[lbo-talk] The Ugly Mutation of American Conservatism

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Mon Jan 17 08:35:02 PST 2005


The Ugly Mutation of American Conservatism

by Steven LaTulippe

Two separate incidents last week got me to pondering the current state of

conservative philosophy in America. The first was an announcement from the

Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation concerning their annual

Index of Economic Freedom. This index has been calculated for the past 11

years, and 2004 was the first time that the USA did not make the list as one

of the top 10 freest economies.

On the surface, this seems odd. Over the years, I frequently found myself

daydreaming about how wonderful it would be if the Republicans were ever to

gain control of the White House and both houses of Congress. I fantasized

about the drastic downsizing of government, the bureaucracies that would be

eliminated, and the flowering of individual liberty that would ensue.

Now that the Republicans have, in fact, achieved control of the federal

government, I am reminded of the old country song that warns, "Sometimes God

's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."

Who would have thought that only two years after achieving "conservative"

domination of the federal government, that America would drop out of the top

ten completely?

Shouldn't we be climbing upwards on the list of the freest economies?

The second event last week which prompted introspection was Lew Rockwell's

column on "red state fascism." Perhaps therein resides the explanation.

Maybe we have been victimized by a "bait and switch." What the Republicans

were selling in the 1994 "Contract with America" does not seem to be what

they delivered in 2000-2004. And what the Republican masses said that they

wanted then does not seem to be what they want now.


>From that premise, I decided that it might be worthwhile to examine what
was

commonly agreed upon in 1994 as being "conservative," and compare it with

the current policies being implemented by the Republican-dominated

government.

#1 smaller government

Every conservative worth the name believes in smaller government. Ronald

Reagan always cautioned that America's greatness rests with her people and

not in Washington. The government is usually our problem, he warned, not the

solution.

Given this perspective, what has Bush delivered?

Can anyone name a single government agency or program that has been

eliminated in the first four years of Bush's presidency?

On the contrary, President Bush and the Republican-dominated congress have

ushered in an explosion of government spending, regulation, and bureaucracy

that has seldom been seen in our history. President Bush has allowed a

growth of federal spending that dwarfs that of President Clinton, even when

the Iraq War is taken into account. Bush has created the largest single

expansion of federal entitlements since LBJ with his Medicare prescription

drug program. He even managed to avoid vetoing a single bill in his entire

first term, a feat "achieved" by few presidents in our nation's history.

Apparently, Bush hasn't found any of the trillions in spending passed by

Congress to be wasteful or extravagant.

#2 maintaining fiscal responsibility

Throughout my years as a young conservative, the major criticism that the

right directed at liberalism concerned its penchant for fiscal

irresponsibility. We constantly railed that the left never met a program

that they didn't like. Under the stewardship of FDR-era dinosaurs, America's

financial situation deteriorated badly as "bleeding heart liberals" spent

money on program after program. Conservative ideologues mocked "knee-jerk

liberals" for inventing a bureaucracy for every conceivable human desire.

Liberal government meant higher taxes and endless deficits. Conservatives

spent a lot of time and effort informing our fellow citizens how different

things would be if we ever came to power.

It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that the subsequent performance

of the Republicans is a considerable disappointment. Under their rule, the

finances of our government have deteriorated horribly. While they did cut

taxes, they simultaneously went on a spending binge that has racked up

record debt. Their performance has been hideous even when discounting the

security expenditures of the post-9/11 era. The last spending bill in

congress was so ladled with pork that even a few Democrats objected. By any

reasonable measure, America's financial situation is far worse today than it

was under President Clinton, even when compared to Clinton's first two years

in power when the Democrats controlled both houses of congress.

It appears as though all those years of preaching fiscal responsibility were

mere rhetoric. Now that the Republicans are in power, they are rewarding

their own special interest groups with public money in the worst tradition

of Tip O'Neill and Dan Rostenkowski.

It's like a bad rerun of Animal Farm.

#3 government respect for individual liberty

In the 1990's, most conservative were (correctly) outraged at the numerous

incidents of government bullying and abuse that seemed to be occurring with

increasing frequency. I was appalled by the deaths at Ruby Ridge. I was

outraged by the military-style assault at Waco. I was sickened by Hillary's

FBI file scandal and her frequent use of sleazy tactics against her

political enemies. I prayed for a Republican victory to restore respect for

individual liberty and limited government.

Again, things haven't exactly worked out the way I'd expected.

We now have a government that actively engages in the systematic use of

torture against its enemies. We have an administration that advocates the

lifetime detention of suspected terrorists without trial.even when the state

lacks conclusive evidence that they are, in fact, terrorists. The government

even denies that it must inform anyone that they are holding a particular

suspect. People can now just "disappear" in America, with no recourse to

lawyers or judges. We have new laws that allow government agents to engage

in searches and seizures without warrants. We have seen the creation of a

secret gulag around the globe in which detainees are held without due

process of any sort. There have been numerous stories appearing which claim

American security forces have "wink and nod" agreements with foreign secret

police agencies in which various abusive tactics are essentially

"out-sourced" to nations which have no constitutional restraints on the

treatment of prisoners. We have a government that has written numerous

briefs on the "out-dated" nature of the Geneva Conventions.

Many conservatives have rationalized these facts by claiming that these

extraordinary measures will only be used against terrorists.

That is bunk. The entire history of government teaches us that it always

attempts to accumulate power and always tries to undermine limitations on

its authority.

As night follows day, these new powers granted to law enforcement agencies

under the various anti-terrorism laws will be used against American citizens

in situations with no connection to terrorism. In fact, just a couple of

weeks ago, a story broke in which a man in New Jersey was arrested for

shining a laser at airplane cockpits. He is being charged under

anti-terrorism laws, even though the government admits that his actions had

no connection to terrorism and that he is not a terrorist.

I fully expect that this trend will eventually include the torture of

American citizens. After all, if it is permissible to extract information

from suspected terrorists in this manner, why not bank robbers or

rapists.and then, later, "tax cheats" or "political extremists"?

Folks who believe that this will stop with al-Qaeda are ignorant of history.

#4 local control of public education

Standard conservative ideology circa 1994 held that the major problem with

our public school system was federal involvement. Many right-wing candidates

wowed the faithful with promises of abolishing the US Department of

Education altogether. It was almost unanimously believed that local school

boards should control the public schools and that federal regulation and

funding have been a disaster.

Somewhere along the way, President Bush missed this message. His No Child

Left Behind plan is the largest expansion of federal control of public

education in decades. Every aspect of school policies and curricula now fall

under the aegis of federal bureaucratic domination. There are even financial

incentives in the law for the leveling of test scores between ethnic and

racial groups.a sort of bizarre affirmative action for achievement test

results.

Things have gotten so bad that many local school boards and several state

governments are in open revolt over this massive federalization of school

policy. I've even talked with NEA members who are beginning to see the merit

in local control.

President Bush has thus done something that I would not have thought

possible. He is turning some teacher's union members into partisans for a

less intrusive federal government. While this may represent an advancement

of conservative ideology, I don't think it is of the sort that most of us

originally expected when Bush was elected.

#5 respect for our military

Without dragging the decision to go to war in Iraq into this analysis, it is

relevant to examine the way that this administration's policies have

affected the military itself.

One of the traditional bedrock beliefs of conservatism has been a respect

and admiration for the US Military. Throughout my days as a young

conservative, I frequently heard accusations hurled at liberals that they

were "anti-military," usually in concert with stories of the mistreatment of

soldiers returning from Vietnam.

But how well have things been going for servicemen since the advent of

conservative control of the presidency and congress?


>From my perspective, things have not gone well at all. This administration

launched vitriolic attacks against retired military officers who questioned

the decision to invade Iraq. The neocons also attacked individuals in the

military and government who questioned their tactics for prosecuting the

war. Some were even sacked for suggesting that the predictions of a "cake

walk" were inaccurate and that we would need more soldiers than the existing

plans predicted.

Does this constitute respect?

Clearly, the administration did not have enough soldiers to occupy Iraq

after the fall of Saddam's government. Plans were not made to stabilize the

country in the immediate aftermath of the war. The administration also

refused to recognize that the burgeoning insurgency even existed until it

was too large to contain.

As a result of these failures, our military is now buckling under numerous

stresses. Just last week, the Lt. General in command of the Army Reserve

declared that the Reserve force is now "broken" and is unable to complete

its mission. Reservists and National Guardsmen are being sent back to Iraq

for their 2nd or 3rd tours of duty, and their active duty responsibilities

are being continually increased. The administration is engaged in a

back-door draft by issuing "stop-loss" policies which prevent soldiers from

returning to civilian life after completing their agreed time of service.

The manpower shortage is so bad that the Pentagon is considering collocating

women into front-line combat units for the first time in our history, thus

eliminating a long-standing policy of keeping women out of direct ground

combat.

Even worse is the woeful lack of proper equipment available for our soldiers

in Iraq. Stories abound of families who are forced to purchase vests for

their loved ones because of the lack of body armor available for front line

troops. Soldiers are even scrounging through dumps in Kuwait trying to find

armor fragments to weld onto their unprotected Humvees before making the

trip into Iraq.

Adding insult to injury, we were also forced to endure Donald Rumsfeld's

"pithy" reply to these accusations ("You go to war with the army you have").

Does any of this constitute respect for the military?

Not in my book.

The many years of flag-waving and rah-rah rhetoric are not squaring with the

actual performance of Republican government.

Conclusion

Lew Rockwell is correct. The seminal political event of the past several

years in America has been the changing political ideology of Middle America

from small-government conservatism to a virulent brand of fascism. There is

barely any discernable connection between 1994 and 2004. Almost all the

issues which were important to red state America then have since fallen off

of their radar screen. They are advocating many policies that are in direct

conflict with the fundamental tenets of traditional conservatism.

Some of my more strident libertarian friends claim that America is now

descending politically into a Hitler-Stalin dynamic. I think that that is

somewhat overstated. It is more analogous to say that the Republicans are

degenerating into the tin-pot fascism of Anastasio Somoza circa 1975, while

the Democrats have long since fallen to the tin-pot socialism of the

Sandinistas circa 1985.

America is morphing into Nicaragua, with the public finances, the current

account deficit, the civil liberties, and the electoral system of a typical

Central American banana republic.

Many of us prayed for years that the liberals would one day fall from power

and that the Republicans would rise to dominate the federal government.

When the Gods wish to punish us, they grant us our wishes.

January 13, 2005

Steven LaTulippe is a physician currently practicing in Ohio. He was an

officer in the United States Air Force for 13 years.

Copyright C 2005 LewRockwell.com

Steven LaTulippe Archives



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