Political moralism and the self-defeating impulse toward totalitarian 'purity'

Carl Milsted on a meaningful distinction:

Liberty. Some love it because it provides wealth, opportunity, and other good things. Others declare that any denial of liberty is unacceptably evil, that liberty is a fundamental right of man. Both call themselves libertarians, and so they gather together at political conventions, seminars, and blog forums -- to call each other nasty names and do battle over the meaning of a word.

Read the rest, which is from the December issue of Liberty, which has been advertising on the sidebar for a couple of weeks.

Milsted makes a distinction between what he calls "consequential" libertarians and "moralist" libertarians, a distinction that replicates itself everywhere in politics. Some people are just natural-born fanatics who turn to politics in a search for totalitarian purity.

Fanatical demands for ideological purity in politics represent a totalitarian impulse, and are the bane of any really practical program for political action in a democratic system. To gain an effective governing majority requires the building of a coalition organized on fundamental principles and shared interests.

Zealous fanaticism can be useful in politics, boiling issues down to their stark fundamentals. I still remember the evening in 1995 when, having slipped the moorings of my Democratic upbringing, I sat down to dinner with a Republican Party official and the conversation turned to abortion. I mentioned my (small-L) libertarian opposition to taxpayer-funded abortion -- why should Catholics, for example, be taxed to pay for what is contrary to their expressed doctrine? -- and my host responded bluntly: "Abortion is murder and it ought to be against the law."

The Litmus-Test Trap
That statement has the virtue of simplicity, and has radical implications. Those who agree with it have a clear mandate for political involvement and it is thus scarcely surprising that pro-lifers remain the unbreakable backbone of the GOP today. Nothing makes me more furious than those "sophisticated" Republicans who sneer at pro-lifers. Without hard-core pro-lifers, there might never have been a Reagan presidency or a 1994 "Republican Revolution."

Yet the tendency toward fanaticism -- the radical certainty of the True Believer -- can have disastrous consequences in politics. There are many pro-lifers who make that issue a litmus test in such a way that it compels them to vote for bad politicians.

A perfect example of this problem is Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, the "pro-life" Democrat whose sellout cinched the Senate vote for ObamaCare. Many pro-lifers in Nebraska told themselves they could vote for Nelson because his partisan allegiance was negated by his declared pro-life principles.

Of course, many Republicans elected on the strength of their pro-life bona fides have proved incompetent, corrupt or politically untrustworty, which creates the environment within which the election of pro-life Democrats becomes likely. And it is the single-issue litmus-test approach of the True Believers that is both cause and effect in such a scenario: They elect a bad Republican because he's "right" on their single issue and then, when he disappoints them, they replace him with a Democrat who is clever enough to position himself as pro-life. Whether this pattern ever actually results in the enactment of pro-life policies . . . well, that's an interesting question, isn't it?

'Anarchy Next Wednesday'
Let us return, now, to Carl Milsted's attempt to deal with libertarian fanatics, in which he describes a platform fight at the 2006 Libertarian Party convention:

At the time I was leading a major effort to reform the LP (the Libertarian Reform Caucus) to widen the LP's definition of "libertarian" so as to include a large fraction of voters who say they support both personal liberties and economic liberties, and to soften the party's platform away from its call for anarchy next Wednesday.

If you've ever attended a Libertarian Party gathering, you either smile at that description or become enraged by it. There are some Libertarians who oppose even the mildest concesion to pragmatism. They want an LP that is fanatically pure and, as an inevitable result, politically impotent.

Purity is one of those ideas that have consequences and I made a reference to LP fanatics when describing those consequences after the November 2008 election:

LGF -- which lately has been trying to purge Pam Geller as a Nazi (!) sympathizer -- doesn't mind saying "we blew it." And I agree: You blew it. And in fact, you still blow. Purge-happy partisan fanatics! Purge the Buchananites! Purge the libertarians! Purge the creationists! Purge the pro-lifers! Bobby Jindal is "political suicide!"
Purge, purge, purge, until the Republican Party is only you, and then maybe people will understand that this was your objective from the very beginning, you intolerant assholes. I am reminded of Bob Barr's description of the more fanatical Libertarian purists -- they don't want to belong to the Libertarian Party, they want to belong to the Libertarian Club.
Let these purging purists have their way, and you can plan to hold the 2012 Republican convention in Charles Johnson's living room. And I'll vote Libertarian again.

In the end, of course, CJ purged himself, but the fundamental point remains. It's this "club" mentality, the desire to act as membership chairmans of an exclusive sect composed entirely of one's fellow True Believers, that makes the fanatical quest for purity such a disastrous impulse in politics.

Big Boobs and Big Tents
Successful politics requires a gregarious attitude, what we might call the Sheila Mosely Principle. In fall 1976, Sheila was a candidate for homecoming queen at Lithia Springs (Ga.) High School. Sheila was a popular cheerleader with an impressive C-cup rack, but there were other popular cheerleaders running for homecoming queen, one of whom was at least a D-cup.

So one day a couple weeks before homecoming, I was walking down the hall and encountered Sheila, who flashed a friendly smile and said, "Hi, Stacy." Maybe that wasn't the first time Sheila had ever spoken to me, but it was certainly the friendliest she'd ever been, and it made an impression.

Of course, I knew this unexpected gesture was politically motivated, but it was nonethless impressive that Sheila had condescended to solicit the support of a stoner hoodlum like me. Impressive -- more impressive even than Kim Cantrell's D-cups -- and therefore Sheila got my vote.

Sheila understood that every vote counts. She wasn't going to let my stoner hoodlum status be an obstacle to her quest for homecoming queen. And that gregarious impulse, that willingness to solicit support from outside one's own social or political niche, was what made Ronald Reagan such an unequaled success in politics.

Reagan's "Big Tent" approach has been misunderstood and misapplied by many of his would-be successors, who have used it as an excuse for Clintonesque "triangulation," the politics of pre-emptive compromise. But Reagan was an unapologetic conservative, who did not feel the need to talk about being "kinder and gentler" or employ defensive modifiers like "compassionate."

From C-Cups to Tea Parties
Never renouncing his firm belief that liberalism was wrong -- a sound fundamental principle -- Reagan could nonetheless work with liberals and solicit their support for his agenda (rather than cooperating in a "kinder gentler" pursuit of the liberal agenda) because he had the same kind of winning self-confidence that permitted Sheila Moseley to smile and say "hi" to a hoodlum stoner.

The problem of fanatics who insist on purity is that their intolerance of dissent betrays a lack of confidence. If your ideas are so self-evidently true, what explains your totalitarian impulse to purge the impure?

Winners understand teamwork, and thus exhibit a cooperative, gregarious tendency in politics that rightly ought to be called populism. When I see intellectual idiots denouncing the Tea Party movement as "populist," I understand that they mean the term as a pejorative, a synonym for angry ignorance. But while Tea Party crowds are indeed angry about the current direction of policy in Washington, as individuals they are some of the most cheerful, friendly people you'd ever want to meet -- and certainly far less ignorant than their critics would have you believe.

Furthermore, the Tea Party people exhibit a very Reaganesque "Big Tent" attitude. Go to these rallies, and you'll find hard-core evangelical pro-lifers and libertarian bikers in happy coexistence, united by opposition to the big-government menace of Leviathan-on-the-Potomac. This is what I've called "Libertarian Populism" and -- despite the dismissive snobbery of Julian Sanchez -- it is wrong to suppose that such hostility toward the elite is mere ressentiment., when a two-decade bipartisan succession of Ivy-educated White House occupants (Yale, Yale Law, Yale/Harvard MBA, Columbia/Harvard Law) have led the nation to its current predicament.

If elitists can get over their fears of the populist mob, and if libertarians can get over their purist demand for "anarchy next Wednesday," there is a glimmer of hope for a real breakthrough. But we're not going to get there unless people start thinking like Sheila Mosely, whose friendly smile was enough to triumph even over a D-cup rack.

P.S.: Don't forget to visit Liberty magazine. If they're smart enough to advertise here, they must be geniuses!

'Trust the people'

"We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development."
-- Ronald Reagan, Sept. 29, 1981

Thanks to Noel for reminding us of Reagan's words in a comment on "Don't Fear the People," about the Tea Party movement and the rise of the populist "tsunami" at the new WordPress version of the site.

HOLIDAY BOOK SALE: Best. Reagan. Book. Evah!

For the past week, I've been spellbound by Craig Shirley's new book about the 1980 presidential campaign, Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America. It's 650 pages, filled with so many fascinating facts that it prompted Mark Levin to comment: "I was part of the Reagan Revolution and I didn’t know 80 percent of this stuff!"

Craig Shirley explains that, as much as Reagan's 1980 landslide seems inevitable in retrospect, it sure as heck wasn't "inevitable" at the time. Thanks to the arrogant high-handedness of some of Reagan's advisors -- especially campaign manager John Sears -- Reagan nearly lost the GOP nomination to George Bush. However, as Shirley makes clear, it wasn't just Sears who was to blame for that near-disaster. Reagan himself was at fault, demonstrating his human weakness by being inattentive to the inner workings of his own campaign.

It was only due to the intervention of a dedicated few (including such previously unsung heroes as Jerry Carmen, Reagan's independent-minded New Hampshire state campaign manager) that Reagan staved off defeat. Shirley's book names names and tells shocking secrets, none as surprising as Chapter 28, entitled simply "Corbin." (Here's a hint: The Kennedy clan never cared much for Jimmy Carter.)

Honest, folks: As highly as I recommend all the books in our Holiday Book Sale, nothing you can read will improve your understanding of recent American political history as much as Rendezvous With Destiny.

If I were Sarah Palin . . .

. . . I'd look good in Manolo pumps, but let's not go there. (These hypotheticals always get me in trouble.)

Seriously, however, if I were Sarah Palin, I'd seek out the advice of Dick Armey. When I was up in New York to cover the Doug Hoffman campaign, I asked Armey -- off-the-record, by my own choice -- what he thought about Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's GOP primary challenge to Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Most conservatives have backed Perry, but Armey is supporting Hutchison. Why? Given that it was off-the-record, I'd be breaking the "never burn a source" rule to go into detail, but surely Armey won't mind my sharing this basic summary: Armey admires Hutchison's professionalism as a public servant.

To an outsider, the Hutchison-vs.-Perry matchup appears to be about ideology, and conservatives support Perry because he is perceived as the more "hard core" of the two candidates. To Armey, however, Hutchison is preferred because of her competence and dedication to the arts of statesmanship.

Remember that this is the same Dick Armey whose FreedomWorks organization has backed the Tea Party movement, the same Dick Armey who gave a key endorsement of Doug Hoffman. So it cannot be said that Armey is a snob who disdains populism and "outsider" candidates. Yet in the Texas governor's race, Armey admires certain qualities in Hutchison, qualities in which (we may infer) he finds Perry deficient.

Now, let's look at what Armey recently said about you, Gov. Palin. He praised you as a "self-made woman" but then went on to offer this advice:

"So she's kind having to dig herself out of a hole if she wants to regain standing for consideration for a future nomination. And by all accounts, it doesn't appear she's doing a very effective job of digging herself out of that hole. . . .
"I think she's probably a person of greater ability than what she's given credit to. She probably has more sense than what she's given credit for. But I do think there's this whole perception-is-reality thing right now, and she's got a terribly, terribly rough row to hoe if she's ever going to regain some standing and make her competitive."

And then he said something extremely interesting:

Armey also disputed the notion that Palin stands ready to tap into the energy of the vast crowds that have come out at the kinds of "tea party" protests FreedomWorks and others have helped pull together."You don't tap into that energy unless you join it. You've got to be there, you've got to show up. And you can't remain removed and aloof and send in a memorandum or post something on your blog, and have these folks belief that you're really part of the movement," Armey said.
"You have to really go out and walk and work among them. And I've seen very few people who are willing to do that. The fact is, these folks are saying, 'You know, the problem with all you big-shot politicians is you sit on your pedestals and make your pronouncements. Why don't you join us? Get on the street. And go to work for something. Roll up your sleeves and be involved with us.' "
"And they don't have a lot of time for someone who stands removed and says, 'Right on.' They're not looking for a cheerleader; they're looking for a captain of the team," Armey said.

So, if I were Governor Palin, besides looking good in those Manolo pumps, I'd make a point of seeking out Armey's advice and following it. As a matter of fact, if I were Palin, I'd try to enlist Armey as my political sensei. (With one caveat: Armey's kind of a squish on immigration; don't let him talk you into the Cato/WSJ libertarian open-borders nonsense; "agree to disagree agreeably" on that.)

Note especially, governor, what Armey says about "rolling up your sleeves" and getting involved in the Tea Party movement. When your book tour is finished, you ought to do that. You'll make enough money on paid speaking gigs that you can afford to do a dozen or more gratis appearances at Tea Parties in 2010.

Think back to your days playing basketball, 'Cuda: Pick your shots, and make every shot count.

Don't just book the big-city major events on the Tea Party circuit. Every once in while, you should make a late RSVP to a small-town rally -- let's say, in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, nudge, nudge -- so that three to five days before the event, the local newspaper headline reads: "PALIN TO SPEAK HERE SATURDAY." And then call in to the local talk-radio show and do a 15-minute interview with the friendly conservative host. (There is a tremendous synergy between Tea Parties and local talk radio.)

Also, governor, you should always pay attention to whatever Dan Riehl says. Dan's a straight-shooter and, whether you agree with his opinion or not, you can be sure he's not b.s.-ing you. Note his comment about your Reaganesque use of Facebook:

Reagan didn't fight with the media. The usual descriptor for what he did is, he went over the media's head directly to the American people. Is Sarah Palin really doing anything different, except for having Facebook, blogs and a great many other New Media resources today to which Reagan didn't have access? Just imagine how even more effective his communication strategy would have been if he had?
Because of media advances made in the last several years, Sarah Palin doesn't have to go over the media's head. She can go right through them.

Exactly. If you were to link and quote Dan's blog in some future Facebook posting, I'm sure he'd be grateful. That's what we call "Rule 2." You've already got Rule 5 down cold.

Recalling Ronald Reagan

by Smitty

From the FaceBook page that drives legislation:

The race for New York's 23rd District is not over, just postponed until 2010. The issues of this election have always centered on the economy – on the need for fiscal restraint, smaller government, and policies that encourage jobs. In 2010, these issues will be even more crucial to the electorate. I commend Doug Hoffman and all the other under-dog candidates who have the courage to put themselves out there and run against the odds.

To the tireless grassroots patriots who worked so hard in that race and to future citizen-candidates like Doug, please remember Reagan’s words of encouragement after his defeat in 1976:

"The cause goes on. Don't get cynical because look at yourselves and what you were willing to do, and recognize that there are millions and millions of Americans out there that want what you want, that want it to be that way, that want it to be a shining city on a hill."

Recall that, had nothing been done, an even more leftist candidate than Owens may have taken the one-year seat. Owens wins, but understands that, if he's running in 2010, he can't ignore the Hoffman voters, any more than Bill Clinton to ignore fiscal conservatives who voted Perot.

The Conservative Party and the Tea Party are undeniably a force with which to reckon. This blog recommends a strong buy on stock in all cotton undergarment manufacturers. After these election results, the Left will be stocking up, that is certain.

Keep fighting the good fight people, and the country may yet be restored.

P.S. Obviously, the Hoffman campaign needed to trick BHO into campaigning for Owens...