Bipartisan reaction to a free market

As 2011 nears we are going to hear a lot about bipartisan efforts to make government work, and all thoughout 2011 we'll be inundated with calls to pull together in a national effort to spur economic growth, reform education and rebuild America. The Transformation of America will be billed under a new banner of Rebuild America.

Democrats misread the results of the 2008 election -- the progressives thought they had a mandate to Transform America into European Social Democracy. The surprise has been that European Social Democracy has failed -- China's State Capitalism quickly rose as the new model of statism. Also, the Tea Party rose to rejuvenate the values of fiscal conservativism and limited government, a mixture of libertarian and conservative ideas.

In the last few years, because of a deep and long-lasting recession, America has splintered into forces of competing ideas: the progressives are pushing to complete the Transformation of America into Social Democracy; the Tea Party is pushing to limit the reach of the federal government and to cut spending; the moderates are pushing to combine both parties in a campaign of economic nationalism to Rebuild America; liberals of all stripes are practicing the art of obscurantism trying to figure out the pragmatic solutions to saving the welfare state while also spurring the economy; Big Government Republicans are determining how to co-opt the Tea Party and regain power in 2012 in order to push their form of statism. Hardly anyone is seriously fighting for a free market, because hardly anyone understands what it means anymore.

Now that the midterm elections have temporarily stopped the progressive movement, understanding what the election results mean has proven tricky. The administration and the moderates are banking on the idea that the public wants bipartisan cooperation to force government to pragmatically develop solutions which will create jobs and economic growth. If bipartisan efforts create short-term economic growth, the prevailing idea is that this will buy time so that government can cut spending and reform entitlements. Cynics have reason to believe that jobs and economic growth are the necessary sedatives to calm an anxious public -- they have worked before. The big question is -- Are we at a point of government control and spending which has crippled enterprise's ability to create sufficient growth?

Advocates for liberal democracy were misled by progressivism into accepting this alliance as a necessary means of maintaining Democrat Party power and preventing conservative resurgence. Shortly after 2008, many liberals were declaring a permanent Democrat majority, and it appeared to them that a progressive president was the key to building energy and excitement among the public for major change. While most liberals stop short of promoting European social democracy in America because of its ties with socialist/communist alliances, they were seduced by Hope and Change, perhaps hoping that a Transformation of America would be something moderated by American uniqueness and ingenuity -- liberals have a tendency to be blinded by wishful thinking. The healthcare bill was rationalized by modern liberals and all the warnings were pushed aside because the end result of near universal coverage was too great in their minds to obsess over details and false projections. The finance reform bill fell right into the liberal wheelhouse with its emphasis on suppressing the power of Fat Cats, so, again, government overreach and unintended consequences were ignored. As a result, progressive momentum created a regulatory structure, still unfinished, unlike any we've witnessed since the New Deal, or, at least the Great Society.

Being unfinished, the structures of healthcare and finance remain a problem for liberals in light of European austerity and pressure from the public inspired by Tea Party concerns and, also, reality of our growing debt. There are growing concerns that the legislative accomplishments are burdening American businesses, creating uncertainty at a time when our nation is in desperate need of economic growth and job creation. Liberals also supported the stimulus and bailout efforts, neither of which have created the economic growth expected.

Although progressives are pushing for a completion of Hope and Change, liberals and moderates are now in a qaundary -- they've been shocked back into reality from the giddiness of the progressive dream, but they can't associate themselves with Tea Party concerns, certainly not as advocates for free market solutions. The forming solution to the quandary, apparently, is a modified version of China's State capitalism. Neither liberals nor moderates condone the human rights violations in China which help support their economic growth, but the model of State capitalism, to their way of thinking, contains an appropriate involvement of government regulation and growth management. Spending on repairing and enhancing infrastructure is a solution which combines government spending and responsible attention to job growth, so that such spending can be framed as "investment" rather than short-sighted stimulus.

Efforts are already underway to incorporate liberal projects in the infrastructure plans, such as clean energy alternatives. I've written about this lately, but we're in the middle of an evolution among liberals and moderates. The good news is that they seem to have recognized the dead-end socialist nature of progressivism, but the bad news is that they don't appear to be any closer to accepting free market solutions -- they will claim their new economic nationalism is a compromise between free market principles and government oversight and management, but this is no different really than the mixed economy we've had all along that paves the way for progressive advancements.

Unless we move beyond the idea that frames the extremes which we face as a free market on the right and a progressive, European social democracy on the left, and the sensible compromise as a mixed economy moderated by applying pragmatic solutions on a case by case basis, we cannot avoid a constant drift to more State power and control. I've proposed at this blog, over and over, that a free market should be our norm in the economic realm, and in the political realm a limited government should be the norm -- but what has become the norm is a statist direction that continues to drift toward complete State control -- call it socialism, progressivism, a Merchant-State, State capitalism, fascism, crony capitalism, whatever you want to call it as the two parties alternate power, it's still a direction which leads to loss of freedom and financial collapse. The liberal and moderate aversion to a free market might not be an acceptance of "socialism", but it is an acceptance of statism, and statism takes on different forms of control, but the State, when unlimited, no matter what form it takes, always moves inexorably in small steps at time and giant leaps at time toward power and control.

Republican moderates hooked their wagon to a falling star

Moderates like David Frum and David Brooks thought they saw a coming transformation of America in 2008, so they dreamed of a Republican Party made up of moderates who could compete for political power in the future. The moderates believed, rightly, that social conservatism was no longer relevant in the political world, that candidates running for office on a platform of establishing moral dominance over a society quickly losing its way in sin and permissiveness would be out of touch with the reality of a society which is actually socially liberal, or, at least, a society that doesn't want morals pushed on them by government. The moderates had other reasons they believed the Republican Party was out of touch: the relationship with Big Business -- the old guard of Country Club Republicans blocking young blood, gay Republicans, women, minorities from full participation -- the image that Republicans ignore the plight of the poor -- the association of Republicans with war and unquestioning patriotism and American exceptionalism which has caused conflicts in the global community -- the fact that Republicans have been viewed as anti-diversity and hostile toward multi-culturalism -- so on and so forth with many legitimate concerns. But, the main problem Republican moderates wanted to solve was the influnce social conservatives have had over the direction of the Party -- moderates wanted to marginalize the social conservatives and all their spokespeople like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, and Glenn Beck, although they haven't quite figured out how to take Beck, so they just call him a crazy hate-monger.

The moderates soon had another problem -- the Tea Party -- but to the moderates, this was just an outgrowth of social conservativsm, a reactionary movement caused by a black president, changing times, and a fear of diversity and new ideas of governance. Yes, the moderates said, some progressive policies go too far, but we need major changes if we are to deal with out of control healthcare costs, global warming and our dependence on oil, the problem of Wall Street gambling us to the brink of financial collapse -- so Republicans had better stop complaining about "socialists" and birth certificates and bleeding heart liberals and join the government efforts in compromise in order to create a better, more sustainable society which is interdependent with the rest of the world. The moderates warned that Republicans can't afford to sit on the sidelines and just say no. This strategy, the moderates warned, will relegate the Republican Party to minority status for decades, and allow the worst of progressivism to come about. Centrists urged Republican participation in molding the legislation so at least the extreme elements were moderated -- what we would get, hopefully, would be the best of both sides as America is transformed to meet 21st century challenges. Yes, the moderates said, we agree that government has limits, but these are different times, and the emergencies facing our nation can't be ignored or put on hold as partisanship creates obstruction which will be blamed on Republicans and make them look backwards and reactionary, small-minded, clinging to an idealized past of a Christian America that has no relevance in the modern, complicated, cosmopolitan present.

However, the concerns of the moderates regarding social conservatism never quite materialized, and they misread the resistance to progressivism. Although social conservatives are involved in the obstruction of the progressive agenda, the main thrust was a desire to limit government, cut spending and bring about the creation of a free market. The rising stars in the Republican Party have not been moderates, but more libertarian-minded Republicans like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. A large faction of the Tea Party has requested that the movement concentrate on economic matters, not social issues. In the meanwhile we've watched the EU struggle to bail-out member states teetering on collapse because of long term, welfare-state, progressive policies, just like the policies that progressives in America are pushing to implement, and moderates are calling to compromise with. The moderates have been caught between progressive big-spending, social engineering and the movement to limit government, cut spending and implement a free market. But these types of clear distinctions now bother moderates, and Frum is building a No Label movement. This is little more than a desparate act to avoid clarity.

The results of the midterm elections, and Obama's recent compromise on the extension of Bush's tax cuts, speak loudly to a change in direction and the failure of the moderate plan to work hand in hand with the progressives to transform America, relying on the calm and reasonable center. This doesn't mean the Republican Party is on the rise and that there will simply be a switchover in power like we've seen for decades - it means that progressives, liberals, moderates and Big Government Republicans have all misread the American public. We are entering a time in which the pressure will be to disempower the State and liberate market forces. The public is pushing for personal soveriegnty and economic growth -- people are tired of government meddling -- tired of the politically connected becoming richer and more powerful off the backs of workers and producers -- tired of Washington DC political animals telling them what they should think and how they should live their lives -- they are tired of government wasting their money, then finding ever more clever ways to tax them. If any group is making itself irrelevant, it's the Republican moderates. I suggest they worry less about strategy, spin and sophisticated, Machiavellian strategy and more about adopting the principles they've denigrated the last two years.

A follow up to post about liberals and moderates

I posted this yesterday. I would like to add that liberal commenters and some moderates appear to be avoiding big, sweeping issues of national direction by burying it all in the minutiae of small differences. When faced with the charge of statism, the liberal will question the definition of statism, and then show how statism can have multiple definitions, and that any use of the State is statism, and that some liberals trust the State in some ways and not in others, on and on -- then they will show examples of lberals criticizing the State for this or that, and how liberals are diverse with many different ideas about politics.

After all is said and done, though, when you stand back and watch how the State has gradually gained more and more control, and how policy proposals for even greater State control are being pushed, and how whenever free market solutions are brought up, they are shot down, and how every attempt to transform the welfare state is met with accusations of hating the poor, old people and minorities, you begin to realize that the minutiae of small differences are merely a diversion, a defense shield to hide a statist direction which doesn't change and has widespread support from liberals. Any educated liberal knows the difference between statism and a free market, even if he/she hides from this understanding by explaining it away with nuance. When so much power has been given to the State that we live under tyranny, the liberal intellectuals will be the first to experience the cold stupidity of power, and the goons who will enforce the total power of the State won't give a rat's ass about nuance.  

Update on Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 09:23AM by M. Farmer

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/01/new-liberal-ads-dont-sell-out-to-the-gop-on-the-bush-tax-cuts-obama/

More evidence of liberals continuing their class warfare against wealth and job producers. But I'm sure I dont understand the nuance.

Joe Scarborough jumps on Palin-bashing bandwagon

This morning on Morning Joe, Scarborough joins the chorus of Palin-bashers, further creating a division before anyone has delcared their candidacy for the presidential race in 2012.

The Republican Party will blow it yet by falling into the trap of media divide and conquer. Hardly anyone in the media wants to do serious reporting. There are so many dire problems in the nation which need to be assessed and reported on, yet the media prefers to stir up controversies related to an election two years away.

Scarborough, who has suggested he has presidential aspirations, is trying to etablsih his moderate colors, and how the middle-way is the politically smart way to make government work. It's too bad he has to tear down Palin, who hasn't even announced she's running, in order to make himself look virtuous and politically savvy. Scarborough represents the Big Government Republican faction, although he talks incessantly about being a "small government" conservative. People like Scarborough try to please everyone, but in the end he simply helps to maintain the status quo. Scarborough is yesterday's political animal, when what we need now are fresh ideas and a full acknowledgement of free market principles.

Palin might not be the person, but the point is that this distraction among Republicans shows that the party has learned very little. The few people who seem serious about limitiing the power of government are being ignored, and discussion of the principles of limited government and a free market are passed over to talk about personalities. There are very few serious thinkers in the media or the political realm -- its all about strategy and horse races, compromising to give the impression that something important is being accomplished in government. The only important accomplishment we need in government right now is to limit its power, and if a limited government/free market Republican can't be elected, then Obama might as well go on another 4 years. 

To what end?

The pragmatic approach taken by progressives, liberals and moderates, whereby the end justifies the means, has run into a dead end. They can't square a progressive agenda with the principles of Americanism still held by the majority in this country. In spite of the public's acceptance of the welfare state, public education and regulation of enterprise, many people have silently worried about the growing power and size of government. Our problem has been that for years American citizens have been half asleep when it comes to government activity, waking up periodically when government became too expensive or too arrogant.

In 2008, it seemed to the left that their time had come and the public was fully behind a huge expansion in government intervention, with healthcare being the long awaited prize. The "emergency" of the financial crisis and Bush's extreme bailout measures set the stage for the progressive advancement. The actions signalled that old limitations no longer applied, and Obama seemed to be the perfect personality to lead the way forward. This was a miscalculation, as it was timed with the opening up of the Information Age which revealed debt numbers no one can imagine and clear political explanations. Big ideas were reintroduced in the private and political realms. Socialism, Progressivism, Communism, Libertarianism, Classical Liberalism, Modern Liberalism, Conservativism, all became more than the little split between conservatives and liberals. People began to think deeper and ask one another what is happening to America -- what has happened when they weren't paying attention?

When the liberal end was simply government assistance for the poor, unemployment for a very small portion of workers, Social Security and Medicare, those were concessions the public made along time ago - however, now there is talk about a public mandate forcing everyone to buy insurance, government is regulating all aspects of healthcare, the sad state of Medicare and SS have been made clear to everyone, bailouts were made in the billions, GM and Chrysler became owned by government, we're in two wars that seem to have no end regardless of what is claimed about withdrawals, there was a stimulus of almost a trillion dollars and no one knows what happened to the money, 2000 page bills are being written which no one reads, people in government are openly discussing socialist ideas, corruption and cronyism are being uncovered -- information is pouring out to the public and it appears the progressive end is something totally out of line with Americanism. The responses to the public protests were arrogant and insulting. All this smoke caused people to look for fires, and they found arsonists.

They found a powerful State out of control, using "crises" to make the largest power-grab in the history of America. Now there has been a political reaction and people are waiting to see what changes. I have a feeling that many liberals and moderates will be doing a lot of soul searching, but it appears the progressives are not backing down. Rather than bi-partisanship, we're headed for a collision.