Guest Post - He’s No Reagan

This post was written by guest blogger Justin Stapley. His bio appears at the the end of the post.

Many of President Trump’s supporters tend to see numerous similarities between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. They point at the irrational fear that gripped the media and others as President Reagan took office in order to excuse current fears of Donald Trump’s presidency. They point at Reagan’s past as a member of the Democratic Party to excuse Donald Trump’s former left-leaning beliefs and activity in Democratic circles. They trumpet the fact that Making America Great Again was one of Reagan’s slogans and believe that Trump is returning to form, shaking things up, and re-establishing Reagan Era conservatism by refusing to back down and refusing to be politically correct. They disregard concerns about Trump’s ability to hold office given his lack of experience and ignore derisions of Trump as a reality tv politician by saying, “They said the same about Reagan the actor!”

While there are definitely some circumstantial similarities, these are predominantly surface parallels. A deeper inspection would reveal that Ronald Reagan had very stark fundamental differences with Donald Trump which amount to distinct underpinnings of ideological disagreement and dramatically alternate visions for the direction of the country.

Ronald Reagan and Modern Conservatism’s Coalition

Ronald Reagan was President at the juncture of history which many political scientists and historians consider the height of modern conservatism. He not only presided over a moment in our nation’s history where the largest swath of American voters affirmed their acceptance of a conservative national direction but also at a point where conservatism in general was the most united around a single cohesive vision.

Modern Conservatism has been called both neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism because it involved a developed coalition between three generalized factions represented by Barry Goldwater (libertarians), Pat Buchanan (paleoconservatives/social conservatives), and Henry Kissinger (foreign policy hawks). Ronald Reagan was a successful candidate and effective president largely because he tapped into, maintained, and championed the unique ideology of this coalition while maintaining flexibility in policy as realities dictated. This unique ideology, which is often called fusionism, involves being chiefly concerned with limited government, moral imperatives, constitutional orthodoxy, fiscal responsibility, and international strength with singular and pragmatic purpose.

The Coalition is Dead

It is important to understand that the coalition of modern conservatism is dissolved and its ideology is fragmented. Modern conservatism has generally devolved into separate bickering camps of libertarians (Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie), neoconservatives (John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake), and a new amalgamation of paleo and social conservatives which can be considered populist nationalism chiefly represented by Donald Trump and most conservative talk radio hosts. The reason populist nationalism has risen to the forefront of Republican Party direction is because the libertarian and neoconservative branches of conservatism vehemently oppose each other and have proven feckless in mounting a unified front in moderating the rise of populist nationalism.

The coalition fell apart for many reasons, some connected and some not. I will only attempt to list several main reasons for purposes of example. Neoconservatives dominated party leadership post-Clinton and led America into the Iraq War while engaging in Keynesian economics and centrist social platforms at home, which in turn alienated libertarians and social conservatives. Paleo and social conservatism came to dominate the conservative media complex (Fox News and Talk Radio). This complex has come to revolve mostly around personalities who have grown rich engaging in provocation and anti-intellectual punditry. That these personalities and their media companies have become the so-called “gate keepers” of conservativism has alienated libertarians and neoconservatives who must either pander to the personalities and their viewers or be left impotent and irrelevant. Meanwhile libertarians have become more and more marginalized over the last thirty years and have embraced their existence as outliers and increasingly live up to their characterizations as crackpots and anarchists. Many owe more deference to Ayn Rand (someone who cared very little for Reagan) and a branch of libertarianism more attached to European anarchism and minarchism then anything in American political traditions. This was exemplified by the behavior of overly-zealous Ron Paul supporters in the 2008 and 2012 elections (particularly the attempted hostile takeovers of Republican Party caucuses). Their hardcore adherence to extreme libertarian doctrine keeps them from engaging in coalition building or embracing the traditions of fusionism.

With the coalition dead, the conservative movement and the Republican Party was ripe for a usurper who could tap into animating and motivating anger to create a new populist nationalism.

Populist Nationalism

So, what is populist nationalism, why is it different than modern conservatism, and why does the underpinnings of this new movement make Donald Trump so different from Ronald Reagan? Chiefly it is that the motivation is not to conserve any type of moral or geo-political norms but to restore an “American Ideal” which allegedly existed sometime in the past and which now faces an existential threat of being defeated completely. This may not seem like a large difference but it is a foundational shift which creates an entirely new narrative and introduces new motivations, rationale, and behaviors. Modern conservatism was concerned with maintaining a status quo, an established order, and a balance of power under an established and constitutional orthodoxy and it sought to make its argument to as many Americans as would listen to create a “big tent”. (Reagan liked to assert that someone who agrees with you on four out of five issues is 80 percent a friend, not 20 percent an enemy)

This is in complete contrast with Donald Trump and his populist nationalist approach. Populist nationalism believes in the “Bull In the China Shop” ideal of political leadership (“Trump’s our bull in their china shop”). They feel that our nation’s government, our nation’s institutions, and our prevailing and rising “liberal” culture has engaged in a systematic attack upon “Middle America” and must therefore be torn down, burned down, and dismantled at the seams by any means and through any strategy possible. Populist nationalism is not concerned with maintaining any ideal of norms but rather with victory-at-all-costs over the “other” who is seen as endangering and preventing a return to “American Greatness”, whether that be Islamic Terrorists, Liberal Media, Illegal Immigrants, College Elites, Progressive Politicians, the GOP Establishment, Environmentalists, or any other group which is viewed as threatening or having already corroded the “American Ideal”.

While modern conservatism was concerned with orthodoxy, populist nationalism feels that any form of moral or ideological constraint weakens its ability to combat the existential threat presented by the “other” (this is why “playing by the rules” is now derided as weakness when it was once a sign of moral authority). Winning at all costs is the only consistent motivation of populist nationalism and why shifting ideals and norms are defended or attacked based on the motivation of the actions (An extra-legal executive order or arbitrary presidential action by President Obama was an outrage because it supported the “enemy” but similar behavior from President Trump is celebrated because it supports “us”).

Even with all of this, the largest difference between Trump and Reagan is that Trump has no interest in building coalitions, engaging in big tent politics, or in selling his vision to the country as a whole. In fact, his approach is the complete opposite.

President Trump believes if you’re not 100% with him than you are 100% against him and chiefly panders to his base while disregarding all others as “losers” whose opinions and concerns can be disregarded based on his electoral victory…and his followers follow him in that mantra. That’s why Mark Sanford just lost his primary election despite voting over 80% for Trump initiatives. That’s why Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are seen as the “evil establishment” even though their efforts have directly resulted in the majority of Trump policy victories (Neil Gorsuch and the Tax Plan are good examples). That’s why Republicans hesitant or unwilling to shout praises to Trump’s name are called RINOs, traitors, and “cuckservatives” regardless of where they may actually stand on the issues. That’s why anti-Trump protestors in the wake of the 2016 election were derided as “cry-babies” and “snowflakes” in a break against the tradition of newly elected Presidents attempting to consolidate the nation post-election (also an interesting example of cognitive dissonance considering the type of demonstrations that would have resulted from the Right had Hilary become President).

Reagan sought common cause with the various factions of conservatism and communicated to his opponents that while they disagreed in many instances he believed they still deserved a place at the table of discussion. Trump and the Republican Party under his direction are actively purging the GOP of libertarians, neoconservatives, moderates, and anybody not willing to get with the new program as well as engaging in a systematic campaign which declares any viewpoint dissenting from Trump’s vision of America as quintessentially anti-American. Reagan believed in pluralism and envisioned an America where dramatically different beliefs and ideologies could live together in coexistence under the constitutional order. Trump believes in himself as the dispenser of what American Greatness is, of what things should come first to make America First, and has made himself an avatar of America to his followers. To Trump and his supporters, opposing Trump is the same as opposing America.

From Ascendancy To the Last Puff of Smoke

Ronald Reagan so totally changed the political dynamic of the United States (He won 49 states in 1984) that for the first time since Roosevelt and Truman a full-term President was followed by a President of his own party and his opposing party was forced to pick a Democrat from Arkansas who portrayed himself as very much a moderate in order to defeat the incumbent 4 years after Reagan left office (and it still took a split conservative vote for Clinton to win). Speak to somebody about a “golden age of conservatism” and chances are they will think Reagan. Even in the ’90s Bill Clinton governed generally as a moderate (Hilary was always the true progressive believer) and most of his policy decisions would be condemned by many Obama and Trump era Democrats. Conservatism under Reagan and after Reagan was inclusive, ascendant, dominant, and indestructible.

Today, conservatism looks very different. No longer confident or inclusive it is angry and hostile. No longer ascendant as a “moral majority”, polls show a growing majority of Americans see conservatism as backwards, narrow-minded, back-biting, and even racist. Instead of dominant and indestructible, it’s opponents can easily pander to identity politics and promises of free education and free healthcare to cobble together coalitions to threaten Republicans in state and national elections. Whereas Reagan once turned the entire map red, the national electoral map looks more impossibly blue every election (Even Trump, who is heralded as the “map breaker”, lost several states which Bush won in both 2000 and 2004 and they seem increasingly unrecoverable). Ronald Reagan left his mark on Generation X (the most consistently conservative generation in most polls) by converting them to his vision and making them part of his coalition. President Trump has nearly completely alienated the Millennial Generation who now vote more overwhelmingly for Democrat candidates than any previous generation.

Many demographers, social scientists, and pollsters agree that the Democrats have a very good chance of winning the 2020 election with any candidate who is not Hillary Clinton and that whoever defeats Trump would be granted an overwhelming mandate to undo Trump’s actions and reaffirm Obama’s legacy. While Reagan left office with his legacy firmly in place and his principles held dear by a majority of Americans, if President Trump maintains his current direction he may leave office with the derision of 60-65% of American citizens (his approval ratings constantly fluctuate between the mid-30s and low-40s) and could leave conservatism hobbled by his specter for many years to come. The bombastic way in which President Trump and his supporters seek and win short-term victories on policy may very well deal a long-term total defeat in principle and vision.

Defeat Is Not Set in Stone

Despite the realities of populist nationalism, despite the bombastic and derisive approach which President Trump addresses the nation and exercises his office, and despite the rabid support he receives on one side and the rabid opposition he receives on the other, Donald Trump’s presidency does not have to be doomed as a disaster for himself and his agenda nor for the conservatism movement’s future. Really, all it would take for conservatism to turn a corner is a healthy dose of self-awareness.

If a majority of conservatives could understand many of the realities which I have attempted to lay out in this piece of writing, it could become possible to take steps towards reversing the dissolution of the once powerful conservative coalition. If this could happen there are many untapped groups of Americans which would be drawn to a renewed conservative “big tent”. Millennials, despite voting overwhelmingly for leftist politicians, also demonstrate a unique and broad support for libertarian ideas. Many of the groups engulfed in identity politics, especially recent immigrants, are forced to set aside their generally social conservative religious and cultural beliefs in order to vote for Democrats (Texas, one the most powerful bastions of conservatism, is probably so because it has embraced its Hispanic population and even sent a Hispanic conservative to the Senate). And a renewed understanding of how Reagan’s foreign policy approach struck a good balance between strength and prudence could win over many Americans equally frustrated with the foreign quagmires of Bush and Obama.

But, it needs to be understood that conservatives cannot save themselves if they continue to view the Trump presidency through rose-colored glasses. By all means, resist the resistance and call out the left-biased media for their cognitive dissonance, intellectual inconsistency, and pure hypocrisy but do so without engaging in your own exercises of the same. Turn off talk radio for a moment and recall that most of you voted for Trump because you were voting against Hilary, because Trump was the lesser of two evils, and because the Supreme Court was not something we could lose. Treat Donald Trump like the lesser of two evils he is and remind yourself that he was not the ideal candidate, he is not the ideal president, and he will never be the ideal banner-man of the conservative cause.

Conservatives have never been people that do what their President tells them to, but have traditionally been people who demand their President does as they expect him to. Conservatives were once umpires of those that claim to represent them and not unconditional cheerleaders. Conservatives once held higher expectations of character and dignity in themselves and their leaders than they do their opposition and didn’t justify failings in morals, norms, or rhetoric by engaging in toxic moral equivocations (Whataboutism). Conservatives once overcame false characterizations from the media and from their opposition by maintaining intellectual consistency, constant principles, and clear persuasive language instead of squandering copious amounts of limited political capital running interference for the unclear language of an ideologically meandering President or engaging in rhetoric useless for persuasive purposes which provides only confirmation bias for the already converted to consume.

Reagan Did Not Believe In “Trust Me” Government

“I am your voice,” said Donald Trump to the shouting praise of the Republican National Convention who had just nominated him as their presidential candidate, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

This is the main plank of Trumpism, the assertion that Donald Trump believes is his grandest argument in his case to lead the country and the thing which has motivated so many to support him and defend him no matter what. To follow Trump is to believe the system is broken, the system is corrupt, and the system cannot be fixed by anyone else but Donald Trump. To follow Trump is to believe that an attack upon him is an attack upon you because he is your voice. To follow Trump is to believe that those who cannot stomach him are okay with the status quo, are the status quo, and no longer matter.

This is what Ronald Reagan called “Trust Me” Government and it is what he chiefly stepped forward into the realm of presidential politics to oppose. 36 years before Donald Trump declared himself the sole political savior of the conservative cause, the man we affectionately remember as “the Gipper” stood at a very different Republican National Convention and spoke as if in direct challenge to the direction of the Republican Party under Donald J. Trump:

“‘Trust me’ government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what’s best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties….I ask you not simply to “Trust me,” but to trust your values–our values–and to hold me responsible for living up to them.”

Conservatism does have a way forward, it does have a path back to ascendancy and endurance. It does not have to die as one last puff of smoke or go loudly, but impotently, into the night of American history. The train does not have to go over the cliff of reactionary suicide or descend into a gulf of things that were…things that will not be so again. We can still have a future but only if we can fully understand that when it comes to Donald Trump…he’s no Reagan.

from savingelephantsblog
via https://www.savingelephantsblog.com/saving-elephants-blog

Donning Spandex – Part 4 (Captain Conservative’s Limitation Ray)

Original artwork by Marisa Draeger

“The conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

For much of human history the only glue that held societies together was the ever-present threat that those who sowed discord risked simplistic, excessive punishment from the ruling tyrant or, having escaped that, eternal damnation of their soul in the afterlife. Subversion was dealt with in ways we would today describe as barbaric, sickening, and needlessly violent.

Yet apart from these drastic measures societies often descend into anarchy in which the weak fell prey to the strong. And anarchy—the least tolerable of all possible societies—doesn’t last long as the masses seek a ruler who, at the very least, offer something better than The Walking Dead meets reality TV. The dilemma for those who would seek to throw off the shackles of an oppressive government then is how to remove the oppressive constrains of government without falling victim to the uninhibited and unleashed appetites of your fellow citizens.

The twin villains of Anarchy Man and the Dr Despot took turns plaguing humanity until Captain Conservative bravely arrived on the scene to save the day. Using classical liberal ideas from the Enlightenment, coupled with a culture held in check by its Judeo-Christian heritage, Captain Conservative maintained what had previously never held together for long: a society of both liberty and order.

Captain Conservative had three weapons at his disposal to vanquish Anarchy Man and Dr Despot. And while societies and humans change so that these weapons need upgrading from time to time, the basic nuts and bolts of the weapons are just as much the same. Foremost in Captain Conservative’s arsenal was his trusty Limitation Ray.

As we saw in Part 3, the conservative wants a limited government, not a weak government. But what does it mean for a government to be limited? It means that the government is only empowered to preform the functions that are appropriate for a government to perform, and no more. If it’s appropriate for a government to regulate widgets, the conservative says the government should be adequately funded and empowered to optimally regulate widgets. But if that’s not an appropriate function of government, then no funding or authorization should be provided whatsoever.

This, of course, begs a further question: what are the appropriate functions of government? And here is where there is much disagreement not only between competing worldviews, but within the ranks of those who would call themselves conservatives. (And for this reason, I am only going to present some general guidelines in the remainder of the post. For though I may have my own personal opinions about what is or is not an appropriate function of government, these posts are chiefly about what conservatives believe, not what Josh believes.)

The preamble to the United States Constitution begins thusly:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

While conservatives may differ on the nuances of phrases like “promote the general Welfare” they generally hold that the appropriate function of government—or at least the Federal government—is outlined in this single sentence. The ending of the original Constitution provides further clarification: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Strict constitutionalists have interpreted this to mean that the Federal government should only do the things explicitly mentioned in the Constitution.

However, the notion that government is best which governs least isn’t true for the conservative in an absolute sense. Captain Conservative’s Limitation Ray is designed to limit government, not liquidate it, and conservative politics are chiefly about prudence and circumstance, not radical ideology and philosophy. There is no perfect formula for precisely what a government should be doing; which explains, in part, why even our Constitution offers seemingly vague guidance on the matter. One gets a sense reading over the preamble that the Federal government is to be limited, but the details are left to future legislators to mull over and debate.

A more conservative standard might be something like that government is best which governs least under the circumstances of national stability, foreign threats, civic character, etcetera. What Captain Conservative lacks in pithy comebacks he makes up for in the politics of practicality.

The more government is limited to its core functions, the more accountable it becomes and the more liberty can flourish. “The Conservative looks upon politics as the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order: it is impossible for one man to be free if another is able to deny him the exercise of his freedom,” wrote Barry Goldwater in The Conscience of a Conservative. “The legitimate functions of government are actually conducive to freedom. Maintaining internal order, keeping foreign foes at bay, administering justice, removing obstacles to the free interchange of goods—the exercise of these powers makes it possible for men to follow their chosen pursuits with maximum freedom.”

While the Limitation Ray works to shrink a monstrous government, there is a point at which too small a government allows others monsters to frolic fearlessly such as the exploitation of individuals and resources, public discord, and mass confusion. Economist Thomas Sowell used the lowly mud flap to illustrate this point:

“Even if everyone agrees that the benefits of mud flaps greatly exceed their costs, there is no feasible way of buying these benefits in a free market, since you receive no benefits from the mud flaps that you buy and put on your own car, but only from mud flaps that other people buy and put on their cars and trucks…it is possible to obtain collectively through government what cannot be obtained individually through the marketplace, simply by having laws passed requiring all cars and trucks to have mud flaps on them…There are things that government can do more effectively than individuals because external costs or external benefits make individual decisions, based on individual interests, a less effective way of weighing costs and benefits to the whole society.”

The balancing act between individual liberty and the greater good is much like balancing our broccoli and chocolate intake: both can be beneficial for you in certain quantities and harmful at excessive quantities. But we rarely need reminding about the side effects of overindulging in broccoli, whereas entire support groups exist for those struggling with chocolate addiction. The momentum is always bent towards demanding government involvement for the visible greater good and not the barely visible and widely dispersed liberties of the individual.

“While externalities are a serious consideration in determining the role of government, they do not simply provide a blanket justification or a magic word which automatically allows economics to be ignored and politically attractive goals to be pursued without further ado.” Sowell later warns, “Both the incentives of the market and the incentives of politics must be weighed when choosing between them on any particular issue.”

Captain Conservative shudders when a populist nemesis such as the more radical elements of the Tea Party or Trumplicans apply their Simplistic Shrinker to the government. For the populist looks for the most simplistic answers in governing, which tend towards the easier route of more government (even as the populists claims they’ve shrunk government.) True statecraft requires diligent work and tremendous practical wisdom to carefully limit the role of government to a safe yet effective level.

Perhaps no where is this more certain than in foreign policy. Political commentator Irving Kristol observed a lack of coherent policies that could eternally be relied upon when it came to the nation’s foreign affairs:

“Western political thought has very little to say about foreign policy. From Thucydides to our own time, political philosophy has seen foreign affairs so radically affected by contingency, fortune, and fate as to leave little room for speculative enlightenment. John Locke was fertile in suggestions for the establishment and maintenance of good government, but when it came to foreign affairs he pretty much threw up his hands: ‘What is to be done in reference to foreigners, depending much upon their actions and the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the prudence of those who have this power committed to them, to be managed by the best of their skill for the advantage of the Commonwealth.’”

Captain Conservative isn’t nearly as “purist” about how things were done back in the day as some libertarians and others on the Right. As this spirited debate between William F Buckley and Ron Paulshows, the conservative view is that changing circumstance must always be considered when considering the proper role of covert operations against a foreign threat. If a proper function of government is to defend and protect, that role will naturally expand or contract based on the perceived level and type of threats.

Traditionally, the Federal government was responsible for the military, interstate commerce, foreign relations, the money supply, and a few sundry items we won’t be delving into here. This bare minimum has been greatly expanded upon through the centuries to arrive at the point the Federal government has a say in the light bulbs you use.

Government is in the business of forcing people to do what they otherwise wouldn’t do. And that is a powerful and potentially pernicious force that should be used sparingly. Russell Kirk admonished that “government is intended to provide for our wants and enforce our duties. It is not a toy to manipulate according to our vanities and ambitions.” While it is true that time and circumstance may alter what level of governmental authority is appropriate, it is also true that changes in government tend to only move in one direction; that is, governments are fairly easy to grow and extremely difficult to shrink.

One of the biggest reasons for this is that the moment government expands its reach, it immediately and inadvertently creates a special interest dedicated to the preservation of the government’s new authority. With each added layer of bureaucracy comes added governmental employees, legislative and executive overseers, business contractors, lobbyists, and sympathetic citizens armed to the teeth with charts and graphs and data and testimonials about what terrible, awful things would happen if their authority were suddenly limited.

Captain Conservative’s Limitation Ray isn’t always popular, but it is a powerful weapon against government abuses. But this is only the first of three weapons in Captain Conservative’s arsenal. In Part 5 we’ll turn to the second.

from savingelephantsblog
via https://www.savingelephantsblog.com/saving-elephants-blog

Episode 8 - Audit EVERYTHING!

Whether it’s to save Social Security or cover a budget deficit, politicians are fond of declaring they’re going to audit EVERYTHING! But what does “audit everything” actually mean? And how likely is it to solve problems like the viability of entitlement programs or ballooning debt?

Drawing on a decade of experience in auditing governments, Josh, CPA, demystifies the auditing process and shows how audits, while vitally important, are usually a cop-out response from politicians who don’t want to make tough choices.

As promised, here's a link to a story about how EPA Director Scott Pruitt prevented our office from releasing an audit report for many years.

LISTEN HERE

from savingelephantsblog
via https://www.savingelephantsblog.com/saving-elephants-blog

We’ve Got Your Summer Reading List Covered

In lieu of our regular Friday blog post I’d like to direct your attention to the newly revamped Saving Elephants resources page. There you will find a smorgasbord of websites, books, podcasts, and other resources to immerse yourself in conservative thought from the very best of conservative thinkers.

The page is interactive with pictures that link to the various resources. I’ve given a brief synopsis explaining why each resource is important and what you can expect to gain from it. I’ve even ranked each resource by what level of political/philosophical nerd it’s recommended for:

If you’re looking for a summer reading list, this would be a great place to start. I can vouch for all the resources here that they’re quality material with a timeless message.

Be forewarned, nothing here is excessively light or mindlessly entertaining. These are challenging books, but they’re incredible books with important messages. In a world of instant news and surface-level conversations, don’t you owe it to yourself to invest the time and effort to seek out those permanent things of lasting value?

from savingelephantsblog
via https://www.savingelephantsblog.com/saving-elephants-blog

Donning Spandex – Part 3 (The Uncanny G-Men)

Original artwork by Marisa Draeger

“The conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

The nature of government is to grow. Much like the weeds in a garden, unless the populace casts a wary eye on government and makes the effort to uproot some unwelcome sprouts from time to time, the government will continue to expand in scope and power until it consumes every detail of our lives.

As Ronald Reagan once said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Conservatives and Libertarians have long prided themselves on fighting the good fight, so to speak, in attempting to hack away at Leviathan. Right-leaning blogs, political parties, and organizations, are replete with pithy and catchy phrases about the incompetence of bureaucracy, the encroaching evils of the central government, the virtues of the unruly Tea Party, and glib talk of dismantling The Establishment.

Patriotism on the Right often equates to denouncing, jeering, and disavowing the government. But to some extent laughing at the incompetence or decrying the corruption of the government is a bipartisan affair. Even those who favor expanding the function and powers of government aren’t hesitant to ridicule the “red tape.” This was exhibited in the movie Zootopia which depicted sloths running the DMV.

Just last week I visited a local tag agency—Oklahoma’s version of the DMV—to renew my driver’s license. Like most trips to a government office, it was about as enjoyable as a Vogon poetry slam. It was a fruitless effort because they didn’t have the means to accept a credit card payment for the new license and I didn’t have cash on me. This struck me as unusual since they were able to accept cash for renewing my car tag. Some of the other hapless bystanders and I chided the oddly targeted prohibition against credit card payments. In that moment, our political affiliations didn’t matter. We were universally members of the anti-stupid party.

At some level we all accept that government can be corrupt, inept, and wasteful—that government can be the problem. But why might government be the problem? What is it about government that makes it grow? Why does it seemingly become clumsier than its free-market counterparts? Why are government employees—right or wrong—perceived as being incompetent, lazy, and potentially corrupt?

This was the very question economist Milton Friedman sought to address in his aptly named lecture “Why Government is the Problem.” Friedman asked, “Why is it that able, public-spirited people produce such different results according to whether they operate in the political or the economic market? Why is it that if a random sample of the people…were to replace those who are in Washington, our policies would very likely not be improved?”

This warrants a bit of a digression, for in our current, poisonous political climate many seem to be doubting this is true. I have heard it said—more than a few times and by individuals who ought to know better—that we could improve our policies by simply appointing politicians randomly instead of through elections. This is more than some crackpot theory your crazed uncle pontificates over Thanksgiving dinner. Publications such as the Boston Globe and Current Affairs have advocated the lottery system of appointing leaders as a means of “improving” some perceived ill.

As an insider of the government myself—both working for the State Auditor and Inspector and auditing governments for nearly a decade—I can attest that the men and women in government are no more inherently incompetent, lazy, or corrupt than the public at large. It is true that they are less productive than their private sector counterparts; but if those same people took up jobs in the private sector they’d be more productive, just as people in the private sector would likely be less productive if they replaced government workers.

Why?

Friedman offers his explanation:

“Government actions often provide substantial benefits to a few while imposing small costs on many…self-interest is served by different actions in the private sphere than in the public sphere. The bottom line is different.

An enterprise started by a group of people in the private sphere may succeed or fail. Most new enterprises fail (if the enterprise were clearly destined for success, it would probably already exist). If the enterprise fails, it loses money. The people who own it have a clear bottom line. To keep it going, they have to dig into their own pockets. They are reluctant to do that, so they have a strong incentive either to make the enterprise work or to shut it down.

Suppose the same group of people start the same enterprise in the government sector and the initial results are the same. It is a failure; it does not work. They have a very different bottom line. Nobody likes to admit that he has made a mistake, and they do not have to. They can argue that the enterprise initially failed only because it was not pursued on a large enough scale. More important, they have a much different and deeper pocket to draw on. With the best intentions in the world, they can try to persuade the people who hold the purse strings to finance the enterprise on a larger scale, to dig deeper into the pockets of the taxpayers to keep the enterprise going. That illustrates a general rule: If a private enterprise is a failure, it closes down—unless it can get a government subsidy to keep it going; if a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. I challenge you to find exceptions.”

Conservatives know that it is the incentives, not the intentions that bridge the productivity gap between the public and private sectors. The free market pressures on private businesses—pressures that equate to success in business or failure—do not exist in government. It is only natural that without these pressures people begin to behave in a more self-serving manner.

All my life I’ve heard politicians—on both sides of the aisle—call for government to be run more efficiently. And greater efficiency is certainly a noble endeavor. But what’s truly needed aren’t more politicians vowing to make things more efficient, but politicians who are mindful of the effects of the incentives government programs and processes create.

I think 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater said it best in his book, The Conscience of a Conservative:

“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

Goldwater was interested in addressing the disease, not the symptom. His quote is refreshingly different than the standard pledges to eliminate inefficiencies, waste, fraud, and abuse, and it may be among the reasons Goldwater suffered one of the most crushing Presidential election defeats in U.S. history. This is not a truth we want to hear. Generally speaking, we’d much rather be told by our leaders that government can somehow be made right by tracking down all those incompetent, lazy, and corrupt G-Men and giving them the boot than be told meaningful reform is going to hurt.

Conservatism does not exist in the mythical world of populist platitudes. Conservatism dares to examine the root causes, which requires discipline, patience, wisdom, and prudence; virtues that are difficult to come by and far less fun than shouting taxation is theft! on social media.

With all the talk on the right denouncing government it’s easy to get the wrong impression that conservatism is anti-government. But conservatives are very much pro-government. Conservatives want a limited government, not a weak government. Conservatives don’t begin with how do we make government more efficient and less intrusive? for the very nature of government is inefficiency and intrusion. Conservatives ask instead what is the purpose of government?

If the purpose of government is to defend the nation, a weak military just won’t do—even if it can be shown to be less efficient than a privatized military. If justice is a proper function of government, then an impotent judicial branch is hardly desirable. If the role of government is to govern commerce, then the taxpayer is not better served by abolishing the SEC. That which the government ought to do should be defended and funded.

I mentioned earlier Reagan’s famous quote that government “is the problem.” This quote alone has generated countless memes. But the full context of the quote is far less anarchist: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Reagan was limiting his criticism of government to a specific situation, not denouncing government itself. The full context of nuanced speech is often difficult to capture in tweets, bumper-stickers, and campaign slogans. And what may get lost in translation here is that conservatism isn’t trying to destroy the government but ensure the government stays in its proper lanes.

Government isn’t evil but it does possess a certain latent destructive power that, if left unchecked, will continue to grow until it has consumed what is good in the individual and in society at large. Conservatives have offered two solutions for defending against encroaching government: 1) limiting the power of government to only those functions not suitable for the private sector and 2) balancing competing interests within the government so that no one “proper function” becomes powerful enough to engulf the others.

A deeper discussion about both of these solutions awaits us in Part 4.

from savingelephantsblog
via https://www.savingelephantsblog.com/saving-elephants-blog

Episode 7 - Deep Thoughts with Bob - Conservative Challenges

Saving Elephants’ guest Bob Burch is back with Josh to discuss the challenges that conservatism faces, the triumph of 20th century progressivism, regulations that regulate regulating regulators, what “neocon” actually means, and sundry other topics so deep even Adele can’t roll in it.

Ever wonder why conservatives sometimes come across as gloomy pessimists? Bob and Josh delve into what afflicts the conservative’s soul and offer some hopeful remedies.

LISTEN HERE

Lastly, as promised, here’s a link to Mark Steyn singing I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat.

from savingelephantsblog
via https://www.savingelephantsblog.com/saving-elephants-blog