IF I WERE RYAN SAGER
...I think I would leave well enough alone, at least for now.
Sager opened up a bit of a can o' worms in this column in which he essentially slammed conservatism as the political faith of religious extremists, using CPAC as exhibit A that we're all a bunch of hardliners. That is a convenient argument from a libertine-libertarian point of view, but it's wrong. And Sager even mischaracterizes what he saw and heard at CPAC. I know because I was there, standing right next to him during one of the pivotal moments he describes in that column. He says:
Arrogance toward Democrats isn't the problem -- though that was everywhere, from Ann Coulter's conservative stand-up routine (kind of a Republican version of "You might be a redneck if…" delivered to wildly cheering fans) to the popular t-shirt slogan, "What blue states? I only see red?"No, the arrogance that will prove problematic, ultimately, was that directed at the libertarian-leaning conservatives by the social conservatives. The message in that regard was clear: We Christians can do this alone, y'all who ain't down with J.C. best be running along.
That was the message when Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute, who was on a panel to defend President Bush's proposed immigration reforms (supported by no less a conservative institution than The Wall Street Journal), was loudly booed by the anti-immigrant crowd.
Sager is conflating the Christians at CPAC with the "anti-immigrant" crowd, when they are often not one and the same. And since when is it "anti-immigrant" to want to make sure terrorists and criminals can't just waltz across our borders to wreak whatever hell they please? But I'll leave those arguments aside.
Back to CPAC, and Sager's observations. First, what I saw at CPAC was less arrogance than happy confidence. The conservative wing of the conservative party helped keep a conservative (or at least a nominally conservative national security hawk) in the White House. It is helping keep Congress and most of the state governments out of the hands of raving moonbats, and it is on the way to helping preserve our most basic institution, marriage, from a full frontal assault on its very definition. CPACers were confident, and they had every right to be. Perhaps Sager sees arrogance because he belongs to a party that has absolutely no chance of winning a major office in his lifetime, and because libertarians by their own behavior marginalize themselves over and over again.
I don't say that with any glee, or even arrogance. I say it with a resigned sadness. I used to call myself a libertarian, largely because when it comes to the size of government that is what I am. But I and many, many people like me cannot abide libertarianism's suicidal embrace of anti-American foreign policy instincts and cannot abide libertarianism's embrace of every single leftwing assault on basic societal institutions. Libertarianism's basic anarchic instincts are often naive, selfish and childish, seldom allowing for any view of social good beyond narrow self-interest. I reached a point a few years ago when I could no longer reconcile libertarianism's more destructive tendencies with my basic moral beliefs, so I abandoned libertarianism as a philosophy.
But back to the Jacoby speech at CPAC, yes she was booed. I was standing right next to Sager and heard what he heard. But she was defending a lousy policy, the president's amnesty-by-another-name for illegal aliens. Libertarians, if they truly believe in a limited government, should abhor that policy because its end effect will be to grow government by allowing more non-citizens access to expensive social services, which will in turn drive up taxes, and so forth. Yes, it is true as Sager says that the Wall Street Journal's editorial page supports that policy, but it's also true that the WSJ is out of step with the conservative movement on that policy. The WSJ has long been out of step with most conservatives on that policy--it's an open borders supporter, when most conservatives favor controlled immigration and a tightened border. That doesn't make us a bunch of radicals, or "anti-immigrant." It just makes the Journal wrong on that policy. Unlike liberalism, conservatives are free to disagree among ourselves on specific policies as long as we adhere to a few basic principles.
In writing his CPAC column, Sager invited criticism from National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru. I've met Ramesh, and I've read his work over the years. In person he is the epitome of class, and in his writings he is as measured as they come. When you attract Ramesh's eye, you will find your arguments dissected with surgical precision. Ramesh doesn't "fisk"--he vivisects. Ramesh never wastes a word, and never tosses out a flippant or intemperate argument. He just cuts your arguments into tiny little pieces and leaves them to die.
So Ramesh reponded to Sager's column, here, and Sager retorts back, here, and Ramesh has (so far) the last word here. Read the whole exchange and see if you don't agree with me that Ramesh has the facts and the better logic on his side, while Sager is mostly making noise. As for Sager, he is essentially warning Republicans that too much dependence on social conservatives will cost them future elections. He apparently thinks any public nod to morality is a bad thing, and that it demonstrates "arrogance" that is damaging to Republican prospects. He may be right for all I know--the future is always uncertain. I heard more than one person say similar things during the course of CPAC, but interestingly none of those words came from conservatives or Republicans. They came from either self-described centrists, or liberals, or libertarians. Those three constituencies have one thing in common these days--a total lack of ability to command any national issue of any significance and carry it to electoral success. Libertarians are off in the weeds on most issues, liberals are chasing a dying light and centrists are swing voters who, if they support the war, vote Republican if they don't support the war, don't vote Republican. None of the three carry anything that passes for a compelling worldview right now. Those might be tough words, but they are also true words. Hopefully no one will consider me arrogant for pointing that out.
Amidst all of this interplay one thing is certain: Republicans would be making a foolish mistake to cast off social conservatives in favor of libertarians. Social conservatives make up a larger percentage of the voting public than libertarians, and tend to be more loyal voters over time because we are committed to transcendant issues, and on those issues we agree with the Republican party. We vote more than just the transient issue of the day, we vote long-term principle. Libertarians say they do too, but how they rank their voting principles is often impossible to discern. Social conservatives are not swing voters; there are enough of us to constitute a majority party's base, and there are enough of us to more than cancel out the votes of the hard left that the Democrats own and thereby form a net gain for the GOP. We know that, and the Republicans know that. What do we know about libertarians?
We know that they're all over the map on all issues, and that there aren't enough of them to form even a credible third party. We also know that they tend to take themselves too seriously as a political force. That doesn't mean Republicans shouldn't listen to libertarians. On matters of the size and scope of government, I wish the GOP would listen to libertarians more than it does. Libertarians often have great ideas for shrinking government, and they are deficit hawks at a time when that point of view is sorely needed in Washington. But on social matters and even on national security, listening to libertarians amounts to listening to a tower of babble. There is very little detectable principle among libertarians when it comes to social and national security policy, beyond a certain amoral "leave me alone" attitude. And often it is impossible to live by that principle, when your political opponents are using the courts the impose their will on you.
Just as Republicans might do well to listen to libertarians on some issues, libertarians would do well to allow social conservatives a place at the political table. We are citizens, and deserve a voice, right? Sager, if his column is any guide, will not allow us that place. He calls us intolerant and arrogant, but who is the intolerant and arrogant one here--the one who has numbers on his side but still lets others have their say, or the one who lacks the numbers but tries to make up for that with noise, name-calling and threats?