Daniels' remarks over the past few months have urged that the central political battle boils down to self-government achieved through robust consent to actual policies, i.e., Is the creepy Peter Orszag to be our master and the efficiency commissions headed by similar types of officials, or is there something much better that is possible? In listing the accomplishments and, I think accurately gauging the universal thinking of Obama on regulatory policy, Daniels repeatedly underscores, in the measured tones reminiscent of Calvin Coolidge (Daniel's speeches are similar to Silent Cal's), that the failure to recover the hearts of Americans on the prospect of actual self-government leads us in a new direction of social democracy. This is the central moral loss, and from it flows even more of the San Francisco and faculty lounge moralizing we have heard for years and are now seeing slowly implemented.
The central moral and political question evoked by Daniels is what do we make of our lives as human beings and as American citizens? Do we want to be citizens? Are we free and capable of self-rule in any muscular sense? One gathers that Daniels may see the culture wars not as unnecessary but as the inherent consequences of the primal failure of a manly assertion of political honor for oneself, one's family, and one's community. If we are incapable of these basic tasks, then, of course, the fallouts of abortion, deconstruction of the family, and a hiding within the therapeutic mentality that existentially absolves life of meaning and consequence (moral relativism) inevitably follows.
Daniels proclaims the political good of pride, courage, and liberty as the central elements of limited and rightful government. His venture into the national political waters is predicated on the notion that a significant enough cross-section of American citizens will understand this and join him. These are neither the "achievatrons" of America's meritocratic elite, nor the 20-30% who support entitlement politics, but a group who are in conversation with rightly ordered political habits that still seem real and plausible. Moreover, these political habits are our own as Americans.
This, of course, says nothing about Daniels' constitutional conservatism that would lead to originalist appointments across the federal judiciary.
]]>This lecture is well worth pondering during this inherent shakeup of the EU, and perhaps the more ominous signs of the permament shuttering of European prospects for a renewed greatness. Of course, the efficient cause of the difficulties is the split between monetary policy of the EU and fiscal policy conducted by individual member states. Many predicted this result in the late 90s, including Milton Friedman and more senior statesmen in the British Conservative Party.
PBXVI's analysis ranges to deeper problems in the self-understanding and memory of Europe. Such deformed philosophical understanding on the continent cannot but manifest in the very vivid and yet practical problems of monetary/fiscal policy. Unable to venture much, to believe, to dare that liberty is predicated on more than post-ideological boredom and relativism, the present disrepair of this sort or of another seems inevitable.
]]>Perhaps more interesting is that his creditability held even after his views on projecting American power were publicized, which differ from most public conservatives. I'm wondering, however, how far Paul's war policy views are from other voices on the Right like Angelo Codevilla, a critic, similar in some ways to Paul. The victory was also in Kentucky, populated by the one of the most violent tribes of men to ever stalk the earth, the Scotch-Irish. In short, this is not a dovish bunch, unsure of American strength. Perhaps better than most, they sense the need for it be guarded and used only decisively with minimal application to grand progressive objectives like nation building and finding little Lockes in the desert.
If Paul wins in November, provided similar victories are achieved in other races around the country, it just might augur a correction to conservatism that it has not received since the loss in the 1998 elections and the turn the party made to Bush II and compassionate conservatism, i.e., European style Christian Democrat policies.
The implications for libertarianism seem striking as well. In short, Paul might be a clue to a libertarianisn that doesn't strive so much for autonomist liberty, but seeks recovery of vital American political traditions and habits. Comfortable with religion, understanding the foundations of the family to civilization, and yet decisively aware of the dangers posed by the progressive smart set and their federal bureaucracy to our constitution, Paulian liberatarians might be the subtle and powerful change within the coalition of conservatism.
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Michael Barone's recent piece on the Britsh elections suggest that this particular dynamic may have been at work and that it bodes well for further Tory gains. He notes the following:
Brown managed to rally his party's ancient base in factory towns and its more recent base among ethnic minorities and immigrants. But the middle-income suburban seats Blair won are almost all gone, and without them the party has no hope of a majority. In southern England and the Midlands, the majority and more prosperous part of the country, Conservatives won 224 parliamentary seats and Labor only 87.
Certain commentators have observed that the country party/court party dynamic may be a better way to think about our current politics. The country party consists of those who are on the inside and stand reasonably prosperous but are largely not in ruling circles of law, finance, business, government, etc. To be sure, philosophical polarities amongst conservatives and liberals remain, but may not be the best way to explain our current situation. The Tory success in the economically surging parts of Britain while Labor cobbled together a coalition of minority voters and denizes of the old manufacturing age, as well as many elderly citizens, can't bode well for that party's future. One wonders if we will see the return of a similar dynamic this fall and in 2012 in America. It seems likely that the parts of America that are growing will not entrust their future to an Obama dominated party. Also of note in the British elections were the Tory failures to improve their standing in some of the wealthies parts of England. This occurred despite slick marketing efforts made by Cameron. They probably would have been better off reaching to the outsiders who voted for the UK Independence Party.
This same dynamic seems obvious in our country. The conservative electorate and the tea partiers seem willing to change a lot of seats, mostly Democrat, but also entrenched GOP incumbents like Sen. Bennett of Utah. The coalition isn't Bob at the hedge fund and Joe the plumber. It is something very different, more stable, and a better trade off.
]]>Hanson's thoughts on the dread 20somethings, or on the bobos of Palo Alto, are intimately related because both groups are quite divorced from the moral, philosophical, dare I say religious, and labored grounding of a great republic. I think it obvious that Hanson comes not from a place of "whining" but the cool reasoning and observation that flowers from a life spent in the classics. From his perspective, we are woefully lacking in the firm stuff of civilization, and thus we continue to fretter away our advantages. Cut off from the generational reserves of virtue and mercy, we seem peculiarly unable to insist on the imperatives of a free society. Ms. Ponzi is, of course, exempted from this claim.
We are in the condition of a great freedom but without the moral authority and guidance necessary to its fruitful consequences. To note these glaring instances that exist most prominently in university towns, or in the multiplying instances of economic inpatient care amongst recent graduates, is of imminent value. This does not lead to the "ought" of pessimism and retreat from the public square, but does help the public intellectual understand the evolving terms of engagement. In many ways, the rush to condemn cultural observation because it does not comport with needed political narratives is terribly unwise. Shortened intellectual time horizons are unbecoming in an intellectual movement whose task is to make real in our time the enduring truths of our constitutional order. We must have all the information and be fully aware of the moment. Otherwise, we are doomed, doomed!
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In appealing to this group of situated losers as losers, and in need of his policies, Obama continues the work of the classic redistributionist politician. Frugalities, suffering, hardship are so difficult and unnecessary. Hanson's note on trips to Bestbuy and to get the latest iPod are instructive of the mentality.
]]>The thrust of Clinton's talk is mostly warmly baked Thomas Frankism whereby we are treated to the lonely, alienated American who finds a strange release and connection with aggressive conservative arguments. And thus the Right channels anger away from real problems. Clinton walked through his own strange challenges and how Gingrich, et al, channeled this anger against him throughout the 1990s. Times haven't changed much observes Clinton. The anger, however, is at a fever pitch and 'could' pose violent eruptions within America. Clinton disclaims that he is charging anyone with hate speech or that he believes in censorship. Of course. Then he launches into his own emotion-laden observations of the Ok city bombing. It was the best of America, Clinton states. McVeigh, himself an extreme example of the alienated American, is tied by Clinton to talk radio, Gingrich, even old Dick Armey, all by association of white-hot political speech. Clinton intersperses the speech with several 90s Gingrich quotes.Things had gotten too hot, Clinton said. That Clinton gave a talk last night trafficking in guilt by association might be an understatement.
It seems the racist tag isn't working. The easy fix is to charge the Tea Party movements with the unprovable offense of inadvertently promoting violence through their rhetoric. Said rhetoric, Clinton informs, is illegitimate because it emerges from alienation, anger at change, dislike of immigrants (Clinton specifically cited this), frustration with the economy, etc. There are no real arguments here folks is Clinton's hanging message. The strategy is now making the case of separateness, as in, you listening to me are normal, well-adjusted, employed, reasonably happy. If you aren't, you should be, you can be.The last thing you want to do is identify with or find yourself agreeing with Bob the Tea Party protestor at work or down the street.
Of course, that might be just the point Clinton can't counter. The disaffection and angst is too broad and too deep to be repelled. The Empire has no moves left.
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In a basic sense, this is also the project of Wilkinson and Lindsey, both men deeply in communion with the individual emancipated from seemingly everything but self-interest and contracts freely entered into and freely broken. The rub, I think, and where Pelosi's position gathers steam is the absolute foundation and final purpose of the unencumbered individual to liberal and free government that she actually shares with these two gentlemen. If this is the summum bonum of existence, then why not cross over to modern liberalism and embrace certain statist objectives that will better achieve this end. After all, it seems, if autonomistic emancipation is your goal, why not bring the services of government in pursuit of that objective. What matters is the will and the pleasing of its needs. I think this concept is what unites the Wilkinson, Lindsey position with Progressivism in a far more enduring way than any momentary alliance that might be formed with conservatives on a specific policy. Ultimately, their desire is to live in a manner wholly unconducive to the givenness of the human person, and his attachments and relationships that are necessary to his flourishing. That welfare states devalue family and local attachments are none of his concern. He left these relationships, philosophically speaking, a long time ago. Big government, of course, becomes logical and needed once these contexts for liberty begin to dissolve.
]]>The irony reeks given that many were falsely excited about an Obama-Clinton foreign policy that would pursue American interests and leave behind the enumerated embarrassments of grandiose Bushism. However, we are now seeing what Obama's vision entails literally around the globe. There seems, however, an absence of voice on the Right articulating this flawed understanding and practice and what a competent American position must be. One can't help but wonder where are the voices on the Right that will do the acts of persuasion, argument. Numerous public conservative intellectuals are present and counted for in this debate but politicians and men in the arena will need to step forward. There seems no one in the scrum at this point for the Right.
]]>Codevilla's piece, however, raises the not insignificant larger question of why these failures are made over and over again. The logical culprit is a shared deficiency amongst policy elites, who lurk strangely in both Republican and Democratic circles, about the nature and uses of power. Of course, Obama has raised these failures even more so with a host of foreign and military policy decisions. Codevilla notes that tossing out a ruling class is difficult. With Obama we may have finally reached the tipping point that ejects them from power. Who better has been formed under the power of their Humanitarianism, intellectual privileges and prejudices, and courted their favor and ideas throughout his adult life and political odyssey to power. The difference is that with Obama, the protective coating is off, he is too pure for disguises as he repeatedly told us in his autobiographies. We now see the sheer refusal to think about the arts of statecraft concretely embodied in the mind and will of one ruler. The larger question is assuming the return of something like conservatism to power in Washington, do we now move beyond the cadre of elite policy makers in the State Department, the Pentagon, and even within the military, and begin to apply the pressure that leaves our enemies "stupified," as the Prince counselled, before their destroyed dreams.
]]>Other "red" demographic and lifestyle choices abound in the facts of the book. We might see a generation of millenials who are strangely conservative and family-oriented but who are reluctant to actually be publicly conservative given the relativist spirit that has pervaded much of their educations. One senses that this will change under the crush of circumstances. The future could be far more conservative than we have thought. In a quiet Hayekian fashion people could be making decisions on a local level whose full impact will emerge in time but in the manner of a tidal wave. Also interesting in the book are the demographics of Utah, i.e., it resembles the 1950s in many ways.
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This leads directly to a fear I have that the State AGs may ultimately do more harm than good in their suits on the individual health insurance mandate being a commerce clause violation. Granted that this mandate does seem to breach the clause by the letter and spirit of the thing but is that going to be enough for the courts who with one ruling could gut the commcerce clause almost indefinitely? The courts, if they uphold the purchase mandate as fitting within commerce clause power, which I think is likely, while probably not stating it as such, will likely defer to something like the "liquidation" process Publius observes. The people through discussion over the years will have regarded this as constitutional and we must recognize the process that has occurred would be the reasoning underlying the more technical analysis.
The notion of "liquidating" the meaning might force us to repair to the fundamental equality of the federal branches of government and the equal claim they have on the Constitution. Thus, through public debate the "the cool and deliberate sense of the community" might be reached and the mandate overturned in this fashion. Might the responsibility rest with the democratic branches, at least as first movers, to effect the determination that this purchase mandate, if allowed to stand, recognizes no limits to federal power. At the least, such an attempt by a conservative president and congress might fall a few votes short, but it is better than the constitutional precedent that seems likely to follow from the AG suits.
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What seems a basic insight is missed frequently by voters unable to connect sound intentions with long term effects in political economy. Thus, the current failures of our system: favorable tax treatment to employers for provision of healthcare which create the limited out of pocket exposure the consumer has to his health care decisions and the consequent effects on escalating costs will continue. The critical function of market correction can't happen because policy misdirects resources. The costs will continue to rise for consumers and now for government expenditures. The real consequence will be the future call by liberal pols to cut out employers and have a single-payer. This makes repeal and replace all the more significant if we are to avoid that most tragic of fates when our bodies are now the wards of the state.
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