Published in Conservatism

Many contemporary friends of limited government adopt erroneous theories ("states' rights," secession) that actually increase the possibility of tyrannical government, as American history bears out.

Often the case for secession as a device of limited government resorts to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. But Villanova University professor (and MAHG instructor) Colleen Sheehan argues that James Madison, author of the Virginia Resolutions, had a much profounder view of not only federalism but the nature of popular government than his friend Thomas Jefferson, who authored the Kentucky Resolutions.

Whereas Jefferson sought to implement modes outside of the ordinary processes of law, in the form of constitutional conventions or negations of contractual/compact agreements, Madison sought to establish a political practice in which, whenever possible, the settled decisions of the people would control and direct government. Madison's cure was not to pit the extraordinary authority of the people against the ordinary deliberative processes of majority decision-making, but to hold the government dependent on and answerable to the deliberate, sovereign public.

Her essay appears in a series on the provocative Library of Law and Liberty website of the Liberty Fund.

A hero to many contemporary conservatives and libertarians, William Graham Sumner (who penned the phrase "the forgotten man," which was then misappropriated by FDR), takes a beating from Steve Hayward. Sumner joined the attack on Progressive Darwinists who, along with this Social Darwinist, renounced the Declaration of Independence.

The Heritage Foundation has put on-line its Guide to the Constitution, co-edited by David Forte and Matthew Spalding. This is a line-by-line commentary with major essays by significant legal scholars. Heritage does terrific work with its instant digests on contemporary policy issues, but this is something different, yet relevant to policy debates.

Take this analysis of the first line of Article II of the Constitution, on the nature and scope of executive power, "the vesting clause." There's even a teacher's companion guide, besides the essay by UVA law professor Sai Prakash and a brief (and diverse) bibliography of legal scholarship.

Or consider co-editor Forte's thoughts on the commerce clause, now at the heart of the Obamacare case, to be decided by the Court this term. Are you clear on the meaning of "to ... regulate commerce ... among the several states"? And so it goes, line by line, through the whole Constitution.

The achievement deserves favorable comparison with the best encyclopaedias of legal thought, such as the grand project of the late Leonard Levy. And besides Heritage's is on-line, will be constantly updated (not a living Constitution, but a lively commentary) and free.

Yesterday marked the 153rd anniversary of the death of Alexis de Tocqueville, the extraordinary biographer of America, in all its splendor and its deficiencies. His principal virtue was his insight that liberty-smothering bureaucracy--what he termed "centralized administration"--was at the core of contemporary ills, and it would worsen, as this scandal  (more serious than the GSA) reminds us.

This Tocqueville anniversary coincides with the 100th anniversary of Woodrow Wilson's bold attack on the American founders and his celebration of the administrative state, "What is Progress?" The presidential campaign address also proclaimed the need for Darwinian science to form the basis of our political science. The contrast between Wilson--who equated democracy and socialism--and Tocqueville, who denied such equivalence is most instructive.

Obama's ill-informed attribution of "Darwinism" to Paul Ryan, et al. flies in the face of his own Progressive, Darwinian assumptions, which repudiate constitutional government and justify tyranny.

A few years ago Diana Schaub penned a typically elegant essay on the anniversary of Tocqueville's death.

Jonah Goldberg proposes federalism as means of peaceful coexistence betweeen the left and right. Trouble is, it has been tried before: Stephen Douglas. The other guy eventually won. Let's stick by Abe's "tough nut to crack."

In California, among other states, the left has long been at work on "independent state grounds" laws. In this regard, opponents of abortion are misguided in their focus on Roe v. Wade, which certainly should be overturned. Overthrowing Roe would permit state legislatures to restrict abortion, but it would leave other, liberal states with abortion rights protected. For more on "independent state grounds" see this book on democracy in California and this article by Edward Erler.

The Sage of Mt. Airy has more theoretical speculations on the meanings of federalism for the right and for the left.

This WaPo account of how various Republicans (why only them, one might ask) use/ransack the founding fathers pits the politicians against historians who criticize this alleged naievete.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology history professor Pauline Maier, author of several books about the period from the 1760s to the writing of the Constitution, says: "It is interesting why so many politicians and even judges today want to show that their ideas had firm foundations among the founders. In some ways, I suppose that defines a new phase in the culture wars over 'who is most American.' "

But, she adds, "that can also be very regressive: No founder ever embraced abortion or endorsed affirmative action. Eight­eenth-century Americans did take rights seriously, but their rank list of rights was probably different than those of rights-conscious people today. They lived, after all, over two centuries ago and on the rights front can seem pretty dated."

Like another fine historian of the Declaration, Carl Becker, Maier falls prey to historicism, the notion that one's historical circumstances poses an absolute barrier to finding transcendent truth. Evidently, to judge just from the professors cited in this article (Jack Rakove, among others), it's the scholars versus divisive Republican politicians.

But the contrast shows how much the defense of the Constitution resides in ordinary citizens and the politicians who reflect their concern. As the Progressives predicted and urged they would, intellectuals take the side of progress and history against the people's pride in their country as founded. Of course, not all thinkers agree with those consumed by Progressivism. Here's a shorter piece.

How to build your resume by blogging: Tim Seibel, who blogged on Santorum the Servant, provides material for Foster Friess's introduction of the GOP aspirant at CPAC today. (See my post here on his original.)  Tim explains the mix of purpose and serendipity that led to his posting.

BTW, Tim comes out of University of Dallas and Claremont Graduate School and currently resides in Colorado Springs.

I knew someone who got a job with then-EEOC Chairman Clarence Thomas by writing letters to the editor of prominent newspapers and articles for the Claremont Review of Books.

Update: And while we're touching on CPAC, note Paul Ryan's speech, which contained this great line: "The only class warfare that threatens America comes from a class of bureaucrats and crony capitalists rising above society - calling the shots, rigging the rules, and securing their places of privilege at our expense." Cf. this NLT post decrying the use of the phrase "class warfare" by Republicans.

On his 101st anniversary of his birth, consider this reflection on Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural, and compare it will these thoughts on FDR's First Inaugural. You will see encapulated the contrast between liberty and the desire for security. We also realize how difficult it is to make the case for conservatism--to ask for liberty means to undertake responsibilities, and Americans seem to grow weaker by the day.

Note how FDR asks Americans to trust him with extraordinary, even extra-constitutional power. By contrast, Reagan honors ordinary Americans by returning liberty to them.

It's driven by IQ. The Sage of Mt. Airy draws a conclusion:

Check out this headline and story: "Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism"

It's not my fault then, correct?

So where do I go to get my subsidy started? Who do I see about my government grant? Does this mean they'll forgive my mortgage? Shouldn't there be a tax break? Where's the block on this form to mark "Low I.Q."? How much more time will I get to take the exam? The "passing" score's lower, right? Ain't I entitled to a parking space? When will the first check arrive? Huh? When? I got my rights you know?

While you're at his site, read the Sage's thoughts on vigilante movies--really movies about the founding and preservation of regimes, I would say.

Are the Republicans degenerating or just revealing their true selves?  With his latest charge that M. Mitt speaks French (Newt does too), it must be speculated that Newt is indulging in (self-)caricature. Of course it can always get worse--someone can appeal to states' rights.  Here's a good explanation of why conservatives should speak of federalism instead--plus a few other New Year's political resolutions.

Contrary to Peter's post below, I think the most prudent conservative course of action is to vote for Gingrich--for now.  The problem is that conservatives have the choice between a dynamic right-wing Progressive with a flawed moral past, one temperamentally ill-suited for executive power, and a soothing flip-flopper who appears constructed along corporate specs.  Which will sell out conservative principles first?  Which even knows what conservative constitutionalist principles are? 

Unless some sort of white knight appears suddenly to save us (Paul Ryan, Clarence Thomas, Sarah Palin....), these are our choices.  I propose a test:  Vote for Newt, and see how tough, smart, and principled Mitt in return is.  Can he show that he is the true, electable conservative?  Will he respond with conservative arguments or try to emphasize his moderation?  This is not merely Gingrich blowing up and defeating himself.  Romney has to win it, and by showing that he is more conservative (not that he has led a better family life, etc.).  The only way we can test Romney is by voting for Newt, until he proves himself less of an electable conservative than Romney..

Might this not make Gingrich the winner?  True, this would give him victories in Iowa (important to crush Paul, btw), New Hampshire (or a close second), and down south.  But proportional delegate sharing will keep the second-place person close, and then we'll see who the strongest conservative will be, or whether we have a conservative at all.  Both may flunk the test, but that is a problem for another day.

It would be a bad thing for the future of conservatism to hand the victory to Newt Romney immediately.  We would be getting a flawed, erratically right-wing candidate, or a corporate construct who might have defeated Ted Kennedy by being more liberal.  Either would be better than Obama, but we can do better than the two choices as they present themselves now.  A long, drawn-out campaign will improve both candidates or reveal their fatal flaws.   

Professor Robert George of Princeton will moderate and question the South Carolina GOP candidates forum.  He is a man of rare substance and grace, who can get to the heart of the matter with few words.  (Read the profile on him in the NY Times Sunday Magazine--damning him with faint praise:  "the reigning brain of the Christian right.")  Having precepted for him years ago at Princeton, I can attest to his ability to get skeptical students to consider questions they would never have thought about otherwise.  If the forum gets boring, I hope Robby pulls out his banjo....

H/t Michael Krauss.

Other candidate forums should consider such non-traditional talent (get the press out of there!):  Peter Schramm of Ashbrook, Larry Arnn of Hillsdale, Brian Kennedy of the Claremont Institute--each could perform such a role superbly and enrich political discussion for not only Republicans but for the general public as well.

How our would-be elites see it:

It was startling to hear what local broadcaster Steve Adubato, who has done informative programming, had to say with regard to the news that young women are hooking up with older men to exchange sex for payment of their college loans. He thought it perfectly fine. When asked if he would like to see his daughter do that, he said that she would not have to because of her higher socioeconomic status, but that for women of lower means, he thought it was fine. Pressed by his co-commentators to show more democratic spirit, he added that if his daughter were at a reduced socioeconomic status, unlikely to happen, it would be fine then too. It was really cringe-making to see a man reveal such an absence of values so absolute.

I am reminded of Irving Kristol's famous quip:

The liberal paradigm of regulation and license has led to a society where an 18-year-old girl has the right to public fornication in a pornographic movie--but only if she is paid the minimum wage.  Now, you don't have to be the father of a daughter to think that there is something crazy about this situation.

The class dimension, however, might be new, or at least more explicit.

I kind of like the goats, especially those on the Sage of Mt. Airy's farm, where I blog from today.  The Sage dissects  Dr. Charles Krauthammer (a former Hubert Humphrey speechwriter, btw) on the debt deal. 

To begin, removing "loopholes" has only lately, and conveniently, become a demand of the American Left.  The fact is, various loopholes, alongside a progressive income tax scheme with multiple and increasing marginal rates have historically been the bedrock of liberal tax policy....

With all due respect to Dr. Krauthammer, the only sure solution to the debt crisis is the very real prospect of electoral defeat by the Democrats, not contracting clever deals with them.

RTWT.  And scroll down to read the Sage beating up on many conservatives who caved to liberals and shunned the Tea Party on the debt negotiations.

Coolidge style, Charles Johnson notes:

Like the current administration, the Harding-Coolidge administration faced a tough recession from 1919-1921. But unlike the current administration, the Harding-Coolidge and Coolidge-Dawes administrations cut taxes, balanced budgets and slashed government spending, reducing federal debt by over a third in a decade.

The economy grew, averaging just over 7% from 1924 to 1929, the years of his presidency. So did Coolidge's popularity. He was so popular that even during the Great Depression's height song-writer Cole Porter compared his lover to the "Coolidge dollar."

Coolidge also saw how government efforts to help often did nothing of the sort:

For Coolidge, then, fiscal matters were a moral question that tested the founding-era premise that free people can govern themselves. He encouraged Americans to "begin to work and save," in good and bad times. Only "our productive capacity," he told Depression-era readers in his autobiography, published in 1929, "is sufficient to maintain us all in a state of prosperity if we give sufficient attention to thrift and industry."

That productive capacity, Coolidge knew, was sapped by the spendthrift--he called it "socialistic"--notions of government that sought to be all things to all people. Coolidge, making note of federal farm subsidies and flood insurance, criticized the thinking of "expect[ing] the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts."

Lawyers for Romney include Judge Bork, Mary Ann Glendon, Lee Casey, David Rivkin, Gary McDowell (actually not a J.D. lawyer), Wendy Long, Jeffrey Rosen--huh, Jeff Rosen!?--and many other legal luminaries beloved of Beltway conservatives. 

The Weekly Standard isn't fussing over details - any POTUS-VP alignment will do, so long as it's an R&R ticket. And they have good reason. Watch these videos (or read the transcripts), to see why TWS is a zealous disciple of the Ryan/Rubio duet.

First, Ryan suggests we "cover the moon with yogurt" to save trillions:

Then, Rubio takes on the debt limit: 

Pricelessly candid and sensible. Required watching. A refreshing change you can believe in. 

Maybe TWS is on to something . . . .

As we have noted before, one way to look at our heated politics is to see them as the death throes of the New Deal Order, as the historians sometimes call it.  That's part of the reason why it is so hard to make a deal in Washington.  More than usual, we have two groups of people who see the problems and needs of the day differently.

Robert Samuelson recently put it this way:

The old order, constructed by most democracies after World War II, rested on three pillars. One was the welfare state. Government would protect the unemployed, aged, disabled and poor. Capitalism would be tamed. A second was faith in economic growth; this would raise everyone's living standards while permitting income redistribution. Growth was ordained, because economists had learned enough from the 1930s to cure periodic recessions. Finally, global trade and finance served countries' mutual interests.

All three pillars are now wobbling.

Charles Krauthammer puts it this way:

We're in the midst of a great four-year national debate on the size and reach of government, the future of the welfare state, indeed, the nature of the social contract between citizen and state. The distinctive visions of the two parties -- social-democratic vs. limited-government -- have underlain every debate on every issue since Barack Obama's inauguration: the stimulus, the auto bailouts, health-care reform, financial regulation, deficit spending. Everything. The debt ceiling is but the latest focus of this fundamental divide.

The sausage-making may be unsightly, but the problem is not that Washington is broken, that ridiculous ubiquitous cliche. The problem is that these two visions are in competition, and the definitive popular verdict has not yet been rendered.

We are only at midpoint.

That seems about right.  It has been enlightening to watch the shouting heads on TV lately.  They are in two different conversations.  Conservatives blame Obama and the Democrats for obstructionism.  Progressives see the exact opposite picture.  Neither side trusts the good faith of the other.

Victor Davis Hanson adds depth to the argument.  The problem is that the Progressive view is crashing.  Social Democracy is not a workable political system.  (One could say that's the point. It is called "social democracy" not "political democracy" because it makes the social primary.  The trouble is that men are not merely social animals by narture (like other mammals, I suppose). The trouble is that we are political by nature.  That is connected with what Hanson calls the "tragic view."  The conversation about what is justice is unending, as is the problem of scarcity.  Moreover, the problem of the human desire to get have more, and work less, is inescapable, as is the math of entitlement.  The rise of sociobiology is also giving strength to the conservative view of human nature. Hanson notes:

Social Security reform used to be the third rail that politicians dared not touch. But is that prohibition really still operative as big government approaches insolvency? Expect soon not just the retirement age to jump, reflecting modern longevity, or automatic cost-of-living increases to cease, mirroring the reality found in the private sector, but also the entire notion of disability to change as well.

Quite simply, the dogma that a teenager with dyslexia or a mature man with a bum knee will receive years of Social Security disability benefits will be assessed as an historical aberration of the last twenty years. A decision by an insurance company or government agency that a 62-year old must settle for arthroscopic surgery on a chronically torn meniscus rather than a complete knee replacement will not be interpreted as social cruelty.

We are winning the debate because Progressism is unnatural.  It had its day, and now is a reactionary force.  That does not mean it can't take America down with it, however.

Every time I teach a course or give a talk on the seemingly irresistible rise of Progressivism in the early twentieth century, a dismayed student inevitably asks whether anyone at the time spoke out in defense of the Constitution and the principles of the American Founding. The answer, of course, is "yes," but with little sustained success. Still, Jonathan O'Neill has provided a very useful account of these "First Conservatives" in a recent Heritage Foundation First Principles essay. O'Neill summarizes the anti-Progressive arguments of Irving Babbitt, Frank L. Owsley, and Albert Jay Nock and their contributions to later forms of Conservatism and Libertarianism, but also identifies their common defect - a rejection of the natural rights doctrine of the American Founding. There were some Conservatives, however, such as David Jayne Hill and Elihu Root, who offered a more principled opposition to Progressivism. Hill was a founder of the National Association for Constitutional Government, which published The Constitutional Review, distributed pocket-sized copies of the Constitution, and even persuaded the American Bar Association "to help lawyers communicate constitutional principles to popular audiences at the local level." Unlike many other Conservatives at the time, the NACG defended the Constitution on the grounds that it was essential for the security of natural rights. In the work of the NACG and others, O'Neill identifies a useful model for the modern Conservative opposition to Liberal Progressivism. Definitely worth a careful read.

In a breathtaking essay Joshua Lerner uses the concept of the political from Carl Schmitt to illustrate the radicalism of Progressivism.  Schmitt was the German legal theorist whom Leo Strauss critiqued in an essay central to his return to the ancients.  See his early work and Strauss's here.  Schmitt became a supporter of the Nazis. 

Lerner does not engage in drive-by slander of the Progressives as Nazis.  Rather, he paints a compelling portrait of the perilous parallels between the two radical movements:

In many ways, seeking redemption via politics is the quintessence of the primacy of the political. But once we have established that politics is of at least some primacy and provides a meaningful source of ethical values--again, think of any number of liberals or leftists who feel the need to politicize even the most mundane of consumer activities--we must move on to another very powerful conclusion: political primacy means the irrelevancy of the practice of politics.

       It is rather well known that Progressives were rather contemptuous of common politics; they hoped to replace it with scientific administration of essential tasks....

Lerner is the co-editor of Counterpoint, the undergraduate University of Chicago conservative journal, where his essay appears.  The current issue features a symposium on conservative films, including Diana Schaub on Shane, Abe Shulsky on Casablanca, and Thomas Pavel on Bladerunner.  

Former Utah governor John Huntsman has joined the GOP presidential field with a mild-mannered anti-Washington and fiscally conservative message. Now that Huntsman is officially in the ring, Texas governor Rick Perry's expected announcement should just about round out the Republican field.

The only problem with all these delightfully conservative candidates is that they are generally indistinguishable to most Americans - which means that a moderate in their midst, such as Mitt Romney, will be the only candidate who is not dividing his share of the primary vote among a half-dozen other candidates. (The same is true for Ron Paul and the libertarian vote, but I don't expect that vote to pose a threat.)

A fractioning of the conservative vote among all the rest will allow Romney to seize the entire moderate vote in the GOP primary. Romney's name recognition and well-honed political skill could secure any remaining votes necessary to boost him above the fray. A conservative candidate either needs to rise above the crowd, or the herd needs to thin itself out. As it stands, the mere contrast between Romney and the rest bode poorly for conservative hopefuls. 

I have an article at Intellectual Conservative which expands upon my previous NLT post contemplating the role of Michele Bachmann in the Republican presidential race. The introduction reads:

Remember Sarah Palin? She's the former leading lady of the conservative core of the Republican Party. As of Monday evening, she's a reality TV star, Republican fundraiser and media obsession - but her presidential ambitions are now foreclosed. The reason is that Sarah Palin's quasi-vacant seat at the Republican table has been filled by conservative sensation Michele Bachmann.

The question, however, is the role which Bachmann will play.

. . . Bachmann is not an all or nothing candidate. Should she be surpassed by one or more Republican in the primaries, her influence among Tea Party Americans will likely not have waned. Bachmann's mere endorsement would be a tremendous boon for any candidate, but her name on the national ticket could prove dispositive. She is a conservative lifeline for Romney, for example, and a complimentary asset for Pawlenty (the Minnesota Twins would finally drag their home state back into the red column - the Twin Cities voted for Walter Mondale out of local loyalties, after all).

The journalist Joel Mathis asked, in connection with a book I wrote, since conservatives accuse liberals of wanting a government that's always bigger than the one we have, what's the conservative reply to the accusation that we on the Right always want taxes that are smaller than those we currently pay?  My answer is one way to describe the difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals want government spending to be the independent variable that determines tax levels, and conservatives want government spending to be the dependent variable determined by taxes. I'm a conservative in this regard, not just because I think the government we get by letting our tolerance for taxes determine the size of our welfare state will be smaller than the one we get by telling the government to do all sorts of compassionate things, and then mentioning as an aside some years later that we'll need to raise taxes to pay for all our commitments. I'm a conservative because I think it's democratically healthy to confront the hard question about taxes first and directly, and then let our answer to that question determine the budget perimeter for our welfare state. It is democratically unhealthy to proceed the way liberals have habitually dealt with the problem, by promising generous programs that will "pay for themselves" or even "pay for themselves many times over," and only later, after people have come to expect and depend on the stream of government benefits, fess up about the taxes required to sustain them.

Mathis suggests a fiscal and moral symmetry: For liberals the answer to how much government should spend, especially on social welfare programs is always, "Just a little bit more," while for conservatives the answer about the right level of taxes is always, "Just a little bit less." But there are important asymmetries. Believing that we should have all the government, but only as much government, as we're willing to pay for--as opposed to all the government we need, or think we need, or just plain want--conservatives are happy to discuss the limits of a democratically bounded welfare state. Doing so is sound economics, because we'll never have a structural deficit resulting from a built-in mismatch between the government's spending commitments and its taxing capacities. It's also good politics because it insists that the citizens make their decisions about the scope of the welfare state on the basis of clear, honest assessments of what its programs will provide and cost. Both the politicians and the voters, in other words, are required to be adults.

Medicare's initial cost projections, for example, were based on the assumption that people receiving large government subsidies for hospital stays and doctor visits would avail themselves of those benefits at exactly the same rate as they did when they were paying for those services on their own. This same spirit of candor is reflected in the argument for Obamacare, which insulted our intelligence by claiming that a massive expansion of our entitlement programs was, above all, a way to control costs - although how it would control costs couldn't exactly be specified since the government boards that would come up with all sorts of ingenious solutions to the problem of delivering the same level of health care to all the people now getting it, and additional health care to millions of others, while dramatically reducing per-patient health care outlays, wouldn't issue their initial recommendations until after Barack Obama's presidential memoirs were published.

Moreover, when liberals feel that when we're closing in on alleviating the ancient causes of human misery--people being ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished, etc.--they react by getting to work on coming up with new problems for the welfare state to solve. In 1957 Arthur Schlesinger called for government to address the "problem" of "spiritual unemployment," and, sure enough, by 1965 President Johnson is promising us that the Great Society will banish "boredom and restlessness." This is the madhouse aspect of the political situation I was trying to describe in "Never Enough"--conservatives' feeling that as we put check marks by the items on the top of the list, whether from growing prosperity or the success of welfare state programs, liberals are busy adding new items to the bottom of the list.

There's another way in which the preferred liberal framework for considering the welfare state argues against an open, productive discussion about what the government should and shouldn't do. You point out that federal taxes account for a lower proportion of GDP than they have for 60 years. But not all GDP percentages are created equal. In 1950 the per capita Gross Domestic Product was $12,343, using the OMB's "chained price index" to adjust for inflation by expressing 1950's nominal dollars in terms of the dollar's buying power in 2005. In 2010 per capita GDP, deflated the same way, was $42,190. America was nearly three-and-a-half times more prosperous in 2010 than in 1950.

If liberals would participate in a discussion about what the welfare state should do, and the limits to what the welfare state should do, we could grapple with the question of how long-term economic growth would enable us to finance the welfare state's operations with a constant or even diminishing slice of a growing pie. This is certainly the approach we have taken to defense spending. In 1953, at the height of the Korean War, America devoted 14.2% of GDP to national defense. In 2010 we spent 4.4%. By this measure, our defense spending has declined by nearly two thirds. But America today is a much richer country than it was in 1953, even after taking into account the current slow recovery from a severe recession. Using the OMB's "total composite defense deflator," our defense outlays in 2010 were $617 billion, measured in 2005 dollars, while those expenditures in 1953 were $515 billion. Measured in real dollars rather than GDP points, we spent 20% more for defense in 2010 than we did in 1953.

Welfare state spending has grown in relative terms and really grown in absolute terms. In 1950, the last time federal taxes yielded less than 15% of GDP, federal outlays for "human resources" amounted to $44 billion, using OMB's "total composite non-defense deflator" to express every year's outlays in terms of the dollar's value in 2005. ("Human resources" here includes all federal outlays for Social Security; all other income maintenance programs; Medicare; all other health programs; and all programs for education, job training, and social services.) In 2010 human resources outlays, deflated the same way, were $2.06 trillion, 47 times as large. Even if we adjust for population growth, the increase is enormous, from $288 per American in 1950 to $6,547 per capita in 2010, a 23-fold increase. This increase is the result of devoting a much larger slice of a much bigger pie to human resources in 2010, when human resources outlays equaled 15.7% of GDP, than we did in 1950, when they were only 2% of GDP.

So, Mathis asks, how high should do conservatives want our taxes to be? High enough to pay for the things the government needs to do. Which are those? In a democracy, all the things the people feel the government really ought to do. I'm happy to abide by the outcome of the democratic debate over that question, but I think it should be conducted honestly. Honesty requires stipulating that the amount of government we get is no larger than the amount we're willing to pay for, as opposed to the dream-world welfare state we would build if wealth were limitless.

It also means that as our nation becomes more prosperous we should expect the welfare state's budget to require a diminishing portion of our national income rather than, as it has since the New Deal, a growing portion. We should expect this for two reasons. First, a welfare state with a clearly defined mission, as opposed to one where the goal posts are constantly receding as we move down the field toward them, should be one we can finance the way we have financed defense spending over the past half-century--by spending a smaller portion of our growing national economic output. Secondly, a growing economy should mean that more and more Americans can pay for more and more of their own needs and wants through their own economic efforts, rather than through the political efforts it takes to secure more and more generous welfare state benefits for more and more recipients. In other words, one of the reasons to like a growing economy should be that it makes a smaller welfare state possible, rather than because it makes a bigger one possible.

The Sage of Mt. Airy reminds us what's really wrong with Gingrich's opportunistic attack on Paul Ryan:  as a deprivation of liberty, social engineering is by definition left-wing.  Moreover:

Use of the phrase belies a fundamental belief that what currently divides our country can be adequately captured on some continuum of thought, left to right.  But that notion itself belies an even more fundamental belief that, actually, nothing divides our country, that it's all a matter of degree.  The modern, nanny-state leviathan is the norm; we're only arguing about more or less, (Always privileging "more", of course.)

Paul Rahe has argued that the GOP should eschew their traditional pessimism and defeatism in light of a new birth of freedom. However, Rahe laments the GOP's "gift for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" by nominating "the next fellow on the list without much regard to the man's suitability." He contrasts Bob Dole and John McCain with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, observing that "Americans do not want to be governed by the living dead."

Surveying the field for a GOP standard-bearer last week, Rahe dismissed Trump as a useful clown, excluded Romney as uninspirational, nixed Gingrich and Huckabee as unsuitable "to articulate the case for limited government," questioned Pawlenty as lacking conviction and so finally landed on Mitch Daniels - praising him on fiscal issues, pardoning him on social issues but remaining skeptical about foreign affairs. This week, Rahe revealed the only alternative he sees to Daniels: Paul Ryan.

Rahe has serious reflections for the GOP and has, I believe, a grasp of the American zeitgeist. Both Ryan and Daniels have the potential to steal the energy, optimism and youthfulness to which American's responded in Obama, while fully appealing to the vibrant Tea Party sentiment within the conservative movement.

Henry Olsen points out Paul Ryan's stealing of the Democratic Party issue of security (see, among other sources, FDR's 1944 SOTU).   In fighting Progressivism, we often need to turn Progressive guns against Progressivism:  capture their commanding heights and use their own weapons against them.   Leftist policies destroy Social Security, Medicare, etc.  This does not show bad faith in compromising with these New Deal policies--quite the contrary; it's part of a much larger strategy.

As bad as California is, it would be far worse without the consensus that supported the initiative and referendum measures against racial preferences, property tax hikes, and so on.  See Edward Erler's argument for using the Progressive means to conservative ends:  Keep your eye on the ball and the real enemy--the administrative state. 

Discover the bright future of conservatism in the latest edition of Counterpoint, the University of Chicago undergrad-edited journal.  See Josh Lerner's account of Progressivism, which reconsiders its European origins.  Also of note is the thoughtful, social-science focused exchange on same-sex marriage in the letters section.  The case against gay marriage has rarely been made more incisively.

The spring issue will contain a symposium on movies, with contributions by conservatives young and old.

According to Rasmussen Reports, likely voters continue to trust Republicans over Democrats on all the major issues. I suggest that it's the recent conservative, Tea Party philosophy of less spending / lower taxes which has generated popular sympathy for the GOP - and that they should follow the public's lead if they wish to retain their good graces.

Mr. Kurtz's International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness anticipates Ghadafi's wish for an international organization for philosopher-kings--the practice of one would approach that of the other.  See a serious political scientist, Robert Putnam (an admirer of Tocqueville and Edward Banfield), on his conversation with the Libyan dictator back in January, 2007.  Putnam compares his visage to that of "the aging Mick Jagger."

There were some translation problems:  "Libyan history includes nothing remotely analogous to Rotary or Little League or the Knights of Columbus, so we settled on "veterans' associations" as the only intelligible illustration of my argument."  I thought Putnam was at Harvard, not Syracuse. 

By the way, the Edward Banfield website has been renewed, with downloads of several of his books, links to his writing, including his fiction, and others on him, such as Leo Strauss's praise of him.  Banfield is clearly one of the major political scientists of the late twentieth century. 

Someone named Kevin McCullough is outraged that the winners of the straw poll taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC last weekend were Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Gary Johnson.  This result, he believes, was due to libertarians' "stuffing the ballot box."  After all, many social conservatives decided not to attend this year in protest of the decision to allow the gay and lesbian group GOProud to participate.  McCullough's candidate of choice, Mike Huckabee, apparently did not do as well as he had hoped, despite the fact that he allegedly "has beaten the president head-to-head in nearly every poll taken."  The fact that Huckabee didn't bother attending may have had something to do with that.

Aside from being puzzled as to why a bunch of libertarians would have voted for Mitt Romney, and wanting to see those poll results that show Huckabee consistently beating Obama, my general response to Mr. McCullough is this: if you and your friends are going to boycott CPAC for fear of catching a bad case of teh gay, don't complain when those who do show up cast their votes for candidates who are not social conservatives.  That's not "stuffing the ballot box"; it's simple math.

When recalling Reagan, how can we not remember Lady Thatcher--now the subject of a movie starring none other than Meryl Streep.  I'm skeptical about this.

Treppenwitz:  Steve Hayward has a better movie idea:  An enviro film crossing "Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth ... with Mel Brooks's The Producers."  I can visualize that opening scene now....

Aside from the introductory blather differentiating peaceful Islam from militant Islamism, British Prime Minister Cameron gave a truly interesting, prudent and politically-incorrect speech before the Munich Security Conference. The Telegraph summed up the speech as:

British Muslims must subscribe to mainstream values of freedom and equality, David Cameron declared that the doctrine of multiculturalism has "failed" and will be abandoned.

Cameron is calling for an end to Britain's multicultural, "passive tolerance" of the segregated communities which breed Muslim terrorists. Rather, he seeks an "active, muscular liberalism" which promotes core British values at all levels of society. 

The relevant portion begins at 2:30.

How very lamentable that I must live vicariously through Britain for sensible, courageous leadership.