OUR ENEMY, ISLAMICISM

Is Bush Conservative Enough? (Sam Tanenhaus, July 22, 2003, LA Times)

What alarms these conservatives, young and old, is not so much the specific policies of the Bush administration as its appetite for an ever-enlarging, all-powerful government, a post- 9/11 version of statism, the bete noire of conservatism and the subject of one of the movement's founding texts, Albert Jay Nock's "Our Enemy, the State."

Published in 1935, this manifesto analyzes centralization in the federal government under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with its
expanding bureaucracies and new entitlements. In Nock's view, the New Deal bore disturbing resemblances to new dictatorships arising overseas. The connection seemed remote, because FDR was so genial and because Americans were "the most un-philosophical of beings," immune to doctrines of the kind espoused by Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.

But Americans suffer from a different weakness, Nock said. Our national temper is that of "an army on the march." Susceptible to grandiose
crusades, we respond with emotion rather than thought and are easily swayed "by a whole elaborate paraphernalia of showy etiquette, flags, music, uniforms, decorations and the careful cultivation of a very special sort of camaraderie."

Nock had in mind World War I - a war he opposed. But his description also applies to the mood created by the Bush administration since
9/11.

Mr. Tanenhaus wrote an outstanding biography of Whittaker Chambers several years ago. We've made no bones about our high regard for Albert Jay Nock. More recently, Niall Ferguson has demonstrated the wisdom of Mr. Nock as regarded WWI, and both H. W. Brands and Derek Leebaert have made convincing arguments that the cost conservatives paid for pursuing the futile Cold War was to pay off the Left with the massive welfare state. The concern that we not turn the war on terrorism into a long term justification for statism is entirely legitimate. Yet, with all that, the argument above is ridiculous.

First of all, this essay, like far too many these days, ignores the salient point of the matter even as it mentions it in passing: 9-11. Imagine for a moment that Albert Jay Nock had been in Manhattan on that day and ask yourself if he'd have blithely accepted the event. This was not after all a mere attack on our shipping somewhere in the North Atlantic, but a strike, a second strike at that, designed to kill tens of thousands of Americans. Even Mr. Nock would not hesitate to acknowledge that it is the minimum responsibility of the state to protect us from such things. He was fortunate enough to live at a time when the worst an enemy could do to us was the rather ineffectual Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But now we live in a time when independent groups of extremists can, want to, and do kill many of us right here on home soil. It's a situation which no government instituted among men could ignore. Particularly absurd in Mr. Tanenhaus's piece is the idea that the Bush Administration has "created" the mood of robust patriotism that followed 9-11. Did Dick Cheney raise the flag at Ground Zero? In fact, if left to their own devices, does it not seem likely the American people would have gladly nuked the while Middle East in late 2001, if not now?

One can argue that we need not take on all of the Islamic states that support such terrorism in order to make ourselves safe or that by taking them on we rile up the extremists; those are quite possibly legitimate claims. However, there's abnother position that conservatives can take that allows for the confrontation with our enemies while protecting against the growth of the state that does seem to come in wartime: fight the whole lot of them fast and get it over with. A new Cold War would be a terrible thing, but a series of wars in which we dispose of the worst governments in the region--Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya--and destroy the terrorist infrastructure, particularly in Southern Lebanon and Western Pakistan, need not take more than a few years. [If it does, the growth of the state is the least of our worries.] If, in the process, we can implant a few decent, relatively Western, governments--in Palestine, Jordan, Kurdistan, Iran--all the better.

Most importantly, conservatives need to recognize that liberal presidents like Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Nixon centralized for the sake of centralization, because they believed in government and the efficacy of the State, not because there were wars going on. The wars abroad gave them cover to do what they wanted on the domestic front--which was in fact to reduce our liberty under the rubric of security. The new war affords conservatives an opportunity to do the opposite. Under cover of war, the GOP can take long term control of the government and start devolving it back towards the people. We're never going to go back to the minimalist state that Nock knew in his youth, but we can move towards a state where individuals are required to provide for their own welfare rather than having the State run everything. Government unions can be broken. Regulations can be removed. Programs can be gutted. A bill that's ostensibly providing money to education can be used to impose vouchers. And so on and so forth.

Conservatives, if they can just drop the navel lint and look up, might recognize that they are winning. But let them keep bitching instead, lest everyone else realize it too. Repeat after us: George Bush is a socialist...George Bush is a socialist...George Bush is a socialist...George Bush is a socialist...


MORE:
Dealing with the President's right flank (Tony Blankley, July 23, 2003, townhall.com)

Currently, conservatives of various stripes are beginning to complain about: large deficits, prescription drug entitlement legislation, excessive regulations (including education regulations driven by Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation), weak opposition to quotas, acceptance of the Supreme Court's anti state's right overthrowing of anti-sodomy laws, and -- for the substantial Pat Buchanan wing of the conservative house -- what they would call military adventurism and imperialism.

It is hard to measure the potential breadth and intensity of these complaints because President Bush's exemplary leadership in the war on terrorism continues to trump these and other concerns for most Americans -- whether conservative or otherwise. But, although that factor will probably continue to buoy up his support through the next election, Mr. Bush should not rely on it. Should the anti-terrorism factor slip in the public mind, it could reveal a dangerously weak base of enthusiasm for the president. [...]

But on the war front, he should not compromise an iota. He must do what he judges to be in the national interest, whatever the electoral effect. Not that he needs my advice on that point. He is a patriot and would gladly sacrifice his career, and even his life, on behalf of his nation's safety. That is why, as a conservative, I will vote for him, no matter what. We are damned lucky to have this man at the helm in these perilous times.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 23, 2003 11:44 AM