Maybe, baby, just maybe. Conservatives should recognize a few things. First, as Clouthier suggests, the fiscal con wing was exposed as just that, a total con job. Under Bush and a supposedly conservative Congress, federal outlays jacked up about 60 percent in real terms. Second, defense cons blew it. They had two wars to show themselves as effective, and they screwed the pooch, wagged the dog, shat the bed, whatever. After a good, long ride at the top, they did nothing well. They didn’t create a coherent foreign policy that suggests when the U.S. might intervene and when it shouldn’t (the Global War on Terrorism is not simply vague, it provides no stopping point for Wilsonian interventionism, which is decidedly not conservative). And third, social cons have lost, period. Gays are not going back in the closet and demands for equal standing under the law are logically coherent from a conservative POV. Gays didn’t destroy marriage or the family (neither of which is in ruins, by the way, but that’s another issue). The same goes for drug legalization, which has been touted by such raging liberals as William F. Buckley. In terms of abortion, like it or not, the country has settled into a semi-easy truce that abortion earlier in a pregnancy is OK and the closer the mother comes to term, the less comfortable people feel with it. In any case, advances in contraception and reproductive technologies will almost certainly render such decisions moot as people have gain ever-vaster control of their bodies.
In a historical way, libertarianism predates post-war conservatism. Libertarianism, with its emphasis on individual freedom, conscience, and responsibility, is the direct descendant of the classical liberalism that grew out of the English Civil War of the mid-17th century and worked its way through the Scottish Enlightenment, the Austrian economists, and others. It seeks to shrink to sphere of the state to that of an impartial judge protecting the equal rights of citizens and it valorizes, as Reason‘s motto puts it, “Free Minds and Free Markets.” Sociologically, however, libertarianism has long been seen as a lesser brother to postwar conservatism, “chirping sectaries” in Russell Kirk’s dismissive phrase, with about as much potential for leadership as Fredo Corleone.
That’s no longer the case, dear conservatives. I’m no triumphalist but everything in the past 40 years suggests that the old-style left-wing command and control models have been thoroughly vanquished in theory if not practice (even old Europe has sold off virtually all of its state monopolies!). And the conservative desire for control of individuals’ desire and lifestyles has similary come a cropper; your actual champions in the highest positions in the world have tried your ideas and been found wanting (who can disagree that George W. Bush was a “big-government disaster”?). In a world of increasing decentralization of power and corresponding growth in individual autonomy, libertarianism is looking better and better, both as a description of what’s happening in those parts of our lives not completely under the thumb of government and as a guide to minimizing the reach of the state where it still is too grabby.
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As the American people have turned decisively against the nation-building projects Afghanistan and Iraq, and as the Tea Parties have stormed center stage in grassroots politics, groups like the Family Research Council have been left behind. Activist energy at CPAC doesn’t rally to GOProud or gay rights—but it does rally to the socially conservative libertarian Ron Paul.
The Beltway’s moralizing minority have become casualties of the Republican wars and rampant spending they so long tolerated.
Attacking Ron Paul and his supporters for their fiscal conservatism won’t help Gary Bauer or Brent Bozell reconnect with the grassroots right, of course, so they have launched a sly campaign to link libertarianism at CPAC—which is overwhelmingly of the Ron Paul variety—to GOProud’s social liberalism. It’s a desperate measure, one that betrays the pro-life and pro-family causes, which are best pursued in exactly the manner Paul has pursued them, through federalism and smaller government.
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Since Libertarians occupy the fiscal conservatism circle, they’re getting more attention and validation than they’ve had in years. Being that many of them are so annoying on other issues, it can be grating to have them be center stage when they aren’t conservative in any other meaningful way. Still, that doesn’t mean that some ideas that had been out in libertarian land aren’t now mainstream conservative ideas–auditing the Fed comes to mind, cutting whole government departments comes to mind. Ideas that were once unthinkable are now at least being considered. How do we put these fiscally conservative ideas into practice?
I’m sure you see where I’m going with this…
The answer to the question about whether Libertarians should be at CPAC..is well, yes, they should be there. And so should GOProud. They have every right to try and convince people of their ideas. The Conservative world is not the Borg. It is not some monolithic hive-mind like the Left enjoys. There are debates and the circles expand and constrict.
The fiscally conservative circle was nearly non-existent for years. I’m glad it’s back. I hope it can make a difference policy-wise and through concrete legislation.
And I hope social conservatives don’t abandon CPAC. I have strong reservations about identity politics in conservative thought. In fact, I’m pretty sure identity-politics are antithetical to conservatism as a philosophy. Still, we need to reach more minority voters and convince them of conservatism. How do we do that and not balkanize conservatism?
That’s a real discussion that must be had. And CPAC is just the place to have it.
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Because we former members of the military have sworn to defend the Constitution, we have but two choices: Surrender and abdicate the CPAC battlefield or refuse to be pushed to the sidelines, stay on the moral high ground, fortify our defensive perimeter, roll up our collective shirt sleeves and return the ACU and CPAC to their original foundations of liberty, personal responsibility, traditional values and national security.
It would violate our organization’s mission statement, several of our general orders and the basic instincts of our members to abdicate the field and allow irreparable harm to be done to the conservative movement. If we pulled out of CPAC it would create a vacuum that other organizations would attempt to fill, claiming to speak for America’s veterans but supporting policies that the vast majority of those veterans abhor.
Veterans in Defense of Liberty will not neglect our oath by putting our heads in the sand and pretending that this is not a serious constitutional matter. We will defend the turf hard won by so many of our brothers who came before. We call upon all conservative groups to demand the resignation of any ACU board member who does not understand, advocate and live by the traditional conservative principles enshrined in the Constitution and sanctified by the blood of those who died to keep America free. They should be replaced by constitutional conservatives who understand the principles that have made America a “shining city on a hill” and are willing to fight to ensure that the concepts of conservatism, capitalism and American exceptionalism do not become servants to those who would destroy them. We are up for the fight. Bring it on.