Big-Government Conservatives: Who Are They?

 

4634992731_63ec506cba_mWe’ve been arguing a lot about libertarians here on Ricochet. I’ve been criticized for quoting from a blog that some Ricochetti took to be non-representative of libertarians. For the record, I never claimed it was representative; I was mainly just interested in the argument being made. But some people were irritated even by the reference, and reminded me that they could cherry-pick some pretty terrible big-government conservatives if they chose.

Actually, I’m quite interested in this. Who are the obnoxious big-government conservatives out there? Don’t tell me George W. Bush, because he’s retired. (Although, on that point, I grant that he was bad about spending and permitting government bloat, but how much morality policing did he really do? Not a whole lot.) I’m mainly interested in people who are influential in conservative politics right now. Are there prominent, unapologetic advocates of bigger, more intrusive government out there? Rick Santorum? Mike Huckabee? I want to know who really gets under your skin, libertarians. If you want to provide links as well, that would be awesome.

To me it seems like small government thinking is pretty solid conservative orthodoxy these days. If you want more government, you’d better be real quiet about it because that won’t fly in almost any conservative setting. But we do spend a lot of time accusing one another of favoring big government. Are we just shadow-boxing? Suspecting one another of insincerity or just naiveté? 

Commence with the pile-on. But give specifics, if you don’t mind.

Image Credit: Flickr user elycefeliz.

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  1. user_3444 Coolidge
    user_3444
    @JosephStanko

    AIG: By doing the same thing as they do? By creating programs that intrude the government into our lives more, so that when Liberals get elected, they can use the exact same programs to impose their social norms?

    I don’t view marriage as a government program, I view it as a bedrock institution of Western Civilization that existed long before the government of the United States came into existence.  I don’t believe said government has any right or authority to redefine marriage.

    • #61
  2. user_3444 Coolidge
    user_3444
    @JosephStanko

    AIG: Hence, I’m not sure what the meaning of the word “conservative” is in their name. 

    It means we want to “conserve,” i.e. protect, promote, and defend, marriage and other bedrock institutions of Western Civilization.

    • #62
  3. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Time for some kind words about social conservatism.  The trouble with Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum isn’t social conservatism.  The trouble with social conservatism is Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.  They don’t understand that big government is immoral and undercuts the virtue they want to promote.  They lack Reagan’s understanding of social conservatism.

    Government is an instrument of coercion – a necessary evil that we tolerate in order to protect good people from bad people.  Government at its moral best applies its coercive powers to bad people – people whose badness has been determined by due process.  Of course we need it to set standards, like driving on the right side of the road (something the British got wrong.)

    A moral society depends on a moral government, and a moral government would abstain from interfering with the free will that God gave us – except when absolutely necessary.

    Huckabee doesn’t understand that capitalism is the most moral economic system there is and that even small departures from it can be accomplished only by government theft and coercion.

    All laws governing a free society should be traceable to the ten commandments, and not all ten of them.

    • #63
  4. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    Joseph Stanko: I don’t view marriage as a government program, I view it as a bedrock institution of Western Civilization that existed long before the government of the United States came into existence.  I don’t believe said government has any right or authority to redefine marriage.

     Once you give government the power to license marriage and confer benefits because of marriage you also grant it the power to define it  however the hell it wants. 

    • #64
  5. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Can we agree on a correction of our terms? “Big government conservatism” is an oxymoron. I suggest we use “big government Republicans” instead. And, yes, I agree, Dubya (I was appalled by the spending), Paul Ryan, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum are big government Republicans. There is no acceptable defense of the big government status quo.

    I affiliate strongly with libertarians on the principles of what the federal government should be limited to: national defense and administration of the legal system (courts and legislature (I’d prefer Congress was put on part-time, as needed basis)) . I call myself a conservative, though, because I think libertarians choose the wrong side on social issues  (really, does it not matter that the Left’s goals via SSM are atomization of the family and therefore increasing numbers of clients for the welfare state?). Perhaps in one of these threads we should focus more on where we socons and libertarians agree.

    The enemy is the Left. It’s always and everywhere the enemy of liberty. We need to keep our focus on that.

    • #65
  6. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    BastiatJunior: All laws governing a free society should be traceable to the ten commandments, and not all ten of them.

     You had me right up until that line. Which would you eliminate? Certainly not the ones dealing with covetousness.

    • #66
  7. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    AIG: By doing the same thing as they do? By creating programs that intrude the government into our lives more,

     Like what? What programs have social conservatives created through government?

    • #67
  8. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Western Chauvinist:

    BastiatJunior: All laws governing a free society should be traceable to the ten commandments, and not all ten of them.

    You had me right up until that line. Which would you eliminate? Certainly not the ones dealing with covetousness.

    For example, laws against worshipping false gods would be unconstitutional.  And laws against coveting your neighbor’s wife (or husband) would be difficult to enforce.  No?

    I don’t want to eliminate any of the commandments.  It’s just that some of them shouldn’t be enforced by law.

    • #68
  9. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    BastiatJunior:

    Western Chauvinist:

    BastiatJunior: All laws governing a free society should be traceable to the ten commandments, and not all ten of them.

    You had me right up until that line. Which would you eliminate? Certainly not the ones dealing with covetousness.

    For example, laws against worshipping false gods would be unconstitutional. And laws against coveting your neighbor’s wife (or husband) would be difficult to enforce. No?

     Ah, I see your point. Still, the general principles underlying the Big Ten are bedrock for a free society. Opposition to stealing and covetousness virtually rules out redistribution. And belief in a True God (versus false gods) is an admission of absolute truth — like capitalism works better than any other economic system conceived by man — something progressives are inclined to deny. I can’t think of a better foundation on which to build society.

    • #69
  10. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Western Chauvinist:

    BastiatJunior:

    Western Chauvinist:

    BastiatJunior: All laws governing a free society should be traceable to the ten commandments, and not all ten of them.

    You had me right up until that line. Which would you eliminate? Certainly not the ones dealing with covetousness.

    For example, laws against worshipping false gods would be unconstitutional. And laws against coveting your neighbor’s wife (or husband) would be difficult to enforce. No?

    Ah, I see your point. Still, the general principles underlying the Big Ten are bedrock for a free society. Opposition to stealing and covetousness virtually rules out redistribution. And belief in a True God (versus false gods) is an admission of absolute truth — like capitalism works better than any other economic system conceived by man — something progressives are inclined to deny. I can’t think of a better foundation on which to build society.

     I totally agree.

    • #70
  11. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Is Big Government just additional spending, or does it include additional regulation?

    If just the first, I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned Conservatives who support significantly increased military spending.

    If also the second, how about Conservatives who support the additional regulation of Abortion Clinics with the objective of closing them down?

    • #71
  12. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    Western Chauvinist:

    Can we agree on a correction of our terms? “Big government conservatism” is an oxymoron. I suggest we use “big government Republicans” instead. And, yes, I agree, Dubya (I was appalled by the spending), Paul Ryan, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum are big government Republicans. There is no acceptable defense of the big government status quo.

    Paul Ryan? I don’t know about Paul Ryan. The others I’ll give you. I think Ryan is really trying to generate practical plans that have a realistic chance of being effective and ultimately shrinking government.

    • #72
  13. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Rachel Lu:

    Western Chauvinist:

    Can we agree on a correction of our terms? “Big government conservatism” is an oxymoron. I suggest we use “big government Republicans” instead. And, yes, I agree, Dubya (I was appalled by the spending), Paul Ryan, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum are big government Republicans. There is no acceptable defense of the big government status quo.

    Paul Ryan? I don’t know about Paul Ryan. The others I’ll give you. I think Ryan is really trying to generate practical plans that have a realistic chance of being effective and ultimately shrinking government.

    I agree with this. Ryan is an important proponent for making the transition as painless as possible. I think he’ll fail, but his heart is in the right place, and he has a higher likelihood of succeeding than anyone proposing cold turkey.

    • #73
  14. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    This is an interesting discussion, but I do have to say, no one has convinced me that non-libertarian “crazies” are as far gone as the libertarian fringe. David Frum ia often wrong, but he’s definitely not Bleeding-Heart Libertarian level of cracked. 

    A very large percentage of what has been put forward as “big government conservatism” is in my mind controversial areas of policy that are properly debated among conservatives, but that might really lead to smaller government in the larger scheme. For example, Fred contemptuously insists that anyone who supports the war on drugs is pro-big-government. But if drug legalization leads to a lot more addiction and social breakdown, government might end up bigger overall even though certain parts of it would be shrunk. (More drug treatment programs, more prisons, more social workers…) It’s an “if”, obviously, but you can’t just say on face that supporting the war on drugs makes you “pro-big government”.

    As Zafar points out, we could shrink government by dramatically scaling down the military. (Apparently we’re doing that, in fact.) We could shrink it by laying off all the border patrol people and opening our borders. Fred would applaud both of those moves, of course, but not all of our self-idenified limited government supporters would. Because those things might grow government elsewhere, so they’re not clearly a win for limited government over the longer haul.

    I believe that government should be as limited as reasonably possible, but *not* value-neutral, whatever that means. Part of the point is that it doesn’t even make sense. Law has to be oriented towards human good; there’s no other reason for government to exist at all. And as long as we’re already passing laws with an eye to securing the common good, I don’t see any good principle that clearly allows us to have a military but doesn’t allow us to, say, control dangerous addictive substances so that minors are less likely to get them. There might be pragmatic reasons for doing the one but not the other, but I don’t think the question can legitimately be settled by an appeal to small government “first principles”.

    • #74
  15. AIG Inactive
    AIG
    @AIG

    Joseph Stanko: I don’t believe said government has any right or authority to redefine marriage.

     So your argument is: “government is the cause of, and solution to, all of lifes problems”.

    Yep. That sums up “social conservatism” pretty well. 

    • #75
  16. AIG Inactive
    AIG
    @AIG

    Western Chauvinist:

    Like what? What programs have social conservatives created through government?

     Why is there so much fuss over “marriage”? Because the government has created about 30,000 pieces of legislation and about 500 different programs aimed at providing transfers benefits, incentives, special status etc. to “marriage”…all with the aim of “social engineering”.

    So with so much money being thrown by the government, everyone wants a piece. And hence why the “marriage” debate even exists, and why Big Government has to step in, from the Left, and award the same “benefits” to gay couples.

    If marriage were just a piece of paper, or a religious institution, there would be no debate because no one would care. 

    Government created all these “social engineering” programs: big government conservatives being in the lead. We had our very own Ricochet members talking about yet another expansion of Big Government programs towards incentivizing children through more wealth transfers (even if the arguments are based on very shaky grounds, and a serious misunderstanding of how “surveys” and “preferences” work).

    Look at all the “compassionate conservative” social engineering programs started under GWB, or expansions of existing programs, as another example. 

    • #76
  17. user_3444 Coolidge
    user_3444
    @JosephStanko

    AIG: So your argument is: “government is the cause of, and solution to, all of lifes problems”.

    That is quite possibly the most nonsensical straw man argument I have ever seen on Ricochet.  I said nothing remotely like that.

    • #77
  18. user_3444 Coolidge
    user_3444
    @JosephStanko

    AIG: If marriage were just a piece of paper, or a religious institution, there would be no debate because no one would care. 

    You’re wrong about that as well.  The objective of the progressives is to (1) normalize homosexual behavior and (2) criminalize any public expression of the idea that homosexual acts are abnormal, immoral, or sinful.

    They will pursue this agenda relentlessly whether or not there are any financial benefits at stake.

    • #78
  19. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    Rachel Lu: This is an interesting discussion, but I do have to say, no one has convinced me that non-libertarian “crazies” are as far gone as the libertarian fringe. David Frum is often wrong, but he’s definitely not Bleeding-Heart Libertarian level of cracked.

    Because you are not convinced that big government (as we have it now) is a terrible problem, it is not surprising that the views of someone like David Frum, who is also not convinced that big government (as we have it now) is a terrible problem, do not seem crazy to you.

    Without having to go full “theocons are going to steal my brain”, there are plenty of people who do believe that big government (as we have it now) is a terrible problem. To them, things like “Why It’s Time To Start Talking About Reforming, Not Repealing, Obamacare” is, in fact, crazy talk. That this talk is the common currency of DC and Manhattan does not make it any less crazy, it just makes it omnipresent in the media and therefore seems to be the ‘centrist’ or ‘mainstream’ view.

    But it’s still crazy.

    • #79
  20. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    Rachel Lu: I believe that government should be as limited as reasonably possible, but *not* value-neutral, whatever that means. Part of the point is that it doesn’t even make sense. Law has to be oriented towards human good; there’s no other reason for government to exist at all.

    Well, perhaps. Can we agree that freedom of conscience and of religion is an important aspect of human flourishing? And that, that being the case, in a pluralistic society like the United States there will be different conceptions of the good life that are validly held by different individuals and communities? So that the “human good” or “common good” that can legitimately be pursued by the state is limited largely to providing the space for the free spiritual development of persons and communities?

    Obviously this leaves a lot to discuss and dispute, and that’s why we have politics. But it does tip the scales towards less, rather than more, state intervention.

    • #80
  21. user_280840 Inactive
    user_280840
    @FredCole

    Rachel Lu:

    I don’t see any good principle that clearly allows us to have a military but doesn’t allow us to, say, control dangerous addictive substances so that minors are less likely to get them.

    Can you give us an example of said dangerous substances?

    And a thing nobody has touched on is prostitution.

    So let me nominate, for the big government conservatives list, any conservative who favors laws prohibiting prostitution.

    • #81
  22. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    Fred ColeSo let me nominate, for the big government conservatives list, any conservative who favors laws prohibiting prostitution.

    Fine, for the ‘government bigger than Fred wants’ list, but would you really call Colean minarchism + a law against prostitution ‘big’ government? If so, what would you call what we actually have today? Large, sizable, substantial, great, huge, immense, enormous, extensive, colossal, massive, mammoth, vast, tremendous, gigantic, giant, monumental, mighty, gargantuan, elephantine, titanic, mountainous, Brobdingnagian government?

    • #82
  23. hawk@haakondahl.com Member
    hawk@haakondahl.com
    @BallDiamondBall

    I’ve tried to comment on this thread three times today.

    • #83
  24. hawk@haakondahl.com Member
    hawk@haakondahl.com
    @BallDiamondBall

    Fred Cole:

    Rachel Lu:

    Can you give us an example of said dangerous substances?

    And a thing nobody has touched on is prostitution.

    So let me nominate, for the big government conservatives list, any conservative who favors laws prohibiting prostitution.

     Fred, why should your preference for non-violence be enshrined as the One True Law, and the rest of it be consigned to the heap?  At the end of the day, you have a preference (“Because I want it”), and nothing more.  I obscenity in the milk of thy preference, and declare my own preferences better than yours.  Oh, and mine are supported by the weight of history and the facts on the ground.

    You pretend to misunderstand that we are small-government conservatives, not no-government anarchists.  You are smuggling predicates into the wrong tent.

    • #84
  25. hawk@haakondahl.com Member
    hawk@haakondahl.com
    @BallDiamondBall

    Zafar:

    Is Big Government just additional spending, or does it include additional regulation?

    If just the first, I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned Conservatives who support significantly increased military spending.

    If also the second, how about Conservatives who support the additional regulation of Abortion Clinics with the objective of closing them down?

     I think the CoC requires me to pretend that you are not trolling:

    Defense is spelled out specifically as a duty of the government in the Constitution.  Conservatives think pretty highly of the Constitution, and pretty much see the need for defense anyway, so good luck with that.  

    Not every dollar spent is equally well spent.  Not every regulation is equally useful.  You display the Marxist false equality that every hour worked is equally valuable.  Their economics is doomed by this failure, just as your argument is.  We conservatives are not driven mad by a reckless consistency for its own sake, not hypnotized by the beauty of a one-rule theory of everything.  You assume in your argument that conservatives see every dollar spent as equally wasteful, and every regulation as equally pernicious.

    If these are the friends of conservatism, no wonder we are in such trouble.

    • #85
  26. liberal jim Inactive
    liberal jim
    @liberaljim

    Your assumption that politicians should be judged on what they say, after almost two solid decades in which the size, scope, and influence of government has grown and the national debt is at historic levels, excepting the WW2 period, is absurd.   Excepting the few Republicans that are labeled obstructionists, by their fellow Republicans, the entire GOP is comprised  BGCs.  Why, because their actions promote the growth of government.  I could give a flip what their philosophy is or what they advocate.

    • #86
  27. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    Rachel Lu: Paul Ryan? I don’t know about Paul Ryan. The others I’ll give you. I think Ryan is really trying to generate practical plans that have a realistic chance of being effective and ultimately shrinking government.

     I have to agree with Rachel here. Paul Ryan has made some missteps but his end goal is to move the country towards a smaller less intrusive government. Would he do it as quickly or in the exact way I  prefer? Probably not, but he will move us in that direction incrementally which is probably more politically feasible than my preferred methods. 

    • #87
  28. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    Rachel Lu: This is an interesting discussion, but I do have to say, no one has convinced me that non-libertarian “crazies” are as far gone as the libertarian fringe.

    Don’t you think there’s a little confirmation bias at work here?

    • #88
  29. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    Ball Diamond Ball: Defense is spelled out specifically as a duty of the government in the Constitution.  Conservatives think pretty highly of the Constitution, and pretty much see the need for defense anyway, so good luck with that.  

     I agree in principle that defense is one of the few areas where government is necessary. This does not, however, give the government a blank check for whatever size military and whatever foreign military adventurism it desires. The founders themselves had longstanding and deep divisions over the mere existence of a standing military. While I happen to believe that a standing, all volunteer, military is necessary that doesn’t mean I believe that we still need bases in Germany or Italy or Singapore. Those may be necessary for strategic reasons, but the actual reason most of them still exist is institutional inertia and bureaucratic turf protectionism. 

    • #89
  30. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    genferei:

    Rachel Lu: This is an interesting discussion, but I do have to say, no one has convinced me that non-libertarian “crazies” are as far gone as the libertarian fringe. David Frum is often wrong, but he’s definitely not Bleeding-Heart Libertarian level of cracked.

    Because you are not convinced that big government (as we have it now) is a terrible problem, it is not surprising that the views of someone like David Frum, who is also not convinced that big government (as we have it now) is a terrible problem, do not seem crazy to you.

     Of course big government is a terrible problem. I absolutely think so. But the reasons why that’s true have a lot more to do with rent-seeking behaviors and cronyism and sometimes just bad prudential calculations, than with over-aggressive attempts to hold to a normative vision of human good. 

    As you say, Geneferei, and that places some limits on what we can do, for pragmatic reasons and also because trampling on people’s serious commitments (even misguided ones) is generally bad and to be avoided. But a lot of the ways in which libertarian-minded conservatives want to shrink government are to my mind just ill-conceived and liable to worse and, probably in the long run, more statist. We’ve been talking a lot about legalizing drugs lately; is that necessary to protect anyone’s religious beliefs or commitments? (I mean, yeah, there’s peyote and the occasional ceremonial use of drugs, but we’ve had no problem making some accommodations for those without opening the floodgates to cannabis and crack at the corner store.) So I’m not convinced that’s the right sort of state-shrinking, and the people who favor it are sometimes disturbingly uninterested in digging into the details of the cultural fallout.

    Prostitution likewise. It’s an ugly business. Can anyone really claim they need it in order to live out their beliefs with integrity? Again, I’m willing to discuss and weigh the cons of enforcement vs the cons of widespread legality, but I’m not willing to effectively bypass that discussion on small state or libertarian type principles.

    And you already know that I’m wildly in favor of holding and imparting moral standards on a cultural level.

    On the other hand… bloating bureaucracy? Slash! Burn! Corporate welfare and crony capitalism and all attendant ugliness? Be ruthless, Republicans! And for sure, the entitlement state is badly in need of reform. I’m also quite happy to do with far less regulation of things like soda cup size and child car seat usage and the like. 

    I don’t see libertarians as the enemy. Far from it! But I do think they’re often unrealistic about the degree to which even a small state has to endorse some fairly complex idea of human good. Being unrealistic, they then make some bad calls about how to shrink the state.

    • #90
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