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. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    Jamie Lockett:

    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?

     Sure, but when I quote “out there” libertarians, people hear get angry and tell me that those nut jobs aren’t representative of anything. If your answer to the Bleeding-Heart Libs is David Frum, well, I think any at all reasonable person should see that he’s way closer to the realm of sanity than they are. Most of the issues people are bringing up here are legitimately serious issues, unlike, you know, mandatory licensing for parents.

    • #91
  2. user_280840 Inactive
    user_280840
    @FredCole

    genferei:

     

    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?

    For me, prostitution prohibition is kind of a so-con/libertarian litmus test.  Look, I can accept that libertarians can disagree about abortion.  You can be pro-life and still logically consistent as a libertarian.

    But prohibiting prostitution?  No.  It combines several things.  It’s using government to enforce one group of people’s moral values on everyone.  It’s prohibiting a non-violent action.  It’s prohibiting free trade.  It’s prohibiting voluntary sexual activity between consenting adults.

    Look, if someone was an actual minarchist with the exception that for some reason, inexplicably, they’re like “Except for prohibiting prostitution,” then I’d want to talk to that person and find out their thinking because I’m sure its novel.  If you find such a person, please send them my way.  (Odds are they aren’t a minarchist.)

    • #92
  3. user_280840 Inactive
    user_280840
    @FredCole

    Ball Diamond Ball:

     

    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.

    He’s not trolling.  He just disagrees with you.

    Sure, defense is spelled out specifically in the Constitution.  It does not follow that that defense require enormous government and massive defense spending.  Have defenses.  But conservatives tend to cry that any modest cuts to defense spending are “gutting” the military.

    Conservatives seem more than happy to accept big government so long as its defense associated.  If we have to have government, then fine, it should do defense.  It does not automatically follow that we have to have a dozen carrier battle groups.  Except for during the Civil War, big government in terms of defense is a 20th century innovation.  If you’re going to talk about the Constiution then you should appreciate that the founding fathers were, being students of history, (RIGHTFULLY) appreciative of the dangers to liberty of standing armies and navies.

    • #93
  4. user_280840 Inactive
    user_280840
    @FredCole

    If you’re going to talk about the Constitution, note in how Article 1, Section 8, the following appears:

    To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

    The two year limit on defense appropriations is still a thing. Why did they include it? Because James Madison was a student of history and understood how the Roman republic fell. And if you study the end of the Roman republic and you know the Constitution, you’ll see the safeguards built in to the system.

    That’s because standing defense establishments are dangerous to liberty. So please don’t plead the Constitution as your basis for conservative support of big government in the form of defense.

    • #94
  5. user_280840 Inactive
    user_280840
    @FredCole

    The problem, Rachel, and what you’ll see over and over in this thread is special pleadings.

    We point to big government conservatives and “Well, they’re not in power any more.”

    We point out other big government conservatives and “Well, they’re not really conservatives because big government conservative is an oxymoron.”

    We point out the massive defense establishment and “Well, that’s in the Constitution, so it’s okay.”

    We point out Paul Ryan and “Well, his heart is in the right place.”

    That’s fine and all, do what you gotta do, but what I need to come back to over and over is:
    Conservatives are in favor of small government except when they aren’t.

    • #95
  6. user_331141 Member
    user_331141
    @JamieLockett

    Rachel Lu:  Sure, but when I quote “out there” libertarians, people hear get angry and tell me that those nut jobs aren’t representative of anything. If your answer to the Bleeding-Heart Libs is David Frum, well, I think any at all reasonable person should see that he’s way closer to the realm of sanity than they are. Most of the issues people are bringing up here are legitimately serious issues, unlike, you know, mandatory licensing for parents.

     The difference Rachel, is that David Frum is published by the New York Times not a self run blog. In addition, many of us believe that his Big Government style conservatism is far from sane given the path we are on.

    • #96
  7. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    Rachel Lu:  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.

    I agree that the main problem with big government is not that Rick Santorum is going to become President and use it to institute compulsory catechism classes.

    But I do think the problem with big government is that it does hold to a normative vision of human good, which is a state-centered one where individual responsibility and liberty is viciously attenuated. It is the internal logic of the administrative state, where all matters are subject to ‘prudential’ control by the authorities, where the citizenry are objects and not actors, where agency is suppressed, that is fundamentally antithetical to freedom and, yes, human flourishing.

    Big government is not bad because it is run badly or because it makes mistakes. It is bad at its core and conception. It is the bigness that is the wrongness.

    • #97
  8. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    It is a little unfair to assume that our definition of “Big Government Conservatism” is support of policies that we happen to be against – like No Child Left Behind.  Just maybe we’re a bit more thoughtful than that.

    Big Government can be measured objectively in dollars and cents, pages in the Federal Register and the country’s ranking on the Index of Economic Freedom.  By those objective measures, GWB was a big government president, even if you exclude the costs of the war on terror.  Excluding Obama, you’d have to go all the way back to Lyndon Johnson to find a president who grew the government faster.

    Can anyone say with a straight face that the government we had in 2001 was too small?

    • #98
  9. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    Rachel Lu: 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.

    You do see how this comes across as pretty weak sauce to many of us, don’t you? Bureaucratic bloat? Crony capitalism? Soda cups? Way to trim…

    But perhaps I’m misunderstanding you. I know you’ve said you don’t have a fully worked out idea of the appropriate size and role of the state, but what if we try this thought experiment:

    It’s 2021. The second term of President Warren is coming to an end. The public, sickened by a decade and a half of ever-more-extreme progressivism is ready for change, whipped on by the most popular and influential talk-show host in history, Fred Cole. Ben Domenech has bought CNN; Mollie Hemingway the New York Times. (This means there are no political constraints to any sort of shrinking of the Federal government.)

    (contd #100)

    • #99
  10. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    (contd from #99)

    You have been retained by a presidential hopeful to produce a blue-sky paper on what the Federal government should look like in a generation.

    What is your gut-feeling going into the process about the share of GDP the government should command in taxes/spending? About the same as now? 10% less? 90% less? More?

    What is your gut-feeling about the number of employees and contractors? Same questions as above.

    What about the number of regulations? The number of federal crimes?

    Or do you feel these are all misconceived questions and the real issue is what the existing tax and regulatory structure should be used to achieve?

    • #100
  11. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

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

     You’re not listening. Social conservatives didn’t even have GWB’s senior drug benefit program on their radar, and at least this SoCon didn’t approve. I think we can agree Bush’s scheme was dreamed up to ensure his reelection. I also hated NCLB, and that he signed campaign finance, and essentially wrote a blank check for Obama with TARP. You get no argument from me that Dubya, while a good man, is a Big Government Republican.

    The fixation on “marriage reform,” which SoCons engage in only as defenders of historical norms and conscience protections, is predominantly on the Left and among libertarians. You seem more agitated by SoCons’ defense of commonsense and the marriage status quo than by the dire need for reform of every (other) aspect of our Leviathan government. And, btw, marriage, as it stands is a function of the states. The Left and SSM-supporting libertarians are the ones making a federal case of it.

    Arguments for “marriage reform” in advance of other more urgent changes are unserious. SoCons are not the enemy. 

    • #101
  12. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    Fred Cole:

    genferei:

    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?

    For me, prostitution prohibition is kind of a so-con/libertarian litmus test. Look, I can accept that libertarians can disagree about abortion. You can be pro-life and still logically consistent as a libertarian.

    But prohibiting prostitution? No. It combines several things. It’s using government to enforce one group of people’s moral values on everyone. It’s prohibiting a non-violent action. It’s prohibiting free trade. It’s prohibiting voluntary sexual activity between consenting adults.

     I actually agree that prostitution is a great litmus case. It’s bad for society on lots of levels. It’s objectifying and insulting to women. It’s bad for marriage (and by extension, for children who depend on the stability of marriage). It tends to precipitate violence and it helps to spread disease. I don’t know of any religion or serious philosophy that would claim that prostitution is necessary to any credible understanding of the good life. There’s no good reason to want it in your society, and plenty of reasons not to. But, arguments to ban it will generally involve some pretty explicit reference to moral goods and not just material ones.

    Again, I have no problem with that. I think in the end that any solid justification for law and government is going to have to involve some reference to human good and well-being. Prostitution involves the immediate consent of all involved parties (usually, or at least sometimes) but that’s a very superficial level on which to evaluate it; plenty of people are involuntarily negatively affected. The mere fact that our society is kind of squeamish about judging sexual activity doesn’t particularly move me; I have no such hang-ups.

    Now, I’m happy to discuss more practical issues about costs of enforcement vs costs of legalization. There are always costs either way. Fornication and pornography are bad for society too, but there’s no way to ban them without unacceptably intrusive/expensive governmental measures, so we have to turn to softer cultural methods to combat those. It’s possible that prostitution is like that too. But that’s the conversation that most interests me. 

    I have a high respect for what I would call “integrity”. I think it’s important to grant people those freedoms that are crucial to moral development. Religious freedom, and freedom in the sphere of the family and meaningful human relationships, are important. Commerce is also important, and we want people to conduct business without being hampered by endless regulations. (But, I don’t think commerce as a whole is too damaged by the regulation of drugs and prostitution.)

    • #102
  13. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    In that vein, I do think it’s important to give a certain latitude to, say, homosexual relationships. I don’t think we should be brow-beaten into agreeing that same-sex coupling is equivalent to heterosexual marriage, but I don’t think same-sex couples should live in fear of legal reprisals, either. Though I ultimately don’t believe that they are healthy, I do think they represent for particular people the sort of “serious commitment” that commands a kind of respect, just as commitment to a (in my view) false religion commands a certain sort of respect.

    Drugs and prostitution, by contrast, are mostly just vicious, and at best unnecessary pleasures. Nobody needs them to live a good life. So I’m much less sympathetic to the case for legalizing those.

    But the main thing to realize is that a small government society isn’t necessarily a “less-judgy” government society. Sometimes prudent judgment actually helps to keep government small, as when one recognizes that border patrol is a worthy use of resources, because managing floods of unfiltered immigrants is going to disrupt public order on a large scale, ultimately leading to a bigger and more intrusive state. The war on drugs may (I say may! It’s a prudential calculation!) consume less resources than the ramifications from massively increased levels of drug addiction. (Which can lead to more crime and illness and diminished productivity.) Banning prostitution might be more efficient than trying to regulate it, and also controlling the various predictable side effects of broken marriages, increased crime etc.

    I’m a small government conservative. But I’m not a “value-neutral” government conservative.

    • #103
  14. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Thought this might be relevant, just as a reminder of what we are up against.

    • #104
  15. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    It has been stated on this thread that David Frum isn’t crazy.  I can’t say.  I’ve never met him.

    He does appear to have a peculiar sense of timing, however.  Mr. Frum started writing columns saying that we are losing elections because of our obsession with Ronald Reagan and our stubborn adherence to small government and free market principles.  He feels that the policies that helped us win three landslide elections in the ’80’s aren’t relevant today, and that we need to get past Reagan.

    Those irrelevant policies to which Mr. Frum refers are known as Classical Economics.

    As for his timing, Mr. Frum started writing these columns shortly after the end of the Bush Administration.  That is, right after he had gotten his wish in a big way.

    The Republican Party abandoned the principles Mr. Frum wanted it to abandon.  As a result it severely damaged the economy and its own electoral prospects.

    And David Frum still isn’t satisfied.

    David Frum didn’t cause our problems, but because his wish came true, the voters don’t trust us to fix the economy.

    • #105
  16. Gödel's Ghost Inactive
    Gödel's Ghost
    @GreatGhostofGodel

    Western Chauvinist:

    Oops! “Comment” function appears to be broken. I was responding to Godel’s Ghost in #37

     Sorry, but “government will never, ever be out of marriage” is to accept big-government conservatism (if the Left doesn’t win their pro-gay-marriage war) or big-government leftism (if they do) by a weird combination of surrender and defiant fiat regarding that surrender. No sale.

    • #106
  17. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    I didn’t say that Frum was sensible, but he’s not wacked-out the way bleeding heart libertarians are wacked out. His ideas have a certain level of subtlety and nuance to them that you don’t get on the crazy libertarian fringe.

    • #107
  18. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Rachel Lu:

    I didn’t say that Frum was sensible, but he’s not wacked-out the way bleeding heart libertarians are wacked out. His ideas have a certain level of subtlety and nuance to them that you don’t get on the crazy libertarian fringe.

     Hmm… I’m not sure what everyone else said about them, but “bleeding heart libertarians” are not “wacked out” in general, they’re just different than the classic libertarians. And you only pulled from a specific one. They’re wrong, but that’s all it takes to refute them. If we pointed out a “wacked out” SoCon, all you would have to say is they’re wrong and that’s the end of story.

    • #108
  19. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    OK. If you think Frum is as ridiculous as someone who thinks your kids should be taken away if you’re not “licensed” to raise them, we’ll have to agree to disagree.

    • #109
  20. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Rachel Lu:

    OK. If you think Frum is as ridiculous as someone who thinks your kids should be taken away if you’re not “licensed” to raise them, we’ll have to agree to disagree.

    Methinks we’re setting the bar a little low here! :-)

    I sort of skipped over the comments about parent licenses, so I’m not well versed in it.  If a libertarian proposed that, he must have been partaking of some of the stuff he wants to legalize.

    But the purpose of this comment is to continue picking on David Frum.

    For all of Frum’s nuance and subtlety, he seems to miss a lot.  Frum’s focus on (and animosity toward) supply side tax cuts make him unable to see the significant differences between Bushnomics (or it it Bush-O-Nomics?) and Reaganomics.  Most of those differences were outside of tax policy.

    In his most recent article, Frum insists that Bush’s economics and Reaganomics are essentially the same.  His inability to see the difference between the two has lead him and his fellow “reform” conservatives to be completely confused about the causes of our current downturn, and resistant to the necessary corrections.

    • #110
  21. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Rachel Lu:

    OK. If you think Frum is as ridiculous as someone who thinks your kids should be taken away if you’re not “licensed” to raise them, we’ll have to agree to disagree.

     Was this a response to me? Because, if so, you completely missed my point.

    • #111
  22. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    BTW, does anyone remember back in the early ’80’s, when Democrats flirted with the idea of a “grandmother license”?

    It was Democrats that came up with the idea, but Republicans who coined the (mocking) phrase.

    That’s when we were laughing at the Democrats, instead of being afraid of them.

    • #112
  23. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Here’s one, maybe:

    Perhaps subsidizing stable families of married people would be much less expensive in the short and the long term.

    • #113
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