|
The sexual shenanigans of Mark Foley and
their cover-up are less indicative of the collapse of conservatism in
the Republican establishment than is the Iraq misadventure.
True, if establishment Republicans had the faintest affinity for
conservatism, they’d have rid themselves of a member more at home in the
Man/Boy Love Association. But more significantly, they’d quit pouring
American blood and treasure down the Iraqi drain.
To follow the dictionary, a conservative is someone who seeks to
preserve existing institutions, or to restore traditional ones. It is
not that he disdains constructive change; rather, he wants it to grow
organically from its cultural and political soil. A real conservative
would therefore never graft democratic institutions onto a society in
which adversaries have always assassinated—not outpolled—one another.
A naïve conservative might entertain the notion that all people want the
same things. But only a radical, oblivious to reality, would conclude
that, because all people seek safety and sustenance for
themselves, they’ll allow those they dislike
to peacefully pursue the same.
If anything, to an authentic conservative, the commonalties in human
nature ought not to serve as lodestars for legislation. Consider
acquisitiveness—it’s a fine feature of humanity. Sadly, even more
universally human is the taste for free stuff. The welfare state is a
monument to this appetite. In fact, the more the Transfer State has
reinforced and rewarded this aspect of humanity, the more ingrained it
has become.
By extension, conservatives once understood that if you subsidize
individuals because they are poor, you’ll get more poverty; subsidize
them because they are unemployed, and you’ll get more unemployment;
siphon taxes to support single mothers, and you’ll get more single
motherhood, illegitimacy and divorce; subsidize the old by taking from
the young, and the institution of the family—the intergenerational bonds
between parents, grandparents, and children—is systematically weakened.
In short: the erosion of civilization itself.
It’s a big if, but if indeed we’ve subsidized “freedom” for Iraqis and
fought their battles—then we’ve also increased their impotence and
diminished their initiative. (Who can deny that Iraqi demands from the
U.S. indicate they consider themselves wards of the American state. And
who can blame them?)
Smart and principled conservatives understand, moreover, that top-down
central planning—economic or political—is always doomed to
fail. The inverted, perverse incentive structure that invariably
characterizes such endeavors guarantees failure.
To wit, as a government project, the
multi-billion enterprise in Iraq is bankrolled indefinitely by taxpayers
and shielded in perpetuity from bankruptcy. Wrongdoing and incompetence
in government are rarely punished, but are, rather, rewarded with
budgetary increases. Government departments and fiefdoms accrete through
inefficiency. Failure translates into ever-growing budgets, powers and
perks—for the top dogs, not for the grunts on the ground.
At bottom, “philanthropic” wars and nation-building are transfer
programs—the quintessential big-government projects. Government’s
duties, however, are to protect freedoms, not to plan projects. In a
free society, the vision thing is left to private individuals; civil
servants are kept on a tight leash, because free people understand that
a “visionary” bureaucrat is a voracious one, and that the
grander the government, the poorer and less free the people. The warfare
state, like the welfare state, is thus inimical to small-government
conservatism.
Now, what of the Iraqi people, don’t they have a right to life, liberty,
and property? Sure they do. However, distinguish we must between their
right to be free and our obligation to free them. We have a solemn duty
not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty, and
property. But we have no duty to uphold their rights. Why? Because, even
if we could—and we can’t, as I’ve explained, and as the conservatively
minded will comprehend—upholding the rights of the world’s citizens
involves compromising the inalienable rights of Americans, their lives,
liberties, and livelihoods. A constitutional government’s duty is to its
own citizens.
Finally, there’s the matter of persisting in what is impossible to
accomplish. In the words of philosopher David Conway, "People can have
no duty severally or collectively to do what is impossible for them to
do." Faction fighting in Iraq is as old as the sand dunes, and tyrants
as ubiquitous as the Tigris. The acid observations of Ibn Saud, Sultan
of Najd, come to mind:
"It may be accepted as an incontrovertible fact that it will be
impossible to manage the people of Iraq except by strong means and
military force.”
In Ibn Saud’s day (1876-1953), it was Tony Blair’s philosophical
forerunner, Gertrude Bell, who defied reality. In our times, it is
George Bush and his accomplices (Democrats included) who ignore the
broad sweep of history, because they are 1) ignorant of it, and 2)
unacquainted with the conservative creed.
©2006 By Ilana Mercer
WorldNetDaily.com
October 6
DIGG
IT |
