The Broken Government

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1

David Brooks seems to think that "free market" principles played a part in breaking Big Government. I hate to break (pun intended) it to Brooks, but what has broken Big Government is Big Government -- plus, bought politicians using cronyistic measures to favor Big Business are not representative of free market principles or libertarianis. How can someone so apparently smart, be so ignorant? Or is Brooks simply doing what all statists do -- obscure the issues in defense of another form of statism.

So, the old form of statism has failed because of libertarians and rampant free marketism, thus now another communitarian form of statism is needed to fix what's broken. Rather than a centralized tyrant, let's create local tyrants who inevitably will receive marching orders from centralized technocrats. No, Mr. Brooks, libertarians didn't break government, although I'd like to take part of the credit.

Brooks is the worst kind of political pundit -- he pretends to be conservative and concerned with government abuse of power, like his concern over subsidies, but he's statist to the core. His kind have no confidence in the ordinary person's ability to self-govern and choose freely in a real free market. Brooks is from the old Conservative mindset which believes an elite few have to guide the hoi-polloi to a better, more stable and civil world. Even when he's playing the smart and pragmatic conservative he promotes managed conservatism from above. Brooks is a joke that doesn't seem to end. If the new Republicans inspired by classical liberal ideas lead us in a new direction, Brooks will have no niche for his Big Government centrism -- perhaps the joke will end, and then we can laugh.  

Misrepresentations from the Left

To follow up on the misrepresentation of libertarianism, despite the cartoonists on the Left who depict Libertarians as characters in a comic strip cheerleading for the wealthy to amass greater fortunes while the Little Guy eats elephant-dung sandwiches, this is only the Left's feeble attempt to win an argument to which they have no answers. It's much easier for liberals and progressives to fight their own comic enemy-creations than real Libertarian positions.

Libertarians, at least the ones I read, would like to end all corporate welfare, favortism and protection and create a free market of healthy competition. Libertarians aren't taking sides in a war against capitalists and labor, they're calling for rules that apply to all which protect individual rights, and the abolition of State coercion which gives anyone or any group an unfair advantage in the marketplace. This is not difficult to understand. Someone who calls themselves a Libertarian yet supports any State advantage given to corporations over unions and workers, or vice versa, is out of line with Libertarian thought. I personally don't know any such Libertarians, but the Left continues to refer to them, the ones advocating favoritism for corporations, when defending unions against greedy capitalists. They even claim the rich capitalists are out to destroy the middle class, so, by association, this implies Libertarians want to destroy the middle class. Unbelievable.

And, it's not that Libertarians are reacting to the charge by showing how much they hate rich, capitalist bastards -- Libertarians are okay with anyone who can amass a fortune in the market without unfair State coerced advantage, or any coerced advantage, but it's not like one of the guiding principles of Libertarianism is that people who amass fortunes are superior and should be idolized -- this is the impression the Left promotes. Libertarianism doesn't make such judgements, and if people freely choose to be more moderate in their ambitions and seek other values, then that's fine. It's about lack of coercion and the freedom to associate and live your life how you choose as long as what is done doesn't violate the rights of others. The Left should know this -- they really should. False accusations from the Left aimed at Libertarians, of course, say more about the sorry intellectual condition on much of the Left than it does about the integrity of Libertarians. It's instructive that those on the Left making the accusations do so in a general way with no specific examples.

The politically homeless

I've always thought of libertarians as being the politically homeless. Most libertarians are serious thinkers, although those who call themselves libertarian but are focused on a few civil liberties which fit their lifestyle choices are not serious thinkers -- the pothead libertarian berating the Man because pot is illegal but doesn't know Murray Rothbard from Robert McNamara, who doesn't know either, really, is not a serious political thinker. Most serious libertarians are politically homeless because neither political party has challenged statism in any meaningful fashion. However, as our national problems have become more alarming, the honest modern liberal might soon find it difficult to commit to the Democrat Party, and, seeing as how they've fought so hard and long against Republicans and it would be too much of a chasm to navigate, there will be no political home for them, either. The honest liberal can no longer pretend, and still maintain integrity, that the progressive agenda is anything other than a recipe for financial disaster and an unacceptable restriction of freedoms. For my purposes here, I'm describing the average liberal person who is not necessarily an ideologue, and more likely someone who shuns ideology, values tolerance, pulls for the underdog, morally supports social causes like climate change initiatives, gay marriage, the end of the War on Drugs, defends civil liberties and still believes that the market is valuable with proper regulations, proper social consciousness and oversight.

When economic times were better, the political game of liberal vs conservative, or Republican vs Democrat could be played as a diversion, a cultural game of the intellectual, socially conscious elite and do-gooders against the capitalists and fundamental religious moralists. On both sides of the political game there have been opportunists who are also not serious political thinkers, like those who vote for one party or the other for a single issue and a special interest -- such as the union member who believes Democrats treat unions better, so he/she votes Blue out of economic interest.

It appears we're at a point where the country has more at stake than anytime I can think of in the recent past, and government actions are critical because government officials have so much power to affect our lives, especially with the passage of the healthcare bill which gives government unprecedented control over a sixth of the economy. In this type of politically-focused atmosphere, there is little room for superficial political game-playing, and those playing politics as usual are being revealed as foolish and un-serious -- it's an affront when we consider the nature of our financial problems and high unemployment. Serious times call for serious people, and liberals who before could say that all the fret and worry over statism is hyperbole, now have to go deeper in their political understanding or appear out of touch, disingenuous or ignorantly in denial.

It's boiling down to serious progressives who believe we just need smarter, more enlightened technocrats and more government power to get things done and those on the Right like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio who believe that government has to be limited and that economic freedom in the private sector needs to be established in a meaningful way. The old establishment politicans attempting to maintain the status quo appear obsolete and desperate to protect their privileged positions. The Big Government Republicans who at one time made their careers by compromising and playing the game of appearing as stalwart, patriotic defenders of the American Way against tax and spend, peacenik, permissive liberals now seem ridiculously out of place. The establishment Democrats who were never that radical appear to progressive believers as weak and uncommitted to the transformation of America and a true anti-capitalist transition to the progressive ideology.

Two contrasting ideas of the government's role in society are being presented as the nation stagnates in uncertainty and rising debt. The Right says let the dogs loose in the private sector, and the Left says give government more power to "invest" and win the future. The mixed economy has run its course, and either we'll go full-bore statism or we'll limit government power and implement a free market. The modern liberal can no longer claim that the Right is hyperbolic, and that we simply need a good mixture of statism and targeted free market principles -- the two don't mix, and this is becoming more obvious each day. Wisconsin is the first big break in the mixed economy -- reality meets wishful thinking and reality will win. The honest modern liberal has to accept reality and reject progressivism, but this will not be easy, because liberals have so demonized the Right in the political game that any concessions to limited government and a free market will be a defeat to their world view.  But liberals have to come to terms with this -- the stakes are too high. It's time for serious men and women to stand up and drop the partisan stances. Republicans have to drop the posture of anti-liberal. There's nothing wrong with being liberal, per se -- our country was founded on liberalism. The problem came about when modern liberals moved toward the socialist ideas of progressives in a wrong-headed effort to establish some vague idea of social justice. Liberals bought the anti-capitalist spiel, but capitalism was never the problem. The problem has been a statist system which lured rent-seeking corporations into the State apparatus as partners by promising them protection and favors. This collusion of government and rent-seeking corporations perverted capitalism, and a non-existent free market was blamed.

State power players have lured in corporations, unions, special interest groups, minorities, the media, universities, Hollywood, defense contractors, intellectuals, the Fed, Fannie and Freddie, bankers, and have gained practical control over the entire economy. Surely this is not what liberals had in mind. Liberal aversion to social conservativism has been a cultural aversion and liberals lost sight of something far worse developing all around them -- State power and the loss of economic freedom, not to mention wars, hyper security fears and civil liberty violations. Liberals were concerned under Bush, yes, but now there's the same abuse of power under Obama. So what does a liberal do? Deny reality? Pretend it's different? Or does the liberal face reality and think in terms of the big picture?

Our challenge as individuals is to come to terms with useless divisions which are the wrong battlefield on which to fight. The State has effectively dvided the country and placed itself as the Great Caretaker, providing security from birth to death. A liberal can no longer be considered liberal if this situation of State power is not frightening and is not resisted. I will write more to clarify these ideas in the coming days.

No room for libertarians

It's become obvious that once again there's no room for libertarians in the Republican Party or the Democrat Party. Neither party is committed to the principles of classical liberalism. It boils down to conservative and Big Government Republicans on the Right and liberals and progressives on the Left, with moderates trying to figure out which way to shift. The Libertarian Party is a dead letter.

Neither major party is a viable vehicle for libertarians, so once again libertarians are relegated to the fringe of American politics, although our country has never needed libertarian economics, civil liberties and foreign policy moreso than now. The libertarian influence on the Tea Party is being marginalized as "extreme", and the media presents the usual cartoon version of libertarianism in an effort to denigrate its contribution to the national conversation. Even many libertarians are either moving to Republican libertarianism, supporting foreign intervention and minimizing free market principles, or to the Left in the form of a combination of modern liberalism and civil libertarianism which actively opposes free market principles and fails to oppose the Democrats' expansion of foreign intervention.

This marginalization of libertarians is a status quo reaction which protects our statist system of government, keeping the two-party system locked firmly in place. Aside from the status quo centrists who simply want power because there's personal comfort, prestige and advantages with power, there are two social religions vying for the heart and mind of the State through a coercive interventionist government which can bring about the tenets of their social religion. On the Right is the conservative social religion, and on the Left is the progressive social religion -- both are true believers and seek power to change others or prevent other from acting in ways contrary to the tenets of the respective social religions. The conservative social religion focuses on the issues of abortion, law and order, protection against radical Islam, pornography, Christianity, fiscal conservativism, pro-business policies, patriotism, border control, sanctity of marriage, the war on drugs, and such, while the progressive social religion focuses on the issues of labor rights, women's rights, poverty, saftey net security, anti-capitalism, regulation of industry, nationalized healthcare, global warming, multi-culturalism, foreign intervention which helps developing nations, community organizing to transform power to the oppressed, redistributon of wealth, and such.

Both social religions require a strong State with coercive powers which reach beyond Constitutional limits. Libertarians may share similar goals which each side, like fiscal sanity, alleviation of poverty, equal rights for all, but mostly libertarians believe that such efforts as the War on Drugs are wasteful and counter-productive, and that safety nets do more harm to those in need than would private efforts to voluntarily provide assistance to those in need. Libertarians don't seek political power which would coerce others to act certain ways -- libertarians, for the most part believe that people should be free to do as they wish as long as they are not violating the basic rights of others to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Libertarians are not necessarily amoral libertines, although some might personally be this way, just as anyone in any group might be this way as evidenced by both individual conservatives and progressives caught acting in libertine or amoral or immoral fashion. Libertarians can be just as morally committed to certain ways of living as anyone else -- they just believe that real morality is freely chosen. A man who contributes to charity is practicing morality in a real way as opposed to someone who gives nothing personally but rather takes from some and gives to others. The person who chooses to make a career helping people conquer their addictions is acting morally as opposed to someone who turns  addicts over to over-crowded prisons where they have no chance of recovering.

Morals are made real through inner struggle and personal acceptance, then action, not through government legislation. The libertarian way is a more difficult way because it makes people responsibile for their decisions, and this is not popular with those who would rather coerce society to act a certain way, then hide within a political party.

Plus, economic freedom is necessary for widespread economic opportunity and gowth. The conservatives give lip service to economic freedom, but neither side is fighting diligently for a free market. Without economic freedom all freedoms are threatened. Libertarians are once again being pushed out of the conversation after a brief fling with the ideas of classical liberalism. It remains to be seen which way the Tea Party will go, but if they go toward libertarianism, they'd better be prepared to go alone politically, because neither party will implement their ideas.

Conservative rejection of libertarianism

http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2011/02/05/a-rejoinder-to-melissa-clouthier/

It appears that RedState conservatives are doing what I predicted a year ago they would do -- reject libertarians, and misrepresent their ideas. For the most part, I agree with Leon Wolf, conservatives have their own ideas and should have conferences which reflect their ideas, but his attempt to associate libertarianism with modern liberalism and egalitarianism, or to say libertarians want government to act on legalizing gay marriage, is very misleading, and, if it's intentional, then it's an awkward smear job.

The libertarian position, which Wolf conceded is more in line with true libertarian thought, is that government has no business legislating marriage, but what this has to do egalitarianism, I don't know -- Wolf had to add some non-libertarian positions and assign them to "some" libertarians in order to make the connection. The purely conservative position is definitely not libertarian -- most non-hyphenated libertarians are for limiting government to the basic duties of police, military and courts in order to protect individual rights which allows a society of individuals to freely work out morals and values. Mr. Wolf favors government intervention to legislate values, like obscenity laws. This doesn't mean libertarians are in favor of obscenity, just that society can work all this out on its own. It also doesn't mean a libertarian favors gay marriage when she says it's not the government's business to decide who can and can't get married -- again, it's up to individuals in society to work it out.

I suppose Mr. Wolf has a point, that so-called libertarians who've adopted the liberaltarian label, a combination of civil libertarianism and liberal statism, are far from the conservative ideal regarding which part of government should be "small", but I doubt they are going to CPAC.

Mr. Wolf might have to accept that conservatism is changing, and that many conversatives are less concerned with government controlling social issues and more concerned with limiting government power -- does this make them libertarians? Maybe libertarian-mindd conservatives? I don't know, but I don't think that government intervention in social matters is a sine qua non of conservatism. 

Update on Saturday, February 5, 2011 at 07:04PM by M. Farmer

Another attack on libertarianism from someone who doesn't get it.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2011/02/cpac-a-libertarian-rise-would-be-a-disaster.html

So, we can never limit government power? It will always be a battle between conservative and liberals. If that's the case, then it will be a continuing disaster -- the author apparently hasn't checked the results of this battle lately.