Do You Believe in Small Gov't? Then You're Not a Conservative

[Lemur]

Fascinating article about the Republican identity by a speechwriter and policy adviser to El Presidente. Apparently small-government advocates are fundamentalists. Who knew?

As antigovernment conservatives seek to purify the Republican Party, it is reasonable to ask if the purest among them are conservatives at all. The combination of disdain for government, a reflexive preference for markets and an unbalanced emphasis on individual choice is usually called libertarianism.

[...]

Campaigning on the size of government in 2008, while opponents talk about health care, education and poverty, will seem, and be, procedural, small-minded, cold and uninspired. The moral stakes are even higher. What does antigovernment conservatism offer to inner-city neighborhoods where violence is common and families are rare? Nothing. What achievement would it contribute to racial healing and the unity of our country? No achievement at all. Anti-government conservatism turns out to be a strange kind of idealism—an idealism that strangles mercy.

In other words, just stop it! Stop asking for smaller government and balanced budgets! We're never going to fix everything for everyone that way! The government is obliged to heal broken families and lift entire segments of society out of poverty, and if you're running around, spouting off your selfish libertarian rhetoric, you're "small-minded, cold and uninspired."

[edit]

Ouch! Another source disses libertarians as electorally impotent. Double-ouch!

President Bush's share of the libertarian vote dropped precipitously between 2000 and 2004. But, during that time, Bush's total share of the vote rose by almost 3 percent. So, however many voters were turned off by the prescription-drug bill or the Patriot Act, many more were turned on. This demonstrates the obvious (to nonlibertarians, anyway) point that wooing a small bloc with unpopular views is not a sound political strategy. Likewise, if Democrats were to denounce psychiatry and quote endlessly from the works of L. Ron Hubbard, they could jack up their share of the Scientologist vote, but it probably wouldn't help their overall popularity.

[Xiahou]

Like I said, it seems that many Republican politicians missed the point of the last election- it wasnt that they sold out their base, no sir... it was because they didn't offer enough pork and hand-outs.

[yesdachi]

What does antigovernment conservatism offer to inner-city neighborhoods where violence is common and families are rare? Nothing.

I consider the inner-city neighborhoods to be the cities or maybe even the states problem not the smaller federal government that I desires problem. Every level of government needs to take care of their own problems and be held responsible for holding up their part of the country. What could a giant socialized government do for inner-city neighborhoods? Throw more money at them?

The trouble with inner-city neighborhoods is that there are too many people in them, we shouldn’t be trying to make the inner cities nicer and fix all the problems with them, we should be trying to get people to move away from them. No jobs, crappy places to live, poor schools, lots of crime… move, dur!


Sorry Lemur, this is probably not the direction you envisioned for the thread but it is the part that caught my attention.

[Lemur]

Sorry Lemur, this is probably not the direction you envisioned for the thread but it is the part that caught my attention.

Why apologize? You're addressing the appropriate role of Federal, State and local government, which is entirely on topic. Besides which, when I start a thread, I rarely try to manage where it goes. I see it more like tossing a pebble into a pond, and following the ripples.

[lars573]

The trouble with inner-city neighborhoods is that there are too many people in them, we shouldn’t be trying to make the inner cities nicer and fix all the problems with them, we should be trying to get people to move away from them. No jobs, crappy places to live, poor schools, lots of crime… move, dur!

This is so, so, so, wrong. If anything people leaving cities is what caused the bad neighbourhoods. Suburban life is what caused urban life to be such a mess. If middle class people were encouraged to live in urban areas they'd wouldn't be such holes.



Anyway it's my honest beleif that what you Yanks like to call small government became impossible in the last 70 years. With the demands placed on modern states a "small" government is not going to be able to provide the services it's people want and deserve. Decentralization is the key. But not the chaotic, haphazard, mess that you guy seem to love.

This is one place that Canada's system excels. It's paradoxically highly centralized and highly decentralized. If we look at law enforcement we have 1 body, the RCMP, that provides the same service as 5 US agencies (FBI, DEA, Marshals, Homeland security). They also have contracts to provide local policing in outside cities in all provinces save Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland. But in justice it's highly decentralized. Where beyond our singular criminal code 1 federal court in Ottowa and the federal supreme court. All matters of procecution of criminals and incarceration there off are provincial matters.

Also I think that local officials should be kept relatively powerless. Local is the most crooked of the 3 levels.

[Don Corleone]

I'm a small c conservative. I believe in limited government. But I do have to agree, at least some, with the arguments put forth by the author of the article. In an effort to restrain corruption, graft and all the other ills that plague Washington D.C. , we cannot abandon those people who rely on the government's action, regardless of how woefully inadequate, corrupt and misplaced that action may be at times.

Urban squalor predates liberal domestic spending policies. There were plenty of illegitimate children in Victorian New York, Boston & Philly, before the New Deal was even a pipe dream. The disenfranchised poor (those born, raised, living and dying in abject poverty) predate Marx and any idea of social justice, so poverty and other social ills cannot be 'blamed' on liberal social programs. These programs may have exacerbated the problems, but they didn't cause them, so limiting one's approach to their removal cannot be expected to solve these problems.

My biggest argument against Big Government is not the idea that people in dire circumstances need help. They DO, and I feel deeply obligated to do what I can to help them. But if a man is drowning, and I have a choice between throwing them a half-deflated tube or rowing a boat over to them, which should I do? Aren't I obligated to exercise reason, evaluate the problem, and provide the best possible solution to the problem? Raising taxes and giving it to the Ted Kennedy's of the world, who always do enough to help, never enough to fix, is not helping the chronically poor. And it's lazy, and frankly unethical of me, to close my eyes and just keep sending money to Washington.

This is why I believe in charter schools so strongly. The NEA doesn't care about educating children. Examine their charter or their literature, and you'll see discussions of 'implemenation of policy', not 'providing the tools for self-reliance'. So while I agree that in the absence of better solutions, the government must do something, I deeply believe that the government is so abjectly corrupt and inefficient, it should be the solution of last resort. All possible effort should be made to find reasonable, workable solutions that actually solve poverty, not prolong it.

[yesdachi]

This is so, so, so, wrong. If anything people leaving cities is what caused the bad neighbourhoods. Suburban life is what caused urban life to be such a mess. If middle class people were encouraged to live in urban areas they'd wouldn't be such holes.

I sort of agree with you but not entirely, middle class people should be encouraged to live in urban areas to prevent them from becoming holes but once they are holes the people have to get out, there is a line and once it is crossed you might as well give up, it will cost more (in money and civic value) to maintain the area then to just rent everyone a u-haul. Once the people are out it allows for a more manageable population in regards to schools, police, jobs, etc. A less populated area will also be more susceptible to a kind of reverse urban sprawl, where thru tax incentives and designated Renaissance Zones developers are able to sprawl back into (rather than away from) the inner cities making them more desirable and drawing the critical middle class back into the area.

A conscience city will be able to maintain their inner cities but once they start going downhill (which seems to be the case most often) there is no stopping them (slowing them is a valid option depending on how far downhill they are IMO). From a middle class persons perspective why would I want to stay in an area that was going downhill? The suburbs are a desirable area for most of the middle class, I live in an older, i.e. affordable, area in the suburbs of Grand Rapids, the schools, security, highway access, shopping, etc. are all better and the inner city areas that were once populated or had business in them are now being redeveloped into new business and condos and stores, without the rush of people exiting the urban areas the redevelopment would not have been able to have happened and we would have ended up with a hole. Now, GR is hardly an “inner-city” environment but the same principle applies. Get the people out, get the developers in to fix the place up and draw the people back. A people = locusts analogy comes to mind

The role the government would play is primarily from a local level with tax and redevelopment support from a state level, so a minimal federal government would still be an option to deal with this sort of issue.


You make a great point about the differences between the law enforcement in Canadaland and the US (I wonder if we have considered outsourcing our homeland security to Canada )

[lars573]

I sort of agree with you but not entirely, middle class people should be encouraged to live in urban areas to prevent them from becoming holes but once they are holes the people have to get out, there is a line and once it is crossed you might as well give up, it will cost more (in money and civic value) to maintain the area then to just rent everyone a u-haul. Once the people are out it allows for a more manageable population in regards to schools, police, jobs, etc. A less populated area will also be more susceptible to a kind of reverse urban sprawl, where thru tax incentives and designated Renaissance Zones developers are able to sprawl back into (rather than away from) the inner cities making them more desirable and drawing the critical middle class back into the area.

A conscience city will be able to maintain their inner cities but once they start going downhill (which seems to be the case most often) there is no stopping them (slowing them is a valid option depending on how far downhill they are IMO). From a middle class persons perspective why would I want to stay in an area that was going downhill? The suburbs are a desirable area for most of the middle class, I live in an older, i.e. affordable, area in the suburbs of Grand Rapids, the schools, security, highway access, shopping, etc. are all better and the inner city areas that were once populated or had business in them are now being redeveloped into new business and condos and stores, without the rush of people exiting the urban areas the redevelopment would not have been able to have happened and we would have ended up with a hole. Now, GR is hardly an “inner-city” environment but the same principle applies. Get the people out, get the developers in to fix the place up and draw the people back. A people = locusts analogy comes to mind

In Halifax the condo development area is fairly small. Most residential areas are two story or less homes. And low rise apartments.

You make a great point about the differences between the law enforcement in Canadaland and the US (I wonder if we have considered outsourcing our homeland security to Canada )

From the what I've read the US marshals began very close to what the RCMP were. However trying to role the FBI, DEA, and HLS into the Marshals would be a huge headache. But a unified federal law enforcement body (no matter how monolithic) is more efficient. If all enforcemtn concerns are handled from one angency you have no turf wars. Which always serve no one.