Long before September 11, even before the 2000 elections, it seemed to me that our culture, and therefore society and government, was moving toward the right. This is not to say that I expected, or desired, a loss of the broad principles of fairness, mutual respect, and mutual responsibility that drove the leftward lurch. However, liberal policy assumptions are increasingly exposed as fantasies, liberal prescriptions as poison, and liberal demands as tyranny.
These specifics aren’t critical to my intentions with this post, but it might be helpful for me to offer some respective examples:
- An America that disarms itself through military erosion will not “lead by example” and thereby defuse the human tendency toward aggression.
- Throwing money at those in need will not boost them toward autonomy; rather, it will mire them in a pernicious dependency.
- Constricting our language and tipping scales on behalf of minority groups will not, despite the sheen provided by euphemism, lead to a utopian equality of outcomes and good will.
Again, we can (and do) debate these matters at length, but what I’m suggesting is that, from my perspective, the trend was toward Americans’ learning from the excesses of the last century and reapplying discarded principles from our heritage (cleansed of the detritus, such as legitimized racism and institutional misogyny, that had lingered from less enlightened days). Indeed, I expected — and still expect — the next socio-cultural war to be between libertarians and social conservatives.
Both of those terms I treat broadly, the essential distinction between them being that libertarians (including “moderates” as a less intellectually rigorous subgroup) acknowledge liberal error when it comes to economics, national security, and a handful of other, mainly process-based, matters, but they do not believe, or will not believe, that a similar bill will come due from the liberal approach to social issues. They hope to correct matters of money and military, but they wish not to lose sexual license (which, by extension, requires that abortion remain an option and that marriage be defined essentially as a sexual coupling) and other forms of liberty that come more easily when unencumbered by traditional morality (such as the quest for immortality via embryonic stem cells and freedom from the decrepit, as with euthanasia).
Forgive my wide drift, here, but the point to which I’ve been heading is one inherently tied up with broad worldview, and it is this: The trends that were leading toward conservatism have not abated. Arguably, the Bush Administration delayed them. Arguably, September 11, with the intensity of focus that it created, distracted from them. Certainly, members of the GOP sought prematurely to capitalize on (and distort) them. But the trends remain; the bills are still coming due; and we should be careful not to mistake that which arguably delays and distracts — and to clutch it — as if it were that which we’re increasingly finding ourselves to want.
George Will recently gave the keynote speech at the dinner for the 2006 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, which was given to former Estonian prime minister Mart Laar. A hard-copy version of the speech was published in the Summer 2006 edition of Cato’s Letter; it is available online only via the Cato Institute’s Audio Program. Here are some excerpts:
…in the words of M. Stanton Evans, a modern liberal is someone who doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s compulsory…O’Sullivan’s Law — named after John O’Sullivan, former editor of National Review — which is that any institution that is not libertarian and classically liberal will, over time, become collectivist and statist, unless it is anchored in the kind of ideology that the Cato Institute vivifies in Washington.
The backsliding that we are witnessing today on the part of the party we formerly associated with the defense of liberty is astonishing and disheartening…
What’s wrong with this picture is that the liberal and conservative arguments have become radically blurred. Modern conservatism was defined in reaction against the New Deal and renewed in reaction against the Great Society. Conservatives spoke the language of Jefferson. They believed that limited government, government not in the grip of hubris and what Hayek called the fatal conceit of the ability to anticipate and control the future, governs best.
But by the year 2000, we had forgotten that argument. The two candidates that year agreed that the task of the next President would be to strengthen and expand the emblematic achievements of the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare. Something had gone radically wrong, and I think I know what it is.
We, as a country, are now in the grip of five kinds of politics that I want very briefly to discuss, if only to alarm you and depress you. I call them the politics of assuming a ladder, the politics of rent seeking, otherwise known as the war against Wal-Mart; the politics of learned dependency; the politics of speech rationing, and politics of orchid building. [NB: Will’s thoughts on these five kinds of politics can be found in the Extended Entry below.]
Here is the good news, and it is profoundly good. First of all, as Mart Laar, our honoree tonight, can tell you, all of us in this room live in a world fundamentally unlike the world in which our parents lived. We live in a world where the American model is the only serious model for running a modern society. Fascism is gone. Communism is gone. Socialism is gone. Al-Qaeda has no rival model of modernity. Al-Qaeda is a howl of rage against modernity.
We had an uncommonly clear social experiment after the Second World War. We divided the city of Berlin, the country of Germany, the continent of Europe, indeed, the whole world, and had a test. On the one side, the collectivist model, a society run by command, by elites with a monopoly on information. On the other side, what deserves to be called the American model. It has the maximum dispersal of decisionmaking based on the maximum dispersal of information, with markets allocating wealth and opportunity. The results are in. They’re decisive. We’re here. They’re gone. The Soviet Union tried to plant Marxism in Europe with bayonets for 70 years. Today there are more Marxists on the Harvard faculty than there are in Eastern Europe…
…Social learning is slow, but it does occur, and it is driven by institutions like Cato.
Furthermore, the American people remain astonishingly sound in their fundamental values. They are not egalitarians beyond their strong belief in equality of opportunity, not result…
Well, so far, so good. We have endured. And we have endured because institutions like Cato and people like Milton Friedman, astonishing force multipliers, take in the basic ideas of the American founding, the basic principles of limited government, and demonstrate their continuing relevance and applicability to the modern world…
The moral of the story is that liberty is an acquired taste. We have acquired it. We can lose it. But we won’t lose it as long as we continue to honor people the way we are honoring one tonight and the way the Cato Institute honors our Founders by keeping their ideas vivid.
More on the American Founding here and here. Will’s description of the five kinds of politics follows below.
[Open full post]Congressman Patrick Kennedy ends his first TV ad saying that he “will never stop fighting for you”. But here are two areas where he has already stopped, or perhaps never started, fighting for his constituents. They are both related to votes taken just yesterday…
- Congressman Kennedy will not fight for America’s border security. The Congressman voted against a House bill authorizing (but not funding) 700 miles of physical fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border. Border fencing is not controversial to reasonable people at this stage of the immigration debate. Earlier this year, Senators Jack Reed and Lincoln Chafee, Senators with very liberal positions on immigration reform, both voted in favor of funding 370 miles of triple-layered fencing between the U.S. and Mexico. The House overwhelmingly favored building a border fence, 283-138, with Congressman James Langevin, as well as Congressman Kennedy, in the minority who opposed the bill.
- Congressman Kennedy will not fight to make information on Congressional spending public. He prefers that Congress’ spending pratices be kept shrouded in secrecy, away from the view of average citizens. The Congressman, along with a majority of his party, voted against a change in House rules that would require “earmarks” in appropriations legislation to include simple information like the identity of the Congressman that requested the earmark, the identity of the earmark recipient, and the amount of the earmark. Amazingly, just 1 of 29 Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee voted to make the earmark process transparent (though Republicans appropriators did only a little better, 12 of 35 voting in favor). When it came time to decide between making government open to public oversight, or protecting arcane privileges, Congressman Kennedy and his committee-mates chose to protect their privileges.
The earmark reform rules passed by a vote of 245-171. Congressman Langevin was one of just 45 Democrats who broke party ranks to vote in favor of earmark transparency.
Finally, there’s an interesting sidebar regarding the earmark reform vote. In June, Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia publicly promised a group of his constituents that he would “earmark the sh**” out of bills if the Democrats regain control of Congress and he becomes chair of an appropriations subcommittee. Yet Congressman Moran voted against the simple disclosure rules — rules that would help him take credit for the earmarks he so dearly craves. If Congressman Moran is so proud of the earmarked money that he spends, why doesn’t he want it to become an easily-accessed part of the public record? Could it be because the earmarks he requests don’t benefit as many of his constituents as he would have you believe? [Open full post]
Jon Scott, Patrick Kennedy’s Republican challenger in Rhode Island’s first district, sent Anchor Rising “an open letter to the blogosphere” this morning, eloquently asking for your support…
Jon Scott: I have been following recent posts with great interest and, although I am not very knowledgeable about blogs, I know enough to understand that we need to be out here among you all in order to win in November. That desire to be part of the debate is what brings me out today.
I am fully aware that I am in an uphill battle. It is no great secret that my opponent is well funded and hails from a political machine so powerful that his uncle’s picture sits below only a portrait of Jesus in a large number of New England living rooms. I know that I have chosen a fight many deem un-winnable, but I have always subscribed to the belief that goals easily achieved are not part of a journey worth taking. I am in this fight because I have chosen to be and because I want to be.
I appreciate what seems to be a common sentiment of support among the posting faithful and am honored that, at least here, my candidacy is recognized, because the worst thing that you can do to a politician is ignore him (as has been the case in much of the mainstream media). I am fully aware that the great Senate race of 2006 is the large planet around which all attention will orbit this season, but I expected that we would garner some notice. It has not happened as of yet.
First I need to assure you that there is a candidate with a populist small government message left on the RI scene. We all may not agree on everything all of the time, but the chances are great that our interests intersect in great percentages. We need to base our activity on common bonds not on single differences.
One statement that has stuck with me during my time in this race was made by Richard Engle, President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies during their annual Board of Directors meeting here in RI this summer. “Liberals”, he said, “are very good at perseverance. They stay together through their losses and stay focused. When conservatives taste defeat, quite often we give up. We take our ball and go home”. I am worried that a bit of that attitude is gripping us here in the bluest of blue states. We can not afford fracture in our party. There are two few of us to populate one Republican Party, let alone multiples.
Like Mr. Katz, I must say that I have not been impressed with the level of support that our state gets from the Republican leadership. I was recently in DC to meet with my Field Rep from the NRCC. What I found out amazed me. We are such an afterthought that RI is simply tacked on to the Midwest rep’s caseload. Not only do they believe that we can’t take the Ocean State to red, they are under the impression that we can’t even turn it purple. I am offended by that attitude and it needs to change.
I also want to speak to those who have deemed my candidacy a tilt at windmills: This race is winnable. It is imperative that we fire on all cylinders, though, and Patches must falter if we are ever to reach the Promised Land. We can only control one half of that equation, however. Much like a football team that needs to win but also needs someone else to lose in order to gain the final playoff berth, we must take care of what we can and let the fates affect the rest. We only fire on all cylinders when everyone is behind my candidacy 100%. I ask for that support.
We believe that Kennedy is weak on the issues. Further, we believe that everyone knows about his personal problems and we are not going to hammer him on that. We will, however, bring up all of the inconsistencies in his policies and illuminate his record while representing the people in DC – because that is the element that the public needs to be educated on. I look forward to the debates.
You may disagree, but I believe that the personal is not fair game. We will never go personal first. It is part of my moral code.
Finally, I want to tell you that we appreciate the support on primary day. We had the largest margin among the Republican statewide candidates and I am grateful to all who believed that I was the man with the better chance to unseat the incumbent. We were confident when we started our tour of the precincts and 12 hours and 12 polling places later we were still certain of our standing but had no idea that the margin would be what it was. I thank you all for getting behind me.
I will need the effort ten times again in order to get it done on November 7.
Do us a favor. Keep us informed. If you know of an event, let us in on it. If you know someone in the media, get them interested. At the very least, get five friends on board and then ask each of them to get five friends behind me, as well. If you’ve put a great deal of effort into Mayor Laffey’s candidacy and find yourself without a campaign home, contact me. We’d welcome the help. We NEED the help.
I look forward to interacting with Anchor Rising a great deal during my campaign and to meeting many of you on the campaign trail.
Thanks and God Bless.
Jon Scott
Part I in this series discussed how there is an important distinction between “tolerance” and “freedom.” Justin, in a subsequent email to me, described it this way:
Tolerance asserts authority; freedom implies autonomy, perhaps even precedence.
Part II in this series noted how both the role of religion in the public square of our society has been steadily marginalized and Americans largely do not know their history well enough to understand how much has changed just in our lifetime.
This Part III posting describes some of the consequences when religion is excluded from the public square in America.
Richard John Neuhaus wrote these words in 1984:
Politics and religion are different enterprises…But they are constantly coupling and getting quite mixed up with one another. There is nothing new about this. What is relatively new is the naked public square. The naked public square is the result of political doctrine and practice that would exclude religion and religiously grounded values from the conduct of public business…
When religion in any traditional or recognizable form is excluded from the public square, it does not mean that the public square is in fact naked…
The truly naked public square is at best a transitional phenomenon. It is a vacuum begging to be filled. When the democratically affirmed institutions that generate and transmit values are excluded, the vacuum will be filled by the agent left in control of the public square, the state. In this manner, a perverse notion of the disestablishment of religion leads to the establishment of the state as church…
Our problems, then, stem in large part from the philosophical and legal effort to isolate and exclude the religious dimension of culture…only the state can…”lay claim to compulsive authority.”…of all the institutions in societies, only religion can invoke against the state a transcendent authority and have its invocation seconded by “the people” to whom a democratic state is presumably accountable. For the state to be secured from such challenge, religion must be redefined as a private, emphatically not public, phenomenon. In addition, because truly value-less existence is impossible for persons or societies, the state must displace religion as the generator and bearer of values…
[T]he notion of the secular state can become the prelude to totalitarianism. That is, once religion is reduced to nothing more than privatized conscience, the public square has only two actors in it – the state and the individual. Religion as a mediating structure…is no longer available as a countervailing force to the ambitions of the state…
If law and polity are divorced from moral judgment…all things are permitted and…all things will be done…When in our public life no legal prohibition can be articulated with the force of transcendent authority, then there are no rules rooted in ultimacies that can protect the poor, the powerless and the marginal…
Politics is an inescapably moral enterprise. Those who participate in it are…moral actors. The word “moral” here…means only that the questions engaged [in politics] are questions that have to do with what is right or wrong, good or evil. Whatever moral dignity politics may possess depends upon its being a process of contention and compromise among moral actors, not simply a process of accomodation among individuals in pursuit of their interests. The conflict in American public life today, then, is not a conflict between morality and secularism. It is a conflict of moralities in which one moral system calls itself secular and insists that the other do likewise as the price of admission to the public arena. That insistence is in fact a demand that the other side capitulate…
Therein lies the great debate and the great struggle in America and throughout Western Civilization.
Do we believe in reason and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong?
Do we believe in and teach the uniqueness of our Western Civilization tradition?
Has the relativism of multiculturalism dumbed it all down to where there are no standards of excellence and no truth discoverable by some combination of reason and faith?
Or, as William Voegli said:
[Open full post]Justice, rights, moral common sense – either these are things we can have intelligent conversations about or they aren’t…
As conservatives and Republicans continue the navel gazing (myself included) over the just-past Chafee/Laffey race, it’s worth bringing up the substantial work that we still have to do in November. Though it’s a little tough to prioritize amongst state, local and national elections and issues–the local and city council race for Ward 1 in Warwick may be more immediately important to someone than who the Secretary of State (or Senator from RI) is, for instance–I’m going to do it anyway.
1) Re-elect Governor Carcieri.
2) Vote down the casino amendment, ie; “NO ON 1”
3) Pick off at least one of the Lt. Governor, Sec. of State, Attorney General or State Treasure offices from the Democrats.
4) Convince people to vote Republican for State Legislature! The opportunities aren’t really there for any substantial movement–much less gaining a majority–but even incremental gains are still….gains. Heck, just a legislatively effective minority would be a plus!
5) Tilt at the Kennedy windmill. It may be quixotic, but it sure is fun! I really don’t mean to belittle Jon Scott’s chances, but it’s a tough row to hoe for anyone attempting to convince nursing home and union hall denizen’s of voting against the red-headed step-child of “Camelot.” Nonetheless, Scott deserves conservative support (even if he’s not in my Congressional district).
That’s my short-list. Five main priorities, in order. The first three are doable, the last two….a bit tougher. Got your own list? Hit the comments.
There have been times, over the past year, when I’ve felt compelled, in public and private intra–Anchor Rising discussions, to defend commenter Anthony. This is how he reciprocates:
If you can’t vote for Chafee over Sheldon Whitehouse, you are not a Republican. You are not a conservative. You are just a disgruntled, pathetic sore loser.
Granted that, in his comment, Anthony is not addressing me directly, but a personal insult is no less personal for being broadly cast. What anybody who has read Anchor Rising for more than the past few weeks should know and keep in mind is that I am manifestly not a “Laffey guy,” as some would have it now. Indeed, until very recently, I was pretty much intending to sitting out the primaries.
I long ago resolved never to vote for Linc Chafee, but my handling of his opponents remains an open question. Whatever votes I cast from here on out, while they may result in part from disgruntlement, will not be spurred by the sting of Laffey’s loss.
The closing weeks and months of the primary emphasized for me two considerations:
- I am unimpressed with the national Republicans’ leadership.
- I am beyond unimpressed with the Rhode Island GOP.
Chafee is central to perpetuating both of these factors. In the former case, his vacillation and liberal contrariness weaken the hands of those whose policies I would support, and it was on his behalf that the National Republican Senatorial Committee lay bare its ugly lust for power. In the latter case, he contributes credibility to an uncredible organization — emboldening those invested in the status quo of a me-too “alternative” party in the state.
With increasing obviousness over the past fifteen years, we have been heading into a critical time for national security. The decades to come will also be critical for the fiscal security of the United States and its citizens. And throughout it all, technology and the berserker gasps of moral relativism will make it crucial, during the next half-century, to reinforce the bulwark principles of our culture.
Although I had been drawn in to what may prove to have been a period of conservative fantasy that problems might actually be solved following the dreamlike false peace of the previous decade, the palliative of power among our leaders has begun to convince me that calamity is inevitable. Moreover, the longer we postpone the inevitable, the worse it may be. And whether the damage is maximal or not, a change in leadership will come.
Now that he’s actually begun to put his face forward in the campaign, my opinion of Sheldon Whitehouse is that the Democrats could not have chosen a better incumbent to be overthrown down the road. (His last name isn’t even Kennedy.) Even a coworker of mine who is a reflexive Democrat, from a demographic that has been ill served by its support for that party yet has hardly changed its voting habits, mocks Whitehouse’s presentation in his commercials.
I’m open to arguments that I should only inflict one negative for Chafee on election day (i.e., the not vote) rather than two (the not vote plus the opponent vote). I’m increasingly persuaded, however, that there may be something of hope in the odor of stale baby powder and pressed silk against which I will have to hold my nose should I fill in the arrow for the trust-funded Democrat at the top of my ballot.
I was tempted to frame this post around a list of the “lessons learned” from yesterday’s primary elections, but the fact of the matter is, that in most cases, we didn’t learn anything new: instead, we witnessed a thoroughly typical Rhode Island election.
Why do I say that? Show me an incumbent or longtime political insider who didn’t win yesterday? Chafee? He had both the name and incumbency. Centracchio? He ran a fairly muted campaign, but name recognition gave him a landslide. Mollis? Political insider if ever there was one. Langevin? Incumbent with a tough fight, but the result was never really in doubt. And so it went.
I guess that perhaps I did learn one lesson: while not ideologically conservative, Rhode Islanders are functionally conservative. They go to the polls and reafirm their support for the Kennedy’s and the Chafee’s every 2, 4, 6 years. They like their patricians. Yes, there are those–many of whom I suspect are not native to the state–who, election after election, make up the 30-40% who quixotically attempt to change the status quo. Those numbers haven’t changed in the decade plus that I’ve lived here, and it doesn’t appear as if they will any time soon.
So what to do? Now is not the time to strategize about reforming the Rhode Island GOP. In this election cycle, that is not going to happen. Instead, conservatives and our fellow-traveller populist/reformers have to look to a few short term goals.
The primary goal is to ensure the reelection of Governor Carcieri. There is little doubt in my mind that he is the closest thing to the ideal conservative there is here in Rhode Island. I’d also say to vote for the GOP in the various state office races. The state GOP has already written off many legislative races, but there is still some cause for optimism in the race for Lt. Governor and perhaps even Secretary of State. At the very least, even winning one or two of these offices would be progress and serve as some sort of check on Democrat power–and business as usual–in state government.
The Congressional races offer little hope for coservatives. Our choices in District 1 are between newcomer Jon Scott (R) and Patrick Kennedy (D) and in District 2 between Jim Langevin (D) and Rod Driver (I). The results of these two races are entirely predictable, but quixotic or not, Scott should be supported. Pick your poison in District 2.
Now, what to do about the U.S. Senate race between Lincoln Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse? First, I must compliment Mayor Laffey for his very conciliatory gesture of telling Senator Chafee that he would vote for him over Whitehouse in the general election. This is apparently in contrast to what the Chafee campaign had said they would do during the run-up to the election if the shoe had ended up on the other foot. (Who would have been unsenatorial, even petty, then?). Such grace will put Mayor Laffey in good stead when he runs for governor in four years (any doubts?). In the end, though he may have run as an outsider against both the national and state GOP, the bottom line is that in a race between a Republican and a Democrat, Mayor Laffey will stick with his party. Can the same be said about those who voted against Senator Chafee in this primary?
Justin has already indicated his dilemma and not a few Laffey supporters are now contemplating writing in “John Chafee.” I don’t have an answer for them. I can tell them that, for myself, sitting out an election or making a protest vote is not an option.
I’m as idealistic as the next conservative, but also recognize that there is a time for idealism and a time for pragmatism. For two years, I’ve attempted to rebut the pragmatic reasons for supporting Senator Chafee in the primary–he’s more electable and he can vouchsafe a GOP controlled (and thus more conservative) U.S. Senate–by offering arguments rooted in conservative beliefs.
For me, the primary is the best time to argue over the ideas that should undergird a political party and in this primary I tried to convince Rhode Island Republicans the value of maintaining conservative ideals against practical politics. In the end, I was unsuccessful. It was a spirited debate, but ideas lost and pragmatism won. It’s disappointing, but now pragmatism will simply have to be enough.
Is it worth forcing change in the Republican Party at Rhode Island and national levels by voting for a Democrat whom I despise, or would it be enough simply not to vote (or to write in Ronald Reagan)?
And a related question: Is the “slightly better” leadership of the Republican Party only postponing, perhaps with a consequent exacerbation of, those calamities that we fear were the Democrats regain control? If Democrat leadership let through a relatively minor terrorist attack, for example, mightn’t the national-security-based backlash at the polls give hawks a stronger hand to prevent such outcomes as a nuclear Iran?
How horrible that we find ourselves in the position of asking such questions.
Via WJAR-TV Channel 10…
US Senate: (98% of precincts reporting)
| Lincoln Chafee | 33,886 | 54% |
| Steve Laffey | 29,363 | 46% |
US Congress, Dist. 1: (100% of precincts reporting)
| Jon Scott | 11,258 | 69% |
| Ed Leather | 5,060 | 31% |
US Congress, Dist 2: (100% of precincts reporting)
| James Langevin | 24,478 | 62% |
| Jennifer Lawless | 15,043 | 38% |
Lt. Gov (R): (98% of precincts reporting)
| Reginald Centracchio | 36,338 | 67% |
| Kerry King | 17,937 | 33% |
Lt. Gov (D): (98% of precincts reporting)
| Elizabeth Roberts | 57,115 | 82% |
| Spencer Dickinson | 12,280 | 18% |
Secretary of State: (98% of precincts reporting)
| Ralph Mollis | 38,786 | 53% |
| Guillame de Ramel | 34,922 | 47% |
