Is Dennis Prager a closet progressive? I must admit that before reading his November 2nd trollop from NRO/NPR, he was unknown to me. But while writing a response to that op-ed, I perused his website and came away shaking my head in disappointment. I don’t want to spend too much time on Mr. Prager, since he’s not very intellectually stimulating, but there is one point to be discussed.
What’s Up With Closeted Progressivism?
Last week, Prager published a voting guide on his website (I love voting guides, because they assume so much audience knowledge and interest in the author’s viewpoint.) I was surprised to find this:
Prop 19 – Legalizing Marijuana – NO
This is a classic case of liberal Stage One thinking. The results will be nothing like liberals envision. Nothing good will come of this (certainly not “the billions” they claim it will generate in tax revenue) and the quality of life in California will further deteriorate. When government sanctions something, people engage in more of it. Do we really want to encourage Californians to smoke more pot?
Now, it seems pretty impressive to use a phrase like “liberal Stage One thinking,” except that the underlying logic is so convoluted that it’s not possible for us to attribute any real intellect here. And, by the way, “Stage One thinking” isn’t inherently liberal, so the proper construction should be “Stage One liberal thinking.” Just sayin’…
To my conservative friends, do we see the problem here?
Let me illustrate with a quote from Carrie Nation, that tireless and ideological reformer of The Progressive Movement:
[Liquor is] the open sore of this land…the most fiendish, corrupt and hell-soaked institution that ever crawled out of the slime of the eternal pit.
So Prager wants to employ prohibition to affect the quality of life in California. He sanctions the use of government to shape social values and behavior, in order to minimize secondary effects like crime, divorce and religious participation (my examples.) Can someone explain how that is philosophically different from Carrie Nation smashing saloons in order to improve marriages and reduce crime? Doesn’t conservatism place trust in the individual to make choices and live with the consequences? If, as Prager asserts, we can easily affect social behavior through legislation, then why aren’t we doing more of that? Why stop with pot, when we could prohibit divorce, liquor, and public hand-holding?
My politics are not dogmatic, but I think it’s safe to say that conservatives wouldn’t call me one of their own, despite my sharing a number of convictions with them. Still, I believe it’s important to have a real conservative movement in this country, and we just don’t. The right wing has become an arbitrary platform of issues that are labeled conservative, but as this example illustrates, have no grounding in political philosophy. Where are the pure of heart who really want to limit government? The fact is, a robust conservative movement in this country might force the left wing to sharpen their pencils, and the civil debate would be dramatically elevated.
One final note: today’s political landscape is the synthesis of yesteryear’s battle between conservatism and progressivism. It is impossible to analyze contemporary attitudes and actions without paying homage to the contributions of Carrie Nation, Eugene Debs, William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long and FDR. Distancing oneself from this pedigree is the same as denying a crazy parent. In a sense, the Progressive Movement gave birth to modern conservatives. And while you may not want to bring your friends home to meet her, you share the same chin and eye color with your mother.
William F. Buckley called. He rolled over in his grave and can’t light his smoke.
Dennis Prager, a syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist for the National Review Online, wrote a piece that was published on the NPR website November 2nd. It explains his reasoning for straight-ticket voting, and the argument deserves a response.
I’m not going to argue against Mr. Prager’s opinions, although it’s tempting. That is for another venue, and since I’m not a foreign policy expert or economist, it would provide you nothing except a “he said, he said” tussle. Nor is it necessary, for there are plenty of problems with the presuppositions Prager relies upon to make his argument; they are my focus.
Let’s begin with the statement, “With only two parties competing in American elections, each party has had to encompass a much wider spectrum of ideologies.” In order for this to be true, the majority of viewpoints in American society would have to be represented, and there is no evidence this is the case. Nor is the statement intuitive: the GOP experienced ideological purges after 1964, 1992 and 2004. Independent voters, which now make up a majority of the electorate, move back and forth between the parties (the antithesis of Prager’s op-ed), demonstrating their ideology is represented by neither party. I could easily design a party platform which perfectly reflects my views, instead of being forced to compromise and support an existing political party. However, the assertion is convenient for those who want to claim the Democratic Party represents socialists and Marxists, but that is no more valid than claiming all Republicans are fascists. No genuine, intellectual analysis would claim that. If you doubt me, go find an authentic socialist and ask them if they agree with the Obama administration’s economic plan.
And quickly, before I move on, the Republican Party is not – “at long last” – the party of small government. Movement leaders, as recently as last week, are on record supporting Social Security, Medicare and ever-expanding military involvement throughout the world. Even Prager advocates military intervention in Iran, in his own op-ed. George W. Bush refuses to repudiate his use of torture or indefinite detention, and it is uncertain whether the GOP is willing to investigate or prosecute him. The PATRIOT Act is still alive and well. These are not the hallmarks of small government. As I have argued in the past, the GOP – even with its infusion of Tea Party energy – does not behave in a conservative fashion. The mistake made by Prager and others is confusing positions adopted by conservatives as being conservative positions.
He also asserts that small government is required for liberty. I’ve never really understood this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fluent in Hayek’s economic argument about centralized planning. And my knowledge of American and Modern European history equals or bests the next guy. Maybe that’s where I miss the point: liberalism was a movement to provide more liberty to citizens. It didn’t reject government, it simply decentralized power. Dethrone the monarch and allow the subjects participation and responsibility. The Boston Tea Party wasn’t about taxes, it was about a lack of representation in Parliament. So I have to ask Mr. Prager, do you think taxes are tyrannical, or are you an anarchist?
But my favorite has to be the contemporary trap of political philosophy: equating American exceptionalism with conservative values. Exceptionalism – the assertion of moral superiority and projection of might around the world – gained considerable momentum after World War II, and has advanced unimpeded. It has roots in Natural Law (see Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of Inequality) and bears a striking resemblance to the Jacobinism that early conservatives and our forefathers were so afraid of. It is a radical belief that we can remake the world in our political image, with little regard for the “cultural gravity” of other societies. By laying claim to it, the American Right betrays its heritage and history in the conservatism of Burke and Adams.
Now, Prager and those of a similar mind are free to believe what they wish, which kind of neuters the argument that Democrats are opposed to liberty. If he wishes to assert that George W. Bush’s knowledge of foreign policy is more impressive than Joe Biden’s, so be it: people can judge that statement on their own. But let’s be clear: when he champions “Sarah Palin [confronting] Iran rather than [placing] her faith in negotiations and in the United Nations” he makes an assertion that has no basis in conservative philosophy. And yet he uses conservatism to provide credibility to his argument, asking people to believe that his path is traditional, reasoned and proven, when it is not. Instead, the contemporary American Right seeks to refashion society in a form that hasn’t existed in over 150 years, if ever. It’s goal is to start over, rejecting almost all of the progress this country has achieved, and discarding the tradition and incrementalism that is the hallmark of conservative principles.
There is a reason that right-of-center thinkers like myself have a problem with the GOP. It’s the same reason that Russell Kirk, who wrote the definitive tome on modern conservative thought, “The Conservative Mind,” broke with them. It is the same reason that Reagan Republicans like Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, John McCain and Olympia Snowe are in the crosshairs of the Tea Party: the American Right has radically transformed itself over the past three decades. In the process, it has dragged the rest of the political apparatus along with it. And while I realize the advantage of modifying the frame of debate to cast the Right as defenders of liberty, that does nothing to advance civil discourse. For there is nothing inherently free about small government, or inherently oppressive about big government. It is the reach of government and it’s openness to participation that is important.
I can think of a lot of words to describe the Democratic Party: cowardly, corporate, spineless, disinterested, but radical would not be one of them. Over the next few months, as Mitch McConnell and John Boehner refuse to legislate in order to disgrace the President of the United States, we need to stay focused on what is really the radical agenda. Is it a barely-left-of-center President attempting to meet in the middle, or a Republican leadership wanting to turn back the clock to the Gilded Age? Prager eschews the prospect of European progress; let him honestly argue for third-world economic isolation.
