The Right's big moment of decision

 A few years ago I wrote that with the gradual loss of freedom in a shaky world that's becoming shakier as each day passes, Americans will either bring forth a new era of liberty, innovation, spiritual revival and economic growth or Americans will shrink in fear and look for protection provided by some strong leader who convinces the public that the problems we face are so great that liberty must be restricted further, temporarily, so that we can stabilze the country by promoting fiancial security and physical safety. 

Obama called the latter reaction clinging to guns and religion, or something like that. Many of the current candidates are calling for the former reaction, but they mostly imply that the right government can bring about a new era of liberty, innovation, spiritual revival and economic growth, although most of the Republicans say that government is too big and that the private sector must be empowered. This confusion comes about when candidates talk about "creating jobs", then in the next breath talk about the dangers of government interventions. Gingrich and Romney have talked about economic freedom and how the private sector can create economic growth, etc., and Santorum has talked about the middle class and workers being able to make progress, if only government would stop interfering.

None of the candidates other than Paul address government intervention head on in philosophical terms and call for an end to government programs which overstep Constitiutional bounds. Santorum thinks the libertarian, philosophical view of anti-statism means promoting "no-government" -- he rejects it -- and, if you pushed Romney and Gingrich, like liberals in media do, by giving certain scenarios of what would happen to poor people, sick kids and old people if certain programs are eliminated and certain powers of government are limited, they, like Santorum, will reject the libertarian/limited government/free market position, and they will say something like -- Oh, well, we need a strong government that looks after the most needy, and we need some programs to make sure no one slips through the cracks, and...you get the picture -- you've heard it all, over and over.

The Republican Party has been like this for a long time -- when push comes to shove, Republicans capitulate to the statists, and government grows, never shrinks and never pulls in the power from previous expansions by creating limits. Now, though, we can't afford the expansion -- we have to reign in government power in order to control the costs and actually reduce spending in a real way. That's not all, though. Our problems are not only in government spending, and the problem with a powerful government is not only the cost of such a government. Slowly, government is entering every nook and cranny of our lives. Right, Center and Left all have their ideas of how society should behave, how we should think, how and what we should believe. The civil libertarian idea of allowing free adults to decide for themselves what they believe and how they want to live, as long as it's not violating the rights of others, is accepted by fewer in government than ever before, it seems, when you would think the opposite should be true -- that we would have advanced by now to live our own lifestyles in peace and open-minded understanding. I guess the desire to control and exercise power over others never disappears, but, in the 21st century, you would think we'd have strong limits in place to prevent this desire from interfering in our pursuit of happiness. Instead, we have Obama and the progressives attemping to control all our economic activities from the type car we drive to our healthcare to what we eat and on and on.

Then we have Rick Santorum on the Right gaining support in the Republican primary just when many thought the Right was over strongarm social conservativism and moral legislation. Every day we see a new quote from something Santorum has said in the past regarding his moral views and how he thinks government plays a role in legislating morality -- he's also stated he will fight all libertarian influence in the GOP. My fear that Americans would react to uncertainty in the world and to the failure of statism from the Left by turning to a Moral Warrior who promises to return America to decency, God and the American Way of Life, could be coming to fruition, although I hope not, at least not through government control. The way to beat statism and power-mongering is not through more statism and greater power-mongering. The way to beat statism is through limits to government power, and creation of liberty in the economic realm. It's one thing for Chrisitians to pull together and attempt to revive their way of life, but not through government power, not through limiting the freedom of others, not through legislating morality. What the Right has to understand is that liberty means people will act in ways that are counter to Christian morality, but any attempt to control the immoral (immoral to the Christian who's judging) behavior and legislate moral behavior is worse than the immoral behavior.

We can't regress to rightwing, fascist, strongman control in reaction to what the Right sees as dissolution of morals as Satan destroys the soul of America. If that's what some Christians really believe then seek voluntary change -- don't follow a charlatan like Santorum who pretends to be a Christian warrior battling Satan's control over the public. Santorum is a politician who's seeking power, and anyone who promises to fight those who promote limited government and a free market is not a warrior for Good, but rather a banal power-freak looking to control others. Jesus wouldn't have asked for political power to spread His message -- Jesus would have been closer to libertarianism than to Santorum's perverted, statist world-view.

An example of media framing

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/05/jon-huntsmans-climate-problem

The above is an example of how liberal media will push Huntsman closer to Obama and make it impossible for Huntsman to take a rightwing position without being associated with earth-destroyers and bigots. Many on the Right will concede that the climate is changing, but they disagree on the responsibility of the government to "do something" about it. Many on the Right have compassion for gay people, but they still uphold the tradition of marriage being between a man and a woman, but rags like Mother Jones will hold up the stereotypical far rightwinger/hatemonger as the average Republican who is clearly and vigorously opposing Obama's policies -- so if Huntsman takes any stand that would upset a Democrat, he's pandering to the Republican base, and they are all kooks, you know.

These partisans on the Left are becoming so obvious and collectivized it's both funny and frightening.

Moral authoritarianism

As the right contemplates regaining political power from the left, what does this mean? Does it mean that they will return power to the private sector where it belongs, or does it mean they will relax economic controls, but tighten authoritarian control to restrict social liberalism?

If the right is merely pushing to regain a form of rightwing statism, then they have not learned their lesson. The right should be pushing to end the Department of Education, not worry about whether certain teachers are gay, for instance.

The rule of law is important, but the laws are just as important. Strictly enforcing irrational laws is not a virtue. The right is often associated with religious tenets and Christian morality, and it is fine if certain individuals are guided by the principles of their religion, but religious restrictions on behavior regarding human behavior in general have no place in government. This doesn't mean that politicians should be libertine, and they have a right to make speeches regarding what they believe are moral codes of behavior, but enforcing these codes on the public is authoritarian and a form of statism just as egregious as economic statism.

I won't go into particulars because it becomes silly to focus on specific behaviors -- the problem which screams for a solution is the mindset of many on the right. I've written extensivley regarding the mindset on the left which motivates irrational regulations placed on businesses and the idea that the government should plan the economy, but it's just as wrong to regulate human behavior which is not violating anyone's rights. Just because some behavior is distasteful from a religious or moral standpoint, doesn't mean it's the government's business to regulate the behavior.

The Republican Party might believe that its voting base supports regulation of human behavior, to restrict people from smoking pot or dancing naked or sleeping with the same sex, but most of society has now grown weary of government intervention in our bank account, our workplace, our eating habits and, just as importantly, our bedrooms and private behavior. 

Revisiting the right

The history of the "rightwing" is so convoluted, it's no wonder that many people reject association. In the beginning, it stood for those who wanted to preserve the ancien regime, monarchy, aristocracy against enlightened liberalism -- of course, this not true regarding the modern meaning of rightwing which has taken on an economic meaning, despite the conservative faction on the right which still calls for traditional values, in the vein of Russell Kirk's conservatism. As Murray Rothbard explained, the original reaction against a free market and limited government direction at the end of the 19th century was a conservative reaction from both what are now called "liberals" and "conservatives" -- both a statist reaction to classical liberalism going in somewhat different directions to maintain State dominance -- but that's another argument for another time.

The modern right has supported capitalism, but the development of State capitalism has muddied the waters and created a division on the right between the tradionalists, moderates and the libertarian right. The libertarian right is compatible with the Old Right of the 30s, 40s and 50s, led by thinkers like Albery Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov and Murray Rothbard, except it is now the 21st century and the intellectual aspect of the Old Right has become less academic and more popular, spurred by a large part of society which might not uphold libertarian principles in total but are sick and tired of empire building, government encroachment on liberties and out of control spending on the progressive agenda.

The right has also been associated with fascism, and the left still uses this out of date, not-quite-right association to scare the public away from limited government and free market reforms. This association refers to the authoritarianism of some 20th century rightwing regimes which were illiberal in practice. Law and order, nationalism, strict control of society's behavior, a strong military and national defense, all these were associated with authoritarian control from the right.

There are other factions on the right, and I'm not aiming at an exhaustive analysis -- there are moderates who fashion their position as center-right, and there are neo-cons, but both of these groups have leaned more toward modern liberalism than the right, with only a few differences to distinguish them from modern liberals. The moderates and neo-cons are more statist and modern liberal/progressive than the current libertarian right movement., so I don't really consider them a part of the right -- they are opportunist who can go either way depending on the utilitarian value of a position.

While much of the right continues to have a nationalistic and militaristic streak which values national defense, this aspect of the right is weakening in respect to modern conflicts in third world nations and nation building -- the right in America was largely influenced by rejection of communism and the fear that communism was gaining a foothold in America. The Old Right, however, thought the communist scare was an excuse to build up State power, so the libertarian right has traditionally been less militaristic and called for a return to America's original policy of foreign non-intervention. While most of the modern right support a strong national defense against a new enemy, terrorists such as al Quaida, we could see a movement toward a strong military constrained by a policy of non-intervention in international affairs unless our safety is directly affected.

In the 70s and 80s, and to a lesser degree in the 90s, the right was associated with the religious right, and social issues like abortion, pornography and sexuality played a large role in how the public viewed the right. Most of these issues have been settled one way or another, and although there is still a faction on the right concerned with social issues, in the arena of politics, social issues play a less important role as economic concerns and government over-reach, which creates out-of-control spending, become the focus. The libertarian influence on the right has become palpable as the formation of the Tea Party aims at limiting government power and allowing free market principles to work in the economy.

The libertarian right is more in line with classical liberalism than with tradtional conservatism, but many on the right still refer to themselves as conservatives, because libertarianism is widely misunderstood or not understood at all. It remains to be seen if the rise of the rightwing falls back on traditional conservative governance which has been statist in nature, or whether the libertarian influence is lasting and the right creates a dynamic, free market/limited government response to progressivism.

More left propaganda about right propaganda

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502756.html

E.J. Dionne is very concerned that the administration is overreacting to rightwing extremist propaganda. The situation is almost as bad as Dan Rather, Sharpton/Tawana Brawley, Prof Gates, Journolist and decades of MSM propaganda. But, if you ignore the left's history of propaganda and twisted journalism, you can make a case that Fox has ruined a once virtuous media and has caused the administration to veer from it's path of objectivity and calm reason. If you ignore Mel Gibson's racist comments, you can make a case that  he's the most non-prejudiced actor in Hollywood. It's all in what you include and exclude that's makes a good point.

Mark Thompson, a self-proclaimed "libertarian" at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, says he has a hard time not agreeing with Dionne. Oh, yeah, Dionne is very convincing, if you exclude his bias. Thompson is a libertarian, if you exclude his ideas regarding conservatives, liberals, libertarians, government and political philosophy.