Compassion grows out of the the barrel of a gun

Via Don Boudreaux at Café Hayek, I came upon this Washington Post editorial by Eugene Robinson, "Where are the compassionate conservatives?", that nicely illustrates the core assumption of so much of American politics. Discussing the recent Republican debate, Robinson says:

The lowest point of the evening — and perhaps of the political season — came when moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul a hypothetical question about a young man who elects not to purchase health insurance. The man has a medical crisis, goes into a coma and needs expensive care. “Who pays?” Blitzer asked.

“That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks,” Paul answered. “This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody. . . .”

Blitzer interrupted: “But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?”

...Paul, a physician, went on to say that, no, the hypothetical comatose man should not be allowed to die. But in Paul’s vision of America, “our neighbors, our friends, our churches” would choose to assume the man’s care — with government bearing no responsibility and playing no role.

Robinson, needless to say, considers this monstrous, lamenting its lack of "Christian kindness."  A bit later, after criticizing Michelle Bachmann (who is hardly a libertarian, but who also has shown an unseemly interest in people helping others without the government's sanctifying threat of violent compulsion) for her opposition to Obama's health care policy, he contrasts what he imagines the philosophy of Paul and Bachmann (and the other candidates, but its Paul and Bachmann who get the spotlight) to be with his own:

Government is more than a machine for collecting and spending money, more than an instrument of war, a book of laws or a shield to guarantee and protect individual rights. Government is also an expression of our collective values and aspirations. There’s a reason the Constitution begins “We the people . . .” rather than “We the unconnected individuals who couldn’t care less about one another. . . ”

And later:

I believe that writing off whole classes of citizens — the long-term unemployed whose skills are becoming out of date, thousands of former offenders who have paid their debt to society, millions of low-income youth ill-served by inadequate schools — is unconscionable.

The depressing thing is that Robinson probably honestly believes that he's provided an accurate, reasonable characterization of the views of people who don't share his vision of government. If nothing else, a man who was willfully trying to trick people into believing nonsense would not write an article in which he himself provides explicit reputations of his own falsehoods mere paragraphs away from them.

Note that Robinson is making a very different criticism from the- still wrong, but not outright nonsensical-  idea that the government's involvement in these matters is indispensable because noncoercive mechanisms would fail and leave the streets choked with the corpses of the cast of Oliver. That would be a purely practical criticism that would have nothing to do with anyone's supposed lack of "Christian kindness" or support for a society of "unconnected individuals who couldn't care less about one another." Such a criticism would directly contradict the one Robinson makes here, since arguing for the inadequacy of voluntary efforts would put Robinson in the position of claiming that Ron Paul's belief in the power and importance of people's concern for one another in our society was too strong, rather than too weak.

Robinson characterizes the philosophy of Paul and Bachmann as one of a country composed of "unconnected individuals who couldn’t care less about one another." He says this in response to Paul's statement that assisting people in need should be done by "our neighbors, our friends, our churches" rather than the government. He describes the idea of helping people through non-coercive means as "writing off" those people.

If Paul had said that he was opposed to compelling people to serve in government breeding camps, I suppose Robinson would be rebuking him for his desire to doom the human race to extinction with this generation.

Now, it's common enough for liberals to fail to grasp the difference between rejecting a particular means for achieving a goal and rejecting the goal. (It's typical of ideologies that focus on whether a proposed response to a problem displays the proper emotions and mindset rather than on whether the proposed solution is likely to actually work. A similar phenomenon can be seen among many drug war supporters, or in the focus on "will" or "resolve" among "War on Terror" hawks.) But the disconnect between Robinson's description of Paul's position and the stated position of Ron Paul that Robinson himself just quoted- and Robinson gives no suggestion that he thinks Paul doesn't mean what he said- is still quite striking. I smoke cigars, but don't smoke cigarettes, so it follows that I never smoke tobacco products of any kind..

But it makes perfect sense once you've accepted one of the central but unstated premises of modern American liberalism: government action is the only thing that has or is capable of having moral value, because there is no alternate means of accomplishing anything worthwhile. It's a vision of society and human life is so state-centric that adherents honestly can't tell the difference between "X should be done, but not by the state" and "X should not be done." (Think of all the dribbling idiocy about the "nihilism" of Obama's critics in the past few years. See also my own previous post.) Without that assumption underlying his arguments Robinson's description of Paul and Bachman is not merely unconvincing but incoherent, built around claims that Robinson himself repeatedly and explicitly demonstrates to be false.

Fortunately, most people who adhere to beliefs like this in politics compartmentalize it pretty well. Just as very few people go around abducting young men to use as slave labor or forcing people whose productivity is lower than the value of a "living wage" to quit their jobs or stealing wallets so they can send the money to Goldman Sachs, even when their political philosophy endorses those things,  most people with this sort of mindset usually understand the value of benevolence towards others in private, nonpolitical life while they're in the process of actually living it.

Robinson himself demonstrates this when he acknowledges that Michelle Bachmann and her husband have cared for a number of foster children over the years- mere paragraphs before describing her as someone who supports a society where no one cares about or connects with anyone else. Michelle Bachmann is uncaring because she went to extensive personal efforts to help vulnerable people in need but is not trying to force other people to do so; this constitutes an endorsement of "writing off" disadvantaged youths. Actions that were recognized as good and meaningful when Robinson briefly discussed Bachmann's non-political life abruptly become meaningless because they were done willingly by people acting on their own initiative and not by government command. Again, the assumption that only state action matters is fundamental- the article makes perfect sense with it and reads like something written by multiple, mutually hostile authors without it.

So, it's no surprise that Paul's remarks would inspire such revulsion. Ron Paul advocated a society where the needy are aided by the voluntary actions of others, and not by the government- but if you've bought into the idea that a country's "values and aspirations" are expressed not by what its people choose to do but by what their rulers force them to do, "aided by the voluntary actions of others" is just so much meaningless noise.

Opiate of the Red States

A few weeks back, the conservative organization Young Americans for Freedom denounced Congressman Ron Paul and expelled him from their National Advisory Board, on which he had served for twenty years. This, despite the fact that Paul was the recipient of the group's greatest honor, the Guardian of Freedom award, and despite the fact that Paul is by far the most thoroughgoing opponent of big government and supporter of free enterprise in Congress country and has done an enormous amount to popularize those ideas- ideas that are ostensibly among the YAF's core principles. (Young American's for Freedom should not be confused with the Young Americans for Liberty, another student-based group. You can tell them apart by the fact that YAL's leaders don't don't snicker when they say the last word of their group's name.)

This, in microcosm, is an excellent reenactment of the story of the American conservative movement since the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001.

The reason for his expulsion action was simple- Paul is anti-war. He thinks that “limited government” is incompatible with spending hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars on the military every year to perpetually garrison the entire planet and billions more for armed social engineering projects on the other side of the world. He's argued that foreigners become upset when their friends, relatives, countrymen, or coreligionists are maimed or killed, and that this displeasure has more to do with why some of them are willing to hurl themselves to certain death for a chance to kill Americans than hatred of push-up bras or BLTs or the works of Montesquieu does.  His preferred response to terrorism does not involve unending “nation-building” military occupations or the unprovoked flattening of whatever foreign country he happens to be annoyed with at the time.

Let's take a look at YAF's core statement of principles, the Sharon Statement. The Sharon Statement endorses strict constitutionalism and federalism limiting the federal government to its constitutionally enumerated powers, the free  market, the view that the proper role of government is to preserve individual freedom through law enforcement and national defense, that national sovereignty must not be ceded to foreign or international bodies, and that the standard by which a foreign policy should be judged is “the just interests of the United States.”

Not bad. If anyone within spitting distance of importance in mainstream American right-of-center politics had actually demonstrated principles like these within my lifetime, I'd hold modern conservatism in much higher esteem. Remove the now-outdated references to international communism (the statement was written in 1960) and it sounds like something Ron Paul could easily have written himself- and, unlike most Republican who hold public office or enjoy any media prominence, actually believe. Even if you accept the claim that Paul's non-interventionism does not “serve the just interests of the United States,”  Ron Paul is still by far the national political figure who best exemplifies the ideals of what is supposed to be YAF's creed.

And yet Paul is still utterly beyond the pale in the eyes of YAF's leadership ; not merely unfit for participation in their organization, but a moral monster. The YAF's leadership didn't merely say that they thought Paul was too far out of step with the YAF's ideals for them to continue working with him. In the statement issued about Paul's expulsion, YAF Senior National Director Jordan Marks said that Paul's actions “border on treason.” (Emphasis added.)

YAF is just one group, and there's clearly a strong element of opportunism here. The official statement against Paul- who has long been quite vocal about his foreign policy views- says they're only taking action against him now because he's started leading "left-wing subversives" into the movement. If we give Mr. Marks the benefit of the doubt and assume that he would not publicly state that someone is on the border of being guilty of something that is punishable by death under the laws of the United States and has traditionally been considered to be among the most despicable of all crimes unless he actually meant it, it would follow that YAF has been willingly associating itself with a known borderline-traitor for years. Apparently, YAF's leadership cannot abide an influx of young anti-interventionists inspired by Paul's example, but is "big tent" enough to accept years of behavior that borders on “levying war” against the United States and/or “adhering to their Enemies.” That seems sort of odd for a group that expresses so much concern about defending America, though perhaps the various left-wing anti-Americans I was exposed to in my formative years have clouded my judgment.

Nevertheless, its example is depressingly illustrative; either Marks et al. sincerely believe what the say about Paul, or they're playing to an audience that they expect to be well-disposed towards what they said. In either case, once YAF's leaders decided to abandon their convenient hypocrisy (or emerged from cryogenic hibernation, or whatever was stopping them from driving History's Greatest Monster from their ranks before now), their condemnation and excommunication of Paul had a well-established template to follow.

Support for militarism and foreign adventurism is not merely the dominant or most strongly held position in post 9/11 mainstream conservatism, but its defining principle as a political movement. This level of condemnation comes in different degrees but the fundamental principle is pretty consistent: being conspicuously antiwar is qualitatively worse than deviating from other principles conservatives claim to hold dear. Almost unlimited disdain for supposed conservative principles like free markets, limited government, constitutionalism, and federalism is excusable as long as you're pro-war enough, and no amount of support for them matters if you aren't.

(Mainstream liberalism follows a similar principle in regards to abridging civil liberties, giving giant piles of government money to the rich and privileged, compelling members of the middle and working classes to give piles of their own money and/or their homes to same, blasting hapless foreigners to pulp in ill-conceived military ventures, powerful white guys doing horrendous things to vulnerable females, and the like.)

It's possible to be pro-war and yet so unacceptably deviant in others ways that you're consigned to the outer darkness with folks like Paul, but it's damned hard. Being a vehemently anti-religious Marxist isn't enough. Instituting a state-level prototype of Obamacare while serving as a governor isn't enough. Being a Democratic Party candidate for the vice-presidency with F ratings from the National Taxpayers Union and the National Rifle Association isn't enough. This phenomenon isn't new, of course, since mainstream Cold War conservatism spurned vocal antimilitarists like Murray Rothbard and John T. Flynn but was glad to embrace New Dealers and social democrats who were sufficiently interventionist, but it's more rigid and far more hysterical.

Now, this is not universal, though the intense hostility many conservatives display towards conservative dissenters (such as paleoconservatives) on this issue only serves to emphasize the general rule. The popularity of Ron Paul in the last few years further shows that there are people who identify as conservative who don't share these priorities, and my hope is that things like the Tea Party movement will spur some conservatives to take a more serious interest in the idea of limiting government power that won't fade into oblivion once the Democrats are out of the White House. The resurgence of antistatist-sounding rhetoric among so many politicians and other prominent figures on the Right is to a great extent a pose, to be sure, but part of the reason the pose is so useful is because it brings in people who actually do take ideas like that seriously, at least some of the time, but have enough blind spots or gaps in their understanding and awareness to be taken in by Republican lip service to them.

(The other principal reason the pose is useful is that there is a significant- probably more significant- strain within modern conservatism that places great value and emphasis on the word "freedom", but has little or no regard for the freedom of individuals in even a limited or confused sense. It's not that they're lying- except to themselves, I suppose- it's just that they have a conception of freedom devoid of actual content. “Freedom” in this context simply means what America is and does, regardless of what America is and does; You could swap in “goodness” or “American” or “fahrvergnugen“ with little or no loss of meaning. They're the exemplars of the “shut up and enjoy your freedom of speech” philosophy.)

A political movement mimicking the rhetoric of ideals its biggest players and many of the rank-and-file don't actually respect very much- either as a deliberate deception or due to self-delusion-  is playing a dangerous game. The people who aren't in on the joke may eventually notice the disparity between your words and deeds, or realize that what you claim to believe has implications- perhaps radical implications- you haven't acknowledged. That's why the all-consuming primacy of the “War on Terror,”or some other foreign menace, is so helpful: it eternally excuses conservatism's failure to be what it claims to be.

It allows you to assert hostility  to “big government” as a general principle while supporting so many deviations from it- because the war on terrorism is so important, the Constitution is not a suicide pact, etc.- that the exceptions devour the supposed rule. It means that someone like Ron Paul should be rejected in favor of people who make professed Republican hostility to domestic big government, collectivism, welfare statism, and meddling Washington bureaucrats and political elites seem like an obscene joke, because the War on Terror is so important that all other principles are secondary. But hang in there, and someday we'll have the luxury of making an effort to act on the ideals we're always talking about. Just not today, or the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that.

American conservatism is remarkably similar to communism in this respect, now that I think about it.

David Horowitz. 'Nuff said.

David Horowitz had a recent post at NewsRealBlog, "Ron Paul Is A Vicious Anti-Semite and Anti-American and Conservatives Need To Wash Their Hands of Him." In it, Horowitz argues that Ron Paul is... well, a vicious anti-Semite, and supports this by saying that:

Now Paul is making a priority of withdrawing aid for Israel  — the only democracy in the Middle East and the only reliable ally of the United States.

He then approvingly posts a message sent out by Gary Bauer on the subject, which includes the following in it's criticism of Paul:

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) has just introduced an amendment to end all U.S. aid to Israel ... The U.S. gives billions of dollars a year to foreign countries that hate us and regularly vote against us at the United Nations.  But, Israel votes with the U.S. 97% of the time.  They are a loyal ally that shares our values.  The aid they receive is used to buy military equipment from U.S. companies so the money comes back to us. Ron Paul’s proposal makes no sense.

This demonstrates one of the cardinal rules of deception: Keep explicit falsehoods to a minimum. Whatever your subject, say things about that subject that are true- but only some things that are true, isolated from their actual context and arranged in a pattern that points towards the desired conclusion.

Did Ron Paul propose ending U.S. aid to Israel? He did. More precisely, he proposed ending all foreign aid, and since Israel is not a state, territory, possession, dependency, or federally administered district of the United States of America it falls under the "foreign" category.

So yes, it's true that Ron Paul supports "withdrawing aid for Israel," just as it's true that I try to avoid large, raucous parties and gatherings where Jews are present, would feel extremely uncomfortable if I discovered that a Jewish voyeur had installed tiny hidden cameras in my bathroom, and refuse to wear miniskirts or ballroom gowns or "World's Greatest Grandma" T-shirts that have been worn by Jews. Some fanatical Markley apologists would no doubt make excuses for this blatant anti-Semitism by attributing these things to the fact that John Markley is not particularly social or outgoing, or values his privacy and personal space, or isn't a woman, but Horowitz has sniffed me out.