Conservative Donnybrook

There has been a behind-the-scenes debate going on among some of the authors of Conservative Donnybrook in the past few days and weeks. The question that has been posed is why should we spend so much time debating the minutiae of conservatism when the real enemies are Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their statist cronies? Certainly, there is nothing wrong with taking shots at those persons mentioned. They richly deserve it. But the premise of this website has always been to explore the nature of conservatism. What are its boundaries? Are there orthodoxies and heterodoxies, dogmas to which every conservative must accede? Personally, I believe that this is a worthy question for exploration and have even found myself being persuaded at times by arguments made by my fellow contributors as to basic foundational beliefs on which I judge our society or exercise my franchise. To that end, the contributions of our writers and commentors are invaluable (even – or maybe especially – when I argue with them).

Jack Hunter, over at Taki’s Magazine, recently wrote a review of Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by radio talk show host, Mark Levin. I recently read the book on the glowing recommedation of one of my friends and had intended to write my own review. In retrospect, I do not believe that I could add anything to Mr. Hunter’s review or that I would add anything different. Anyone who has listened to Mark Levin’s radio program will immediately note a significant difference in tone in his writing. He is far more reasonable and evenhanded in his manifesto and there is much that is valuable in his presentation. I, however, had exactly the same reaction as Mr. Hunter when it came to Levin’s treatment of “national security” and “foreign policy.” To me, after such an excellent exposition of conservative (dare I say it?) orthodoxy, Levin turns conservatism on its head with his celebration of American interventionist foreign policy.

The old wisdom used to be that Democrats took the nation to war and Republicans brought us home. Today, as Mr. Hunter points out, such mainstream expositors of conservatism (or at least what the public is told is conservatism) as Sean Hannity and Mark Levin now routinely decry any position as liberal which questions whether America should send troops to a foreign land. No more do Republicans stand for the idea of “speaking softly and carrying a big stick.” Of course, we still have a big stick – the biggest stick going by far (there’s something especially satisfying as a male to write those words and know they are true). However, we have long since given up the idea of speaking softly. We, as a nation, are in EVERYBODY’S business, telling them how they should live, govern, trade, lend money, etc. Today, we speak non-stop, like a drunken idiot who believes he is the life of the party, waving our stick menacingly around the party. Meanwhile, some of our fellow party-goers have been grumbling about calling the cops and having us removed from the party, but lamenting the fact that the cops cannot handle us.

The wisdom about the political parties was true as recently as the Nixon administration and somehow in little more than three decades what was once the liberal statist position has become the mainstream conservative position. I’ve spoken about the ratchet effect elsewhere; here is a rather striking example. To some extent, I think some of the explanation for how this has happened can be found in the rise in popularity of talk radio and the hosts who hold forth on that medium. For the most part, I believe, they and their listeners are largely orthodox conservatives who believe in small government in most realms except in foreign policy. When, as Mr. Hunter points out, most modern-day conservatives have received the entirety of their political education from talking heads on the radio, but have not read Kirk or Burke or Hayek, it is understandable how they could arrive at the screwy conclusion that there is something conservative about intervening in every conflict in every hell-hole that erupts around the world. Nonetheless, one can only conclude that most of these people have not made the effort to fit that position into the larger structure that conservatism as a worldview provides. The two positions are entirely unreconcilable.

The belief that government should be fashioned so as to be as unobtrusive as possible to the individual and executed at the lowest possible level, but also believing that the nation’s role is to project its power into every corner of the globe creates a cognitive dissonance that is unsettling to a systematizer like me, who wants everything to maintain a certain internal consistency and harmony. How does it support small, local government to tax people to the tune of more than $1 billion to wage a war in Iraq against a nation that had not attacked us, posed no threat to attack us, and had only the most tenuous of relationships with those who had attacked us (namely, a common religion)? Yet, many propose to continue our intervention in neighboring Iran. I can imagine Bill and Doughboy pulling their keyboards closer to respond that Iran has attacked us. They have, after all, undoubtedly caused many of the casualties we have suffered in Iraq. But, that begs the question. If our troops had not been in Iraq, what harm would (or could) Iran have caused the United States? If we were to remove those troops and bring them home, would Iran still pose a threat to the United States? Wouldn’t it be prudent at this juncture to save our money, our blood, and our capacity for self-defense by leaving the region and focusing on our own borders? We have won the war in Iraq it is said. Great! Let us enjoy the fruits of that victory and withdraw the victor. But, we must ask ourselves: Are we safer for having waged that war? Has our victory secured American security? If not, one must ask himself why not or he will commit the same errors again as is being urged.

I propose that resolving this question – how the idea of small, local government comports with global interventionism – may be more important to the future of this country than is exposing Barack Obama’s agenda. It is only if we can save the soul of conservatism that there can be any resistance to the creeping fascism of statist policies like President Obama’s.