The Lib/Con Marriage—A Summary

Julian Sanchez | February 24, 2005

A commenter noticed that nobody had posted on yesterday's panel on the fate of the libertarian/conservative "marriage." Well, ask and ye shall recieve.

Cato's Jeremy Lott and The American Conservative's W. James Antle both argued for the symbiotic benefits both sides derive from the relationship: Libertarians get, well, relevance, and conservatives get a conscience—Antle stressed that it's in the interest of neither the Republicans nor the country if the party lacks a voice on the inside warning it to steer clear of big-government conservatism. Lott emphasized the idea (Frank Meyer's?) of fusing libertarian means to conservative ends, pointing out that the case for limiting government interference in people's lives was intimately tied to the value of the civic and familial institutions conservatives prize. Both also observed that, as Gene Healy succinctly put it, a man is only as faithful as his options—with whom will we make common cause if not Republicans? Hillary?

Amy Mitchell of The American Spectator (and a former colleague at Cato) had a frankly pretty puzzling argument for the breakup. Essentially, she quoted a series of libertarian criticisms of the Bush administration (many from Reason), which she seemed to regard as a breach of some unspoken agreement not to criticize the Great Experiment. This I don't get because Amy was there with me at CPAC when Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute got up on a panel to announce she was there to defend the president's immigration policy and got booed as loudly as if she'd suggested foregoing the panel in favor of a screening of Fahrenheit 9/11. Social conservatives have been equally grumbly about the president's perceived lack of enthusiasm for depriving gays of rights. If that's supposed to be a dealbreaker, I'm not sure what's left in the "big tent"—a sad clown, a seal, and some littered Coke cans, probably.

Nick, finally, argued that the relationship had long been in Weekend at Bernies mode anyway, that it was a marriage of convenience forged by the Cold War and the need to provide a united front in opposition to communism, and that there was little else at the level of higher principle binding libertarians and conservatives together.

For my part, I thought the debate was ill framed—though probably the question needed to be posed in a stark form to provoke a lively debate. The real options aren't "marriage" and "going our separate ways"—as Nick pointed out, it's not clear how much of a real "marriage" there is now. Let's instead say that libertarians and conservatives are Friends with Benefits. We'll happily collaborate on particular issues or for particular candidates in an ad hoc way, but the same can be true of libertarians and liberals. The ACLU, after all, had a booth at CPAC where they were handing out op-eds by Bob Barr. Nobody supposes they are (or should be) "married" to conservatives just because they can find common ground on particular issues. And as Albert Hirschman observed in Exit, Voice and Loyalty, while sometimes the absence of an exit option can prompt useful deliberation, it's precisely the option (and threat) of exit from an organization that magnifies voice within an organization. So, for instance, school administrators might be under greater pressure to be responsive to the concerns of parents if they know their customers can jump ship for the school down the street if they're unsatisfied. And the school down the street has greater incentive to attempt to appeal to those same parents if they know they're succeptible to being won over—at least temporarily.

Comments

clarityiniowa|2.24.05 @ 11:22AM|#

What it boils down to is there are two kinds of people: Those who enjoy running other people's lives, and those who have no such desire. Reps talk about freedom as long as it's about making money, but when it comes right down to it, all those icky people need to behave themselves, and if they won't, we'll make them. We'll let you have your Glock, your Uzi and your undocumented Guatemalan maid as long as you're a Born-Again Christian, or at least vote like one.

Oh, and it's okay to get the maid pregnant, just don't abort.

|2.24.05 @ 11:45AM|#

wait a sec ... by pairing with libertarians, conservatives get "a conscience?" Of course conscience is subjective, but I thought libertarians were supposed to be proudly hard-hearted. I would venture to guess that your average conservative looks to the non-libertarian side of his political belief (i.e. religion) for his conscience. What libertarians give conservatives is logical coherence.

|2.24.05 @ 12:00PM|#

"by pairing with libertarians, conservatives get "a conscience?""

Well, when conservatives are advocating TORTURE (not just in extreme cases, either), I would say that we are the more compassionate group. It's one thing to force people to be responsible for themselves (what you call "hard-hearted"), but it's quite another step to advocate unwillful violation of their human rights (torture).

|2.24.05 @ 12:05PM|#

"the case for limiting government interference in people's lives was intimately tied to the value of the civic and familial institutions conservatives prize."

I don't see any logic in this. How does limiting the role of gov't prevent abortions, drug abuse and other things that social conservatives dislike?

>>by pairing with libertarians, conservatives get "a conscience?"

I think he means the conscience that makes you adhere to principles. The same principles that conservatives (and liberals) throw away once they are in power. Inherently it means that, as long as libertarians are part of the conservative movement, conservatives can use them to mask their own lack of principles.

Jeremy Lott|2.24.05 @ 12:08PM|#

For what it's worth, the "Friends with Benefits" formulation was proposed by moderator Gene Healy. Probably the best line of the night.

|2.24.05 @ 12:18PM|#

Like any pairing...one persons does the F*-ing and one person gets F*-ed. Care to guess how this is going to turn out? :-)

|2.24.05 @ 1:14PM|#

How does limiting the role of gov't prevent abortions, drug abuse and other things that social conservatives dislike? - Mark Borok

The choice, Mark, is between combatting any social ill you can name via voluntary association rather than through the force of the state. Think of Burke's "little platoons." What could be more "Conservative?" Cons also should prefer the principle of subsidiarity, which encourages dealing with such problems that are the purview of the state at the more local level, before appealing to the national government. We Americans used to employ this concept under the name of "Federalism", something lost on many of the Bushies.

Kevin

|2.24.05 @ 1:23PM|#

Lott emphasized the idea (Frank Meyer's?) of fusing libertarian means to conservative ends

To me this is exactly what is wrong. Liberty is a means to conservatism? WTF??? Conservatism is one means, Liberty is supposed to be the ends! This is why there is such as thing as left-leaning libertarians, because they see conservatism becoming an ends rather than a means; Bush certainly has no qualms about restricting liberty if it advances the cause of conservatism.

Robert D.|2.24.05 @ 1:29PM|#

This sort of debate almost seems pointless to me. As I think you accurately pointed out Julian, "Let's instead say that libertarians and conservatives are Friends with Benefits."

Well, friends with benefits are fine, so long as both the parties are clear on the arrangement, and both receive equal benefits. Libertarians and the party in general have suffered from this type of arrangement IMHO. I hate to sound like a cheerleader for the LP, but I think it's time for libertarians to be Libertarians already. Republitarians like Larry Elder and the like, need to stop having "quickies" with Bush, and instead help build a long term relationship with the LP. Help shape the LP in a fashion that promotes a viable and attractive alternative. If you don’t want to put the work in that’s needed, that’s another story.

Some of us are doing just this…

Site to be launched soon…
http://www.pushliberty.org

...from one of the Badnarik.org web developers
http://hammeroftruth.com

|2.24.05 @ 1:42PM|#

It all depends on the relationship between intellectual movements and the behavior of elected officials. In both the Democratic and Republican parties, there are intellectual movements which exert a real - but NOT decisive - influence on the caucus of elected officials.

These intellectual movements don't always get their way...and the Republican party doesn't supply the only examples - liberal intellectuals would have had the Democrats (or at least their presidential candidate) clearly oppose the Iraq war. They failed.

Libertarians - if associated with conservatives in the Republican party - wouldn't have made much difference on No Child Left Behind, or Prescription Drug Benefits - conservatives pretty much opposed those things, and it didn't make a difference.
They wouldn't have made a difference on Iraq - conservatives were for it, and so were Republican office-holders.
Republican office-holders tend to favor immigration reform, but movement conservatives mostly oppose it.
Republican office-holders are timid in confronting affirmative action - conservatives are eager to fight.

To participate in Republican politics, libertarians would sometimes act in concert with movement conservatives, and sometimes in disagreement, to have an influence on office-holders. They could probably enjoy SOME influence in either case...as well, perhaps, as some influence on the conservative movement itself, in the longer run.

It is hard to see similar opportunities among liberals and Democrats. It might be what you consider tonier company...but that's a little like being a waiter at the garden party.

|2.24.05 @ 1:45PM|#

kevrob -

I don't see how a strong federal gov't (from a social conservative's point of view)weakens the effectiveness of those "little platoons". The existence of the DEA doesn't hurt the local church and its attempts to deal with drug abuse. A federal ban on abortion would be much easier than fighting the issue state-by-state.

|2.24.05 @ 1:47PM|#

C: I disagree. One of the appalling things about the defenses of torture one occasionally sees--though far from the top of the list--is the level of cowardice it betrays. It's not, as they sometimes intimate, that people who oppose torture don't understand the stakes. It's that even with full recognition of the threat, some of us don't cower under the freshly-soiled bed and beg the government to protect us at ANY cost, principles of a free society be damned so long as we're safe. Or at any rate FEEL safe, since given the ineffectiveness of torture, it's hard not to see it primarily as a desire to assuage feelings of impotence in the face of a shadowy, unpredictable enemy by acting out a vicarious power fantasy. For all their crowing about freedom, they don't seem willing to accept any of the risks or costs that come with it. As with most bullies and blowhards, there's a wussy hiding under that macho exterior.

|2.24.05 @ 1:51PM|#

Andrew,

...conservatives pretty much opposed those things, and it didn't make a difference.

Which ones?

To participate in Republican politics, libertarians would sometimes act in concert with movement conservatives, and sometimes in disagreement, to have an influence on office-holders. They could probably enjoy SOME influence in either case...as well, perhaps, as some influence on the conservative movement itself, in the longer run.

Libertarians have participated, where has it gotten us? Nowhere.

|2.24.05 @ 1:52PM|#

Andrew,

Look, I know you are a Bushophile and everything, but can you sell your snake water elsewhere? Thanks.

|2.24.05 @ 2:43PM|#

Replying to Mark Borak

I don't see how a strong federal gov't (from a social conservative's point of view)weakens the effectiveness of those "little platoons".

The Feds, and state officials following their lead, have meddled tremendously in such relationships. Just consider the enforcement of "civil rights" laws on the first amendment right of free association, forcing single-sex service clubs to accept members of the other sex, on the theory that they foster business relationships. Where they couldn't outlaw such practices statist do-gooders have resorted to crap such as pulling liquor licenses, or denying tax exempt status.

The existence of the DEA doesn't hurt the local church and its attempts to deal with drug abuse.

Many of us who oppose the WoSD would say that criminalization of drug use does indeed hurt such efforts. Some people who could use a detox hesitate to ask for help because they fear criminal sanction, or a reputation as a crook.

A federal ban on abortion would be much easier than fighting the issue state-by-state.

In this case, the pro-lifers can't battle state-by-state, because Federal actions, namely Roe v. Wade and related cases, have made that impractical. Should Roe ever be reversed, abortion laws would once again become a matter for each state, while the Congress would have to deal only with the issue on federal installations, territories, etc. A Constitutonal Amendment could always be attempted, but there isn't enough support for that.

You have put your finger on a flaw in the M.O. of the current crowd in the White House. They frequently espouse the ends of limited government, then use statist means to attempt to achieve them. Sometimes, as in the case of education, they lose track of those ends entirely.

Kevin

|2.24.05 @ 2:59PM|#

Should Roe ever be reversed, abortion laws would once again become a matter for each state, while the Congress would have to deal only with the issue on federal installations, territories, etc.

In principle that would be the case: Abortion would become a state matter.

But in practice, well, is there any matter on which Congress has not claimed the right to legislate? Why would this incredibly contentious issue be any different when there are political points to be scored with the base on both sides by passing federal laws? Admittedly, a federal law that pre-empts states from banning abortion might be a little trickier than a federal ban, but you know somebody would try anyway.

Whatever one might think about abortion, let's not be so naive as to think that on this one issue the Congress would respect federalism.

|2.24.05 @ 3:28PM|#

thoreau:

Given SCOTUS' recent and very welcome ratchet-back of excesses of Commerce Clause-related legislation, I hold out the hope that the federal courts could rap the Congress on the knuckles if it tried exercise plenary authority in a Roe-reversed future. This is all speculation, of course, and the composition of the Court could change enough by the time that all of this might come to pass, so nothing is sure.

Kevin

|2.24.05 @ 3:58PM|#

Future Congressional reasoning to ban abortion:

Since each unborn baby will eventually grow up to be an adult, and that adult will buy stuff from a business in another state, the Commerce Clause allows us to protect that future consumer from the violence of the abortion doctor.


See, it isn't difficult at all to find justification for Congressional acts. Just posit that interstate commerce covers purchasing an item manufactured in another state (or made of materials from another state or the company that made them has a customer in another state or is owned by someone who once visited another state or ...) Then, stack your SCOTUS to allow such a reading and you are home free.

|2.24.05 @ 4:53PM|#

were libertarians even with conservatives on fighting communism? Sure both parties thought the Soviet Union, Red China wasn't the best thing but it libertarians didn't support Viet Nam War, and a whole host of other things. Major contingents of the libertarian movement, from what I have read like Rothbards followers thought the whole cold war was a crock. Outside of some involvement in the Goldwater campaign, Karl Hess comes to mind and perhaps a bit in Raygun's first campaigns for the presidency, '76 & '80 I don't think we were ever with conservatives to begin with.

|2.24.05 @ 7:12PM|#

I'm sure that the Dems could come up with some sort of ICC rationale for mandating that abortion remain legal. Undoubtedly a state abortion ban would have some sort of impact on interstate commerce.

In fact, I have it on good authority that the Laws of Thermodynamics act to limit interstate commerce by making energy scarce. I call for their immediate repeal!

I'm sure we could get a few members of Congress to sponsor that legislation. Maybe we could even get Rick Santorum to sponsor it if we told him that the laws of thermodynamics are mostly invoked by people who believe in evolution. (Santorum has been supportive of teaching "Intelligent Design" in schools.)

Warren|2.24.05 @ 7:23PM|#

DOC,
That is THE best post in this whole series.

|2.24.05 @ 11:43PM|#

I enjoyed the event, but I suspect Mitchell's typed-yet-rambling half-thoughts may have been the result of monkeys' keystrokes. Did she realize she was speaking in public?