Conservative Conversation + Podcasts

Adam Smith’s formula for prosperity, “peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice,” is within human competence to deliver. As government expands its scope beyond its competence and as politics creeps into more and more facets of life, our society becomes more contentious and more dysfunctional. People and organizations are forced to lobby government out of self-defense and factions work to subvert government’s coercive power to advance their own ideas and interests through force. Truth becomes the first victim in this war of subversion.

We’ve seen this in the political battle over the coronavirus. In a pandemic, information saves lives, but disinformation has become the rule as the parties seek to spin the crisis for political advantage. The efficacy of masks, social distancing, medical treatments, and vaccines is determined by political affiliation rather than by medical science.

Our founding fathers did not seek independence from their English overlords because they viewed themselves as radicals intent on destroying an unjust system of English oppression. No, our founding fathers viewed themselves as Englishmen, who were not being treated as true Englishmen, with property rights, a say in their governance, a system of laws and not men, and other English principles going back to the Magna Carta. And they had a point.

Martin Luther King Jr. was not a radical seeking to destroy an unjust system of American oppressive culture. No, he viewed American blacks as an important part of American culture, who were not being treated as the true American citizens that they are. And he had a point.