Conservatism

Diversity: How the Other Half Lives

Ross Douthat — who isn’t a moderate common-sense conservative but plays one in the NYT opinion pages — yesterday penned his latest overwrought defense of his party’s fringe, this time hoping to mainstream the right’s worrying rediscovery of reverse racism.

For those just joining us, one of the right’s dominant narratives in the time since Obama’s accession is that a black man’s success necessarily implies the end of white dominance, with all the horrors that attend such an inversion. The idea that black and white America exist in some sort of zero-sum relationship sometimes finds more toned-down iterations, or spawns spin-off theories — like the idea that a minority Supreme Court justice can’t understand white America — but in all, the theme, that minority victory means white defeat, is the same.

This species of thought isn’t as noxious as classical racism, but we should realize, the difference is one of degree, and learned subtlety. It’s still racism, and it’s still wrong. Per Ta-Nehisi Coates, “the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping–positioning the bigot as the actual victim.” Any narrative that puts race at odds with race is inimical to a happy, just society, no matter how much you dress it up.

Douthat’s column takes this new, old racism — the medium favored by your Becks and Buchanans — and tries to equate it with an affirmative action system gone awry, favoring poor blacks and minorities over poor whites. But they’re not the same. Beck and Buchanan find their force in anger and emotion; Douthat’s assertions about the problems of modern affirmative action, if true, are based on facts. The latter is legitimate. The former is race-baiting, and can’t be so bootstrapped into respectability.

Further, Douthat’s claims about affirmative action are interesting for what they imply: not that affirmative action is wrong (as we used to hear), but that it’s not working equitably. To identify affirmative action’s problem, Douthat has to accept its central conceit: that experiential diversity, using race as a proxy, might be beneficial to academia. The remedy for Douthat’s wrong is not an end to affirmative action, but true evenhandedness in its implementation. That, and that alone, is something we should probably get behind.

So, what we’re left with is a column that makes some interesting points, but strains to leverage them into an ex ante rationalization of pure polemic from the movement’s lesser (but more popular) lights. In other words, classic Douthat. And a metonym for post-2008 conservatism as a whole: a clever, well-intentioned minority chained to a dying movement, struggling to lend its credibility to the frothing majority. And failing.

Make No Mistake: Nullification Effects Disunion

First as tragedy, now as farce.

RedState is advertising and otherwise boosting a new book by Thomas Woods: “Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century.”

In the wake of the Fourth of July, it’s only proper to ask: what pale spectre of patriotism is this, that (here and otherwise) dishonors the legacy of our Founders by perpetuating a hopelessly flawed equivalence between those who rail against the actions of a duly constituted government, and those who shed blood against true tyranny? And what cruel mockery is it to, in the same breath, invoke their sacrifices in defense of a concept whose very nature rebuts union?

I’d be tempted to pick up this book, if only for a good laugh, but as noted, the author’s gracious enough to provide a free chapter. Let’s have a look (download here so you don’t have to get on his listserv to read it).

Blissfully, our free chapter provides a fair preview of the author’s argument: nullification, as he imagines it, is a form of judicial review, but without the judicial review. The states decide what laws are unconstitutional, and then ignore them (p. 3). Woods imagines collusion between the three branches of government, and so interposes into the federal separation of powers scheme a fourth actor: states, with an unwritten and absolute veto over the other branches. In support of this power, Woods drafts the entire originalist argument for judicial review (Federalist #78, etc.), but omits the careful balance within which that power is permitted to exist, and which figures prominently in Hamilton’s defense of it. To defend this selective reading, he points us to unattested, unsourced historical counterfactuals (If only Adams hadn’t appointed Marshall! [p. 6.] But he did. Move on.). This isn’t constitutional theory; it’s historical fiction.

Armed with this knowledge, the rest of Woods’ book can be safely ignored, because there are vital questions it cannot (and doesn’t attempt to) answer. Imagine a situation where nullification produces a live, justiciable controversy: Congress constructs a statutory regime creating otherwise valid, constitutional duties, perhaps flowing from state citizens qua their states, or from the state itself, but in either case to the federal government. “SOCIALISM!!!!”, you say. Just so! A state legislature “nullifies” the law, citing constitutional objections, and the state, or its citizens, refuse payment accordingly. The Attorney General sues to collect on the “nullified” obligation. How does a federal court rule? What’s the legal “test” for nullification? When can a state nullify a “bad” law? What makes a law “bad”?

There’s no answer. Nullification is the rare case of a true slippery slope: one cannot draw a principled line, based on objective factors, historical or otherwise, between isolated nullification, and nullification run amok, the import of which is disunion, or at least a shadow of union, at odds with everything we’ve built over the last 234 years. Woods doesn’t even try to solve this lurking problem; in fact, the absence of meaningful review of state decisions seems to be the point. In exchange for the loss of judicial review — which conservatives regularly tell us is its own form of tyranny, due to the awesome, uncheckable power of unelected judges (?) — Woods would give us 50 truly uncheckable supreme courts, lacking any connection to the constitutional text or its history, and bereft of those limits the Founders put on the federal bench, in plain black and white. All because healthcare reform is scary.

I’ll never understand a patriotism that rushes to the flag anytime the state directs her guns outwards, to prosecute enemies real or imagined, but abjures all notions of national fidelity when she turns her attention inwards, to improve the lives of her citizens, just because it might cost a buck or two. At the end of the day, isn’t nationalism at least as much about what we build together, as whom we tear apart?

Well, it should be.

You May All Go To Hell

But the rest of the country, it seems, will go to Texas. Andrew Sullivan highlights massive migration to Austin, Texas, which is, truly, heaven on earth. Left unspoken are the likely effects of this migration. Apart from impacts on Austin itself, whose Edenic status almost depends on its relative obscurity (how many town houses can fit around Lake Travis before it’s no longer Lake Travis?), a sudden influx from “blue” states runs a nonzero chance of realigning America’s biggest, greatest red state — especially when counting the effects (legal) immigration will have on the state in the near future.

I’ve said before that one man (or woman) could spend his life turning Texas blue, and die secure in the knowledge that this was a life well-lived. I stand by that. There’s an allure to Texas that’s almost irresistible — as soon as you start to fight it, you’ve already lost — and an emergent consciousness that acknowledges the social changes of the past few decades, while still preserving the “frontier state” mystique that will always define the state.

This is partly because Texas conservatism is not mainline conservatism, but a more individualistic breed that, with noted exceptions, manages to evade the rigid dogmatism and fundamentalism of the national movement. (Politicians like Rick Perry constitute unfortunate exceptions, not a general rule.) It may also be due to the sheer size of the state, and the dominance of its environment, peripheral constants that will always influence an increasingly dynamic core. Combined with now-unavoidable demographic changes, these qualities make the state winnable for the left, but suggest that we won’t realize it is winnable until the process is substantially underway.

It’s time to take Texas seriously, not as a stereotype or a perennial progressive foe, but as a natural ally whose curious relationship with modernity will, sometime soon, fuse the best of both worlds, balancing social and technological progress with a respect for our past, our national spirit, and our environment.

“Statism” and Abortion Politics

Italian authorities in Lombardy, the stretch of Italy bordering Switzerland, have devised a plan to cut down on what they see as the prime reason for abortions among their populace — economics — by offering women money to not have an abortion. Clever. Here’s the surprise — I see no problem with this.

The plan contains within it a tacit acknowledgment that women ought to have control over these decisions, and that abortions can be cut by some means other than an outright ban. It also completely removes morality from the equation, so that women in need and state authorities can work towards their shared goal — decreasing the number of abortions. These are all advances, and Italy should be thanked for addressing the abortion issue practically — something anti-choice lobbies in the States can’t ever seem to do and, truly, have never even bothered to attempt.

Curiously, American anti-choice groups seem pretty happy with the scheme, too. But while it may decrease abortions, the plan seems to violate another key belief shared by most American anti-choice groups: that government shouldn’t be in the business of using money to affect the life decisions of its citizens, especially because government programs like these are uniquely subject to waste and exploitation. If implemented at the federal level, such an incentive-based plan to minimize abortions would stretch the Commerce Clause to the breaking point, because limiting abortions is social policy, not economics. It would actually present a case of federal overreach, which activist conservative lawyers gleefully over-identify elsewhere, and vainly prosecute.

Admittedly, this just validates what we already knew: that the right’s support for command social policies is the exception that swallows their limited government “rule” whole, at least when the state asserts power over someone undesirable — someone gay, someone Muslim, someone pregnant by her own “fault,” someone else. Next time you see a tea partier with a Gadsden flag, don’t miss the implied emphasis: “Don’t Tread On Me.” For everyone else, well, it depends.

A Matter of Trust

Repeating the old party line, Politico goes the extra mile to delegitimize President Obama’s indictment of the Republican Party’s history of fiscal irresponsibility:

President Barack Obama is trying to ride the wave of anti-incumbency by taking on an unpopular politician steeped in the partisan ways of Washington.

It doesn’t matter that George W. Bush left office 16 months ago. [. . . .]

Obama cranked up his indictment of the GOP in Ohio this week, criticizing “the ‘just say no’ crowd” and the Republicans’ “selective memory” of the economy in January 2009.

The message is layered. A shot at Bush (without mentioning his name.) A jab at congressional Republicans (although rarely saying “Republicans.”) A defense of the actions he’s taken so far.

The New Republic hits on why “Bush-blaming” remains relevant, from a causal standpoint: if you break a guy’s legs, you can’t call him a whiner for bowing out of a marathon the very next week. And you can’t act appalled when he points to you as the reason why.

But the relevance of Bush’s record runs deeper still, making the former President “fair game” for at least one additional, vital reason: the Republican Party has given the electorate no cause to think that they’ve learned their lesson. It’s not like we haven’t heard the “small government” argument before. Maintaining the Clinton surplus was a key point of Bush’s campaign — and yet his first domestic priority, once elected, was to broker a hyper-partisan upper-class tax cut that, because it wasn’t offset by coordinate spending cuts, immediately swallowed half the surplus. Bush never even attempted to live up to the organizing principle of his entire campaign. Why should the next guy be any different?

Nor has the GOP made any real apology for its performance in office. This is a matter of basic responsibility. Republicans can either admit that Bush was a failed president and strive to distinguish themselves, thus earning the right to live down his legacy; or they can defend his performance on the merits, and attempt to avoid the blame issue altogether. Instead, they’re asking the American people to “forgive-and-forget,” but without ever actually conceding wrongdoing. Rhetorically brilliant, maybe, but a more dishonest approach to the politics of failure than anything that can be attributed to the Democrats.

Remarkably, it’s probably going to work — as long as we keep treating Bush as the problem.

He’s not. Really, he’s not. He’s just the symptom of the larger problem, that small-government conservatism, while attractive, remains, for whatever reason, impractical. Call it human nature, but no mainline conservative politician has thus far had the will to execute the second, painful step of the “cut taxes/cut spending” plan. Reagan couldn’t. Bush couldn’t. Why should we trust the next guy? We shouldn’t — especially because the GOP still won’t admit that the last guys did anything wrong. Until that happens, Bush will remain relevant to prove that, even if the conservative message sounds appealing, it’s never going to happen.

Or, in his words, fool me once…

Reclaiming the Constitution… From the Supreme Court?

Huh?

The National Review’s culture war blog, The Corner, makes little sense on its best days. But a new soon-to-be series, headlined by Rob Clinton’s “Judicial Supremacy and the Constitution,” appears to transcend the genre of reactionary, paleoconservative folklore, even as it re-invents it. Truly, Clinton’s opener may well approach the Form of political absurdity, from which all lesser daemons — your Goldbergs, your Becks — emanate. We can only pray that he’ll be re-secured to the wall of his cave, and fast.

N.B.: this is a long post. Skip to § III for the beginning of the main argument, if you must. -Ed.

Continue reading »

Beck Writes a “Novel” About Revolution

Just so we’re clear, Glenn Beck’s upcoming “novel” about a group that mainstreams extremism, before starting a civil war, is about half-fictional. The revolutionary group in his book, the “Founders’ Keepers,” not only sounds just like his philosophy — it’s the closing line of his show, about half the time, when he reminds his viewers to be a “Founder Keeper.”

Equating the Trend with the End

This statement may be incredibly obvious, but just in case:

The chief (only?) Republican strategy lately takes the form of a dishonest attempt to equate the fact that a given political issue implicates a principle, with the opinion that it in fact destroys the principle. Let’s canvass common examples:

• Government expenditure tends to implicate the question of fiscal responsibility. Therefore, any spending measure independently and on its own force destroys the budget.
• Regulation tends to implicate the question of the limits of regulatory power. Therefore, any regulation necessarily violates the Commerce Clause.
• Federal programs tend to implicate state sovereignty. Therefore, any regulation violates whatever power is left in the residual Tenth Amendment. (Nota bene: this is a case where the premise isn’t even true.)
• A commitment to decency tends to trigger personal impulses to suppress potentially offensive commentary. Therefore, urging self-restraint is the equivalent of government suppression of speech, somehow (?). This is a Palin favorite.
• Civil rights (e.g., freedom from search & seizure; the guarantee of trial by jury) sometimes require that we trade away safety. Therefore, independent of the right’s textual existence, any recourse to any right compromises national security.
• Rules of criminal procedure circumscribe the government’s ability to try accused criminals. Therefore, independent of any requirement that the rules be used, their reference or use constitutes the complete abdication of the government’s ability to convict the guilty.
• Gay marriage relaxes one part of traditional societal limitations on the marriage tradition. Therefore it obliterates all societal limitations. On everything.

Numbers one through three figured prominently in what passed for a health care “debate” in this country.

Each argument, clearly, relies on a deep-seated dishonesty, but the sin of the tactic goes deeper still. This type of argumentation implicitly rejects a middle ground. When every step down a road implies reaching the destination, there’s no honest way to reach a compromise. If you want to know why we never saw any bipartisanship in the health care debate, that’s your answer. By their rhetorical choices, the Republican Party sold their constituents, and ultimately themselves, on the concept that bipartisanship implied a complete loss. The result is people like this.

Human Events Unapologetically Pushes Civil War Revisionism

Among other stellar exhibitions of conservative values, this year’s CPAC featured, hilariously, a presentation that dared to ask the important question: “Abraham Lincoln: Friend or Foe?” Now, it’s altogether too easy to make fun of isolated presentations at a conservative fringe event. And it’s probably unfair to generalize on that basis alone.

But Human Events, a fairly mainstream conservative outlet (how sad is that?), sent around this e-mail to subscribers yesterday:

No, I do not know who signed me up for Human Events updates. And that’s not the point. The point is that the motivations for and the outcome of the Civil War are somehow now controversial, in a mainstream conservative paper. It gets worse, too. The e-mail goes on to offer a few revelations. DID YOU KNOW:

• That secession was legal
• That the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave
• That leading Northern generals — like McLellan and Sherman — hated abolitionists
• That bombing people “back to the Stone Age” got its start with the Federal siege of Vicksburg
• That Stonewall Jackson founded a Sunday school for slaves where he taught them how to read
• That General James Longstreet fought the Battle of Sharpsburg in his carpet slippers
• That if the South had won, we might be able to enjoy holidays in the sunny Southern state of Cuba

These are all pretty bad, and pretty wrong. There’s a good reason you didn’t know about #1: because it’s not true. Although we can query whether Justice Chase had a conflict of interest, he was right to conclude, after the fact in Texas v. White, that secession was an illegal act utterly hostile to the values and the theory of the Constitution. And whether the Emancipation Proclamation was conceived as a military or a moral act is an interesting debate, but doesn’t alter, as this author seems to think, the conclusion that it was the Right Thing To Do. But unequivocally the worst has to be number four, which deserves its own highlight. The author finds it significant that:

Stonewall Jackson founded a Sunday school for slaves where he taught them how to read

Why would this fact be significant? Why does the author think I should care? Why does he care? Presumably, because it rehabilitates Stonewall Jackson as a partially moral man. But it really doesn’t. It shows that General Jackson was, at best, a benevolent slaver who believed in the “White Man’s Burden.” Partially benevolent slavery is still slavery. It’s still premised on the idea of black inferiority, and it still holds out human beings as property. Accordingly, it’s still grievously immoral, and the absence of physical cruelty doesn’t change that, or make it better. The cruelty we so often see in slavery is wrong, to be sure, but it’s a wrong that’s separate from and not necessary for the sin of slavery. By trying to argue otherwise, our author, a valued contributor to Human Events, seems to suggest that we should see where Stonewall Jackson was coming from. And that’s truly terrifying.

Bottom line: Human Events doesn’t understand the Civil War, a turning point in American history, a “constitutional moment” that improved the daily lives of every American, black or white, in a thousand different ways. They don’t care. Not about that, and not about the fact that half a million American soldiers died to secure those benefits. For them, it’s more worthwhile to tell your readers that, if the South had won the Civil War, maybe we wouldn’t have a country anymore, but hey. We’d always have Cuba.

Is Anyone Actually Surprised By This?

The Republican Party doesn’t really believe Obama’s a socialist — but they think that you’re just dumb enough, and motivated by “visceral” and “reactionary” “fear,” that you might. The cynicism is staggering, but shouldn’t be the least bit shocking. This is what astroturf movements look like.