Mercy, Trust, and the Future of the Republican Party

This post originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

Though I’ve paused from a lot of blogging about politics this year, I haven’t stopped thinking about it. It’s just that, because there is so much going on that troubles me, it is hard to process it all and remain positive—and I didn’t want to write much again until I could offer something I felt was positive to consider.

What I kept coming back to was a conversation I had with two lawyers during a dinner in New York over 20 years ago. As we paused from discussing the cases we were working on together, our discussion turned to politics—both local to New York and nationally. Both of my colleagues from New York were liberal Democrats, and as I listened to them a thought came to my mind that—being young and a little impetuous—I offered to them. It went something like this:

I think the biggest problem in politics today is that politicians don’t seem to be addressing the issues that government was designed to address, and I think that is because, in part, we’ve forgotten how to show mercy to our fellow man.

Remember that at the end of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ posed the question: “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” And the lawyer answered, “He who showed mercy upon him.” Then Christ affirmed the lawyer’s answer by saying, “Go and do likewise.”

I look around and too few people in public life are showing the mercy that truly loving their neighbor requires of them. Today, we still have people walking down the road, like the priest and the Levite, who avert their eyes and keep walking—they’ve always been among us. But now it seems as though the people who do stop to help the stripped and wounded man on the side of the road do one of two things: they either stop others, demand contributions from them (like taxes or tolls), and then give the donations to the man on the side of the road; or they sermonize to the man on how his own mistakes led to his current predicament and how he should change his life to avoid such calamities in the future. Then, both men leave, feeling good about themselves and the help they believe they provided to him; meanwhile, the stripped and wounded man on the side of the road is still left to die.

There are no Samaritans among us today.

I remember my dinner companions stopped and looked at me, and said nothing for what seemed an eternity. Then the senior attorney looked at me and said, “Ed, I can’t find any basis to disagree with you. Sadly, we are all at fault for this.” Then the conversation moved quickly on to a sailing regatta the other attorney would be participating in that weekend, and we never broached the subject again.

Based on this reaction, I rarely tried to express this idea again publicly, but I still believe it to be the primary problem we face today—and it has only gotten worse over the last two decades. I believe that the political party that correctly embraces the ideal of the Samaritan as the core of our society will be the party that captures the imagination and the trust of the voters. The ideal of the Samaritan should be the natural position of American Conservatives and the Republican Party, if only we will embrace it.

Our Settlers and Founding Fathers understood and accepted the challenge of trying to create a society around the Samaritan ideal on this Continent, even though they were woefully blind in their initial application of this ideal when it came to Catholics, Native Americans, Africans, Irish and Women (just to name a few groups)—a blindness that would haunt us for centuries. But the ideal itself became the correcting force that eventually changed our society for the better.

It is the Samaritan ideal that led us to form families, congregations, civic organizations, and private businesses; to create the neighborhoods where these institutions would take root and flourish; to push those neighborhoods across a continent; to form colonies and states to preserve and protect those neighborhoods; to create a nation to protect this societal structure; and, finally, to open our society’s promise to all its citizens.

The limited nature of the federal government wasn’t designed to oppress individuals, but rather to protect the sanctity and vitality of these neighborhoods of free people, in which most of the decisions that would guide day-to-day life would be made and performed.

This model only works, though, if the ideal is taken seriously—that each citizen, in his or her own way, accepts the challenge to show mercy to our neighbors. Unless each citizen accepts this responsibility, the trust necessary for the model to sustain self-governance at the local and state level evaporates and creates a vacuum—a vacuum that is subject to being filled by an expanding federal government that is not institutionally competent to fill it. Forget the express limits written into the Constitution for a minute, and just remember that far-away agents, bureaucrats, and social workers with one-size-fits-all assignments, regardless of their best intentions, will never provide the mercy that our Settlers and Founders believed would be necessary to build and maintain trusting neighborhoods of free people.

We can argue until the cows come home over how and why we got into our present mess, but the time for political change is now and the blueprint for that change has always been within our grasp—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution (as amended), and the Federalist Papers. What is needed now is the will to embrace the Samaritan ideal and our founding blueprint, and to apply it to our diverse 21^st Century society. What is needed now is the willingness to seriously address the reforms at each level of government—from Washington to our school boards—that is needed to restore the mercy and rebuild the trust needed to apply our American blueprint to the 21^st Century.

We will never corral and control public spending and debt until we make this reform, we will never fix public education until we make this reform, we will never fix both the security of our borders and our immigration policies without this reform, and we will be unable to meet the commitments we promised to the rest of the world after World War II unless we commit to this reform.

If the Republican Party embraces this reform, and explains how it will improve the lives of each of our citizens by giving them the means to control their lives and accomplish their dreams for themselves and their children, we will regain the trust of voters needed to win elections and govern. But to do that, we Republicans must practice what we preach among ourselves, too—we must show mercy and trust among our own factions, for as Lincoln reminded us so long ago, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

As a life-long Republican who continues to revere the life’s work of Lincoln, Goldwater, Dirksen, Reagan and Kemp, I believe we can—we must, we will—accept this challenge and embrace this reform.

My Choice for Lieutenant Governor - Jerry Patterson

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

Even as we start voting in important local and constitutional elections, the 2014 primaries are barreling toward us. This is especially true of the race for the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor. Because the train of this race has left the station and already seems at times to be on a course that could derail the entire Republican ticket next fall, people who care deeply about the future of our party and this State must start to express their preferences in order to try to avoid such a derailment.

It is in this spirit that I have decided to make my endorsement for Lieutenant Governor now, and to explain the basis for it.

Before I do so, though, I want to make a few preliminary points:

1. All four men running for the GOP nomination are competent to run the Texas Senate based on their experiences of serving in, or running the Senate. Moreover, at least three of these men have the temperament required to manage the Senate. If any of the three men who have both the competence and temperament to be Lieutenant Governor win the primary, I promise to actively support that candidate next fall; if the fourth candidate wins the primary, I will support the Republican ticket, but I will take no active role in support of that candidate.

2. My normal rule for primary races involving an incumbent is that the challenger bears the burden to prove to voters that he or she is not only competent to serve in the office, but also that the incumbent does not deserve re-election and the challenger would be the better choice. I held myself to that standard when I ran for office, and I expect other challengers to meet this burden as well. However, I cannot apply this rule to this race. To do so would require an endorsement of the status quo in Austin for four more years, because, as my friend David Jennings continually reminds me, David Dewhurst has been a good Lieutenant Governor. But this election gives voters the first opportunity in almost 12 years to bring new thinking and approaches to applying our conservative principles to Texas government, so I cannot just blindly embrace the status quo and forgo this opportunity. Therefore, in reaching my decision I have treated this office as if it were open with no incumbent running, so as to review each candidate on a level field to determine which one would make the best Lieutenant Governor going forward.

3. Consistent with what I wrote in my last post, this endorsement is personal and does not reflect the thinking of any organization of which I am a member, officer, or board member. By making this endorsement, I am choosing to recuse myself from the evaluation and endorsement process for this race conducted by United Republicans of Harris County. This decision was not easy to make, and I doubt that I will make another such statewide endorsement before United Republicans completes and publishes its endorsements; but I believe this race is important enough to make this exception.

With these points in mind, I am making my endorsement based on a saying attributed to Andrew Jackson:

One man with courage makes a majority.

Specifically, I am looking for a candidate who has the knowledge and experience to understand the current and long-term issues facing Texas, the courage to address these issues, and the humility and wisdom to build a majority of Texans and Texas Senators in support of effective solutions based on conservative principles. I believe the one candidate who has shown that he has these necessary qualities is Jerry Patterson. A retired Marine officer and aviator who served his country in war and peace, Jerry has at least twice shown me that he has the courage I am looking for in the next Lieutenant Governor.

In the mid-1990s, when many Texas neighborhoods and businesses were suffering from an explosion of violent crime and many people here and across the country were clamoring for more gun control, Jerry stepped forward and instead called for Texans to be able to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms in response to these developments by advocating for a concealed-carry law. At the time, the chattering class (including many Republicans) was skeptical of Jerry’s idea, and he faced a daunting task to pass such legislation while serving in the minority party in the both houses of the Legislature. But, he had the courage to build support for this landmark legislation with the public and among legislators from both parties. With the passage of Texas’ law, a movement for such laws spread across the country together with a movement for clarifying and strengthening the Second Amendment right to bear arms. In the almost twenty years that have passed since Jerry took his stand, the Supreme Court has twice ruled that the right to bear arms is an individual right, and many locales and states have passed concealed-carry laws. As further vindication of Jerry’s pioneering efforts, credible studies show that locales and states where such laws have been implemented have experienced a statistically significant greater drop in violent crime than locales and states that have retained or increased restrictive gun control laws.

Then, in 2012, Jerry—alone among our statewide elected officials—not only recognized the need to change our party’s rhetoric and approach to immigration reform, he exhibited the courage to act on this need in a wise and measured way. When he stood and addressed the delegates of the 2012 convention of the Republican Party of Texas to support the “Texas Solution” contained in the new proposed platform plank, he showed immense political courage—courage that helped forge an overwhelming majority vote in favor of the new plank—when he knew that many of those delegates had entered the convention hall pre-disposed to oppose the new plank. In the end, Jerry helped create a majority of delegates willing to direct our party to take a new and better approach to immigration reform, and to lead a new national discussion on this important issue.

Go to Jerry’s website, http://votepatterson.com, and browse the “Issues” he has analyzed and addressed in detail, and I believe you will see evidence of a serious mind with the courage to address the issues we are facing with a fresh approach based on conservative principles. Whether it is education, water, transportation, immigration and border security, or state finances, Jerry is showing the courage needed to build a conservative majority to address these issues with long-term solutions, rather than by broadcasting or preaching to a vocal faction of the base of the party with worn-out slogans. It is clear that Jerry is ready to help govern Texas into the future, rather than keep us mired in the tired dogmas of the past, which too often have impaired our ability to apply real, timeless conservative principles to the problems facing Texas.

I know that I will not always agree with Jerry. But, I trust that he always will show the courage to present and debate his ideas candidly, and will use humility and wisdom to listen to others as he works to build a majority around conservative solutions.

This type of courage was once the hallmark of our greatest Republican leaders, including Lincoln and Reagan. And those leaders also shared another gift that Jerry possesses: the gift to be able to communicate his arguments clearly and with humor—humor that helps to engage and persuade. Use of such humor is not—as one of his opponents alleges—a personality flaw or a sign of a lack of seriousness. Instead, it is a gift that our leaders desperately need as we work to persuade a new and diverse generation of Texans to support and implement conservative public policies. Show me a man who disparages the use of humor in the public square, and I’ll show you a man who takes himself and his “cause” too seriously to be trusted with the power of elected office in a democracy.

It is because I trust Jerry Patterson to be a courageous conservative reformer, that I whole-heartedly endorse his candidacy to be the next Lieutenant Governor of Texas. I hope you will support him, too.

Individualism v. Community: The false debate at the core of this election.

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

I’ll return to my series on Texas Education soon, but I want to share some thoughts after digesting the rhetoric from both national political conventions.

My first and over-riding thought was how baffled Adam Smith and William Jennings Bryan would be if they had somehow been able to return to this world for the last two weeks and had attended these conventions.  Neither would understand the split that has occurred in American politics over issues they studied and championed, and both would be shocked at how misunderstood and misapplied their ideas have become.  

Smith, the Scottish professor of Moral Philosophy, built his ideas about economics and government in his Wealth of Nations on the foundation of his description of the inherent moral nature of man in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.  For the last 250 years, both proponents and opponents of the system of capitalism and free markets that evolved from Smith’s writings based their viewpoints on an analysis of economic behavior that was independent of the morality so central to Smith’s theories.  Smith would not have understood either Marx or Rand.  To him, the individual pursuing his or her self-interest did so within a context of morality and responsibility.  Smith’s total view, in turn, was consistent with the type of system that developed during the 18^th and 19^th Centuries in the United States—the one de Tocqueville observed and explained in his Democracy In America.

But today, we are more the children of Marx and Rand, than of Smith.  So, we see the answers to our problems solely through the lens of rugged individualism, or social-justice collectivism, when both individualism and community are needed for a society of free people to thrive using capitalism and free markets.  In essence, our misreading of Smith has set up a false choice between individualism and community that de Tocqueville believed we had avoided. 

As a self-proclaimed answer to this false choice, William Jennings Bryan emerged as a political force of nature in the 1890s.  Arguably, as one of the early proponents of a form of Progressivism, he was the most influential politician from the 1890s to the 1920s who never became President—though he tried four times.  He set out to impose community on rugged individualists through his “applied Christianity,” which was derisively called “Bryanism.”   Bryanism called for the federal government to become the source of social justice through interventionist and redistributionist economic policies, and by enforcing a common standard for public and private moral behavior.  Between the 1930s and the 1960s, the Democratic Party abandoned the social conservatism of Bryanism, while fully embracing the economic portion of his social justice views.   

Meanwhile, in the late 1970s, the social-conservative heirs to the morality of Bryanism turned to the Republican Party to promote their agenda, and they joined economic conservatives to support Ronald Reagan’s “New Republican Party” plan to re-establish a modern society upon the Smith/de Tocqueville model of society.  In fact, what Reagan understood was that the real choice for sustaining and improving our free society is not between individualism and community, but between the role of individual morality and responsibility and government regulations and programs in creating and maintaining community among free people.  The Smith/de Tocqueville model that Reagan tried to reinvigorate provided the right answer for that real choice. 

But instead of disappearing into history, the remnants of Bryanism are alive and well.  They are divided into two warring camps still trying to resolve the false choice between individualism and community with wrong or incomplete answers that depend on the exercise of federal government action, and that create strange fissures within both Progressivism and Conservatism in this country.

President Obama’s acceptance speech doubled-down on the economic social-justice model of Bryanism.  He recognized that our society is built on both the freedom of the individual and the interdependence of communities, but he embraced the false choice between the two.  Then, he sought to answer the false choice by providing community artificially through more government interventions, while rejecting any role for private, individual, moral character and responsibility in shaping and preserving a community.  Such an approach provides a wrong answer to the false choice, which will worsen all of the social pathologies that have arisen over the last century, and further isolate neighbors as autonomous wards of one or more federal government programs. 

Where are the Republicans in this debate?  Unfortunately, we are still arguing between the social conservatism of Bryanism and the economic conservatism of traditional and libertarian Republicans, when Smith, de Tocqueville and Reagan would have told us the choice we are arguing about is false, too.  Both are needed for our model of government to work, and we need to stop fighting among ourselves over this fundamental point. 

Instead, we need to come together and seize the opportunity we’ve been given to change the debate in this election.  By shaping the debate around “community” and the social-justice model, Obama has handed us a rare opportunity to break out of the old paradigms and to reveal the false choice between individualism and community that we have been given over the last century.  As we reveal the false choice, we must argue for our Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model of a free society and government—an argument we have not made coherently for at least a generation because of our own internal arguments.  We need to take the “You did build that” theme, and expand on it with our ageless ideas of creating and maintaining “community” through individual, private, and local action; by showing that the individualism of moral people creates community among neighbors, and that such communities are protected and promoted by local private and public entities, rather than by a federal bureaucracy.

All of the groups we need to persuade to vote for our ticket need to hear the falsity of the choice and answer the Democrats have long promoted, and hear the real argument for the Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model that made us exceptional:  Latinos and other new immigrant groups who have come to this country to build a better life; African-Americans who have been abandoned to under-education, under-employment and over-incarceration; and women and young people, whose prosperity depends on the economic growth and support that strong neighborhoods provide.   

Unless some whiz kid around Romney and Ryan figures out how to make this argument effectively, Obama’s argument will win by default because the false choice has become engrained in our national thinking, and the mood of the country is looking for answers.  They’ll embrace even wrong answers to false choices if we don’t show them the choice is false and the answer is wrong, and what is really the right path.  We won’t just win this election by doubling-down on social conservatism or rugged individualism, nor do I now think we can limp into the election just focusing on jobs, the budget and government reform.  Instead, we need to show why our answers to jobs, the budget and government reform will improve the condition of this country, and to do that we need to address the interrelationship between basic morality, individualism, and strong communities for the success of our model of society and economic growth—an interrelationship that our founders, Smith and de Tocqueville understood and promoted.  Then, we need to challenge our neighbors to rebuild this model of society with us.  

If Romney articulates the Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model effectively, shows why it is relevant to the problems we face, shows how it can work, shows how it will improve lives in the 21^st Century, and challenges us to embrace it, he’ll win in a landslide.  If not, the public may decide to let their money ride on the wrong bet they made four years ago.

Citizenship and “Right-Wing Social Engineering”

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

Last night, as I listened to Newt Gingrich’s victory speech after winning the South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary, he made several statements the caught my attention—but none more than his nod to Governor Perry’s endorsement and their shared commitment to the 10th Amendment and returning power to the states.  As he discussed this point he said that one of the reasons he was asking voters to be “with me not just for me” was because as “we shrink the federal bureaucracy” we must “grow citizenship back home to fill the vacuum.”

I could not agree more strongly.  As I’ve tried to challenge fellow Republicans over the last few years, if we are successful in electing Republican majorities at every level of government and a Republican President, in 2012; and if we are successful in passing the legislation needed to limit the size and scope of the federal government and balancing its budget—what then?  The needs of our fellow citizens that the left has tried to address through federal-government schemes over the last 50 years won’t miraculously disappear.  The divisions that Charles Murray discusses in this new article, The New American Divide, which culturally exist within every racial and ethnic community in this country, won’t magically dissolve.  No, the paradox of our victory will be that it only will start our job to fix this country, rather than end it.

For our victory to last, we must use our political freedom to re-assert our liberty, which includes our reciprocal responsibilities as citizens—responsibilities to govern ourselves, our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, and our states. This renewal of self-governance will require our active participation in the life of our communities, rather than continuing to delegate such participation to faceless bureaucrats in distant capitals.  This active participation is the growth in “citizenship back home to fill the vacuum” that Gingrich is championing.  If we don’t accept this responsibility, the activists of the collectivist left will re-emerge and re-take control of government from us—and our unique system won’t survive another spasm of leftist policies.

Now for those who think this is just another “off the cuff” idea from Gingrich, you’re wrong.  In fact, he has been tremendously consistent about the relationship between limiting the federal government and a re-assertion of citizenship for many years.  He made this point in his first major speech as Speaker-elect to the National Press Club in late 1994, and in the “American Civilization” college courses he taught in the mid-1990s.  Nor is this idea new and revolutionary—it formed the heart of our Settlers’ and Founders’ view of America that de Tocqueville observed in action, and it formed the foundation of Reagan’s blueprint for his “New Republican Party” in 1977.

In fact, in a uniquely Gingrichian way, his widely derided critique of Paul Ryan’s budget proposal last year was consistent with his view of the need for citizenship.  His point was not that he disagreed with the ends or the means of that budget, but that such broad and fundamental reforms contained in that budget would not work unless and until the people were ready to re-accept their responsibilities at the local level—it was putting the cart before the horse.  To force such a sweeping change on people until they are persuaded to accept what that change means to their lives, would be “social engineering” from the present status quo that depends on federal involvement.

Now, I agree that Newt’s choice of words was wrong, but his point was correct.  As we fix the federal government, we must persuade the American people to re-assert their citizenship and to accept the responsibilities that citizenship will require from all of us.  Like you, I want, and the country needs, Paul Ryan’s approach to fixing the budget and the federal government, but it won’t work, and it will only delay the day on which we become a European welfare state, if we don’t become real citizens of this great nation again.  In fact, look in the mirror and ask yourself—isn’t this re-commitment to citizenship what the Tea Party movement was all about?  I can tell you that this re-commitment to citizenship is what forms the basis for the “Renewing the American Community” plan that I and others have been working to develop for the last two years.

So, whether Newt, Rick, Ron or Mitt becomes our nominee, we must dedicate ourselves like our forefathers did—with our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor—to not just taking back the government from the left, but to rebuilding the bonds of citizenship with each other in order for our reforms to work and for America to remain the exceptional and indispensable nation—and Reagan’s ideal of a Shining City on a Hill.

To save the Reagan Revolution and the 10th Amendment, we may need a brokered convention

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

In the wake of the Iowa Caucus results yesterday, it would be fair to say that I am disappointed with the direction in which the Republican nomination process is headed. There was essentially a three-way tie between a managerial Republican of the Eisenhower mold from Massachusetts, a pro-life statist Republican of the William Jennings Bryan mold who lost his last statewide election by 18%, and an anti-government libertarian who has never been elected to office outside his Congressional District in Texas. If this race continues along this course, I am afraid that the budding Reaganite movement to resurrect and implement the principles of the 10^th Amendment will die on the vine. In a year when we Conservatives have the greatest chance since 1980 of not only winning the Presidency, but changing the direction of the country, this development is depressing.

Then, I read here that a number of self-anointed leaders were being invited to convene at a Texas ranch to try to short-circuit the nomination process and pick a “conservative” candidate for us to support. Given the track record of the leaders of this group, I have no confidence that the candidate they choose to support will be Conservative, or will give a hoot about the 10^th Amendment. As depressed as I am at the current state of the race, this attempt to hijack the process is wrong. I, for one, am not inclined to support anyone anointed through such a process.

As hard as it is to watch this nomination process unfold, it should be allowed to unfold. It should be allowed to go through all of the primaries, and then to the convention. Let’s still give our 10^th Amendment candidates, like Perry and Gingrich, the chance to continue to make their case through the primaries, and let’s really see if any of these candidates has what it takes to win this nomination. Then, if no candidate receives a majority of the delegates before the convention starts, let the convention pick the nominee. Those are the rules of our party, and the rules under which we started this race, so let’s follow them.

In fact, the way that this race is unfolding, I believe that a brokered convention could lead to the nomination of a strong Conservative candidate—one who understands the real promise of the Reagan Revolution and the 10^th Amendment, and one who is fighting in the trenches to make conservatism work. One who believes the following:

… Americans, in a vast majority, are still a people born for self-governance. They are ready to summon the discipline to pay down our collective debts as they are now paying down their own; to put the future before the present, their children’s interest before their own. …
We should distinguish carefully skepticism about Big Government from contempt for all government. After all, it is a new government we hope to form, a government we will ask our fellow citizens to trust to make huge changes. …

… If freedom’s best friends cannot unify around a realistic, actionable program of fundamental change, one that attracts and persuades a broad majority of our fellow citizens, big change will not come. Or rather, big change will come, of the kind that the skeptics of all centuries have predicted for those naïve societies that believed that government of and by the people could long endure. …

The second worst outcome I can imagine for next year would be to lose to the current president and subject the nation to what might be a fatal last dose of statism. The worst would be to win the election and then prove ourselves incapable of turning the ship of state before it went on the rocks, with us at the helm.

The man who spoke these words was Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana, in his address at last year’s CPAC convention (full text here). Daniels is one potential candidate, other than Perry or Gingrich, who the convention delegates could turn to, but there are others—like Governors Walker of Wisconsin, Snyder of Michigan, Kasich of Ohio and Christie of New Jersey, who are fighting to rebuild their state governments consistent with principles of Reagan’s New Republican Party, and like Paul Ryan, who has championed a new vision for government through his bold proposals. One or more of these men could still jump into this race before the April “winner-take-all” primaries begin if Perry or Gingrich don’t catch fire, or they could still answer the call of a brokered convention.

So, let this process unfold, and, while doing so, let’s fight for our future through the rules provided. Let’s not let any self-anointed group choose our nominee—let’s control this process to the very end. If we do, I still believe we will choose someone, either through the primaries or at the convention, who not only will beat Obama, but will lead us through the changes we need to implement to preserve the promise of the country for our children and grandchildren.

A Most Misunderstood Man

This column originally appeared at US Daily Review.

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that many of our political and social problems here in the U.S. and in Europe stem from the fact that over the last 250 years we have misunderstood, misinterprete d and misapplied the teachings of Adam Smith and Charles Darwin. These

failings apply equally over the centuries to those who have purported to be their followers as well as to their critics. Moreover, these failings intertwined to fuel diabolical military, political and social misadventures that cursed the world from the 1930s and through the 1960s.

But this is not a post about either of these men or their teachings. It is about a third man—a man of the 20th Century—who, unfortunately, now is arguably among the most misunderstood of recent history: Ronald Reagan. As we head into a political season when his real ideas are needed as much as, if not more than ever, we need to address and correct the misunderstandings, misinterpretations and misapplications by both his followers and his critics, or else we could end up making matters far worse in the long run than they are today.

Let me start by saying that I don’t pretend to be a “Reagan Scholar”. On occasion over the years, I have shared with others the fact that I was lucky to have interacted with Reagan when I was young on a handful of occasions when I was between the ages of 10 and 17, and it was based on the last of those interactions that I became a steadfast follower of his ideas—and have remained such a follower ever since. Although I may at some point elaborate on those experiences, what I am going to say now has nothing to do with them. Instead, my observations come from years of following what the man actually wrote, said and did over many decades.

I want to start with the biggest misunderstanding that has permeated our memory of Reagan—the idea that his leadership was primarily a product of his unique speaking skills. Though this fallacy is embraced almost universally, it is the driving interpretation of Reagan from the left. They never saw Reagan as a man of substance, but rather as a “pied piper” who led through the hypnosis of his speaking skills and cue cards (that were written by others). As a character in John Ford’s famous movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance said, “once the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” For decades now, the idea that Reagan was simply “the Great Communicator” has become part of our social legend.

Reagan, himself, tried to dispel the myth in his Farewell Address in 1989, when he said that he was not a great communicator because of how he spoke, but because of the ideas he tried to convey. You see, Reagan had an understanding of himself and his purpose that few have ever comprehended.

The Democrats surely never have. After the Dukakis debacle in 1988, they went looking for “great communicators” and found a young, Southern Governor, with a folksy charm and an Ivy League degree, who could talk for hours about anything and say nothing; and in 2008, found an urbane young man who effectively used a teleprompter and vague, overwrought rhetoric to make his leftist ideas seem mainstream. Essentially, Democrats to this day believe Reagan simply fooled the American people into following Republicans, and they’ve chosen their leaders based on their ability to fool enough people to follow Democrats long enough to win an election. In the meantime, we on the right continue to feed the legend by referring to Reagan as “the Great Communicator,” forgetting the derisive origin of that label, and thereby unwittingly continuing to marginalize the real strength of the man’s intellect.

Recently, through the publication of more of Reagan’s papers and of his diaries, the public is finally getting a glimpse—but still only a glimpse—of a man who may have had one of the greatest minds for political philosophy in the last half of the 20th Century. After receiving a liberal arts education from Eureka College, and after becoming a leader in the labor movement in California after World War II, Reagan began re-thinking all of his political assumptions and absorbed historical and political writings like a sponge. Due to his unique schedule as an actor and labor leader, Reagan had plenty of time to study and reflect during the 1940s and 1950s. Then his chance to continue his study increased with a purpose, when he was engaged by General Electric to be its national spokesman.

By the early 1960s, Reagan had transformed himself intellectually into a force of nature. In one of his last books, The Reagan I Knew, William F. Buckley, Jr., describes this Reagan whom the public never knew. When Reagan burst into the country’s political consciousness with his famous televised speech for the Goldwater campaign in 1964, they saw not a man reading cue cards, but a formidable political intellectual, who wrote his own speech, and who spoke with a purpose using the skills honed over a decade of public speaking for General Electric. It is that politician who won two landslide victories for Governor of California over the best candidates the Democratic Party had in that state; who nearly stole the 1968 Republican Convention from Nixon; who came within an eyelash of beating the incumbent for the 1976 Republican nomination; who, from 1977 to 1980, started to change the Republican Party with a new vision; who, then, changed the political and economic trajectory of this country; and who, with the help of Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, changed the world.

This Reagan believed that economic conservatives who had traditionally supported the Republican Party, and social conservatives who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party, could be molded into a “new” Republican Party, and he worked to create that new party after his loss in 1976. Unfortunately, this new party has never fully formed. Almost from the instant of his great landslide re-election victory in 1984, factions formed within his party, which continue to this day. Although these factions have formed coalitions long enough to win three national elections since 1988, as well as to elect Republican Congresses through much of the last 20 years, they still have not formed the molded party of Reagan’s vision. This failure is the primary reason why Democrats remain viable as a political party, which has led to such disastrous policies since 2006.

The primary reason these factions within the GOP remain divided is that we conservatives still don’t embrace the real vision Reagan had for this party, and our field of Presidential candidates reflects this fundamental problem. Without going down the list of candidates and their misinterpretations of Reagan, let me just present a short list of examples of misunderstandings:

• Reagan’s whole view started with the individual, families and communities. He believed the genius of America arose from individuals, engaging in work in a free market, and engaging in self-governance through families, private organizations, churches, and local governments. Regulations, and government in general, should be focused on protecting those activities.

• Reagan did not believe in small and weak government. Instead, he believed in strong governments at each level whose powers were limited to specific responsibilities, and that we had delegated too much responsibility to the federal government. Responsibility and tax dollars needed to be returned to individuals, local governments and state governments (in that order) who were closer to the problems that needed to be addressed.

• Reagan did not view the reduction or elimination of taxes as a social and economic good in and of itself, but by the late 1970s reduction of taxes had become an economic and political imperative. There is no question that Reagan believed that individuals had the right to keep the fruits of their labor—it was their money that they had earned, and the government had no entitlement to it. He also relied on evidence from the Coolidge and Kennedy administrations that showed that lowering taxes often, if not always, had the effect of raising tax revenue because it increased economic activity. However, he also believed that taxes were needed to fund the legitimate activities of government at each level. The job of each level of government was to determine its legitimate needs based on its legitimate responsibilities and limits, and then raise enough revenue to pay for them. Ultimately, you can not understand Reagan’s views about taxes without understanding his belief in the limitations of the federal government. He often said during his race in 1976 that the tax base diverted to the federal government should be returned to the local and state governments, so that the dollars could be more effectively directed and spent where the local needs were. Over time, if such dollars were raised and spent locally, government would be more efficient and would cost less, so fewer tax dollars would need to be raised from each individual.

• One of the powers legitimately delegated to the federal government was national defense, and he believed in maintaining peace by maintaining a strong military.

• Reagan believed that much of our inherent strength came from our commitment to liberty at home, and that our most important diplomatic duty was to keep America as a beacon of liberty—as an example to others—and to defeat the biggest threat to liberty at that time—communism. He did not believe that every dispute in the world required American intervention; but most disputes at that time affected, or were affected by, the Cold War with the Soviet Union, so he believed in an active engagement in world affairs. His invasion of Grenada and his aid to rebels in Central America were messages to the Soviets and the Cubans, and his aid to Afghan rebels was part of his effort to defeat Soviet expansion. Even Reagan’s famed bombing of Ghadafi’s compound in Libya was a defensive action in response to an attack on American troops in Germany, and sent a message to the Soviets that any attack on our troops would be met with an armed response. However, he showed restraint and prudence when the Soviets shot down a Korean airliner with American passengers, when the Soviets tried to thwart Polish independence, and when our Marines were killed in Lebanon. He handled problems with our allies, including the peaceful transition of power in South Korea and the transition from apartheid in South Africa through diplomacy rather than confrontation. In the end, the accomplishments he set in motion were remarkable: the Soviets abandoned Afghanistan; the Soviet Union collapsed, Eastern Europe was freed, and the Cold War ended; South Korea transitioned to a democratic government and a free-market powerhouse; South Africa ended apartheid; and Nicaragua and El Salvador elected democratic governments.

• Reagan believed that the desire of people to come here, even illegally, was a sign of the strength of our beacon of liberty, not something to be feared. Although we can now see that the immigration law of the late 1980s and the grant of amnesty at the time, were wrong, they were part of a sensible approach to a problem from that vantage point, and recognized that it was our freedom—our ultimate strength—that attracted these people to become our neighbors, and that we should never abandon our strength out of fear.

• Reagan believed that America’s future would be strengthened through stronger ties with Mexico and Canada, and ultimately, with all of Central America. I don’t know how long he had held this idea, but by the time he opposed the Panama Canal Treaty, he was advocating a strong economic and political alliance with Mexico and Canada. His efforts ultimately were negotiated over his and G.H.W. Bush’s terms, and became the NAFTA treaty.

• Reagan was committed politically to the preservation of Israel, but also to building a balance of power in the Middle East in which Israel could live without fear and which would deter the Soviets from becoming re-involved in the region. I do not recall Reagan ever promoting our relationship with Israel purely because of its biblical importance, though I am sure one can find a sentence here or there where Israel’s place in our Judeo-Christian heritage would have been noted. In fact, such rhetoric would have inflamed tensions in that region and thwarted his goal of building a balance of power in the region. Reagan would have never abandoned Israel, but, as evidenced by his removal of troops from Lebanon, he did not believe our military presence necessarily made Israel safer.

• Reagan was a man of deep faith, and his faith combined with his knowledge of history and his political philosophy provided the foundation for his vision for the Republican Party and the country. Reagan spoke openly of his faith, the importance of faith to this nation, and the need for people of faith to be engaged in the “new” Republican Party. But, frankly, I think Reagan would have been perplexed by the level of engagement in the organizational structure of the Republican Party by agents of certain congregations and faiths, and by the exclusivity they have sometimes employed as criteria for participating in the GOP. Reagan always was clear that his was a political movement, not an ecclesiastical or ideological movement, and his blueprint for the new party he envisioned required inclusiveness, not exclusiveness.

Reagan was, at heart, a reformer, and he had a vision for reforming the GOP and this country. Although the times have changed (e.g.,there is no Soviet Union or Cold War, and the level of taxation is nowhere near what it was in the 1970s), and we have learned from mistakes during the years Reagan was President (e.g., amnesty is an inappropriate policy for addressing illegal immigration), I still adhere to Reagan’s vision for our party and our country:

• an inclusive view of conservatism that is based on the fundamental strength of character of individuals who recognize that liberty is comprised of both freedom and responsibility;

• the centrality of those individuals, their families, and their neighborhoods to the economic, political and social sustenance of the nation;

• the need for most social services to be provided by private organizations, churches and local governments;

• the preservation of strong, but limited governments at each level of government, with the revenue needed to meet their respective responsibilities;

• the preservation of our active role in the world as a beacon for liberty;

• the creation of a strong and lasting relationship with our closest neighbors, and their citizens, based on the strength of our liberty, and not on our fears; and

• the maintenance of a strong military here and abroad to maintain peace.

I hope over the next few months that the spirit of this vision will finally bring the GOP together as the “new” Republican Party that Reagan envisioned.

Now, the hard question.

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

Ok, so over the last few posts, we been discussing what we will need to do to attack our public debts and permanently limit the size and scope of the federal government.  It not only will require better budgeting and management techniques; it will require a shift of responsibility from government to the individual, and a re-dedication from each of us to civic engagement—to the re-acceptance of individual responsibility, and the re-commitment to neighborly compassion instead of bureaucratic benefits.  For those of you who have followed my posts for a longer period, you know that I have addressed how to do this through processes like the “Tupelo Formula” in our communities, and zero-based budgeting at every level of government. 

What I have been advocating is what I understood to be an approach to government based on those principles drawn from the history of our experiences, of which de Tocqueville wrote and Reagan championed:  an approach to re-building our society for the 21^st Century based on its original purposes and principles—a society built on the foundational relationships formed in families, neighborhoods, congregations, private organizations; facilitated through the activities of free markets and free trade; and then preserved and protected by local, state and federal governments, each acting within their own sphere of competence and responsibility.   It is our adherence over the centuries to these original purposes and principles, which has made us “exceptional”.

 Creation of our exceptional society did not happen over night.  Instead, it arose from the hard work of many generations both before and after the American Revolution, who overcame many obstacles and hardships—and many terrible mistakes.  Over the last century, we have been dismantling this society through the aggressive use of government to supply our neighbor’s needs—culminating with the spasm of new government actions over the last two years.  We can reverse this trend toward larger and more expensive government, and unravel the layers of bureaucracy we’ve created—that’s actually the easy part.  We’ve known what needs to be done, and we’ve known it for a long time.

 The real question is whether we have the will and the desire to make the necessary changes in our personal lives required for re-engagement in the lives of our communities.  We’ve put off addressing this question for over a generation since Reagan told us it was A Time for Choosing and challenged us to form a New Republican Party.  For the sake of our future, we now need to face this question and answer it candidly.

Virtually every piece of data and research about civic engagement and the state of our neighborhoods, as well as the polling data related to our expectations about government, show that even many conservatives may not want to make the lifestyle changes needed to re-engage with our neighbors and re-accept responsibility for our neighborhoods.  That is because we’ve come to a moment in our history when we seem to confuse personal autonomy with Liberty, and to value the former over the latter.  Remember Liberty is based on a certain type of freedom:  freedom from the control of our lives by an anointed elite (hereditary, tribal, political, or religious) and their laws.  Liberty is not based on a right to be free from our neighbors, or from forming the bonds needed for a society to exist and thrive.  To be able to exercise Liberty and have it endure over time, our freedom must exist interdependently with our mutual responsibilities to our family, our neighbors, our communities, and our country.  In essence, freedom without civic engagement is not Liberty, it’s an empty cult of personal autonomy that rots the life of a society.

Through all of the struggles to expand opportunities and wipe away vestiges of discrimination in our society over the last half century, we promoted freedom while we destroyed the civic engagement of middle-class families in African-American and Latino communities, of women in neighborhoods, and of men with their families.  We’ve now created two generations of autonomous Americans at one end of the socio-economic spectrum, and two generations of dependent Americans on the other end.

While children of autonomous parents thrived in the suburbs and good schools, many, if not most, children in neighborhoods just down the street—like those in inner cities like Detroit, where 75% of children drop-out of school before the 12^th Grade—never finished school and often served time in jail.  Those children ended up under-educated and under-employed, and have doomed their families and their neighborhoods to economic decline, while the children of autonomous parents have entered the new global economy and thrived.  Today, most of these autonomous children live far from the home of their youth, travel across the country and across the globe for work, have or will soon have second homes, are as comfortable in an office or flat in Rome as in an office or apartment in Houston, and have developed few ties to the communities in which they currently reside.

Such children are now the second, international generation of personal autonomy.  Now, that does not mean that they, or even their parents, don’t care about other people—they usually do.  They care about the people in Darfur and in other troubled parts of the world, and would travel across the world for the experience of studying their plight; they care about “the homeless” and other disadvantaged, faceless groups of people, and rally for their causes; but, rarely have they looked into the eye of a neighbor in need and had to help.

The difference between these two autonomous generations and the cohorts they’ve left behind has been further exacerbated by the increasing income and educational disparities within our society.  For instance, as has been documented ad nauseum, both the educational performance and attainment levels, and income levels, have dramatically diverged between the top 10% of wage earners and the other 90% over the last generation.  What has not been discussed as much, though, is the incredible disparity that has opened up between the top 1% of wage earners and the other 9% of the top 10%.  This small group has become almost a separate civilization unto itself across the globe—not just autonomous from their neighbors, but virtually autonomous from all societies.  For this group, an eventual economic collapse in one country or region will not materially affect them—they can just relocate themselves and their assets, and then ride out the storm.

For this “Global 1%”, and for a growing number of the two autonomous generations of Americans, the current trend toward providing aid through centralized government entitlements is as beneficial to their lifestyles as those entitlements are perceived to be beneficial by those who receive the benefits.  By allowing government to try to care for our neighbors, the Global 1% and the autonomous Americans can enjoy the fruits of their freedom without any encumbrance of responsibility.  Meanwhile, more and more of the rest of Americans become more and more dependent on government entitlements in their daily lives.

There may be a term for what we are watching develop before our eyes, but it’s not Liberty; and it’s not true to our exceptional heritage.

I’ve recited all of this not to start a class war—because those of us of a certain age are all responsible for having created and fostered this predicament—nor do I advocate going back to some mystical, bygone era that never existed.  Indeed, we know how to correct these problems, and it’s not with more government re-distribution.  But if we are going to be honest with ourselves, we must realize that for a growing number of Americans across the political and economic spectrum, a return to a de Tocqueville America of civic engagement is an anathema—they don’t understand it, they don’t see how they will benefit from it, and it would require a change to their lifestyles that they don’t want to make.

If I’m right—both about what we need to do to wean ourselves from government and the real obstacles to re-building civic engagement—what do we do?

Again, without creating a class war, I think we first need to realize and accept that even though the “Global 1%” has a very large megaphone in our 24/7 media world, they have become so disconnected from the rest of us that they are politically irrelevant to how we address this issue.  If we try to build a program around their wishes we will get nowhere.  Second, it will be very difficult for those in the two autonomous generations to immediately accept the adjustments to their lifestyles that will come with new responsibilities, so engaging them immediately in this effort will merely slow the process down—and time is not our friend.

Instead, we need to focus, for now, on the rest of us—“Main Street Americans”.  We need to begin to promote civic engagement among Main Street Americans who still live, work and raise our families in local communities, and spread that engagement to neighborhoods whose residents have become dependent on government.  We need to focus the way we reduce government and re-align responsibilities among the different levels of governments, and between government and individuals, based on Main Street America’s re-engagement in the lives of our communities; including, for instance, how we re-build our infrastructure to provide for as much time as possible for individuals to care for their families and volunteer in their neighborhoods, churches, civic organizations, schools and local governments.

If Main Street Americans succeed in re-building a de Tocqueville America in this century, the problem with the Global 1% and the autonomous generation will take care of itself.  The result will be like the omniscient voice’s promise in “Field of Dreams”—if you build it, he will come”:  if we succeed, the Global 1% and the autonomous children will come home, because they will see what real Liberty is, and that it works.  America will be where they want to live and work, and together, our children and grandchildren may see the Shining City on a Hill.

What does “Responsibility” mean?

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

As I’ve discussed in my last three posts here, and in other posts over the last year or so, our efforts to re-limit the federal government must be coupled with our re-establishment of individual responsibility for our families, our neighbors and our local communities.  In essence, we must re-establish a modern version of de Tocqueville’s America so that we can create Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill for our posterity.

I’ve always believed that what I’ve been trying to convey has been building on the ideas that Reagan, Goldwater, Gingrich, Sowell and others have discussed over the last few decades—mine are not original ideas.  Meanwhile, I’ve listened in order to hear if there are others who are embracing these ideas at this moment.  Recently, I was heartened when I heard Senator Rubio’s speech at the Reagan Library in which he discussed these concepts; and, a few weeks ago, I ran across a gem of a new book entitled Responsibility Reborn, published by Denali Press.

In that book, John Andrews, who served as President of the Colorado State Senate and as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, and who now teaches at the university level, provides a strong argument that what makes America unique is its foundation built on qualities derived from individual responsibility:  “… self-assertion to defend our liberties against intrusive government; self-restraint to control our baser impulses; self-reliance to survive and thrive in freedom; and civic knowledge to participate wisely in democracy.”  He provides a strong argument about the need to restore our commitment to, and exercise of these qualities in order to preserve the uniqueness of our society for our children, and then provides a list of ten steps to help in this process.  It is a great and quick read for anyone who is seeking a ideas about how we will address society’s needs if we conservatives successfully re-limit government.  His ten steps are consistent with what we will be addressing through Renewing the American Community.

In fact, I agree with at least 98% of what Andrews has written—right down to the phrasing he uses.  As I read the book, I felt I had been talking with him in my living room about the ideas I’ve been writing about on this website.  Moreover, I found Andrews to be a kindred spirit in another way—his view of individual freedom and responsibility is informed by his Christian faith, and his understanding of the faith that influenced our Settlers and Founders who established our unique society and government.

However, that 2% of disagreement is real, and I want to discuss that now—because, though our disagreement is subtle and small, it highlights what I believe to be the source for a real chasm within current conservative thought and politics.

My disagreement with Andrews arises from his view about the primacy of responsibility among the values needed for our society to continue to be unique and thrive.  Andrews believes that the duties that comprise individual responsibility are primary to freedom in the hierarchy of values.  In support of this view, he cites C.S. Lewis (who I believe is one of the great thinkers of the 20^th Century) to argue that man was not born to be free, but was born to adore and obey.  I respectfully disagree—since the Crucifixion, man has been born free, but challenged to adore and obey God and serve our neighbors.

Let me digress for just a moment to discuss the word “responsibility”.  It first appeared in the English language when Madison wrote about it in the newspaper opinion columns that became The Federalist Papers.  In Federalist 63, Madison writes,

I add, as a sixth defect [of the current government under the Articles of Confederation], the want, in some important cases, of a due responsibility in the government to the people, ….  …Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to the objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the constituents.  …It is sufficiently difficult, at any rate, to preserve a personal responsibility in the members of a numerous body [i.e., the House of Representatives], for such acts of the body as have an immediate, detached, and palpable operation on its constituents.

In Federalist 70, Hamilton then uses the term in a discussion of the Executive branch  (and continues to discuss it in Federalist 77 and 79):

But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan is that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility.

In modern usage, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines “responsibility” as follows:

1.The state, quality, or fact of being responsible.  2.Something for which one is responsible:   a duty, obligation, or burden.

In the context of these definitions, what I believe Andrews is discussing in his book, and what I have been addressing in my posts, is the need to re-establish individual or personal responsibility for specific objects with which we have a relationship—our families, our neighbors, our communities, and our country—those objects that are within our power to reasonably and effectively impact through our daily actions.  Then, we both focus on the duties, obligations, and burdens comprising that responsibility, and the character traits needed to develop and nourish that responsibility.  As for the latter two points, I think both Andrews and I would both agree with the following statements, the first by Adam Smith in his The Theory of Moral Sentiment:

Nature … has endowed him [man], not only with a desire of being approved of, but with a desire of being what ought to be approved of; or of being what he himself approves of in other men….  The second [desire] was necessary in order to inspire him with the real love of virtue, and with the real abhorrence of vice.

and the second from the Virginia Declaration of Rights of June, 1776, written by George Mason and James Madison:

… no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.  …and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.   

With all of this agreement with Andrews, I do not agree with him that individual responsibility pre-exists, or is primary to, freedom.  Instead, they are symbiotic.  Responsibility is the flip-side of freedom, and the ability to exercise liberty can’t long exist without both.  You are born free, but with a duty to be responsible—as St. Paul says in Galatians:  “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, ….  … For you brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”  If you don’t choose to be responsible, freedom on earth eventually will be impaired, even though our birthright from God to be free still exists.  Responsibility doesn’t pre-date or precede freedom in importance; responsibility  must coexist with freedom through our daily choices.

Though this seems like a subtle difference with Andrews, I think it may explain a major reason why there are priority differences when it comes to public policy between conservatives and those who only, or primarily, see themselves as either “social” conservatives or libertarians.  If you believe responsibility is a higher value than freedom, you will prioritize and try to shape policies differently than if you see them as of equal value and priority, or if you see freedom as a superior value to responsibility.

I believe American conservative must view freedom and responsibility as co-equal values that must coexist in equilibrium for a society of free people to endure.  Responsibility without freedom creates a subservience of one man to another, and we were freed from that subservience by the Crucifixion—our only subservience is to God.  Our Settlers established communities based on that freedom from subservience to men, and our Founders created a government to protect that freedom.  However, freedom without responsibility destroys the ability to form and sustain the relationships necessary for a society to exist, and creates a vacuum that other men will fill to impose society—and subservience—on the individual.  You must have both for our unique society to endure—one is not more or less important to the exercise of liberty than the other.

I agree completely with Andrews that for America’s unique society to continue we must restore and promote individual responsibility, along with the character traits and moral actions need to meet that responsibility.  But our goal must be to restore the proper balance to liberty, not to create another form of society that is subservient to man.

What Would Reagan Say

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

In my last two posts here I have tried to discuss the gap between the rhetoric of compassion and true compassion, as that gap relates to both American Conservatism and the goal of re-establishing our communities as we re-limit the size and scope of the federal government.

To punctuate what I have tried to say, I want to provide a pre-emptive answer to that inevitable response that will go something like this: “well, Reagan wouldn’t agree with that;” or, “that’s not what Reagan said.” To those inevitable critics, just saying “you’re wrong” would not satisfy you, so I want to give you Reagan in his own words—words that underlie the creation of the “Renewing the American Community” forum.

Although most conservatives can pick a favorite speech of Reagan’s from that moment in 1964 when he appeared on television for the Goldwater campaign and delivered his “A Time for Choosing” speech, to his Farewell Address in 1989, I believe the speech that most completely presents Reagan’s thoughts may be the speech he gave in September, 1967, at Eureka College in Illinois to dedicate a new library. Let’s remember the context: a second straight summer of unrest had just ended and college students had just returned to campus for a new school year—the riots of 1968 were less than a year away; the Vietnam War, the anti-war and anti-draft protests, and the Civil Rights marches were all in full bloom on the nightly news programs; the Presidential election cycle for 1968 was beginning; and Reagan had just been elected Governor of California less than a year before. In this context, Reagan spoke directly to the students of Eureka College, his alma mater, and presented the seeds of the ideas that would provide the foundation of his vision of the Shining City on a Hill, draw the first lines on the blueprints for his New Republican Party, and animate his leadership over the next generation. Here are extended excerpts from that speech:

…Each generation is critical of its predecessor. As the day nears when classroom and playing field must give way to the larger arena with its problems of inequality and human misunderstanding, it is easy to look at those in that arena and demand to know why the problems remain unsolved. We who preceded you asked that question of those who preceded us and another younger generation will ask it of you.

I hope there will be less justification for the question when it is your turn to answer. What I am trying to say is that no generation has failed completely, nor will yours succeed completely. …

…Are the problems of urban ghettoes and poverty the result of selfishness on our part or indifference to suffering? No people in all the history of mankind have shared so widely its material resources.

We taxed ourselves more heavily and extended aid at home and abroad. And when the problems grew, we planned more and passed more legislation to add to the scores of programs, until today, they are listed in government catalogues of hundreds of pages. We who are called materialist have tried to solve human problems with material means. We have forgotten man's spiritual heritage; we have placed security above freedom and confused the citizen's responsibility to society with society's responsibility to the individual.

We have to re-study some of our social legislation, legislation that meant well, but has failed in its goals or has created greater problems than the ones it was meant to cure.

We have to re-examine our individual goals and aims.

What do we want for ourselves and our children? Is it enough to have material things? Aren't liberty and morality and integrity and high principles and a sense of responsibility more important?

The world's truly great thinkers have not pointed us toward materialism; they have dealt with the great truths and with the high questions of right and wrong, of morality and of integrity.

They have dealt with the question of man, not the acquisition of things. And when civilizations have disregarded their findings, when they have turned to the things of the flesh, they have disappeared.

You are concerned with us and what seems to be hypocrisy and lack of purpose on our part. And we in turn are concerned about you, seeing a rising spirit of unrest, aimlessness, and drifting, a feeling of rebellion without a real cause that results sometimes in meaningless but violent actions. …

…You are needed; we need your courage, your idealism, your new and untried viewpoint. You know more than we did at your age; you are brighter, better informed, even healthier. And because human kind is vertically structured, we can take a little credit for that. But, you want a purpose, a cause, a banner to follow, and we owe you that. …

…Our national purpose is to unleash the full talent and genius of the individual, not to create mass movements with the citizenry subjecting themselves to the whims of the state. Here, as nowhere in the world, we are established to provide the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order. …

…You want a purpose, something to believe in? You might try resolving that you will contribute something to generations unborn—a handhold above your own achievement so that another generation can climb higher and achieve more.

This library is more than a beautiful and functional building. It is first and foremost a repository of knowledge and culture. More facts will be available in this one library than were available in all the libraries of the world a hundred years ago.

That shouldn't surprise you.

Man's knowledge has increased at such a rapid rate since the turn of the century that any book of facts written then would be obsolete now, both in terms of what we know to be true and also what we know to be true no longer.

But a library is more than just a place to go for facts. A library is also a place to go for wisdom. And the purpose of an educational institution is to teach not only knowledge, but also wisdom.

Someone once said that people who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on buses and subways.

In a way, that may be true.

But to understand democracy is not necessarily to solve its problems.

And I would venture to say Aristotle, and those others whom you will find not in the buses and subways, but instead in this building here, will give you more answers and more clues to the solutions of our problems than you are likely to find on the buses and subways.

Maybe the best answer is to be found in both, but do not let the library go to waste because you are awaiting the completion of Eureka's first subway.

Now, when I suggest that we turn to books, to the accumulated knowledge of the past, I am not suggesting that we turn back the clock or retreat into some dim yesterday that we remember only with nostalgia, if at all. But we must learn from yesterday to have a better tomorrow.

We are beset by problems in a complex world; we are confused by those who tell us only new and untried ways offer hope. The answers to all the problems of mankind will be found in this building by those who have the desire to find them and perception enough to recognize them.

There will be the knowledge of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, and from the vantage point of history, their mistakes. We can look back and see where pure democracy became as dictatorial as a sultan and majority rule without protection for the minority became mob rule.

One of mankind's problems is that we keep repeating the same errors. For every generation some place, two plus two has added up to three, or in another place, five—four seems to elude some of us. This has happened in my generation and I predict, without smugness, it will happen to yours. …

…Do you doubt the answers can be found here? From the eleventh century, Maimonides, Hebrew philosopher and physician, will give you the eight steps in helping the needy to help themselves.

Can you name one problem that would not be solved if we had simply followed the teachings of the man from Galilee? We can redirect our nation's course into the paths of freedom and morality and high principle.

And, in so directing it, we can build better lives for ourselves and our children and a better nation for those who come after us, or we can ignore history and go the way of Greece and Rome.

I think that this is the significance of this library. The fact that we can use it to re-chart our course, not into the great unknown, but onto paths that are clear and which, if followed, can show us how to cope with the new problems that always confront each generation and can lead us, as a people, on to continued greatness. …

Purity v. Principle

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

One of the burning issues of the first two years of the Carter Administration was the wisdom of the proposed treaty to transfer sovereignty and control of the Panama Canal to Panama. It not only divided the political parties, but it also deeply divided Republicans and prominent conservatives. For instance, John Wayne, a public supporter of the treaty, vehemently and publicly disagreed with his old friend, Ronald Reagan, who was the most vocal opponent of the treaty. Another Reagan friend, William F. Buckley, Jr., strongly supported the treaty and challenged Reagan to a televised debate on a special two-hour edition of Buckley’s show, Firing Line, before the Senate ratification debate.

Anyone who watched that debate on TV, or listened to it on radio, in January, 1978, has a vivid memory of one of the greatest public debates of our lifetime. Not only was Buckley pitted against Reagan in an impressive debate when the oratorical skills of both were at their zenith, but their seconds were impressive, too: including George Will, Pat Buchanan, James Burnham, and Admirals Elmo Zumwalt and John McCain, Jr. (the father of Senator McCain). The moderator was Sam Ervin, who just a few years before had chaired the Senate investigation of the Watergate scandal. (As an aside, it amazed me during the 1980 campaign how many people believed either John Anderson or Jimmy Carter would beat Reagan in a debate, and how many people were shocked when he won both debates—I guess they either hadn’t seen, or had forgotten, his performance against Buckley.)

Though the Firing Line debate arguably ended in a masterful draw, the Senate ratified the treaty, and Reagan seemed to be defeated on the national stage for the second time in two years. As Buckley later wryly noted, however:

Reagan was, as a prophet, simply mistaken. And I, for my part, did not go on to be president.

In the meantime, they both remained the closest of friends—personally and politically—for the rest of their lives.

And that is the point of telling this story.

We Republicans—we conservatives—have become a rather schizophrenic lot over these last 33 years since Buckley and Reagan debated: we revere and promote principles of individualism and liberty for our country and for mankind; and yet, we demand a form of orthodox purity from each other on every conceivably important political issue. I don’t think we can have it both ways and still remain political friends and allies, let alone form a long-term, effective governing majority party.

Over the last few years, as I’ve taken public stands on issues and ruffled some feathers, I’ve been derided as a libertarian, a moderate, a Christian conservative, a RINO, a Tea Partier, a liberal, a social conservative, an economic conservative, a neo-conservative, a limited-government conservative, even a Democrat (just to list a few of the labels that are clean enough to post on this website)—and these labels came from fellow Republicans. My wife and I would always laugh about all of this, because what it really reflected was the independence of my spirit, and how hard it is for some Republicans now to deal with someone like me.

So, let me be clear—for the umpteenth time—what I am, and what I always have been, is a Republican. Because of my independence of mind and judgment, I, like you, think through each issue based on my core conservative principles and come to positions that I then strongly support. I, like you, care about some issues more than others. My pet issues are education and national defense, and my concern for these different issues leads me to want strong and effective local leadership to address education while wanting strong and effective national leadership to address our national defense. To some my desire for strong and effective government locally and nationally at the same time is inconsistent, but I can complete this circle because of my understanding of the Founders’ idea of federalism and the different spheres of responsibility for each level of government.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all share commitments to different pet issues, and we all come to positions that, to others, might seem politically inconsistent. Over time, some of us have gotten our pet issues written into our party platforms at the state and national level. That’s not a problem; in fact, it’s a good thing, because the aggregate contained in these platforms reflects the broad consensus within the party at any given time on the issues of the day. It is important to document this consensus so our elected officials and candidates have guidance as to that consensus; and it is important to remind our elected officials and candidates that they should heed that guidance or explain pretty clearly to us what conservative principles they are using to deviate from it.

The problem comes when we try to read the planks of a platform, or impose fidelity to our own pet issues, as if they are the political equivalent of verses of scripture—like an inerrant political Word. As I’ve said in other posts over the years, Republicans aren’t sheep and we aren’t jackasses—that's the other party. Instead, we’re pretty ornery and independent-minded elephants, who are proud and stable beings who care for our herd, but who don’t want someone else’s political litmus test or pet issue imposed like a yoke upon us.

So, why do so many of us want to impose such rigid purity of thought on our fellow Republicans? Think about this—if each of our own pet issues and ideas must be considered as the scripture for the party that must be followed literally without deviation, can we ever really form a lasting and strong political party with those who disagree with some of our verses? Instead, aren’t we going to break-apart into smaller and smaller units with narrower and narrower agendas, until we can not elect anyone who will have the political support to make the fundamental and innovative changes we so desperately need? Isn’t this drive toward purity what is really behind the effort to label every Republican we disagree with as a RINO? If we are all RINOs to each other, are there any Republicans left?

To bring this post back full circle, will our future Buckleys and Reagans be allowed to hold opposing positions on the important issues of the day and still remain friends and allies, let alone be called “conservative” or "Republican"? Heck, will we even attract future Buckleys and Reagans to our party if we continue down this road?

The problem I am discussing is a problem Reagan and his generation foresaw, and it’s why they embraced principles, rather than orthodoxies or ideologies.

So, as our newly-elected representatives in Austin and Washington debate the issues before them, and as we start evaluating candidates for 2012, let’s not impose on them our own litmus tests, and let’s not call them “traitors” or threaten them with retaliation if they deviate from a platform plank. Instead, let’s tell them that it is alright to debate and disagree on how to use our conservative principles to solve the problems we face, and then let’s encourage them to debate the potential answers on immigration, the budget, ballot security, national security, the wars, foreign affairs, and many other issues guided by our platforms, but governed by our principles.

If we follow that path, I believe we eventually will get some great and innovative solutions based on our conservative principles—just like the solutions Buckley and Reagan worked together to give us a generation ago.

Some Perspective about Electability and Consistency

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

Well, we now are getting mercifully closer to the beginning of the voting in the Republican caucuses and primaries to choose our next Presidential Nominee. As I pointed out in a recent post about a focus-group we conducted at the last meeting of the Clear Lake Area Republicans, we Republicans share a lot of anxiety about this approaching election, because we sense that we are at a real tipping point in our history for many reasons. For this reason, we all are concerned about choosing the right candidate who will not only win in 2012, but who will lead a transformation of our political system based on conservative principles to fix the mess we face.

So, the concern of the moment, as Newt Gingrich sustains his improbable rise to the summit of the polls, is whether Newt can sustain the discipline he is showing, and whether he will be accepted by enough independent voters if he wins the GOP nomination to beat Obama and sweep other Republicans into Washington with him. With each passing day, we are being told that he can’t—by the media, by pollsters, by Democrats, and by virtually every Republican who considers themselves to be a leader within our party—while he keeps surging in the polls of GOP primary voters. Two recent images emerged from columns by Jonah Goldberg which aptly portray the anxiety many Republican leaders feel, when he described Newt as both a wild beast re-introduced to his natural habitat, and the re-incarnation of Godzilla (“Newtzilla”). It is this image of Newtzilla that is driving some pundits to start to encourage consideration of a third-party candidacy for Ron Paul, that is driving other pundits to beg voters to take a second look at Rick Perry and the rest of the field, and that is driving fundraisers to shovel money to Mitt Romney. “Newt hysteria” is the psychosis of the season for the Republican establishment.

With all this hyperventilation going on around us, it’s hard to maintain some perspective. But, with just a few weeks remaining before the voting begins, it’s time for all of us to take a deep breath for a moment, and then to remember that many of us have seen and heard all of this at least once before—and, when the dust settled that time, conservatism not only survived, it thrived for a generation.

As I wrote in my last post, it’s so hard now to objectively recall how Reagan was perceived at the end of 1979. When he gave the closing speech of the 1976 Republican Convention, most Republican leaders believed that they had finally vanquished the idea of a Reagan Presidency, and of a conservative ascendency within the party. Although Reagan’s ideas for a “New” Republican Party in 1977 were tolerated as they helped to mobilize conservatives for the mid-term elections, the party establishment believed he could be managed as an elder statesman. Even when he announced that he would seek the Presidency again in 1980, the party establishment did not take him seriously.

I encountered this attitude first-hand during my senior year of college in Rockford, Illinois. John Anderson was the local Congressman, and he had announced that he would run for the Republican nomination. At that time one of my mentors was the co-chair of John Anderson’s Presidential campaign, and he asked me to join the campaign to manage the national recruitment of college-student voters. I’ll never forget the reaction I got when, at the end of a meeting to discuss the offer, I told him and the others in attendance that I could not accept the position because I didn’t agree with Anderson and I was supporting Reagan. The incredulous, smug, and derisive reaction was something I will never forget, and not only my relationship with my mentor soon ended, but not long after that meeting I was asked to stop my work for Lynn Martin’s campaign to succeed Anderson in Congress (Martin later became Secretary of Labor under George H.W. Bush).

In the meantime, I recruited a handful of classmates to block-walk for Reagan, and to work for Reagan at polling places on the day of the Illinois primary in 1980. I’ll never forget one afternoon when I was at a grocery store wearing a Reagan pin, and one of the cashiers—a middle-aged woman—asked if I would wait a minute. She then gathered several of her co-workers and asked if I had more buttons, which I did, and I handed them out. She said her manager said it was “ok” to wear them, and they all put them on the lapels of their uniforms. As I left the store, she thanked me, and said they were praying that now was finally the time for Reagan. I knew that day that something extraordinary might happen that fall.

And, my gut was right—something extraordinary did happen that fall, as Reagan swept the nomination, swept the election, and swept in a Republican Senate for the first time since the Eisenhower years. But that process was not easy or pre-ordained. As much as no one wanted Carter re-elected—even Democrats—there was a lot of apprehension about Reagan until the very last week of the campaign when he debated Carter on national TV. It is hard to remember this now, but Ted Kennedy was leading all candidates of both parties in the polls at this time in 1979. The polls throughout 1980 would reflect a dissatisfaction with Carter, but a real apprehension of Reagan—which fueled Anderson’s ego enough to get him to run as an Independent. The following editorial cartoon reflects the mood and viewpoint of the country toward both Carter and Reagan as the election approached:

Look familiar? Today, in place of the Frankenstein image of Reagan from a generation ago, we are given the images of a wild beast and Godzilla from a fellow conservative to portray the current GOP frontrunner in an election cycle where most voters don’t want to re-elect the incumbent Democrat.

So, before we work ourselves into a frenzy of fear and anxiety, let’s step back. I don’t know if Newt will, or even should be, our nominee, but I don’t fear his candidacy. Nor will I allow myself to be torn with anxiety as the polls move all over the place next year. If he wins this nomination, he has a very realistic chance to win the race as the electorate evaluates his candidacy throughout the next year—even up to the eve of the election. I believe that we will not lose this election if Newt is nominated, but we will lose this election if we let the establishment’s concern over his electability pre-ordain the outcome. We didn’t let that happen in 1980, and we can’t let that happen now.

That reflection leads me to address my final point for this post—the current attack on Newt’s alleged failure to be a “consistent” conservative. The new label of “consistent conservative” is nothing more than a new version of the tired old label of “true conservative,” which typically is trotted out in a final, desperate attempt to differentiate a candidate from his or her opponent when all substantive arguments have failed, and to set the opponent up for the final Scarlett Letter of “RINO” or “moderate.” The use of the label is intended to foreclose serious thought and discussion, and to trigger a Pavlovian response of support for the candidate who invokes it to describe herself and of revulsion toward the opponent. Using labels like “consistent” or “true” underscores a triumph of ideology over principle in conservative debate.

As I tried to subtly point out in another recent post, the battle between libertarians and religious conservatives over the extreme ideological future of conservatism is really hurting this party. This battle focuses on the worst of both extremes—a misreading and misapplication of Adam Smith, and an over-application of the literal Word to secular politics. Russell Kirk, Bill Buckley, Whitaker Chambers, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan roll in their graves as this battle intensifies.

Framing the debate within the Republican field as being about who is the “consistent conservative” necessarily judges conservatism ideologically, which is the antithesis of Kirk's view that conservatism is based on principles, not ideology. It reminds me of Reagan’s favorite philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous discussion about the problem with “consistency” in his essay on self-reliance. In that essay, Emerson observed that the consistency that matters is that of character, and that character only reveals itself over time from the cumulative evaluation of actions and statements, not from a foolish adherence to rigidity of action and thought moment by moment, day by day:

• The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. …


• … A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. … To be great is to be misunderstood.


• I suppose no man can violate his nature. … A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; — read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. … Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.


• … The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on the advancing actor.

Are we going to continue to live in a time dominated by “foolish consistency”? Are we going to continue to vote for men and women who choose to be “little statesmen” in order to satisfy the test of consistency driven by the 24/7 news cycle, the “Meet the Press” gotcha quotes, and the Internet. In such a world nothing fades into the haze of memory in order to give us the breathing room to think deeply, evaluate our positions based on new facts and information, and apply our principles with imagination over time.

In such a world, men and women like Gingrich, who have served in the Arena over decades, and who have had to think about many issues and ideas over many years as data and circumstances have changed, would naturally be foreclosed from higher office because considerations they discussed 20 years ago no longer meet the test of consistency. If that is to be our world, then our politics will be dominated by those who either have never thought about or discussed the pressing issues of the day, have been too timid to ever deviate from orthodoxy in their consideration of what is the best course of action based on enduring principles, or have been in the Arena too short a time to ever have had to consider the impact of new data or circumstances on the application of conservative principles.

In thinking about this issue, I found the most revealing moment from last Saturday night’s debate on ABC to be when Rick Santorum—a very self-professed “consistent” conservative—said it was Newt’s GOPAC CDs on conservatism that attracted him to politics. Does Santorum really think that the Newt he admired no longer exists? Isn’t it more appropriate to reflect on how Newt has tried to think about and apply conservative principles to the issues he has faced over 40 years, and how he has matured through that process, than to judge him based on whether he said the same thing over and over again for 40 years no matter what the issue was or what experience had taught him?

Say what you will about Newt’s flaws, he’s closer to the Emerson ideal of a leader whose “[g]reatness appeals to the future” than most of the others up on that stage last Saturday night. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking for a leader in 2012, not someone who is trapped by his or her own “foolish consistency”.