Paleoconservatism and Practical Politics

Writing in Modern Age, Richard J. Bishirjian concludes an essay on "Why I Am A Conservative" with this peroration:

How, then, do we successfully save a public space for ordered living? First, of course, we must educate ourselves in the wonderful literature of the West and in the recovery of philosophy that émigré conservative scholars from Western Europe brought to this nation when they were exiled from West, East, and Central Europe. And once having educated ourselves, we can commence the work that is necessary to preserve and grow private institutions—including private colleges and universities—voluntary associations, privately held businesses that employ family members, and other forms of community—including churches and synagogues—that traditionally act as buffers between our private lives and the centralized administrative state. And we must break up the monopoly of public education!

We must also aspire to enlarge and enrich civil society by reducing the scope of governmental agencies, programs, corps, and their intrusive oversight of our private lives. Can we not have a flat tax? And what about privatization of Social Security and the FAA’s air traffic control? A consistent policy of outsourcing of government services that can best be performed by the private sector must become basic policy of the American government. And the Republican Party, if there is one left after the election of 2008, must take tax reform seriously, including capital gains tax reform. At the margins of this effort to reduce the state, we must ask if there is any reason why our national historical parks should not be turned over to private entities committed to the preservation of history? When I visit King’s Dominion, Busch Gardens, or Six Flags I see what private enterprise can do to entertain thousands of persons daily. But visit Bunker Hill, Appomattox, or Yorktown Battlefield, and you see 1950s technology and the mentality of government wardens.

Now here's what I find interesting. Earlier in the essay, Bishirjian - good paleocon that he is - goes on a tear against the contemporary conservative movement, complete with a sneering reference to the jingos in "mass media Talk Radio." Yet when it comes time to advance a domestic political agenda - one that's in keeping with European philosophy, "ordered living," and the Great Tradition of the West - his proposals are essentially identical to Rush Limbaugh's preferred domestic policy! (Allowing for the idiosyncratic riff about our national parks, of course.) This isn't necessarily an inconsistent approach to politics - somebody can be completely wrong in one sphere, and completely right in another - but I think it ought to jar Bishirjian enough for him to at least consider the possibility that the Limbaugh approach to conservative governance isn't the only one there is.

Comments

But visit Bunker Hill, Appomattox, or Yorktown Battlefield, and you see 1950s technology and the mentality of government wardens.

I certainly hope they have the mentality of wardens. They are there to take care of the place.

While we are at it:

Why is the experience of a historic site enhanced by 'technology' (Or, more precisely, current technology as opposed to whatever was available in 1955)?

Is it properly said that you visit historic sites to be 'entertained' (as opposed to, you know, educated)?

Posted by Art Deco | July 15, 2008 7:19 PM

I went to Bunker Hill when I was a kid and I agree, it would have been vastly improved by putting a roller coaster on top of it.

Posted by tgb1000 | July 15, 2008 7:24 PM

I agree Deco - why the hell would you compare 'Six Flags' to 'Bunker Hill'.

Does he want an 'amputation ride?' or a 'buckshot infection experience?'.

Posted by James | July 15, 2008 7:27 PM

It is easy to selectively choose various agencies and declare ones agenda superior for resolving perceived problems, while inflicting social engineering on the throng of the lambs who will surely bleat in unison.
We have only repeated the errors of the past from which government services came to be. during the U.S. civil war contractor poor performance lead to a direct result of the Civil service corp coming to be.
FAA is a modified Military Unit and functions best when run in that manner its failure is to try to be run as anything other. it is a network of outposts from which a uniform playing field exists to service a nation a safe user environment. its recent foray into contracting is proving it be a disaster.

Posted by target de jour | July 15, 2008 7:55 PM

I am of an age and a position in life where by all lights I should be a conservative. And in actuality, I really am a very conservative person. But when I read essays such as Mr. Bishirjian's or listen to Mr. Limbaugh's radio program, I realize that in America in 2008, I am not a conservative and never will be.

Posted by Steven Donegal | July 15, 2008 8:02 PM

Any statement of conservative principles that calls for all sorts of efforts to downsize the state but then ignores the preposterous size of the defense budget is pretty much a joke.

A true conservatism would make common cause with libertarians on civil liberties and with pacifists on the national security apparatus.

As long as one half of the conservative brain is hyped up on the endorphins of nationalism, the other half is going to be tempted to follow suit - which is exactly what happened under Bush: rah-rah patriotism inflated the whole government, military and civilian, to wholly unnatural proportions.

You could cut taxes and the deficit and the debt by huge proportions if you reduced our armed forces to the point where they were on par with Canada's.

Posted by lampwick | July 15, 2008 8:45 PM

You could cut taxes and the deficit and the debt by huge proportions if you reduced our armed forces to the point where they were on par with Canada's.

Per the CIA World Factbook, the United States devotes 4.06% of domestic product to military expenditure and Canada devotes 1.1%. Reallocating 2.96% of domestic product might or might not be advisable but one must doubt that it would have a radical effect on economic variables of interest to the man in the street. The reallocation which occurred between 1984 and 1994 was in that range.

The moderator's quotation was to an article in Modern Age, which was founded by Russell Kirk and a favored locus of publication for those in the palaeoconservative nexus. Dr. Kirk was resistant to anything but the most otiose foreign policy and the chaps at the Rockford Institute are of the same kidney, so your complaint fits ill. (Still in all, I think Messrs. Sobran, Richert, Panchias, Bacevich et al. would affirm that the size of the American military ought be driven by what we intend to do with it, rather than what Canada intends to do with theirs).

Posted by Art Deco | July 15, 2008 10:06 PM

I am of an age and a position in life where by all lights I should be a conservative. And in actuality, I really am a very conservative person. But when I read essays such as Mr. Bishirjian's or listen to Mr. Limbaugh's radio program, I realize that in America in 2008, I am not a conservative and never will be.

In a nutshell, what Mr. Donegal said.

I came across this site on the recommendation of some folks who said that here, finally, was a place I could find intelligent and thoughtful conservative commentary. I'm still waiting for the good part to arrive.

It seems like you find Bishirjian's recommendations of privatizing the FAA and installing carnival rides at Bunker Hill to be inadequate. I applaud you.

What do you offer instead?

Thanks -

Posted by russell | July 15, 2008 10:40 PM

Steven Donegal writes: "I am of an age and a position in life where by all lights I should be a conservative. And in actuality, I really am a very conservative person. But when I read essays such as Mr. Bishirjian's or listen to Mr. Limbaugh's radio program, I realize that in America in 2008, I am not a conservative and never will be."

I know a lot of people who feel that way. I've managed to figure out the difference between them and Limbaugh's Legions, too - none of them are assholes. Meanwhile I've never met a single big Limbaugh fan who was anything BUT an asshole.

You could use Cheney as a litmus test, too. It's simply not possible to be a Cheney fan and a non-asshole.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 15, 2008 10:49 PM

The Federal Pie Chart

Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion
MILITARY: 54% and $1,449 billion
NON-MILITARY: 46% and $1,210 billion

Reallocating 2.96% of domestic product might or might not be advisable but one must doubt that it would have a radical effect on economic variables of interest to the man in the street.

That would be over 300 billion dollars, not exactly chump change.

Posted by Don Quijote | July 15, 2008 10:50 PM

On Douthat's original missive I'm not sure why their domestic policy should be all that different from each other.

Granted Paleoconservatives have some variance on domestic matters from other conservatives. They're more federalist and favoring of traditions. However I'd say those two things are pretty common in other forms of conservativism. The main differences to gain attention have tended to be non-domestic issues or issues that aren't purely domestic. Like foreign wars, foreign aid, and immigration.

Posted by Thomas R | July 15, 2008 11:16 PM

Moe, I consider you an authority on *ssholes, but you should add a few paleocons to your litmus test. Especially after the VDARE discussion.

Posted by Ferrell | July 15, 2008 11:17 PM

Per the CIA World Factbook, the United States devotes 4.06% of domestic product to military expenditure and Canada devotes 1.1%. Reallocating 2.96% of domestic product might or might not be advisable but one must doubt that it would have a radical effect on economic variables of interest to the man in the street.

This is profoundly silly. Why in the world would you use GDP instead of the federal budget, except to obfuscate the vast size of the dollars involved?

The US GDP is $14 trillion. Reallocating 3% of $14 trillion would be a difference on the order of hundreds of billions per year, about 15% of the yearly federal budget.

This is not to say that cuts of this size in the federal budget are a good or a bad idea, but you are effectively lying by using an irrelevant, massively large number like GDP as your base.

Posted by DivGuy | July 16, 2008 8:14 AM

Or perhaps Richard Bishirjian could consider that his differences with Rush Limbaugh are purely ones of style and class; kind of like the difference between the liberal woman who teaches comparative literature at a research university and the liberal woman who works on the assembly line in a unionized plant -- one doesn't normally expect them to have similar cultural and entertainment tastes. Why should one expect the same for conservatives? In short, he should consider whether he's just being a snob. (Of course, that is the occupational hazard for conservatives who go on about "the culture" being more important than politics.)

As for the question of how to calculate defense budgets:

1) You can use any numbers you like, but if you use them they need to consistent across what you are comparing. For example, it's OK to use US military budget numbers which have been deliberately inflated to make the military budget look as large as possible (including servicing debt contracted in time of war, including benefits for veterans long out of military service etc.), as long as when it comes to Canada or Sweden or what ever one's favored social democratic paradise is, one uses the same count (oh, and with Sweden, make sure to include the opportunity cost individuals pay for rendering their compulsory military service).

2) compare the military budget to GDP or the federal budget? Depends on what you want to prove. If some one says: "The US industrial base is being gutted and jobs are being shipped overseas while we waste billions on defense!", then obviously, since the charge refers to the economy, the GDP is the relevant think to compare it with. But if the charge is "If we didn't spend so much on defense we could cut taxes" then the budget is the relevant number to compare it with.

It looks like the original charge was related to taxes, so yeah, budget would be the relevant thing to compare it to.

(But remember, the things which the numbers Don Quijote cites as "defense budget" are not readily cuttable, even if we eliminated our military tomorrow. Stop paying our debt on bonds issued during the Vietnam War because we think the war was a bad idea? The markets would be not amused. Stop treating sick vets because we think they never should have been in the military in the first place? The veterans would not be amused. So for policy purposes the numbers Don Quijote uses are pretty useless.)

Posted by CPA | July 16, 2008 9:39 AM

This is what I love about Ross's blog. He mines the craziest corners of the right-wing for nuggets of lunacy, and then politely disagrees with them.

I mean, here we have someone who is ostensibly a "paleoconservative"... a traditionalist... someone who is committed to loving preservation of American history and honoring the sacrifices of our forefathers. But he evidently thinks that solemn reverence for the fallen is too boring, and wants the free market to give us animatronic talking statues at Yorktown Battlefield and roller coasters on Bunker Hill.

I'm not sure why Ross feels the need to take this guy seriously, but I do thank him for sharing this really funny excerpt with us.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 16, 2008 10:12 AM

I have a nice view of Bunker Hill from my office. It's all quite disappointing -- you go to Bunker Hill, pay nothing, get a nice view of the city, and reflect on the founding of the country. Where's the fun in that?

Posted by mike | July 16, 2008 10:26 AM

From p3 of Bishirijan:We even cripple private enterprise and make ourselves subservient to the task of feeding the state by withholding income to pay state and federal taxes and contributions to Ponzi schemes for “retirement.” Could anyone get elected referring to Social Security as a 'Ponzi scheme'. He should try telling current retirees that they are defrauding today's workers.

Posted by winstongator | July 16, 2008 11:13 AM

This is profoundly silly. Why in the world would you use GDP instead of the federal budget, except to obfuscate the vast size of the dollars involved?

Because the ratio of military spending to domestic product is the measure of the degree to which our consumption and investment is devoted to those uses. It is a perfectly straightforward and commonplace statistic.

Posted by Art Deco | July 16, 2008 12:17 PM

While we are at it: Why is the experience of a historic site enhanced by 'technology' (Or, more precisely, current technology as opposed to whatever was available in 1955)? Is it properly said that you visit historic sites to be 'entertained' (as opposed to, you know, educated)?

I never agree with Art, but I agree with him here. When I went to Gettysburg, I loved the battlefield, the monuments, the placards that simply described what happened at various places. The cemetery is particularly impressive; you can stand where Lincoln stood and imagine what it was like to hear the Gettysburg Address while looking over all these gravestones.

On the other hand, I hated the visitor's center, with its cyclorama, its multimedia exibits, and its glitz.

And don't even get me started on that observation tower (which was installed privately)!

Posted by Dilan Esper | July 16, 2008 2:00 PM

(Still in all, I think Messrs. Sobran, Richert, Panchias, Bacevich et al. would affirm that the size of the American military ought be driven by what we intend to do with it, rather than what Canada intends to do with theirs).

But I think that a lot of paleos (myself included) would rather that we do with our military about what Canada does with theirs. That was the point.

Posted by Glaivester | July 16, 2008 10:49 PM

What Deco said. I find myself in the somewhat odd position of being both a Democrat and a Tory (although, as Andrew and others have pointed out, there are certain similarities between the politics of Obama and Cameron). This "peroration" is a good example of why I am emphatically not a conservative in the American sense of the word. As he doesn't specify, I am left to wonder who, exactly, these conservative scholars he eludes to are. But I suppose they are free market apologists and Burnhamite rollbackers, to make up two words successively. Neither of these intellectual propensities recommend themselves to my 18th century mind.

Then comes the park riff. Is Six Flags really exemplary of conservative ideals? Now, I like amusement parks. They are, appropriately enough, amusing, a good example of what Bishirjian dismissively refers to as "playing hard." But national parks are not exactly supposed to be "amusing". Nature, to the founders and many of their generation, was a font of wisdom and law. From it, and it alone, we might derive self-evident truths powerful enough to overthrow an unjust order. Nowadays conservatives, while regularly indulging Jeffersonian rhetoric about freedom of association and small government, see nature merely as a font of oil, or as primeval formations to be molded to our (vulgar) fancies. Contrariwise, British conservatives will go on and on about the importance of preserving their countryside, a goal that they marry to statist means. There, conserving the past means something different than indulging a fairy tales in which the effects of "creative destruction" (does Bishirjian count Schumpeter among his emigre horde?) are entirely benign. For all capitalism's merits, the preservation of the status quo is not among them.

Posted by Robert | July 20, 2008 8:05 PM