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Meathead Conservatism

There is a fascinating article in the Los Angeles Times written by Mickey Edwards, a Republican Party apparatchik of many years standing, called Reagan wouldn’t recognize this GOP. This was the ‘money quote’ for me:

Over the last several years, conservatives have turned themselves inside out: They have come to worship small government and have turned their backs on limited government. They have turned to a politics of exclusion, division and nastiness. Today, they wonder what went wrong, why Americans have turned on them, why they lose, or barely win, even in places such as Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina.

So George W. Bush and John “I support the Bailout” McCain represented the worship of… small government??? So presumably this ‘small’ government must have consumed a smaller portion of the national wealth when it left office compared to when it took office, right? I mean is that not surely the most direct and uncontroversial measure of the size of a government? Ok, 9/11 happened… so if we were to factor out all military spending, would that give us a smaller state at the end of the Bush presidency than at the start? I will leave you to guess the answer to that very simple question. And are there more regulations governing, well, almost everything, now compared when Bush took power? If there are more, then how is that either small or limited?

In America, government is … us. What is “exceptional” about America is the depth of its commitment to the principle of self-government; we elect the government, we replace it or its members when they displease us, and by our threats or support, we help steer what government does.

Of course this ‘us’ of whom he speaks are in reality the political activists who gain the support of a plurality to sanctify the latest looting schedules. His contempt for ‘ Joe the Plumber’ says it all. Joe was indeed one of ‘us’, one of the great unwashed who dared to fart loudly during the chorus of media hosannas surrounding Obama’s stately progress across The Blessed Land. Mickey Edwards on the other hand was a career politician who now lectures on Legislative Politics and International Affairs… in other words, he is about as much one of ‘them’ as you can get.

And there is nothing particularly ‘exceptional’ about his description of American government unless Mickey Edwards thinks most of the rest of the ‘first world’ are organised as feudal states. The ‘limits’ to government expressed in the sainted US Constitution may be still be a viable tool for securing thing like freedom of expression and the right to defend yourself, well at least somewhat, but they do less than nothing to make anyone secure in their property or in any way less vulnerable to the political looter class (whom Mickey Edward could identify by simply looking in a mirror) from using the political system to help themselves to other people’s money.

And that, my chums across the ocean, is exactly why you are just as totally fucked as the rest of us.

33 comments to Meathead Conservatism

  • What precisely is the difference between “small” and “limited” government?

  • Janine

    That’s got to be the most incoherent double talk I’ve read in quite some time. Man oh man the party needs a colonic and pronto.

    So to summarize: the Bush years of taxes and regulation were “small” government but not limited government.

    We’re different because, well, we have lots of government and that means we’re involved, unlike all the Europeans I guess who have lots of government and aren’t involved, I guess?

    You can’t want less government (although what the hell he thinks the Constitution was designed to do is a mystery to me) because as the government is “us” and that means you want less of “us” if you want small government.

    Small government is “bad” because, it just is, but limited government, which isn’t small, so its big I guess, is great because it has boundaries! And I guess boundaries don’t stop it from growing, so “limited” government sure as hell isn’t “small” government.

    Or something like that.

  • Alice

    “And that, my chums across the ocean, is exactly why you are just as totally fucked as the rest of us.”

    Sad, but true.

    Perry, you seem to be coming round to the point of view that western democracies are approaching the same sort of discontinuity that affected the late lamented USSR. What would you like to see happen the day after?

  • AndyJ

    As the words of the old country song sang: “you’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

    Course, the Democrats stand for -ENEMY-… They know that more power will do until an ENEMY comes along. While waiting for the ENEMY they just have to keep the factions from splitting apart like an old Fiat on benzene and nitro…

    They also have to move fast as they expect to lose the House in 2010…

    We may be fooked but we do know when we’ll vote again…

  • Janine

    We may be fooked but we do know when we’ll vote again…

    Yeah but if in 2010 this dickwad laywyer is the sort of guy informing the party, how does voting the Democrats out makes us any better off?

  • Bod

    I hate it when our own illuminati gloat.

  • Hell no, I am not gloating, Bod, it is a call to action. I am just pointing at the enemy. The way I see it we are all very much in this steaming pile of poop together.

  • Russ

    Sometimes even the devil speaks the truth.
    There is a HUGE difference between “Small” government, and “limited” government.

    “Small” government is an idiocy. What’s small? A government with a tiny budget, not solving problems?

    “Limited government” is a statement which draws explicit examples, and which is excluded from doing “this” and “this” and “this.”

    That government no longer exists in America. Maybe it can again, once the statists who gutted free speech and private property have finally had their day.

    We’ll probably regain our freedom at the expense of law, but as Heinlein says, that’s called “bad luck.”

  • mrbill

    Mickey Edwards used to be in the Oklahoma legislature but got run out for being a liberal. Being a liberal in Ok. is not a good thing for political life.

  • Sometimes even the devil speaks the truth.
    There is a HUGE difference between “Small” government, and “limited” government.

    Sure, but how was the government of G.W. Bush in any way “small” as this clown claims? Small compared to what? Clinton’s government? Do you actually grasp the sheer size of the US public sector?

    “Small” government is an idiocy. What’s small? A government with a tiny budget, not solving problems?

    And that is the issue, and quite frankly why I said the USA is just a screwed as the UK if your view is widespread, which indeed it is… you accept as a given that government is more likely to actually “solve” problems rather than to cause them, if only it has enough resources at its disposal.

    So yes, I do indeed want a government with a small budget not solving problems… because the alternative is a government with a large budget also not solving problems. I would argue there is a correlation between the size of a government’s budget, certainly in relative terms, and the problems it causes. Where do you think this budget for “problem solving” comes from?

  • This seems as good a place as any to say what I have been haranguing all my friends and relatives about for the last 20 years.

    The functions of any legislature (including both houses of congress) are:

    1. Make people do what they don’t want to do
    2. Prevent people from doing what they want to do
    3. Shift money (through taxation and “fees”) from one set of people to another.
    4. Filter all the transfers of money through vast bureaucracies on which all blame for the faults of the legislation will be transferred, but upon which no accountability will be assigned.

    Function number two has some legitimacy, such as in outlawing murder and mayhem, etc.

    Thanks for listening.
    Ron Pavellas
    http://pavellas.blogspot.com

  • guy herbert

    You can actually factor out much of the military and “security” spending, too. The War on Terror (as befits such a broad rhetorical device) has been a pretext for the promotion of the wildest bureaucratic empire-building and mad authoritarian agendas.

    Department of Homeland Security? (The words should make one’s flesh creep, even were there not a complete lack of evidence for the organisation’s utility.) $50Bn a year.

  • TomC

    Small or limited government: men may do anything save that which is legally forbidden; government may do nothing save that which is legally permitted.

  • Jeff the Programmer

    “And that, my chums across the ocean, is exactly why you are just as totally fucked as the rest of us.”

    That right there is why I love this blog so much. It truly is the best out there. And there are a lot of great blogs. I’m not blowing smoke up your asses by saying I’d be devastated if you were to close up shop.

    Add to that a Heinlein reference in the comments! Thou art God, my brother.

    As per usual I bring nothing to the table. Just wanted to kiss some ass and let you guys know you rule. And that I grock your message.

  • dr kill

    Anarchy or Monarchy, nothing else for it now.

  • Anarchy or Monarchy, nothing else for it now.

    I would settle for limited and small government, kind of like those weird guys who founded the USA had in mind, just without the slavery bit please.

  • You can actually factor out much of the military and “security” spending, too. The War on Terror (as befits such a broad rhetorical device) has been a pretext for the promotion of the wildest bureaucratic empire-building and mad authoritarian agendas.

    Oh I agree Guy, but I was heading that off as an argument by George Bush’s apologists because even without all the security boondoggles, his government expanded the state. “Small” government eh?

    The notion that Bush and Mickey Edwards are not as a practical matter indistinguishable is laughable.

  • RRS

    Couple of comments:

    Hayek: Why I Am Not a Conservative

    The effects of insistence that “Governments” (as distinguished from administrations) are “Institutions” [cf. R.C. Church] rather than evolving mechanisms.

  • PersonFromPorlock

    In America, government is … us.

    Many years ago, one of my college roommates used to defend the Soviet Union’s forbidding of labor unions, on the grounds that unions weren’t needed since the workers already controlled the government through the Party. I suppose that Mr. Edwards’ level of self-delusion is somewhat similar.

  • jerry

    Perry

    ‘you accept as a given that government is more likely to actually “solve” problems rather than to cause them, if only it has enough resources at its disposal.’

    You have hit the crux of the problem.

    The belief is ‘ if you have enough government, you can solve all of the problems’. The flaw is, you can’t afford that much government because it is FAR too inefficient.
    ( ie – military will send 17 men out on an all-day job that would take 2 men 2 hours to do – OR the U.S. postal service which is staffed year ’round to handle the Christmas season load – ALL of government works this way )

    It started here with FDR and the belief has been nurtured through media, schools etc for 70 years and is now so ingrained that uprooting it may well be impossible.

    Part of the problem, I’m afraid, is the ‘types’ of people attracted to ‘government’. Do-gooders, who know what’s best for the rest of us crossed with people who couldn’t hold a job in the private sector. The result is what would be hilarious comedy if not so serious.

  • Sgt Hardkill

    True words, as much as I hate to admit it.

    “The “limits” to government expressed in the sainted U.S. Constitution…do less than nothing to make anyone secure in their property or in any way less vulnerable to the political looter class from using the political system to help themselves to other people’s money.”

    We are beyond the point at which the founding fathers would have lined up many of our officials in front of a firing squad for their offenses.

    We do have one advantage. We know that the pointy end of a rifle goes forward. Not so the effeminate, sensitive, sports and porn-addicted elements of our society today.

  • I have never found high quality porn an impediment to shooting straight.

  • Thomas Jackson

    Every country gets the government they deserve. I don’t understand those who preach the love of government and socialism. Socialism and big government is the same as living in your parents home when you are 18.

    You have no voice in what you do or how you live. If you do not live within the rules set by your parents you are reminded in no unceratin way “that as long as you are living under my roof you’ll abide by my rules.”

    This is what the Nanny state is. So I can only conclude there are a tremdeous number of adults who are living in their parents basements and are content to share one set of parental rules for another.

    Happy lemmings all. As to President 666, he has set a new low tone for class, which is only equalled by his cowardise and ability to be incoherent. Even Cynthia McKinney was better than this loser.

  • comatus

    Writing about Republicans and writing about conservatives are simply not the same thing.
    Bush and McCain are not conservatives, and most “social conservatives” would never dream of decreasing federal power–only of redirecting it to their purposes.

    “In America, government is … us” is a quote from PJ O’Rourke’s “Parliament of Whores,” which this much smaller writer is attempting to follow, at some distance.

  • Laird

    Accepting Russ’ distinction between “small” and “limited” government (and it’s a fair one), if I can’t have the latter I’d settle for the former.

  • Brad

    The accrual basis debt (per the Financial Reports of the United States Government issued by the US Treasury) when Bush took office in 2000 was $20,000,000,000,000. When Bush left office it was $54,000,000,000,000, $11,000,000,000,000 of which is due to Medicare Part D, an unfunded entitlement rivaling the New Deal and the Great Society.

    I dare anyone to discern small or limited or whatever from this. Anyone who tries is either deluded or stupid or a liar.

    And I agree that we are fucked on this side of the pond. I’ve been coming to samizdata for quite some time, and for rather a long time I was getting the impression that many Brits, discontented with things, somehow saw the US as some sort of libertarian/minarchic paradise which to escape to. Sadly, reality has come into focus.

  • MlR

    Largely, but not quite. When we go under we’ll fight amongst ourselves, but are unlikely to have serious wars with our neighbors, other than the serious, but still relatively low-intensity side effects of the blurred borders.

    Europe, however, has the prospect of renewed interstate warfare, and all the high-intensity goodies that can come out of that.

    I’m not bragging, just saying.

    As for the Bush Adminstration and restraint. Largest increase in domestic spending since LBJ, even taking out military spending. Almost all self-inflicted.

    Made, along with their buddies in Congress, the Democrats seem fiscally responsible in comparison.

    Game over.

  • Paul Marks

    As MIR (and others) have pointed out, President Bush and the Republican leadership in both Houses of Congress went along with the biggest increase in domestic spending for decades.

    And that was before the bank bailout.

    As for other “exclusion” – they embraced ethnic minorities with a passion, including illegal immigrants (even sending Hispanic border guards to prison for trying to defend the border). Here libertarians might agree with Bush and co – but it is not the picture Mr Edwards paints.

    So Mr Edwards is trying the old practice of the “big lie” – try a lie so big that shocks the mind into half going along with it.

    As for the candidate in November – it was amnesty McCain the ultimate “cross over” person.

    His “friends” the media soon betrayed him, as did his “personal friend of 30 years” C. Powell (who backed a man he hardly knew – but not for any racial reason of course, just as Barack Obama got 90% of the black vote in the primaries against Hillary Clinton because of the minor differences in policy between them).

    And who voted for him? The very “rednecks” he had insulted for decades, and the very people who opposed his support of the bank bailout (and so on).

    They saw his name (which is about as Redneck as it possible to be) and remembered his war service – and they were loyal to him (inspite of him insulting them for so long), but not all of them supported him. A lot could not bring themselves to come out and vote.

    So John McCain lost.

    If he had met them on policy (at least opposing the bank bailouts) more of the the “redneck anti immigrant barbarians” would have come out to vote for him and he would have won – in spite of the media.

    That is all he had to do – denouce the bailout and he would have won.

    But he would not even do that.

    By the way the ethnic minorty folk that might have been convinced to vote Republican – they are anti bailouts to.

    I wonder if Mr Edwards remembered to say that?

    There are a lot of good black and hispanic folks out there – but none of them would vote for a RINO post bailouts.

    Would Mr Edwards vote for a black conservative or an hispanic conservative? Of course he would not. No more than he would vote for a white conservative.

    Republicans must become conservatives again (anti bailout people) to have any chance of winning.

    Clue – oppose the latest “stimulus plan” spending orgy.

    The media will denouce you for doing so – and your active supporters will gradually increase and become a majority of the people by November 2010.

    Now there is a prediction that can be tested.

    Oppose the “Obama plan” with all your strength (treat him as the conman he is) and you will win in 2010 (and win with lots of black and hispanic votes to) – support the plan and forget about 2010, or 2012.

  • Paul Marks

    By the way.

    Look at the way the media (and so on) treated the last Republican who really did represent the poor and minorities.

    There was a candidate who came from a humble backround (in reality – not as media myth like Barack private school and Harvard Law Obama) and who had married into a discriminated minority group (a part Native American – or “First Nations” as the Canadians say, rather than marrying to gain influence in the corrupt Chicago machine) and who was very close to another discriminated group – being the mother of disabled child.

    Mr Edwards denounces right wing folk who have a lot of hate in their soul – and O.K. that does sound like me. But this person shone compassion at everyone and seems (even now) to have no hatred in her at all.

    So I assume that Mr Edwards was an ardent Sarah Palin fan – or perhaps he was not.

  • Paul Marks

    By the way.

    Look at the way the media (and so on) treated the last Republican who really did represent the poor and minorities.

    There was a candidate who came from a humble backround (in reality – not as media myth like Barack private school and Harvard Law Obama) and who had married into a discriminated minority group (a part Native American – or “First Nations” as the Canadians say, rather than marrying to gain influence in the corrupt Chicago machine) and who was very close to another discriminated group – being the mother of disabled child.

    Mr Edwards denounces right wing folk who have a lot of hate in their soul – and O.K. that does sound like me. But this person shone compassion at everyone and seems (even now) to have no hatred in her at all.

    So I assume that Mr Edwards was an ardent Sarah Palin fan – or perhaps he was not.

  • Zevilyn

    High military spending is found in all statist, totalitarian regimes.

    The US invasion of Iraq and the farcical, hilariously incompetent attempts to form a “government” there, were classic examples of Big Government.

    The Iraq war was not a war of self-defence, thus it was something no genuine Conservative could support. Wars expand the state and consume enormous sums of taxpayer money.

    The Pentagon is the very embodiment of a useless government bureaucracy, wasteful and unnecessary, it devours taxpayers money like a fat, greedy pig.

    America’s military spending is ridiculous, if Obama has any sense he will scrap the missile shield.

  • Forget, please, “conservatism.” It has been, operationally, de facto, Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:

    “[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”

    Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).

    John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
    Recovering Republican
    JLof@aol.com

  • Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God

    Sigh.

    I don’t suppose a vast every increasing regulatory state might have any thing to do with that, eh? No, perish the thought. It must be something to do with God.