the short term outlook offers us plenty of opportunity to make our own gains. Romney (and much of the GOP) left so much low-hanging fruit on the tree that I feel foolish for having given up my skepticism about him and started to believe that his single-faceted and amoral/non-emotional pitch would gain traction.
Mar '11
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Mollie: What do you thing about a secession movement? I bet the Northeast would not mind at all- they being better than the rest of the country anyway. The two Americas are just too far apart. I am sure it can be done peacefully. I just see no hope otherwise and the thought of trying to outnumber the dependency class on election day is too depressing to contemplate.
Oct '11
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Michael Hinton
It all comes down to culture. It's politically incorrect now to make people feel bad for poor decisions or for not making the most of themselves.
Back when people who made bad decisions were chastised, it wasn't simply to make the person feel bad, it was to scare others from making the same mistakes.
The elites still do this among themselves; that's why, for instance, our children get pregnant (too early) less often.
I think this may be the only way to reverse the collaps of culture, but I don't know how to make it acceptable again, or if it's possible. · 1 minute ago
But that's not "nice"!
Oct '11
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
The weirdest thing. I sat down to write a positive post and this came out. I'm totally serious. We don't need to be down in the dumps or anything, but I do think people need to be taking this situation more seriously than they have other setbacks. · 23 minutes ago
That's just it. Heaven knows I would like to curl up in a ball for the indefinite future (and my husband wants to smack me for it), but before we don't give up, I think we need the serious reflection, to understand what we've just learned. I'd been saying in the run up to Tuesday that if we lost this, it said far more about the state of the country and its people than maybe we wanted to admit. Until we take that all in, I don't think we should charge out and try to fix anything - we'll be tilting at the wrong windmill.
Dec '10
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Kelly B
Seems to me that it's no longer necessary. Not necessary to men, because women no longer withhold sex without it. Not necessary to women, because government steps into the "provider" role for them and their children, or because they can support themselves very nicely, thank you. How on earth could we possibly combat that? · 9 minutes ago
The solution involves a lot of individual pain and hardship. However, we're simply wired to not accept the suffering of others even at their own hands. We're in a very classic relationship to both the rock and the hard place.
Mar '11
Re: L'etat C'est Nous: America Waves Goodbye to Limited Government
Ed G.
Romney (and much of the GOP) left so much low-hanging fruit on the tree that I feel foolish for having given up my skepticism about him and started to believe that his single-faceted and amoral/non-emotional pitch would gain traction.
Ed G.- Very ably put- this is exactly how I, and I am sure many other Ricochetti, feel. And I have felt this way often the past twenty years. Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney. Hey- maybe we should learn our lesson and nominate a moderate next time!
I bet Allen West wouldn't leave us feeling this way.