From Libertarian to Conservative to Nationalist

Some of my friends stopped talking to me about politics as I have made a journey from libertarian to right-wing nationalist.  I owe my friends an explanation.  Everyone else is welcome to read of course, but if I don't know you, I may not publish your comments.

First, I want the same things that I always wanted for this country; limited government, liberty, the rule of law, entrepreneurial culture, and an expanding economy.  I came to realize that although libertarians and even conservatives claim to want those things as well, the way they pursue those ends undermines their goals.  It's a little like happiness, if you want to be happy, you don't pursue material possessions and partying, which might seem like the road to happiness. Instead, you pursue worthwhile goals, you find your place within your community and in relation to God.  Then you find joy, a much deeper emotion, and more happiness.

The key break with conservatives is the realization that all men are not created equal.  They may be equal in the eyes of God, or we may value equal treatment before the law for the citizens within our borders.  But not all peoples are equally adept at thriving in a society of limited government and advanced technology.  But this equalist fantasy pervades conservative thinking. They fantasize that majorities of mestizos, arabs, and blacks can become conservative voters; so they refuse to address a key way that the left defeats conservatives, by importing peoples whose children and great-grandchildren will vote for socialism and less freedom.  You can call me racist, but that wouldn't address the truth of my argument.  The left lies and says that by increasing the diversity of America, it makes America stronger.  In fact, racial diversity harms social cohesion, as many studies have shown.  But conservatives eschew truthful arguments for fear of being called racist.  In fact, their fear of being called bad names and not receiving approval from their leftist colleagues, acquaintances, and neighbors always puts them on the defensive, so THEY ALWAYS LOSE the culture war.  As Andrew Breitbart famously said, politics is downstream of culture.  This is why I have abandoned the niceties of policy discussions of tax codes and other mainstream conservative topics.  Until we build a social consensus about acceptable norms that are based on the traditions of our European forebears, we are doomed to extinction by a combination of immigration and being out-bred by an imported permanent underclass.

When one considers what the "good life" consists of, it cannot be a life devoted to mere material possession or self-interest.  Taking one's place in a community of shared values is a key to long-life happiness.  Intact families that produce new generations to carry on our work are the linchpin of this joy.  Our shared values based on shared religious conviction that allow us to agree on how to raise children and set their moral compass.  By definition, multiculturalism is a direct threat to these shared values.  Conservatives have no answer as to how to combat this, because they are unwilling to risk approbation by saying political incorrect things.  They are unwilling to say that Islamic belief is incompatible with freedom and democracy; that a mestizo underclass will always vote for socialism; or that blacks are dependent on the good-will of whites in our society.

Further, our lack of cultural cohesion leads to an atomization that also helps the left; atomized people, disconnected from their communities, are susceptible to believing in anything.  Further, they can be intimidated and made compliant without the intervening structures of church, community, and strong social organizations to protect them.  The belief in unrestricted individualism that underlies contemporary conservative and libertarian thought actually works against their own goals by disconnecting people from community.  In my nationalist view, we seek to take our place in our community and do the work that God grants us; we are willing to enforce our community norms, passing down the religion and traditions of our forefathers.  Because we also want limited government, we are not asking for government enforcement of our norms; merely non-interference in our right to discriminate and censure those who violate our values. Further, we seek a government that doesn't enshrine in law practices inimical to our religious and cultural convictions; so we oppose gay marriage, and marijuana legalization, as two examples.  We recognize that it is a tightrope to walk with respect to government overreach, especially concerning drug use.  But the recent spate of legalizations of marijuana just shows that politics is indeed downstream of culture.

The other key reason for my break with conservatives is that conservative politics only "wins" when it benefits globalists, never when they protect average Americans.  NAFTA was passed with Republican votes, and without unrestricted immigration, might have been good for America.  But conservatives did squat to control the border when Republicans held Congress.  The truck driver from Scranton may not follow politics much, but he knows when he is getting screwed.  He may not vote for the Democrat because they voted for regulations that make his job harder and more expensive; but he knows that Republicans won't ever roll it back. I'm tired of voting for people who say their policies will help Americans in some abstract way, but whose only victories come when big business is helped.  (By the way, the Democrats are even worse about this, but they don't claim to be a conservative party.)

As a practical matter, limited government nationalism mostly will agree with conservatives on many policy matters, and I seek an anti-Marxist alliance with libertarians and conservatives.  The difference is emphasis, the willingness to use so called hate-facts, and brave cries of racism from the left.  Ending immigration, illegal and otherwise is made the top priority.  Allowing Middle Eastern strongmen to enforce the peace to prevent chaos that results in migration crises is another goal.  The policies of the nation will be judged on the impact to the nation as a whole.  As Trump said, "America First."  But ultimately, politics and policy is no longer the goal; I want to change the tone of the culture.  The only policy that really matters is immigration, because your culture is highly dependent upon your ancestry.

Libertarian Thought Experiment

Imagine if you will, that libertarians have taken over a state and seceded from the United States.  Libertarians ideals are fully implemented. There is no minimum wage for example, and libertarians from the rest of the United States have migrated there.  How long would this last?

I ask this because libertarians are among those on the right who call for open borders.  The practical effect of an initially successful libertarian state would be an initial economic success that would attract those without skills to work at wages that are illegal in the U.S.  How long before the libertarian businessmen of Libertopia were making fat profits selling goods produced with low cost labor back into the U.S.? How long before Libertopia is overrun with migrants from cultures who don't value limited government?  How long before they have the votes to end libertarianism and vote themselves minimum wage hikes, benefits and extended unemployment benefits?

The fact is that generally, throughout history, only a few cultures have been in favor of limited government with separation of powers, such as the United States has had.  Further, those cultures have concentrated in Europe.  There is good evidence that some of this predisposition is heritable. Unlimited immigration from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America means bringing voters to America who don't value limited government and separation of powers as well as other rights, like freedom of speech.  Those of us who support a political system inherited from England will get out-voted by increased immigration.

The conundrum for my libertarian friends is that strict libertarianism destroys libertarian society.

The Chapter Where Republicans Remind Me Why I Voted Libertarian for 30 Years

Despite personal inconvenience and minor hardship, I supported shutting down the government to achieve the goal of lifting the individual mandate of the ACA for one year, to grant a level playing field to the ordinary citizens of this country.  They should be granted the same compassion that the President has shown for his big business cronies.  Of course, the Republican party caved early on that fight and then decided to drag out the fight over the debt limit and federal funding over other issues in an incoherent strategy that resulted in their public humiliation.  Here are some goals worthy shutting down the government over:

• The aforementioned relief for ordinary citizens' mandate under the ACA.
• Changing the rules for calculation cost of living increases for Social Security and Medicare to slow their long term growth and make it more fair to young taxpayers.
• Further cuts to federal spending beyond the current "sequester."

A feckless, undisciplined strategery-challenged GOP would have had to pick one, and only one, goal and defended it to the brink and over the cliff if necessary.  Further, it would have had to thought out the strategy months in advance so that it could pass appropriations bills for stuff it wanted to fund early in the cycle and use HHS funding or some other appropriation vehicle to extract the necessary compromise.  

In fact, Republicans were only dragged into the fight reluctantly and only because they felt pressured by the tea party caucus.  The leadership's heart was never in the fight, they fought only to save face, and lost even that.  It was like playing prevent defense when you are already behind in the score, trying to stop the other team from running up the score when you had already lost the game.  It was pathetic and the outcome predictable despite some moments of optimism.  

The other reason that we lost is that the tea party wing does not represent a majority of the voters in the country (the linked Gallup poll quizzes conservative, liberal, moderate, but is a decent proxy).  The response of all liberty movement groups should be to continue to educate and persuade and point to the inevitable consequences of current policy.

The article that explains my GOP reluctance is here, also known as The Chapter Where I Was a Teenage Libertarian.  

Why Libertarians need Conservatives and Vice-Versa

I am a church-going social-conservative libertarian. That may sound like a contradiction, but I have thought through my beliefs, but never really articulated why these beliefs aren't contradictory. I probably can't do this subject justice in one post and may expand it over time. I was a registered Libertarian from the mid-70s until 2008, so I might explain why I think libertarians need conservatives, first.

Libertarians value liberty, of course and set of values, that by themselves lack adequate moral glue to bind society together. A world in which libertarian values prevail could only survive if civil society supported the social norms of a conservative world-view. Such a view might hold that the individual has a larger duty outside of oneself. The self is not the highest end, nor the most important societal construct. Haidt discusses this in his essay on why people vote Republican, in his discussion of his time in India. Libertarians may desire a society in which conservative norms are not enforced by the government, but the norms are necessary. More on government later.

The other reason is that libertarians will never form an outright majority unto themselves. Although this is my opinion, Jonathan Haidt's research points to this result as well. Libertarians share with liberals that they don't hold as broad a spectrum of moral values as do conservatives. As a result they will probably not achieve a majority status (nor will liberals). Only by allying themselves with the least statist leaning groups between left and right can libertarians achieve the freedom and small government that is their goal. Some libertarians take a different view, and desire not only a government that doesn't invade the bedroom, but a society that takes no moral view of what happens there as well. That is unrealistic and counter-productive. We know that family disintegration due to absent fathers is the key predictor of poverty in the western world. Restoring social norms would go a long way towards reducing the demand signal for welfare and prisons, two key components of big-government.

It is less obvious that conservatives need libertarians, but they do. First, their votes and energy are necessary to do battle with the forces of statism. On any individual issue, the pressure for government to "do something" often seems compelling. Only a firm adherence to principles, which libertarians seem better equipped to do, can beat back these impulses. Second, conservatives forget at their peril that the use of government to achieve their desired social ends usually ends badly for them. From the death of the church because it was identified with the monarchy in old Europe to Republicans becoming identified as the party of big government before the 2006 elections, marrying conservative social ends to the coercion of big government has been a loser. Further, funding big government conservative programs undermines the principled arguments for limited government.

The tension between the two perspectives often plays out in the non-economic issues. Three examples.

Immigration. The libertarian argument is that free movement of people is important for freedom and economic prosperity. Conservatives argue that open borders will undermine the rule of law, and allow those who don't share our values to weaken the nation's commitment to limited government. Further, both libertarians and conservatives suspect a desire on the part of the left to increase welfare rolls and the overall dependency rate by allowing vast amounts of new immigration. My solution: Secure the borders to champion the rule of law, have a vastly increased guest worker program to allow free movement of labor, but limit the path to citizenship of the guest workers.

Marijuana. Conservatives view the abuse of alcohol and many other drugs are symptoms of societal ill. Condoning their use weakens society because drugged up and drunk folks act stupidly and harm others. Libertarians know that prohibiting their use results in black markets, violence and money flowing to criminals. My solution: Legalization; but it is up to we the people to establish that in civil society drunkenness and druggedness are not acceptable.

Gay marriage. Libertarians don't want to interfere with people's right to make their own arrangements for love and economic union, so gay marriage isn't a problem for them. Conservative objections primarily rely on tradition and religion. However, these arguments are legitimate. Government sanctioning gay marriage yields it protected status. Some time ago I took grief for telling a young gay man that I objected to gay marriage because it infringed on my freedom of speech. That post still has this blog's record for most comments. Events since I have made my point, as Chick-Fil-A's vilification showed. My solution: Government out of the marriage business. I would like to see churches draw up marriage contracts and record marriages as they once did. If people want to just live together, fine by me. And if gays wish not to be married in church, but draw up a civil contract that lays out the marriage agreement, that should be their right. But I shouldn't be forced to acknowledge that they are married if I don't want to.

That's all for now, I hope to expand this article into a longer post.

Libertarian, Conservative, Tea Party, Who Cares?

Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, and by all reports a decent guy, has taken some flak for saying the next President might have to "call for a truce on the so-called social issues." Mike Huckabee disagreed vehemently, saying:

Let me be clear though, the issue of life and traditional marriage are not bargaining chips nor are they political issues. They are moral issues. I didn’t get involved in politics just to lower taxes and cut spending though I believe in both and have done it as a Governor. But I want to stay true to the basic premises of our civilization.

I am not saying that Mitch Daniels is a Tea Party supporter, but Huckabee has certainly kept his distance and used this opportunity to voice conservative distrust of the libertarian leanings of the Tea Party movement. We need to remember that Huckabee will again be a candidate for President. For my part, I think that Governor Daniels had an unfortunate choice of words. According to Andrew Ferguson, "Daniels is pro-life himself, and he gets high marks from conservative religious groups in his state." I think Daniels was saying that the economic mess the country finds itself in is a much more urgent problem than say, abortion or pornography. KT might argue that the pathologies that underlie those issues are at the root of the current mess, I am not so sure. Regardless, within the Tea Party and the Republican party, tensions between conservative and libertarian philosophies are rising.

Two other news items illustrate that something is going on. Reason magazine's cover story this month tackles the issue within the Supreme Court, where conservatives and libertarians are taking a different view of the role of the courts, judicial restraint and the doctrine of original intent. What is clear, is that the judicial activism by left wing judges that has expanded the role and power of government is the common enemy of both libertarian and conservative schools of thought.


The next libertarian vs conservative debate is this one between Sarah Palin and Ron Paul:



Judge Andrew Napolitano is a great American, by the way. He also makes the excellent point towards the end that on the economy, on the role and size of government, conservatives and libertarians have much in common. If you really listen closely to Paul and Palin, you find much common ground, and even the makings of that truce Daniels talks about. Which rounds me back to Mitch Daniels point, inelegantly put as it was. Right now, the chief threat to the Republic is the vast over reach of the Federal government, and its attendant debt, as well as the debt piling up at the state and local level due to unsustainable social programs. This is why both conservatives and libertarians are at the Tea Party rallies.

On a personal note, I have a foot in both camps. I was a Libertarian party member for over 30 years before I left over their lack of seriousness. I disagree with conservatives on the overall solution to illegal immigration (although I do believe we must secure the border). I have long opposed abortion, and believed that some wars, even if we weren't attacked might still be in the national interest, unlike libertarians. But I am comfortable with the Tea Party because the focus is right, which I will again repeat:

The size of government has become a threat to our liberty and prosperity.

Finishing up with Daniels, in an American Spectator article he makes these excellent points:

Yet Daniels continued, "If we (Republicans) had a catch phrase of our own, it would be more like, 'Change That Believes In You.' You're a person of dignity. You're a person who was born to be free, and ... if we simply arrange society in a fair way, you're fully capable of deciding how to spend as many of your dollars as we can leave with you, where your kid should go to school, what health care to buy or not buy."
....

He explained, "I want to see the next candidacy on our side be somebody who is campaigning to govern, not to merely win."

Daniels said rather than concentrate on personalities, those who believe the country is heading in the wrong direction have to "really think hard, beyond the slogans and our own catechism, about what is to be done and what can be done."

Frankly, this is what concerns me about the current crop of potential opponents to Obama. It is not going to be enough to be against the deficit and against Obamacare, we are going to need practical ideas about how to deal with the consequences of those goals.

What Happened to This Guy? UPDATED

Back in February, after John McCain clinched the Republican nomination, I wrote approvingly of his efforts to reach out to conservatives and by extension, libertarians. I was specifically delighted by this rhetorical flourish:

"...I share with you that most basic of conservative principles: that liberty is a right conferred by our Creator, not by governments, and that the proper object of justice and the rule of law in our country is not to aggregate power to the state but to protect the liberty and property of its citizens. And like you, I understand, as Edmund Burke observed, that whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither . . . is safe."

There was more:

"I believe today, as I believed twenty-five years ago, in small government; fiscal discipline; low taxes; a strong defense, judges who enforce, and not make, our laws; the social values that are the true source of our strength; and, generally, the steadfast defense of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which I have defended my entire career as God-given to the born and unborn."

When the credit crunch, which became a manufactured crisis, hit, John McCain's instincts were dead on. He initially opposed the bail out of AIG. He announced the suspension of the campaign to go to Washington to deal with the crisis. I had real hope that he was going to again out-maneuver Obama and propose a better, less intrusive, less costly solution to the problem at hand. It would have simultaneously played to his strengths, small-government conservative and maverick and would have properly framed the debate. But in the end, he offered nothing different from Bush or Obama and it was game over. I am not sure if it was timidity or lack of confidence in his own judgement on economic issues. Too bad, because the nation is going to suffer for it.

UDPATE:

Apparently, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) read my blog and agrees that McCain's support of the bailout was at least partly responsible for his loss. From CNN:

'And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election."

Dang, I may have to retract the whole post.