Screeds
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Comes The Revolution
January 31, 2003
Weblogger Dawn Olsen yesterday described her metamorphosis from liberal to conservative, and in so doing has provided your humble Curmudgeon with fodder for a rant of his own.
Time was, two camps faced off across the demilitarized zone of American politics. One called itself “liberal.” It stood for freedom of thought and expression, defended property rights as the bulwark of all others, and advocated minimal government that would attend to the strictly public matters of our polity: military affairs, peace in the streets, the maintenance of the courts, the protection of individual rights and the enforcement of contracts. Its spokesmen quoted Emerson and Thoreau, and proclaimed the defense of the rights of the disliked as the front line of defense for the rights of all.
The other camp called itself “conservative.” This group was extremely wary of rapid or dramatic changes to the legal and social orders. Its patron saints were Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke. Its vanguard pointed to the terrible consequences of the great sociopolitical upheavals known to history. The specific positions it took were largely heel-dragging ones, intended to brake the rate of change so that whatever adjustments to the status quo were absolutely necessary would not destabilize too many lives.
What was remarkable was how seldom the camps disagreed on matters of substance. Both agreed that the zone of noninterference with individual decisionmaking—of freedom—should be very large. Both agreed on a general rule of noninvolvement in the quarrels of other countries. Both agreed that good intentions were no substitute for good judgment—and that all one could do with a mistake, once recognized, was to admit it and reverse it.
Time was.
There have been many changes in the political and international order. Scientific and technological progress have effaced the military importance of national borders and juxtapositions. Militarily, everyone is everyone else’s neighbor—and, given the power of modern weapons, at everyone else’s mercy. Differences in wealth, horribly exacerbated by counter-rational decisions in political economy, have become far larger than ever before, increasing the pressures against the borders of both rich and poor regions. Nationalism, the “wild wind” once deemed responsible for germinating World Wars I and II, is being eclipsed by other forces, racialism and militant Islam most important of all.
Internationally, the United States has been compelled, in part by its own conscience, to undertake to police the world. Never mind that it’s impossible. It’s not possible to police the streets of Manhattan, either, but we’re honor-bound to try.
Domestically, we’ve tried many things to redress our residual social flaws and irritations. Almost all such efforts have expanded government action. Almost all have been utter failures; not only haven’t they ameliorated the situations they addressed, they’ve actually made them worse.
Our political camps have seldom repudiated their failed initiatives. Rather, they’ve embraced the “do it harder” thesis. This initiative is failing, they argue, not because it’s inherently misconceived, but because we aren’t giving it enough time / money / personnel / legal latitude / uncompromised devotion. Due to “public choice” political dynamics, the result has been a geometric expansion of government’s authority over private citizens and their voluntary associations, and a matching acceleration of its appetite for our rights and our property.
There are few contemporary “liberals” or “conservatives” whose core principles accurately reflect those brand names. They’ve been supplanted by two other camps, whose opposition is far more polar than the previous two, and whose front lines encompass virtually all of human enterprise. They embrace essentially all politically engaged Americans.
The first of these simply wants government action to be effective at achieving wholesome results. That is, the aim of a proposed policy must be clearly in line with Judeo-Christian moral strictures—the Ten Commandments plus the ethic of benevolence toward the less fortunate—and the policy must be successful at achieving its aim. They dislike being mulcted for the benefit of bureaucrats under the rationale of a “charity” that benefits no one. They disdain the idea that “public spirit” requires endless acquiescence to expensive, intrusive failure.
The second camp is oriented toward the use of government power for self-aggrandizement. Many suckle at the public teat: bureaucrats, civil servants, vendors to governments. Others are demagogues, skilled at identifying communities that can be convinced that some particular government action benefits them, regardless of the facts. Then there are hairy-eyed ideologues—environmental radicals, abortion absolutists, slavery reparations advocates—who see government imposition of their beliefs as the only possible route to their goals.
The first group tends to self-identify as “conservative” and votes Republican. The second group tends to self-identify as “liberal” and votes Democrat. Neither is happy with the status quo, nor with the efficacy of its chosen party as a vehicle toward its aims. Each detests the other.
The disconnection between these groups’ orientations and their brand names should require no comment.
I’ve written before about the political revolution of 1896, when the “progressive” Jennings Bryan Democrats captured the party away from the libertarian Cleveland Democrats and began the transformation of the major parties. It was the foundation stone in our current political prison. Yet it would be naive to think that none of the other changes in our nation or our world have factored into the sea change in political attitudes and alignments.
There’s still hope for a Constitutionally based renaissance. It lies in the “conservative” camp, which demands performance, and currently holds a slight edge among the electorate. If lovers of freedom are correct in their beliefs about individual rights and the proper limits of the State, these things will prove themselves in practice and sway “conservatives” toward our positions. But other things may prove themselves as well, including the unviability of noninvolvement in international politics and the need for public fallback sustenance for those incapable of looking after themselves. Libertarians must be willing to concede these things, should reality insist, or risk being left on the sidelines as the revolution marches past.
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