Speaking up for the Blue Dogs

Chris Bowers, Campaign Director at the Daily Kos is venting his frustration over electoral setbacks by flooding the internet with attacks upon the "Blue Dogs" -- Democrats in Congress who, calling themselves moderates, were elected in less-than-liberal districts.  Your typical Blue Dog may be (for example) a retired military officer who generally supports women's rights, the civil service, labor unions, science and the environment -- but who will also sometimes balk at parts of the core party agenda, especially over fiscal, taxation or defense-related matters.

Without question, the Blue Dog Caucus was an occasional headache for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, during the four years of a tense Democratic majority. While Republicans in Congress have shown themselves to be the most disciplined and tightly-organized party machine in U.S. history, marching obediently to their leaders' tune, Pelosi found, in sharp contrast, that democrats are no different than they were in Will Rogers' 1930s... less a "party" than a herd of disorderly cats.

(In fact, I've long urged that the Democrats make use of these distinctly-different images.  The Dems' perpetual disorganization conveys a certain quality of almost-endearing harmlessness! While one has only to speak, in sardonic "envy," about the GOP's lockstep precision in order to evoke unflattering comparisons, without even mentioning certain other rigid party machines of the 20th Century.  Alas, no one seems to have picked up on this clever political imagery.)

So, what was the chief effect of having a bunch of Blue Dogs, yapping and occasionally growling, as Nancy Pelosi herded together her diverse coalition?  For the last four years our Congress was a deliberative body, all right.  But all real negotiation had to take place within the democratic caucus.
That was where a true diversity of (sane) American political opinion was both represented and expressed.  It was our House of Commons... as opposed to the GOP's House of Lords. And that happened largely because the Blue Dogs - and other quirky exceptions - were welcome inside the Democratic tent.

The only way to get negotiation... and win over new friends

It is only through the Blue Dogs that whole swathes of genuine American political perspective wound up getting meaningfully voiced. Only because of these collegial but also critical comrades, did the liberals find themselves forced to listen, to explain, and sometimes to adjust their endeavors, taking into account the worries and concerns of decent Americans who just happen to think a little differently.
Let's be clear. Because the Republicans deliberately absented themselves from any meaningful negotiation, over any issue at all, it was

That may be tactically inconvenient, but it is strategically vital, over the long run. Heck, of all the differences between Democrats and Republicans, that diversity within their caucus should be their biggest source of pride!

But not, apparently, according to Chris Bowers or the guys at Kos:

  "Democrats suffered serious losses on Tuesday, but no one was hit harder than the corporatist Blue Dogs. Over half their members are gone. Apparently, being the GOP's best friends on issue after issue wasn't the political winner they claimed it was. ...  But getting drubbed hasn't made the Blue Dogs humble. Now, they have Nancy Pelosi in their sights, demanding she step down as Democratic leader in the House. The Blue Dogs want to replace her with one of their own, so they can deliver our entire party to Wall Street."

What can I say? This could not conceivably be more wrong-headed.

First, Should the dems strive to imitate the disciplined partisanship of the Republicans? Even if that were a good idea (it isn't), tell me how you expect to achieve it? Democrats differ from Republicans over more than policy. Far more, it is a matter of personality.

Second, there is no sign whatsoever that Blue Dogs were less in favor of renewed regulatory oversight of the gamblers and thieves who ran wild, under neocon rule.  Sure, they seem more inclined than I would like, to restore some of the expiring Bushite tax cuts for the rich.  So? That is a policy position worth arguing over!  Negotiating. Listening, counter-arguing, yelling, then listening some more and trying out compromises... it is the old American way.  Just because the GOP has gone crazy with purist dogmatism, does that mean Democrats have to?

But there is another problem with Bowers's contemptuous dismissal of this contingent of (mildly) "conservative democrats."  Sure, the Blue Dogs suffered badly in the 2010 elections.  There is a reason for that.

Blue dogs are the ones on the front lines! They are the democrats fighting it out in the districts that can be contested.  They were the men and women who forged ahead and took back the House in 2006.  Above all, they they are the ones who go from door to door, in heartland constituencies, prying one voter after another away from the GOP.

They haven't been sitting around, spouting sanctimony from gerrymandered safe seats. They are the best fighters the democrats have got.

Let me make this plain.  I do not agree with everything the Blue Dogs do, say or believe.  I want those Bushite tax breaks for the rich to simply end.  Period. And there's much more.

 But I have a stronger agenda... to once again have a Congress where negotiating and deliberation takes place. One can dream that might happen by the Republican Party awakening from its Fox-Pox fever and returning to the gentility and reason of Barry Goldwater. Or it can happen by the Democratic Party truly opening a big tent, for all who want to argue and negotiate like grownups.

We need more Blue Dogs.  A lot more.

My own district in California has been gerrymandered into being "safe" for a GOP congressman who is a decidedly unproductive, unhelpful and dogmatic person, uninterested in repairing the damage of neocon misrule, only in playing Rupert Murdoch's tune.

Living next to a military base, I have to wonder -- why does our local democratic party keep nominating Santa Monica-style liberals, in a gerried-conservative district, instead of recruiting some decent (if crewcut) ex-Marine colonel, with fire in his belly and an appreciation for science, trees, logic, accountability and strong-willed women? If he believes in these things, and can (unlike some purist liberal) actually win here, must we exclude him with some litmus test or partisan purity on other matters?

Look, we have one hope to save America from the Murdochians.  And it is not to copy their fierce partisanship.  The goppers can be weakened but only by shattering their coalition.  By convincing a few million fairly-decent, old-fashioned conservatives that it just isn't Barry Goldwater's Republican Party anymore.  (Goldwater himself disowned the neocon-dominated GOP as having "gone mad," just before he died.)

Sure, Blue Dogs won't always vote the way all liberals want. So?  Dig it, the people who live in "swing" districts really ARE different than voters in Santa Monica or San Francisco, and hence they deserve to have their better views represented.  If they can be persuaded to send a Blue Dog -- say, a decent and pragmatic ex-military officer who believes in womens' rights, and in science, and in *negotiation*... then I say terrific.  We can work with men and women like that.

You may find them irksome, at times, but they are the silver bullets that can nail Murdoch and his oligarchs, getting their fangs out of our necks.

Now is the winter of our discontent... made glorious summer by “that one” Barack....

Get it? Rolls off the tongue? Ah well.

Having cut back my political screeds to once a month - and maybe twice a month for other matters - let me start February's mensual political flashflood with....

1. THE OTHER “C-WORD”

In my previous missive, I remarked on how President Obama’s inaugural address proposed to “restore science to its proper place.” Signifying that we may (at long last) be departing a proudly know-nothing era.   Only later did I recall where I had seen a similar phrase:

Our countrymen have recovered from the alarm into which art and industry had thrown them; science and honesty are replaced on their high ground.
     - Thomas Jefferson, on entering office and repealing the Alien & Sedition Acts

Dang, is Obama mining everybody for ideas?  First Lincoln, then both Roosevelts, JFK, Reagan, Ike and now Jefferson?  Not that I’m complaining about the quality of his sources...

Also last time, I spoke of what I considered to be the most “telling” word in his speech - notable because he did not have to mention it.  Of course, I was glad to hear tolerance, responsibility, justice, progress, openness, accountability and so on, spoken with intense sincerity, for a change.  Other virtues, freedom and leadership, seemed to be rescued from the bizarre half-meanings they held in recent years.  Still, in a sense, he had to mention all of those.  But what sparked my interest was a word that nobody expected - and that would win no particular political or rhetorical points.  It was totally his own volition to include curiosity.  I suggested that this may reveal much about the man.

As a quick followup, before heading on to other matters in a long monthly compendium, I must turn from curiosity to the other “c-word” that lurks, like a ghost at the banquet. Almost diametrically opposite, this anti-virtue represents perhaps the worst trait of the awful gang who left our country such a shambles.  No, not “corruption” or “criminality” or “cretinous.” The worst Bush era anti-virtue was certainty.

The kind of absolute certainty manifested by a clade that demolished the very same Pax Americana they claimed to love, by pursuing, with absolute determination (plus contempt for all criticism) policies that proved to be at-best wrong, and often criminally delusional. Even the “reform minded” McCain-Palin ticket shared this strange and childish anti-value, stressing proudly, over and over, their perfection of will, an iron-jawed grit that arises straight from the gut, not out of any namby pamby enlightenment process of assertion, evidence, argument, negotiation or reciprocal accountability. A stubborn, schoolyard obstinacy that is elevated and extolled as something somehow admirable.

This, I believe, is the root cause of the situation that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell bemoaned last week, in a blunt warning to Republicans: “We’re all concerned about the fact that the very wealthy and the very poor, the most and least educated, and a majority of minority voters, seem to have more or less stopped paying attention to us. And we should be concerned that, as a result of all this, the Republican Party seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one.”

No doubt, in McConnel’s mind, the GOP “region” is geographical -- largely the South and the Mormon Belt.  But I think a map that would be even more telling is wherever towns and counties have seen their smartest young people move away, via university and profession, leaving behind those who feel viscerally abandoned, resentful and hurt.  I refer to Limbaugh-Land, where citizens have only limited access to diversity, or diverse opinions, but live instead immersed in media voices who preach nothing but indignant fury.  And if there is one thing about addictive indignation, we know that it flourishes best in an ambience of unswerving, unquestioned certainty.

Oh, there are some things in life that do merit gritty resolution. Love of family.  Loyalty. Freedom (in the true sense, and not reducing it to a tribal totem-slogan). Also courage, charity, and a willingness to keep fighting for a better world -- first through negotiation but also by confronting bona fide “evil-doers.”  Heck, I can go for all of that, and fie upon snooty/urban fools who sneer at such things, from an equally-flaky left!  We need to improve, a great deal!  But of all nations -- especially those that were ever tempted by great power -- none could ever brag of a higher ratio of goodness over villainy and error.

Anyway, wasn’t that supposed to be the purpose of Pax Americana?  Moreover, from the ecstatic worldwide reception given President BHO, perhaps people all over the world still feel that ought to be our role.  We may have one more chance to prove we deserve it for the crucial time that it takes to forge a grownup civilization.  Of that much, I feel certain.

Nevertheless, it’s become clear why right-wing “certainty” has such a grip, festering still, in at least a quarter of the nation.  It offers a clear and simple rebutal against those postgrad-educated folk who talk like they know so much -- and probably do -- but who are so superior and irritating.  After all, in Hollywood films, isn’t it the villain who goes on and on, in polysyllabic, explanatory monologues about how logical his plan is?  Until the hero -- Bruce Willis, or Sylvester or Arnold -- simply shouts “Oh, yeah?” and blasts the scoundrel with utter moral... certainty?

In other words, doesn’t this attitude resonate in American tradition?  Without it, might we long ago have tumbled into a different nightmare?  Technocracy, or rule by the smartypants? Ew!

During our present pendulum swing back toward sanity and calm thought, let’s remember that the know-nothings do have a complaint.  It is 95% crap, but we would be wrong to respond to their moronic contempt with a similar (if reciprocal)... certainty.


2.  AN ILLUSTRATION OF HOW BAD IT’S BEEN

Which leads me to an article published recently in the Wall Street Journal by Eliot A. Cohen, Condoleeza Rice’s foreign policy advisor, or the (supposedly) smart guy who guided the smart people who guided Pax Americana for all but two months (so far) of the 21st Century.  In “How Government Looks at Pundits” Cohen offered his list of reasons why government insiders have little patience or use for input from others, beyond the narrow circle of those who receive “three-to-six-inch-thick briefing books, every day.”

 On the discussion list of SIGMA (the “think tank of scientific science fiction authors”) several members were all-aflutter over how this splash of cold water should remind us outside consultants to keep our expectations low, no matter who is in power or what philosophies or personalities guide our myriad agencies.

Appalled at this complacent acceptance, I’m afraid I went a bit ballistic!  Nobody else seemed to recognize Cohen’s article as a lengthy and utterly horrific apologia by one of the chief architects of the demolition of the American Pax,. In-effect, a longwinded whine about how nobody but a uniform and self-referential ingroup should ever expect to be heeded.

In vain, I searched his article for any mention of processes that might track outcomes and/or re-appraise policies in light of predictive success or failure.  No mention of the pragmatic aim of finding people - both inside and outside of government - who happen to be right a lot and bringing them into the “briefing books” layer.  No interest - or curiosity - about how his own error-avoidance methods might improve.  Nor, of course, any awareness that the self-limiting perspective that he described might be a pathology. A perniciously destructive one, that merits correction by smart, sincere, skilled and patriotic people.

What I did find was the following especially bizarre excerpt:

”Do not prescribe a policy that the current group of officials cannot hope to implement because of who they are. I have had highly intelligent individuals -- including some with senior government experience -- sit in my office and lay out perfectly plausible policies that the current team, limited by time remaining in office, the pressure of competing and more urgent crises, and the all important mix of personalities, could never hope to put into effect. Moreover, core beliefs and style constrain policy makers profoundly. So don't ask them to do something outside their range of psychological possibility by, for example, proposing cold-eyed realpolitik to a band of idealists or vice versa.”

So, let me get this straight.  We are to be guided by a core “band” that steers the ship of state with gut-level certainty, while accepting no advice, no feedback or course-correction based on ongoing metrics, having culled themselves of not only diversity of philosophy, but any difference in personality?   As if any leader worth more than a bucket of warm seawater would not make sure to employ realists and idealists and all kinds that might both temper and challenge one another?  Questioning assumptions and seeking good ideas, whatever the source?

Reminder, this was the best and most highly-touted kind of “expert” that we got under Bush.  The very brightest of the brightest of those who have been ruling us, all but two months of the 21st century. With results and outcomes that are blatantly obvious to all.


3.  CAN WE BE MORE ROBUST?

What bothers me above all else?  I’ve raised it many times before, from Defense Department consultations to magazine articles -- the issue of fragility vs resilience, and how much less robust we’ve become.  Especially, my teeth ache over small tweaks of public policy that might address so many these manmade fralities and potential failure modes.  A few examples:

1) Reversing the inventory tax (e.g Thor Power Tools) into a mild inventory incentive could ease a curse that was bequeathed on us by the same MBA dunces who invented "efficient investment instruments."  I speak of "just-in-time" delivery practices that leave our industries and cities without any reserves, to keep us going in case of transport disruptions.  (Taxing inventory would seem to be especially unwise right now, when unsold goods are piling up at companies in delicate health.)

2) A minuscule tax on un-hardened electronics - something very small would do no harm but exert perpetual pressure on Intel, Ford etc to come up with chips and electronics that won't be fried by a simple EMP.

3) Require that all cell phones have a backup peer-to-peer, packet-based system, allowing simple text messages to leave an afflicted area, even when normal cell towers are down.  Thus empowering citizens to communicate, when they need it most.

4) Tax incentives for companies to sponsor CERT team (civil defense) training among employees and neighbors.

Those are just four (of many) relatively small "stitch in time" policy endeavors that could add robustness to society without costing much at all.

Here is another one from author Wil McCarthy: Adding some capacitance to the power grid would be a big deal, too. The  reason our current grid can't support more than about 10% wind power is because it's an LRC circuit with no C. The reason power failures can cascade out of control: same deal. The current system is very brittle. A power grid with distributed capacitance could, for example, go into a  "safe mode" where all the interconnects were severed either regionally,  locally, or even down the neighborhood level, and run independently for a few minutes (or even hours) while the problem is sorted out. The ability to break up the grid for even a few seconds would make it a lot less vulnerable to spikes, EMP, sabotage, etc. Why not pay property owners to house an ultracapacitor or battery bank, the same way cell phone companies pay for towers? For serious storage, you can even go to hydrolysis and fuel cells, although that's more hazardous and requires more infrastructure. I'm also a big fan of the Mormon practice of keeping a two-year supply of food on hand.


4. A SUGGESTION FOR DEALING WITH GOP TACTICS

Some of you have checked out my “100 unusual suggestions for the Obama Administration.”  Now here’s another.

 Facing Obama’s 70% approval ratings (the highest since Eisenhower), and especially after experiencing the President’s forthcoming and genial engagement, Congressional republicans are playing nice... verbally, that is. Said Mitch McConnell: "I know I'm speaking for every single member of our conference that we appreciated his coming up (to meet with Coingressfolk), and enjoyed the whole exchange." To some extent, Republicans -- along with the rest of the country -- may still be getting used to having a president who realizes Congress exists as an independent branch of the federal government, and not merely as a collection of 535 minor irritants to be alternately steamrolled or ignored. As another GOP aide joked, Obama paid more attention on Tuesday to House Republicans than George W. Bush did in most of the last eight years.

Alas, this did not extend to offering any support for the economic rescue package. (Which, frankly, has in it some items I would like to have seen the GOP members assertively and pragmatically bargain-down!  The aren’t always wrong, at the level of specifics.) The GOP members voted nay, as a bloc, in order to position themselves, in case BHO’s program fails.

One tactic the dems might try -- pass, by a narrow partisan majority, a bill without any GOP-loved sweeteners.  Then offer a vote on a replacement package that contains such sweeteners, but requiring a super-majority.  Let’s see if their business constituents will act swiftly to null out the political gamesmanship.


5. REMINDER OF RECENT ITEMS

Those who have been following my political commentaries know that I have long favored efforts to wean our more decent conservative neighbors away from their reflex-driven alliance with the kleptos and know-nothings who have hijacked their movement.  Conservatism, in its better form, deserves a place at the negotiating table, but it can only return to credibility if its saner members gather the courage and patriotism to do what democrats and liberals did in 1947 -- by cutting themselves off from monsters, dogmatists, troglodytes and a bona fide criminal gang.

And an older essay (still relevant).

Those interested in following up on this concept can find more grist for thought in "Building a Rhetorical Bridge To (and For) Reasonable Conservatives," by my colleague in the SIGMA think tank of scientific science fiction authors, Dr. Charles E. Gannon. Most insightful.

Ex GOP Congressman and Heritage Foundation co-founder Mickey Edwards writes about his realization that today’s neocon movement has abandoned Ronald Reagan’s version of conservatism -- along with Locke and Madison and any kind of common sense.  Of course, I’ve been long pointing out that it is much worse than that.  Today’s “conservatism” has betrayed - above all - Adam Smith and market capitalism.  Indeed, its central paradigm is to assist the quasi feudal crony-aristocratism that Smith despised as the worst and most consistent foe of market enterprise.

Somebody refer Mr. Edwards to my paper about the “miracle of 1947”? 


6. SATIRES

Atlas Shrugged Updated For The Current Financial Crisis. by Jeremiah Tucker

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?


And now... although I have more items (a lot!) to offer, I’ll clip and offer them only to the die-hards among you!  By posting them below, under “comments.”  Some are cute or weird.  All political.

Above all, I am hoping that politics will simply matter less, real soon! I am tired of it.  I want civilization to consider politics just another problem solving tool, one among many, and no longer obsess on it, as (ironically) has been the case under the error... er, era... of the neocons.

Can Conservatives...or Liberals... Govern?

An interesting essay crossed my line of sight, written by Alan Wolfe (author of Does American Democracy Still Work?) on “Why Conservatives Can't Govern”. Published in the July/August Washington Monthly, the article was insightful and erudite, offering an earnest, clever interpretation of why American conservatism finds itself cornered, in a cycle of relentless failures and rationalizations.

And yet, at another level, the piece illustrates the very same kind of political myopia that has guaranteed defeat for Democrats and liberals, for years. Starting with this blanket generalization.

“Contemporary conservatism is first and foremost about shrinking the size and reach of the federal government.”

In a moment I will discuss this axiom, this fundamental premise. But first, let me attempt the obligatory task of any honest arguer, a duty to paraphrase. To show that I understand what I plan to criticise.

Wolfe’s core contention appears to be that those who ideologically despise government power are inherently ill-suited to handle that power well, when they manage to grab absolute control over it. Since they disdain government’s ability to accomplish great good, they refuse to use it that way. And yet, since they are human beings (and therefore corruptible), they cannot actually reduce government power, once it is in their hands. The temptations are just too great.

Hence, the result of conservative power is not reticence, when it comes to matters budgetary, administrative, diplomatic or military, but rather the opposite, a kind of extreme adventurism, justified by hypocritical rationalizations that grow more frenetic and frantic with time.

(Wolfe might have mentioned the ultimate irony. Historically, the few successful efforts to reduce government paperwork, or to stimulate industries through fair and unbiased deregulation, were all accomplished under Democratic administrations. The far-fewer GOP-led efforts at “deregulation” were, in fact, sweetheart giveaways and not true deregulation: e.g. Energy “Reform” and the Savings and Loan Scandal.)

Hence, Wolfe explains both today’s pork-orgy of graft and the relentless waging of political “culture war” as natural outcomes of cognitive dissonance. An inability of the ruling caste to face or examine their own betrayals of principle. Those who oppose governmental authority as a matter of creed (and Wolfe labels this as the core trait of conservatism) are inherently and psychologically unsuited to wield power.

Wolfe especially disdains those self-described conservatives who have been pulling away from the present administration and from the recent orgies of neocon excess. He likens these people to Trotskyites, who (in a few smoke-filled, bohemian corners) still mutter that Communism was hijacked by Stalinist-Maoist monsters, and never given a proper trial. Wolfe drips contempt for the rationalization that “those neocon looters aren’t true conservatives.” Rather, his exegesis attempts to prove that the sickness is inherent, across the board. It is rooted in the fundamental premises of conservatism itself.

How convenient. Wolfe’s opponents are disqualified from ever having useful contributions to offer, in government, because of intrinsic traits of dogma and personality that apply to all varieties, at all times. Wow. Impressive.

--------

As you might expect, while I found Wolfe’s essay stimulating and interesting, I also deem it to be cockeyed and utterly foolish, for about a dozen reasons.

But first pause. For the record, I share a profound motivation with Alan Wolfe. I truly despise the rascals and monsters who have seized power over our great nation, at least as much as Wolfe does. Among my own many essays proving this are:

          The Real Culture War: Defining the Background

                and
       
          Should Democrats Issue a New 'Contract with America'?

And yet, as a contrarian, I must part company with many of my allies over strategy and tactics. For example, while some liberals and others see this as a matter of waging an ongoing culture war more effectively, I look back at the relentless torment of the Clinton Administration and ask: “What if we win?”

Seriously. Suppose a great miracle happens and democracy thrives, despite the imabalnced influence of cash, or the rigged game of Diebold-fixed electoral fraud and even gerrymandered radicalism. GLet’s imagine that grownups resume power, at least enough to let civil servants issue subpoenas and stop the Great Raid. At one level, that would be grand, of course. But at another....

If the ambiance after victory is yet another round of bitterly partisan savagery (recall the Clinton Era), won’t Karl Rove still have won? Won’t America simply become another petty Balkans, a nasty and brutally silly people, endlessly sniping, blue against red, our side imposing peurile vengeance against theirs, until it becomes “their turn” again? How, in such a nation, can big problems ever get ambitiously solved? The ultimate solution to “culture war” is not to wage it better, but to calmly and decisively end it. To take power out of the hands of these monsters forever, by denying them the main levers that they have used to attain it -- oversimplification and divisiveness.

When we oversimplify the enemy, categorizing in a way that demonizes millions of potential allies, we may get a surge of satisfaction, but it is not smart tactics. Sun Tzu would have told you, long ago, to find ways to divide your enemies, to find common cause with some of them. To reduce the size of their coalition and to enhance your own.

This is the very same methodology that led to neocon victory. And please note: there is certainly a time and place for studying your opponent’s winning tactics. While many are and were despicable, some of those tactics may have been smart and morally neutral. Those we should think about, carefully.

In biological science there has long been a collegial struggle between “lumpers and splitters...” between those who lump all sorts of sub species together and those who are seeking subtle differences among them. Clearly, the temptation, politically -- one that Wolfe demonstrates in extreme -- is to lump together all “conservatives” using an a-priori definition that he blithely tosses off as an obvious and assumed axiom... and upon which derives his entire thesis.

But the flaw in Wolfe’s argument -- in his finely molded strawman of the opposition -- is in this axiom. In this fundamental , lumping premise.

In fact, countless self-described “conservatives” in America today have far different obsessions and concerns than would be simply explained by Wolfe’s diagnosis. Indeed, the differences among conservatives are so fantastically broad and astonishing that they merit whole books, analyzing how Karl Rove achieved this marvel of a Big Tent... one so filled with contradictions that it should have fallen into tatters long ago! And perhaps it would have, if so many on the left weren’t just as intent on keeping it intact as Karl is!

(In this case, lumping is - tactically - the sheerest folly. Talk about an inherently self-defeating character flaw!)

Where shall we begin, peeling away exceptions to Wolfe’s axiom? Let’s put aside those “conservatives” who would be far better called “anti-modernists terrified of change” e.g. fundamentalists. “Excess government” per se is not the fixation of paranoid nativists and aggressive jingoists. Nor those neo-feudalist aristocrats who quite openly adore government, so long as it is their enrichment tool.

I would certainly remove those who share the belief that Barry Goldwater expressed, in his last year of his long and fascinating life -that hate-filled neocons are a pack of crazy, nasty jerks. I think those denunciations are meaningful, but Wolfe and I can legitimately disagree about that.

Putting all of those (and a myiad other) exceptions aside, let’s ponder only those “conservatives” who DO genuinely and centrally despise government power. Even in this large category, there are millions who feel deeply wronged by the contradictions that Wolfe describes. Many would argue that these would properly be called Libertarians, rather than “conservatives.”

And yes, a great many libertarian Americans do choose the GOP as a “lesser of evils” -- a lazy tendency that I have been fighting hard, since it is based on absurd premises that are easily disproved. Wolfe would hold that my efforts are a waste of time. I contend that it may be the best possible way to undermine the monsters, by drawing away from them millions of their most intelligent and most sincere supporters.

I start by pointing to Adam Smith, the patron saint of creative free markets. And yes, one of the core founders of “liberalism.”

Anyone with an open mind who reads history ought to already know this. The very thing that Smith despised most was not “government bureaucracy, but instead oligarchy. The market warping of aristocratic cheaters who use money, influence and crony favoritism to wring economic benefits unrelated to delivery of superior goods and services.

This historical fact is devastating! Some truly clever liberal tactician could use Adam Smith as an icon! Millions truly have heard of him and it would be easily grasped by those millions (if someone pointed it out) that today’s markets are far more in danger from oligarchic cheaters than from earnest bureaucrats. If only someone were to say, aloud, that the Emperor has no clothes.

If only someone would remind us all what the term “liberal” originally meant... which was unleashing the creatively competitive spirit of humanity in ways that would benefit us all, while minimizing the almost universal capacity of cheaters to cheat. Levelling the playing field enough so that no youth would enter it disadvantaged, but giving the markets enough room to breathe and grow.

Government has a role to play in this fostering of open, joyful and fair competition. (And even in ensuring that nobody loses too badly.) Today’s “liberals” are right about that... while they are wrong to forget that competitive markets were the greatest invention of their movement! Decent conservatives have a point when they remind us that government has no rightful place in predetermining all outcomes of the game.

It would be so powerful an argument, especially in contrast to the neo-oligarchy’s orgy of insatiable cheating. But this cannot be done, because fellows like Wolfe automatically and reflexively dismiss the posibility of a positive conservatism. Wolfe dismisses these millions of libertarian-leaning fellow Americans as fools and/or psychotics and/or members of a criminal gang. What utter foolishness!

Look, for years I have been defying classic political and culture warriors to define for me the standard left-right political axis, a hoary and insipid metaphor when it was first concocted, by the French, in 1789. Nearly everyone stammers and fails. And as for the few who appear to succeed? They nearly all do so the way that Wolfe does, by armwaving a strawman caricature in the general direction of everybody they dislike.

But suspicion of government authority is not automatically insane! Our social mythos is deeply woven with messages of suspicion of authority (SOA) that fill almost all of our popular books, movies, dramas. If democrats fixate on one kind of looming authority figues -- conspiring aristocracies and corporations -- were not libertarians right to at least worry over the extremes of bureaucratic control that were typified by, say, communism?

Neither of these views are inherently sick. But they should be better informed about history, about the world, about each other.

We will not win this struggle through oversimplifications that feel oh-so righteous and portray as idiotic everyone on “the other side.”

We will win be separating the monsters from sincere libertarians and others who might be persuaded - instead - to support a return to general sanity.


See more: Politics for the 21st Century