Toward a New Fusionism

"Radical conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality of never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity."-William F. Buckley, Jr.

And so the civil war begins on the Right. And it has wasted no time in coming to this website - already we are seeing everything from arguments in favor of a more Ron Paul-style party to reminders of just who is really to blame for all this , and sometimes even posts containing the extraordinary idea that conservatism needs to die so that it can live again! It's often difficult to sift the snake oil from the genuine medicine in these posts, and they are frequently complicated by the endless search for liberal saboteurs, a fear which is not altogether unreasonable in a medium which is admittedly dominated by Leftists.

Now, at this point, it's no secret that I have a stake in these fights, and it is with the small Goverment, stick-to-basics, conservatism-hasn't-been-tried folks. However, I do agree to a limited extent with the people who believe that conservatism looks like it's outlived its usefulness. Or, to put it another way, the rhetoric selling conservatism has outlived its usefulness. The Republican party's old associations with George Wallace Democrats are now completely useless at best and counterproductive at worst, so the old race-baiting "fear the other guy" style of rhetoric has been blunted. The country is in the middle of a recession, so the Republican impulse to throw up our hands (of which I myself am frequently guilty) admittedly looks rather weak, if not hypocritical. You got us into this mess, you'd better have a way to get us out seems to be the sentiment on this website among our detractors.

Now, admittedly, I don't believe conservatism go us into this mess, but looking back on it, I can see an argument for why it might have. It wasn't that conservatism's ideas were wrong. It's that they were hammered out and debated over half a century ago! As I've alluded before, even the first conservatives had to do some updating, and fix up the decrepit corpses of humanism and classical liberalism before they could start reasserting their value. These two forces transformed into Catholic traditionalism and libertarianism, respectively, As such, when the old "fusionism" was created, therefore, it was built on a union of these two ideas.

To put it bluntly, that fusion is no longer workable. Catholic traditionalism is dead. Long live Protestant traditionalism. For all their rhetorical similarities, the Religious Right is not Russell Kirk. Mike Huckabee is not Richard Weaver, and he never will be. Rick Warren is not Brent Bozell, and he never will be. We need to craft a new mixture of ideas for the new mixture of people that now comprise the conservative movement, even if we still draw on some of the old ones from our past.

And unfortunately, the fusion of the two ideas looks increasingly difficult. Huckabee has, with the aid of the exultant "Crunch" conservatives blasted libertarians as "faux-cons" and as "heartless and soulless." Meanwhile, libertarians sneer at the "Huckster" and claim he's trying to deflect blame from his own Statist, heretical wing of the party. It would be easy for conservatives to throw up their hands and exclaim, "Frank Meyer, where are you now that we need you?!"

Actually, it's not impossible to reconcile these two views. Most of their disagreement consists primarily in raised hackles over rhetorical excess, rather than actual disagreement.

Firstly, let's look at the entirety of Huckabee's infamous quote:

"Republicans need to be Republicans. The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it’s this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it’s a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says “look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don’t get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and healthcare, so be it.” Well, that might be a quote pure economic conservative message, but it’s not an American message. It doesn’t fly. People aren’t going to buy that, because that’s not the way we are as a people. That’s not historic Republicanism. Historic Republicanism does not hate government; it’s just there to be as little of it as there can be. But they also recognize that government has to be paid for.

If you have a breakdown in the social structure of a community, it's going to result in a more costly government ... police on the streets, prison beds, court costs, alcohol abuse centers, domestic violence shelters, all are very expensive. What's the answer to that? Cut them out? Well, the libertarians say "yes, we shouldn't be funding that stuff." But what you've done then is exacerbate a serious problem in your community. You can take the cops off the streets and just quit funding prison beds. Are your neighborhoods safer? Is it a better place to live? The net result is you have now a bigger problem than you had before."

Now, there are a couple of things to take note of before we begin deconstructing this quote. Firstly, Huckabee is a politician, and politicians try to appeal to any audience they can get their fingers on. So who was Huckabee's audience for this quote? Well, a reporter from the Huffington Post. Now, assuming that Huckabee wanted to appeal to such an audience, does anyone really believe that a strict, doctrinaire defense of conservative theory as it had been practiced since Reagan was going to win any hearts and minds? No, it bloody well wouldn't have. So let's forgive Huckabee a little of the rhetorical excess here - after all, he was trying to win over people most libertarians (and indeed, most conservatives) think of as the enemy. That may not excuse the quote, but it certainly explains it.

Now, what is Huckabee saying here? Only part of the quote is disparaging this "new type of libertarianism," and frankly, it's all dull rhetorical boilerplate and it criticizes more the implications of the idea than the message itself. Moreover, Huckabee's vision of "historic Republicanism" would not necessarily anger anyone other than an anarcho-capitalist. "Historic Republicanism does not hate government; it’s just there to be as little of it as there can be. But they also recognize that government has to be paid for." That sounds like fiscal conservatism to me!

Now, let's back up a bit here. A lot of libertarians and even fiscal conservatives are probably straining to leave nasty comments along the lines of, "Have you forgotten what a populist piece of s--t Huckabee was during the primaries?!" Or, perhaps more importantly, they might be desperate to point out all the logical fallacies in Huckabee's quote. Let me pre-empt them. Yes, the portion of Huckabee's quote that deals with libertarians is chock full of logical fallacies, ignores private charity completely, sets up a strawman version of libertarianism and insults everyone's intelligence.

But--and this is a big but--despite all of that, it's still more persuasive to most people than all the praxeological austrio-economic analysis in the world. When you cut through all the logic, Libertarians do sound like what he describes a lot of the time. They're so used to arguing with reasonable people that they tend to have a tin ear for what appeals to the average voter, who doesn't so much care about perfectly logical academic consistency, but more about what appeals to his/her gut.

And what about the second bit of Huckabee's quote, which deals with communities? How many libertarians (and I mean real libertarians, not Jon Stewart and Bill Maher style libertines) would disagree with the idea that a vibrant community is essential to small government because it keeps tacit premises of good conduct upheld? How many people in general would disagree with such a statement? I wouldn't, and my idea of an ideal Government is one that only has a monopoly over nuclear weapons and sidewalks, with everything else either subcontracted, partially privatized or entirely privatized.

Now, I don't mean to be harsh on the libertarians. I'm simply pointing out what their blind spots first. I'll get to what the religious people should compromise on in a second. But for now, the biggest blind spot that libertarians of even the most radical objectivist stripe have is their indifference and/or hostility to the idea of community as essential to healthy individualism. Objectivists (Mike Huckabee's true bete noire)  tend to want nothing more or less than the freedom to be great Nietzschean capitalist uebermenschen who crush all in their way and can live out whatever hedonistic existence they like.

Much the same way other people want to live lives that are pure leisure where everything is provided for them by the State. It will never happen. And there's a real theoretical reason why it will never happen, not just because it's not "American" or not "historically Republican", but because it's basically incoherent. Speaking as someone who came to the Right because of Ayn Rand, I wish it were coherent. But it's not, because the idea that you want the freedom to be great depends upon an objective definition of greatness. The Randians try to claim that such a thing exists, but their definition undermines the system they want to create. According to Rand, all that is necessary to be great is that you reach a State where your own individual, rational happiness is maximized. But this is just another logical black hole!

The fact is that in order for one to have the freedom to be great, two things must be true: Firstly, society must have a communal sense of what is good and bad, and what is great. Secondly, society must be healthy enough that it can afford to aspire to greatness. These are both goals which the Randian view of the world completely ignore. And unfortunately, libertarians tend to agree with them. This is a mistake, and the void needs to be filled. That "filler" is what the Religious Right can offer to the conservative movement. The Religious Right is concerned primarily with the preservation of a shared moral ethos, and make no mistake, it is a preservation. They see Christianity as the basic moral ethos of American society. And given that the entire Western intellectual tradition is defined half by Christianity and half by Platonic/Aristotelian ethics, I think there's little doubt that the Religious Right is at least half correct.

Moreover, given that the Religious Right is predominately Protestant, it actually has fewer quarrels with libertarian views of moral self-determinism than does Catholocism, since the Protestant legacy springs from the idea that salvation comes through faith alone, with the niceties of Biblical interpretation left up to the worshipper.

So what do the libertarians need to compromise on? Well, for starters, they need to stop being such half-hearted friends of social conservatism. It is not impossible to construct a libertarian case against abortion rights. It is also not impossible to construct a libertarian case against gay marriage, at least the way the Left wants it practiced. The bigotry, boycotts and witch-burning tactics of anti-Proposition 8 protestors should anger libertarians far more than the civil, staid people who supported Proposition 8, if only because those people had no intention of destroying society or the rule of law just to prove their point. The libertarian case against the war on drugs needs to be made with more tact, possibly with an eye toward reform rather than outright destruction. Decriminalizing marijuana may win a few friends, but try arguing for decriminalizing crystal meth, PCP or heroin, and you will lose the majority of people. Suggest devolving the control of these substances of the States, and then pick your battles carefully. The liberals have been very successful with creeping socialism. Try a little creeping capitalism.

Another thing libertarians need to understand is that there is always going to be a tradeoff between government control in one place, or government control in another place. Or, to put it another way, if you want the Federal Government to be non-instrusive, be prepared for State Governments to get a lot more intrusive to transition out. Sure, you might see some regulations die at the State level too, but then those will devolve to the local level, and maybe even eventually will die. But causing massive instability by repealing everything at once is not going to fly with anyone. In short, libertarians need to understand that until people trust each other, they're not going to repeal laws. Yes, the Government is made up of people who may be even more untrustworthy. That doesn't mean people will stop trying to elect trustworthy people. If that impulse is going to exist, libertarians need to devote time to proving that the more trustworthy people are further down the food chain, and that corruption can do a lot less to hurt people because local restrictions are much easier to escape than national restrictions.

So community is the libertarian blind spot. What's the Religious Right's blind spot?

The problem with the Religious Right is twofold - they often come off as misanthropes with a purging instinct. That is, they view us all as sinners (very correct), and can't stand to have that be the case. The Religious Right often seems completely uncomfortable with the idea that they can't save everybody, and this leads to a hysterical, messianic style of rhetoric which tends to make them sound like a frothing mob straight out of H.L. Mencken's nightmares.

This "someone has to do something to STOP THE SIN" style of rhetoric unfortunately has much in common with liberal rhetoric, which further complicates things. I can see where the libertarians get their view of the Religious Right as a bunch of interfering big-government types, especially with respect to their attitudes towards things like Stem Cell research and Intelligent Design. The fact that the Religious Right tends to disdain libertarians as "hippies of the Right" or apologists for atheism doesn't help at all. The most representative sample of the rhetorical weakness of the Religious Right is the book Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert Bork. Large sections of the book are permeated by a hysterical, ranting style which is reminiscent of a very old-fashioned, strict grandparent at a modern high school prom: "How dare you do that?! How dare you?! How dare you even argue with me over your RIGHT to do that?! YOU FOUL LITTLE CREATURES, GO TO YOUR ROOM!"

As I've said, I believe this attitude is primarily rhetorical. I think most people in the Religious Right don't actually want to force their views on others. Rather, I think they see themselves as attacked constantly, and I speak from personal experience when I say that people say stupid things when they feel attacked. And I think the Religious Right has good reason to feel attacked. Firstly, they're already predisposed to feel persecuted, given that their religion began with persecution, and that Protestantism itself was born out of persecution. But secondly, much of American "cosmopolitan" society, both of the Right and of the Left, really has inherited the eminently modern disdain for religion. Libertarians can complain all they want about Huckabee, but imagine how preferable he would look to a socialist version of Richard Dawkins!

So despite the accusation that they "control" the Republican party, the Religious Right doesn't really feel that they control anything. They feel used, abused, mocked behind closed doors and irrelevant, and they just want someone to trust. Who can blame them?

But one can blame them for their proposed remedies. As already mentioned, I don't mind the Religious Right's attitude towards abortion, and while I don't buy their arguments about gay marriage for a second, I think the attitude is reasonable. However, I and I suspect many libertarian-leaning conservatives find their remedies to be positively barbaric! A Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? Don't these people know that the Constitution is meant to constrain the Government, not the citizens?! A ban on all abortion? Where's the right to determine what's right and wrong for yourself?! And so on, and so on, as we scream back and forth across the barricades while the liberals cackle.

So what's the remedy? Well, the Religious Right needs to be reminded of the distinction between God and man, and especially of the distinction between Caesar and God. They need to learn that sin is inevitable, and that the danger of vice is essential to prove the saintliness of virtue. God was not a utilitarian, or he wouldn't have given man free will. Moreover, virtuous people (and even virtuous cosmic entities) can disagree - Moses managed to convince God not to wipe out the Israelites for worshipping the Golden Calf, for instance. Finally, they need to remind themselves very strongly that the Bible condemns theocracies run by men, rather than by God himself - especially when those theocracies are run by mobs. After all, one such society was Pharaoh's Egypt, and the more dangerous mob-based one was the Jewish Priesthood which forced Pontius Pilate to execute Christ. In short, if libertarians need to start trusting local government and community more, the Religious Right needs to stop trusting the Government so much while simultaneously mistrusting their fellow citizens. The same Government that can make Jesus the official God of America can also make Satan the official God, and surely that is not a preferable condition.

I can anticipate one objection to this - Religious conservatives may ask the rhetorical question: "Well, America's a Christian nation, so what's wrong with writing Christianity into law?" This is actually a rather silly argument if you concede its premise. If America is a Christian nation, why do you need to force people to be Christian? Aren't you in effect conceding the existence of pluralism when you suggest that an officially religious law is needed?

Now, there is one more point to answer - even if these two aren't necessarily in disagreement, they're not necessarily in agreement either. Do Religious conservatives really care about liberty, one might ask. Or do libertarians give a hoot about virtue or communal happiness?

Yes, and yes, but neither one of those is the point. The real point is that both of these groups do believe in the same thing, and that is ordered liberty. They disagree over what the constraining "order" in question is, but they agree that the concept is good. For libertarians, your liberty is constrained by your own responsibility. If you spend your life drinking yourself into a stupor, for instance, you have no one to blame but yourself. For the Religious Right, your liberty is constrained by the threat of Hell, which you'll face if you don't obey the Bible. Are these reconcilable? Absolutely. I can think of two ways to reconcile them.

The first is opposition against radicalism. Radicalism, in its purest form, believes neither in personal responsibility nor in Biblical morality. The radical argument is firstly, that there is no Hell and that God is a construct designed to control the lower classes and secondly, that the idea of personal responsibility is cold and callous because everyone is just reacting against the cruelty and oppressiveness of modern human society when they behave "badly." It's easy to see how a force like this could unite the Religious Right and the libertarians, and for a while it did. But Obama does not look like a radical yet, so this method is going to be less effective in the near future.

The second way to reconcile them is to remember why fiscal conservatives are called fiscal and why social conservatives are called social. It's because they compliment each other. Fiscal conservatism is the conservative approach to the material world, while social conservatism is the conservative approach to society. Fiscal conservatism aims to keep budgets balanced, money sound and the economy as free as possible. Social conservatism aims to keep society healthy by preserving moral standards, communal ethical premises and traditions. Either of these on its own is insufficient. Social conservatism without fiscal conservatism devolves to a Messianic concern with saving every soul regardless of whether you can afford it or whether it's even possible. Fiscal conservatism without social conservatism lacks a moral and ethical basis with which to claim that its concern for practical economics is anything other than the arbitrary aesthetic preference of a few misers. These two need to work together again by recognizing that at bottom they want the same thing - a Godly, economically realistic order where responsibility to oneself and to God takes precedence over utopian visions and fevered nihilism.

We either accept this or we take the first step into a thousand years of "hope" and "change."