Reclaiming the Right

Rightwing has become somewhat of a confused and convoluted position. Moving forward, or backward, the libertarian/right movement of the 30s and 40s, the right has transformed into something unrecognizable. Murray Rothbard wrote an essay in 1964 about the transformation, and the Rothbard would be even more appalled today, 45 years later, as the right is in a greater, confused state of intellectual disarray.

There is evidence of a present resurrection among independents and some conservatives, but it remains to be seen if this resurrection is grounded in anti-statism and non-intervention overseas like the Old Right. Hardly anyone is addressing the internal threat of statism as both left and right have found new external threats which take precedence over liberty, peaceful trade and free markets. The modern right gives lip service to classical liberal principles, but these principles are largely viewed as quaint ideas of a simpler, less dangerous past.

The old charge of "isolationism" missed one of the core values of the Old Right, what Rothbard described as America "serving the world as a beacon light of peace and liberty, rather than as master of a house of correction to set everyone in the world aright by force of bayonet."

The perceived threat of communism turned the right into militaristic statists, retrenching into a traditional system satisfied with temporary loss of freedom for the sake of Power, God and Nation, much like Bush's betrayal of the free market to save the free market. Individual liberty, free markets and limited government became something we could attain later, but, in effect, classical liberalism was being traded for a statist-leaning conservatism. Many moderate statists today yearn for Buckley when they should yearn for Nock.

The New Order created by the Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution and the French Revolution has been sliding back to the ogligarchic control of the Old Order, but it has a new face. Today's conservativism, which passes for the Right, is a conglomeration of muddled thinking, although a strain of classical liberalism/libertarianism is breaking through. Anti-communism was replaced with anti-terrorism, and while both have been threats, each has been a rationalization for building a more powerful, interventionist state. "Terrorists" are actually statists using different tactics, and America continues fighting statism with more powerful statism, just as we did with the communists. The weapon to use against statism is anti-statism, but we have to believe that statism is wrong in order to use this weapon properly and too have any integrity.

If it's a matter of the most powerful statists winning, then we might win the war of control, but how many innocent people must die in the process? How much liberty must be lost? And if the idea of statism lives on, then we'll always be fighting some other statist power which challenges us for control. Where are the voices of anti-statism in the world, upholding the New Order of classical liberalism which transformed the world once upon a time? The progressives are preaching a stale moral relativism, while the conservatives are preaching military superiority, but no one is preaching individual liberty, free markets and limited government. It seems as if these principles have been assigned to obscurity as we discuss ways for groups of states to control the world.

We are no longer that "beacon light of peace and liberty", just a powerful state with no vision of the future. It embarrasses most intellectuals to even think in such terms of having a vision of the future inspired by classical liberal principles, much less voicing these principles full-throatedly and attempting to persuade others to follow, or, through our actions, lead by example.

The world should be tired of war by now, but there are no champions for peace. The world should be tired of coercion by now, but there are no champions for liberty. The world should be tired of central planning and social engineering, but there are no champions of limited government and voluntary action. Well, there's not many champions, and the ones who do raise their voices are called reactionaries, rubes, rightwing fanatics, gullible, isolationists -- they are ridiculed and marginalized. To be fair, some strains of the right deserved ridicule and marginalization, and we're better off for their loss of power and influence, but, hopefully, the original resistance by libertarians to the Rooseveltization of America will never die.

There's still a useful distinction between right and left, but the right has been reduced to a few surviving libertarians screaming against a powerful and destructive wind. Melodramatic? Quixotic? I prefer to think that it's a healthy defense of liberty, and an authenic call for peace and prosperity for all -- a right resistance to a statist left and a confused moderate middle.