Fall, 2013—A Place At The Table: Discovering And Articulating Conservatism

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! During this holiday season, as we begin to place an added emphasis on the things we care most about, as we express gratitude to our Heavenly Father, the ultimate Provider, for the precious people, moments, and opportunities in our lives, I think it is safe to say that in giving thanks we find ourselves compelled to rise above an increased sense of pessimism that pervades society. Many people, these days, seem to be consumed with the notion that something is terribly amiss with life in America.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that I believe there is one singular wrong plaguing our country; indeed, I would argue that while many citizens agree that “something” seems to be wrong with life in this country, very few Americans would agree on what that “something” is.

In my experience during the past few months, I’ve met many who have expressed discouragement—for some, despair—with the direction this country seems pointed in. The reasons for this discouragement and despair appear varied…at first glance. I will return to this at a later point.

I will be the first to admit that I am not above inadvertent contribution to this phenomenon. In recent months, I have become gradually more dissatisfied with the attitudes and opinions of my peers and associates. Every passing day seems to reinforce the fact that idiocy is not monopolized by any particular political party; misguided fools can be found at any point on the political spectrum.

We live in a country where many Americans are quick to praise capitalism when times are good but equally quick to criticize it when times are bad. We live in a country where well-meaning individuals fail to understand that the recent string of violent shootings occurring across the country are not manifestations of a problem with guns but of a problem with individual freedoms and the right to protect human lives. We live in a country where people whine about the failures of progressive education, failing to realize that any system that attempts to make all students succeed on a government-mandated “even playing field” can only foster underperformance and underachievement. When devastating oil spills occur, people blindly call for supposedly environmentally-friendly “green” energy sources that will save the world even when market forces say otherwise. Americans believe in the moral superiority of unions, even though many unions have become bloated, bureaucratic special interest groups that only exist to seize and hold political power; they inhibit competition, individual chances for promotion, and growth in the jobs market (think of the recent controversy concerning Hostess and your precious Twinkies snacks).

The illegal immigration issue, far from disappearing from the national discourse, has continued to escalate, but in terms that I find puzzling. Instead of talking about honoring, sustaining, and obeying existing laws, more and more Americans approach the topic as if it’s a matter of proving our country’s compassion and charity. We live in a society with an increasing chorus of voices calling for the immediate bestowal of privileges as if they are natural human rights; we seem to forget that one of the primary reasons we now live in a recessive economy is because we foolishly embraced the notion that home ownership is somehow a right deserved by everyone. Big government advocates use victimization as a reason to use federal power to intrude on the private economy in order to make things “fair.” Progressives foolishly believe that they can change or alter human behavior and create a better world by enforcing draconian laws upon society, sacrificing individual liberties to the all-encompassing power of the state. The central, yet unspoken, premise of many of these advocates is that the system of government established by the American Founders is outdated and ill-equipped to handle modern problems.

People like me have become especially frustrated with the breakdown of the family, confusion of gender roles, and the debasement and decline of marriage in America’s overall national culture. We hear complaints about rising tides of crime, unemployment, and other social ills, of maladjusted youth and declining social capital, and of decreased levels of satisfaction with personal qualities of life. Yet, how many Americans stop to correlate these social problems with the overall decline of families, properly defined gender roles, and traditional understandings of marriage?

At the beginning of this school semester at Brigham Young University, I had a chance encounter with one of my good friends who recently got married and started out in a new life with his lovely bride. I have known this friend since my high school days in Hughson, California, and upon unintentionally running into him in between classes on BYU’s campus, we proceeded to catch up a little bit with each other’s life developments. As usual whenever Christopher Peterson is involved and the conversation is allowed to proceed to a certain length of time, the subject of talk turned to politics.

As I talked with and listened to my friend, I learned that this friend struggled with the very same feelings of pessimism that I have mentioned at the beginning of this blog post. This conversation with my friend took place in the midst of the federal government “shutdown,” which gave my friend plenty of reasons to complain about congressional impasses, government inefficiencies, and outright irrationality on the part of our country’s highest officials, representatives, and public servants.

In expressing his complaints about government, politics, and the direction of the country, my friend climaxed his exasperations with a sentence that I found particularly significant. In a huff of frustration, my friend exclaimed that, for the most part, he “just wanted the government to leave him alone!”

I seized on that phrase immediately. It helped me empathize with my friend’s feelings. It is the underpinning of what I wish to share with all of you as part of this fall season’s blog post.

I have already made the case that many Americans are currently experiencing feelings of frustration, discouragement, doubt, despair, and perhaps even a little anger at the problems they see around them in America’s social fabric, public political discourse, and governmental policy and programs. I have already admitted that most Americans wouldn’t necessarily agree up front about exactly what has gone wrong with America—many only know on instinct that something has gone wrong. Like my friend that I talked with on BYU’s campus at the beginning of the semester, these individuals look at what is happening around them in their communities and in the news media and sense the pessimism. They figuratively throw their hands up in disgust and decry the anonymous forces that set the calamities exhibited around them in motion.

One important problem with so many of these frustrated, despondent Americans is that all too often their solution to the country’s challenges is more government; more government intervention in the private sector of life, more government presence in the everyday lives of the citizenry. What these misguided hopefuls desperately need to realize is the lesson taught by President Ronald Reagan a little less than three decades ago: government, in many cases, is not the solution to our problems but is the problem itself. The validity of this maxim has been born out in recent human history.

I currently work as an assistant to a professor at Brigham Young University who teaches United States history from the Civil War to the present day. Many of his classroom lessons have focused on historical political movements that sought to use government intervention to create utopias for mankind. Beginning in the 1890’s and going on into the first two decades of the 20^th century, progressives like Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams, John Dewey, and Woodrow Wilson attempted to reengineer American society on a grand scale by using federal intervention to craft a middle-class paradise, a man-made kingdom of heaven here on Earth. Their misguided idealism and meddlesome tactics only resulted in the self-destruction of progressive politics accompanying the chaos of the First World War. Across the Atlantic, the ideological cousins of American progressives enjoyed more success in building European socialism; the ideological descendants of these budding collectivists were the founders of fascist and communist movements that would eventually lead to the devastation of World War II. After the war, liberals on both sides of the Atlantic and across the Western world would protest that it was possible to use Keynesian economics to finally solve all of the world’s social ills, including poverty, crime, and racism. In reality, when the forces of the Old Left ultimately failed to bring order amidst the chaos and demoralization of the 1960’s (largely exacerbated by their intrusive government experiments), a radical New Left emerged to seize the reins of power within the leftists’ ranks, leading to social turbulence and a decade of malaise in the 1970’s. The leftist-liberal legacy has been with us ever since.

In many ways, that same leftist-liberal legacy has defined the political landscape on a permanent and lasting basis (with a few important exceptions). Current political parties and leaders have been tainted by this statist inheritance; the problem has become so widespread and pervasive that it can no longer be said that constitutional conservatism—what the Founding Fathers would have called “republicanism,” the truest and purest form of right wing political ideology—plays an active role in shaping government policy. When it comes to political influence, conservatism does not have a place at the table.

For conservatives like me who believe in the Founders’ vision for our country and hold fast to their teachings of limited government, it has become our necessary duty to help our fellow Americans discover conservatism. It is our job to articulate its principles in such a manner that makes its commonsense goals and values palpable to the public at large. Only in this way can conservatism regain a place at the table of political dialog. For millions of hard-working Americans who simply wish for government to “leave them alone,” conservatism is the answer they’ve been looking for. Big government is not.

Everything that has been talked about thus far in this blog post can be summed up and illustrated by a real-life example, a real-life debacle that may possibly be remembered as the greatest travesty of the Barack Obama presidential era: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

Most of us know the general history of Obamacare’s advent as a piece of national legislation; we are familiar with its shameful complexity, bureaucratic inefficiency, and utterly incompetent enactment. We are especially aware of the law’s dangerous implications for the relationship between the federal government and individual property rights. With its infamous individual mandate to coerce every American to purchase healthcare, Obamacare stands ready to radically redefine what government can tell American citizens they have to do as well as disrupt the economy with yet another massive intrusion into the private sector. This law is a disaster in both the here and now as well as the potential future.

Many Americans seem to be subconsciously aware of this. They could hardly miss out on all the action of the federal government “shutdown” which placed Obamacare at the center of national discussion. What Americans probably did miss out on was the true nature of the conflict surrounding Obamacare. Many probably turned on their favorite TV news networks and interpreted the battle over funding Obamacare as a typical Washington D.C. feud between Democrats and Republicans.

In reality, the real battle is being fought between Washington D.C. and commonsense itself.

Commonsense is a scarce resource within the Beltway of our national capital. How else could you possibly interpret a place where illegal immigrants are allowed—and actually encouraged by some politicians on The Hill—to protest for amnesty on the National Mall while World War II veterans are prevented from that same right in the very same location? How is it that the media seemed to ignore the Washington establishment-type congressmen who showed up to the amnesty rally (and actually got themselves arrested for disorderly conduct) while demonizing Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and Rand Paul, who showed up with the World War II protesters to demonstrate their solidarity with the citizens of their country?

Irrationality has gripped the power structures of our country. Political expedient has become more important than principled ideas and has become the defining characteristic of President Obama’s domestic policy. Guided by an inherently anti-American dogma, President Obama’s presidential record has been marked by crowd-pleasing antics and truth-evading, responsibility-dodging acrobatic displays of rhetoric. Strangely, many Americans—the very same Americans who recognize that something is wrong—devotedly cling to the messianic notion of Barack Obama as the man who can magically make everything right.

Obamacare is the President’s flashiest magic trick. Talking about it, advertising it, and showing it off in carefully crafted teleprompter speeches may make everyone feel good, as if the supply-and-demand rules of the healthcare market have truly been transcended. In the end, when the magic trick is over, close observations of Obama’s chicanery will leave the American people tragically disappointed.

Some have warned of the danger, but groups like the Tea Party and individuals like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Sarah Palin have been dismissed out of hand by both major political parties. Conservatives like me admit that without these groups or individuals, there would be no effective resistance to Obamacare. This is a particularly shameful commentary on the Republican Party; once an organization that proudly carried the banner of conservative ideology, the Republican Party has long since abdicated its role as an effective advocate of truth. Republican leaders have instead opted for compromise with the left. Compromise has its place, but it also has its limits. On subjects as important as Obamacare, compromise deserves a very limited place indeed.

In September of this year, common attitudes and opinions labeled disestablishment types like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Sarah Palin as unrealistic political amateurs who thrived on partisan gridlock. The news media blamed these individuals and their associates for standing in the way of compromise, as if compromise is the supreme virtue of leadership. What the pundits fail to grasp is that true leadership does not rest upon the sacrifice of one’s principles to the false premises of the opposition. Those who just two months ago pledged to fight Obamacare with every bit of energy they had were brave to do so; they deserve credit for their foresight and dedication.

These steadfast opponents of Obamacare have been vindicated. By November, the same news media types who proclaimed the death of the Republican Party back in September found themselves reporting on new lows for President Obama’s approval ratings, on disappointing website unveilings, abysmal numbers for Obamacare sign-ups, and stories of insurance companies sending cancelation letters to customers whose healthcare plans were invalidated by new regulations. The promises of our President were overwhelmingly proven false. Job growth continues to be stagnant. Obamacare will further add to the country’s economic woes. It is a massive intrusion into the private economy and can only result in misalignment of resources and capital as well as inefficiency in the marketplace.

Obamacare is a perfect exhibition of the left’s intellectual bankruptcy. It is a product of armchair theorists who didn’t even bother to read the congressional bill. It is a product of faculty lounge discussions involving people who believe the private sector is mean, cruel, unfair, and rotten. The advocates of Obamacare place more trust in centralized planning than in freedom of individual initiative; they believe that they know what’s best for the stupid masses. In the campaign to “sell” Obamacare to the American electorate (has anyone else noticed that the sales pitch for Obamacare continued even after it became the law of the land?) the leftists proposed a magical, feel-good, fix-all solution that sounded great on bumper stickers. They proposed a system that would be fair, equitable, and accessible to all. They said that universal healthcare would work like a charm.

Have any of these dreams been fulfilled? Have any of their promises come to fruition?

The false utopia offered by Obamacare never materialized. And although people like President Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius continue to promise us that the date—which keeps getting pushed back—when Obamacare will finally be run on an efficient basis is close at hand, nobody should be holding their breath for good news. The outlook is not encouraging. With insurance premiums potentially doubling and tripling, people are going to have less disposable income as the entire American economy contorts itself to conform with the outrageous regulations of Obamacare.

Ayn Rand, the Objectivist novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter, taught that the best way to fight a bad idea was to come up with a better idea. Good ideas properly explained and sufficiently persuasive are the only legitimate keys to winning an argument. Rush Limbaugh, on his weekday talk radio program, recently said that conservatism is seen as “a deranged, lunatic, stupid cowboy, George Bush who wanted to go into Iraq for no reason.” In recent months, it has become increasingly clear to me that my duty—and the duty of conservatives everywhere—is to help reshape the public’s perceptions of conservatism as an idea, a good idea, as a force for the rebirth of truly American ideals like small government, energetic individualism, and economic opportunity. The truth of conservatism must be communicated to the American people. They must be educated to know, as Rush Limbaugh says, that conservatism is “a value-based lifestyle that's rooted in personal responsibility, achievement, freedom, [and] liberty.”

Because of Obamacare’s destructive nature, we conservatives have a unique opportunity to point to it and say, “see, we told you so.” This is our chance to show that leftist liberalism is a system of thought based upon a foundation of falsehood. This is our chance to wake the American people up to the reality around them—confusing and obfuscated as it is—and offer up a simple yet comprehensive answer, a better idea than what’s been presented to us for most of our lives by the wizards of smart in Washington. This is our chance to throw our support behind maverick politicians like Cruz, Lee, and Palin to help them fight the twin evils of collectivism and statism. This is our chance to help others discover conservatism by articulating what conservatism really is. More importantly, this is our chance to point to the nonsense of America’s current state of affairs and articulate what conservatism is not.

On October 22^nd, 2013, I had the wonderful privilege of listening to a forum address to the BYU student body by Dr. George Will, the conservative newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. At this fantastic event, where Will brilliantly confronted the financial and moral hazards of our dangerous national habit of “borrowing from the future” through the massive spending habits of the welfare state, Will had this to say:

“For all the talk about the discord in Washington…America’s biggest problem today is a consensus as broad as the Republic and as deep as the Grand Canyon…The American people suffer from a severe case of cognitive dissonance, which is a fancy way of saying they hold in their mind with equal fervor and sincerity flatly incompatible ideas…The American people are often ideologically conservative but operationally liberal…The problem is that we can’t go on doing this for so long, because what we are practicing today is a kind of decadent democracy.”

We must cease from practicing “decadent democracy.”  We need our policies to reflect our conservative inclinations, our commonsense-based abilities to solve societal problems. We must rediscover conservatism so that it can once again find a place at the table of government policy at all levels of the Republic. By so doing, we can ensure that the American people will refocus on their individual electoral responsibilities.

In an America such as this, politicians like Barack Obama and laws like Obamacare won’t stand a chance at election polls or congressional rolls. We will have far less to be sorry for and much, much more to be grateful for. I think that’s what the Pilgrims had in mind when they landed at Plymouth Rock those many Thanksgivings ago: a proud, peaceful, and prosperous country with a level-headed sense of direction and destiny.

--Christopher Peterson, November 30th, 2013