An Agenda for Conservatives
Power is the answer.
NO MORE PUSSY-FOOTING AROUND
It’s time for “muscular” conservatism:
[I]f conservatives want to save the country they are going to have to rebuild and in a sense re-found it, and that means getting used to the idea of wielding power, not despising it. Why? Because accommodation or compromise with the left is impossible. One need only consider the speed with which the discourse shifted on gay marriage, from assuring conservatives ahead of the 2015 Obergefell decision that gay Americans were only asking for toleration, to the never-ending persecution of Jack Phillips.
The left will only stop when conservatives stop them, which means conservatives will have to discard outdated and irrelevant notions about “small government.” The government will have to become, in the hands of conservatives, an instrument of renewal in American life — and in some cases, a blunt instrument indeed.
To stop Big Tech, for example, will require using antitrust powers to break up the largest Silicon Valley firms. To stop universities from spreading poisonous ideologies will require state legislatures to starve them of public funds. To stop the disintegration of the family might require reversing the travesty of no-fault divorce, combined with generous subsidies for families with small children. Conservatives need not shy away from making these arguments because they betray some cherished libertarian fantasy about free markets and small government. It is time to clear our minds of cant.
In other contexts, wielding government power will mean a dramatic expansion of the criminal code. It will not be enough, for example, to reach an accommodation with the abortion regime, to agree on “reasonable limits” on when unborn human life can be snuffed out with impunity. As Abraham Lincoln once said of slavery, we must become all one thing or all the other. The Dobbs decision was in a sense the end of the beginning of the pro-life cause. Now comes the real fight, in state houses across the country, to outlaw completely the barbaric practice of killing the unborn.
Conservatives had better be ready for it, and Republican politicians, if they want to stay in office, had better have an answer ready when they are asked what reasonable limits to abortion restrictions they would support. The answer is: none, for the same reason they would not support reasonable limits to restrictions on premeditated murder.
On the transgender question, conservatives will have to repudiate utterly the cowardly position of people like David French, in whose malformed worldview Drag Queen Story Hour at a taxpayer-funded library is a “blessing of liberty.” Conservatives need to get comfortable saying in reply to people like French that Drag Queen Story Hour should be outlawed; that parents who take their kids to drag shows should be arrested and charged with child abuse; that doctors who perform so-called “gender-affirming” interventions should be thrown in prison and have their medical licenses revoked; and that teachers who expose their students to sexually explicit material should not just be fired but be criminally prosecuted.
If all that sounds radical, fine. It need not, at this late hour, dissuade conservatives in the least. Radicalism is precisely the approach needed now because the necessary task is nothing less than radical and revolutionary. [John Daniel Davidson, “We Need to Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives”, The Federalist, October 20, 2022]
As Davidson says later in his post (and as I have said in the past), conservatives are at war with the left. Therefore, as Davidson says,
there are only two paths open to conservatives. Either they awake from decades of slumber to reclaim and re-found what has been lost, or they will watch our civilization die. There is no third road.
It is impossible to conserve what has been destroyed. But it is possible to rebuild what has been destroyed. That is what conservatives must strive to do. And they must be ruthless about it because the left cannot be reasoned with — it must be overpowered.
In that spirit, I will expand on the idea of a conservative counter-revolution, drawing posts of mine that are several years old. (Davidson is late to the party.)
THE “FREE-SPEECH” PROBLEM
The left, in its drive to impose its agenda on the nation, has become censor-at-large. Two can play that game.
I am not a free-speech absolutist; nor do I subscribe to the conceit that the “best” ideas will emerge triumphant in the so-called marketplace of ideas. (See this, for example.) The “marketplace of ideas” ensures only that the most popular ideas or those with the strongest political backing will prevail. Nor is science immune to persistent error.
Regarding freedom of speech, I draw on James Burnham‘s The Struggle for the World:
Democracy in practice has never, and could never, interpret the right of free speech in an absolute and unrestricted sense. No one, for example, is allowed to advocate, and organize for, mass murder, rape, and arson. No one feels that such prohibitions are anti-democratic….
We may generalize as follows. The principles of an organized society cannot be interpreted in practice in such a way as to make organized society impossible. The special principles of a special form of government, in this case democratic government, cannot be interpreted in practice in such a way as to make that form of government impossible.
Here is Burnham again, in Suicide of the West:
Liberalism [of the kind that prevailed in the early 1960s] defines free speech and the related freedoms of assembly and association, as it does “peace” and “disarmament,” in abstraction, without tying them to specific persons and circumstance. For liberalism, these freedoms are the procedural rules sustaining a democratic society that rests on the will of the majority and solves its internal conflicts of interest and opinion through continuous discussion, negotiation and compromise. But this meaning of free speech and the related freedoms is significant and operable only for those who share the wish or at least willingness to have and preserve some sort of free and constitutional society. For those others— and they are not few among us— whose aim is to subvert, overthrow and replace free and constitutional society, these freedoms of speech, assembly and the rest are merely convenient levers to use in accomplishing their purpose.
The liberal ideologue is thus caught in the inescapable dilemma of his own making that we have previously examined. If he extends the freedoms to the subverters, they will use them, as they have done in one nation after another, to throw the free society into turmoil and in the end to destroy it. But if he denies the freedoms to anyone, he will feel, does feel, that he has betrayed his own principles, “imitated the methods of the enemy,” and thus joined the company of subverters. So, when a showdown with the subverters comes, as it comes from time to time to all nations, the liberals are demoralized in advance, if they do finally forget ideology and decide to resist, by the guilt generated from this feeling of self-betrayal. Let us note that this is a purely ideological trap. Common sense, unlike ideology, understands that you can play a game only with those who accept the rules; and that the rules’ protection does not cover anyone who does not admit their restrictions and penalties.
Bear in mind that Burnham was writing when “liberals” actually subscribed to the notion of unfettered speech — in principle, at least. The ACLU, a leading “liberal” institution, had consistently defended the speech rights of so-called hate groups and political figures deemed unpalatable by the left. I say “had” because the ACLU has joined the ban-wagon against “hate” speech, that is, speech which offends the sensitivities of “liberals”.
If there is one idea that today’s “liberals” (leftists) share with conservatives, it is that absolute freedom of speech can undermine liberty. The rub is that leftists mean something other than liberty when they use the word. Their idea of liberty includes, among many anti-libertarian things (e.g., coerced redistribution of income, race-based discrimination), the rejection and suppression of facts and opinions because they threaten the attainment of the left’s agenda (e.g., biased reports and web-search results about the left’s anti-scientific, fraudulent, and economically devastating push to eliminate fossil fuels).
In sum, the left’s stance on freedom of speech has nothing to do with the preservation of liberty and everything to do with the advancement of an anti-libertarian agenda.
THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
Events of the past two years have confirmed my long-held view (captured here) that when the White House in the hands of a left-wing Democrat (is there any other kind now?) and there is an aggressive left-wing majority in Congress, these things (and much more) will come to pass:
Freedom of speech, freedom of association, and property rights will become not-so-distant memories.
“Affirmative action” (a.k.a. “diversity”) will be enforced on an unprecedented scale of ferocity.
The nation will become vulnerable to foreign enemies while billions of dollars are wasted on the hoax of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and “social services” for the indolent.
The economy, already buckling under the weight of statism, will teeter on the brink of collapse as the regulatory regime goes into high gear and entrepreneurship is all but extinguished by taxation and regulation.
All of that will be secured by courts dominated by left-wing judges — from here to eternity. (The U.S. Supreme Court will be “packed” as necessary to ensure that it no longer stands in the way of the left’s march toward totalitarianism.)
The left’s game plan is threatened by those who speak against such things. Thus the left’s virulent, often violent, and increasingly overt attacks on conservatives and the suppression of conservative discourse.
This is coming to pass in large part because of free-speech absolutism. Unfettered speech isn’t necessary to liberty. In fact, it can undermine it, given that liberty, properly understood, is not a spiritual state of bliss. It is, as I have written,
a modus vivendi, not the result of a rational political scheme. Though a rational political scheme, such as the one laid out in the Constitution of the United States, could promote liberty.
The key to a libertarian modus vivendi is the evolutionary development and widespread observance of social norms that foster peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.
Unfettered speech, obviously, can undermine the modus vivendi. It can do so directly, by shredding social norms — the bonds of mutual trust, respect, and forbearance that underlie the modus vivendi that is liberty. And it can do so indirectly by subverting the institutions that preserve the modus vivendi.
One of those institutions is the rule of law under a Constitution that was meant to limit the power of government, leaving people free to govern themselves in accordance with the norms of civil society. The steady rise of governmental power has in fact shredded social norms and subverted civil society. Which is precisely what the left wants, so that it can remake “society” to its liking.
TIT FOR TAT
It follows, therefore, that liberty can be rescued only by suppressing the left’s anti-libertarian actions. If that seems anti-libertarian, I refer you back to James Burnham. Or you can consider this: If you kill an intruder who has tried to kill you, you are doing what you must do — and what the law allows you to do (except where it is perverted by leftists). Killing a would-be murderer and suppressing those who would suppress you are equally valid instances of self-defense.
Winning and preserving liberty is not for the faint of heart, or for free-speech absolutists whose rationalism clouds their judgment. They are morally equivalent to pacifists who declare that preemptive war is always wrong, and who would wait until the enemy has struck a mortal blow before acting against the enemy — if then.
The left is at war against liberty in America — and against many Americans — and has been for a long time. Preemptive war against the left is therefore long overdue. If the left wins, will there be freedom of speech and a “marketplace of ideas” (however flawed)? Of course not.
Leftists are violent and hateful toward those who disagree with them. The left will suppress and criminalize anything and anyone standing in the way of its destructive agenda (even a former president of the United States). The left’s continuation in power — or return to it — will result in the complete destruction of the social norms and civilizing institutions that held this country more or less together between the end of the Civil War and the early 1960s.
A SHOOTING CIVIL WAR ISN’T THE ANSWER
Will a new (shooting) civil war result if (when) the left takes firm control of the central government? There is much talk about that possibility, accompanied by inflated rhetoric about the people with guns (mainly conservatives) “kicking ass” of the people without guns (mainly leftists). But that is wishful and probably suicidal thinking.
Firm left-wing control of the central government would mean control of the surveillance apparatus, troops, and weapons for which a mostly untrained “army” of rifle-toting patriots would be no match. Terrorist acts by the patriots, unless carefully aimed at government installations and troops actually engaged in suppressive operations, would only backfire and cause the silent majority to scurry into the protective arms of the central government.
GRABBING THE GOLD RING BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
With that in mind, it is clear that drastic actions — but constitutionally defensible ones — must be taken as soon as Republicans regain firm control of the White House and Congress. (Whether that will happen is another matter. But if it does, it may well be the last time, barring drasctic action.)
The rationale and prescriptions for action are detailed here. In what follows, I focus on two prescriptions.
An Anti-Federalist Revival
One presciption is to attack — on a broad front — all statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions of the United States government that grievously countermand the Constitution:
Compile a catatlog of all anti-constitutional actions, which would include (but be far from limited to) enactments like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare that aren’t among the limited and enumerated powers of Congress, as listed in Article I, Section 8.
Prioritize the list, roughly according to the degree of damage each item does to the liberty and prosperity of Americans.
Re-prioritize the list, to eliminate or reduce the priority of items that would be difficult or impossible to act on quickly. For example, although Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are unconstitutional, they have been around so long that it would be too disruptive and harmful to eliminate them without putting in place a transition plan that takes many years to execute.
Of the remaining high-priority items, some will call for action (e.g., restoring the integrity of America’s southern border); some will call for passivity (e.g., allowing individual States to opt out of federal programs without challenging those States in court).
Mount a public-relations offensive to explain the broad plan and how the people will benefit, socially and economically, as it is executied.
Announce specific actions to be taken with regard to each high-priority item. There would be — for general consumption — a simplified version that explains the benefits to individuals and the country as a whole. There would also be a full, legal explanation of the constitutional validity of each action. The legal explanation would be “for the record”, in the likely event of a serious attempt to impeach the president and his “co-conspirators”. The legal version would be the administration’s only response to judicial interventions, which the administration would ignore.
A key result would be the drastic pruning of the size and scope of the central government, accompanied by far fewer regulations and lower taxes. The economy would grow at a rate that might equal the post-Civil War boom. The felt need to wrap up in Uncle Sam’s security blanket would diminish greatly.
A more important result would be the resurgence of liberty along many dimensions, not the least of which would be this:
Enforcement of the First Amendment’s Guarantee of Freedom of Speech
One of the actions would be to enforce the First Amendment against information-entertainment-media-academic complex. This would begin with action against high-profile targets (e.g., Google and a few large universities that accept federal money). That should be enough to bring the others into line. If it isn’t, keep working down the list until the miscreants cry uncle. (As someone once said, “Grab 'em by the throat Their hearts and minds will
follow.”)
What kind of action do I have in mind? This is a delicate matter because the action must be seen as rescuing the First Amendment, not suppressing it. And it must be supported by Congress. Even then, the hue and cry will be deafening, as will the calls for impeachment. It will take nerves of steel to proceed on this front.
Here’s a way to do it:
EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. __________
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. (Article V.)
Amendment I to the Constitution says that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech”.
Major entities in the telecommunications, news, entertainment, and education industries have exerted their power to suppress speech because of its content. (See appended documentation.) The collective actions of these entities — many of them government-licensed and government-funded, encouraged by previous administrations — effectively constitute a governmental violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech (See Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944) and Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946).)
As President, it is my duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. The Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech is a fundamental law of the land.
Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and in accordance with a delegation of emergency power by Congress to me as President, it is hereby ordered as follows:
1. The United States Marshals Service shall monitor the activities of the entities listed in the appendix to this Executive Order, for the sole purpose of ascertaining whether those entities are discriminating against persons or groups based on the views, opinions, or facts expressed by those persons or groups.
2. Wherever the Marshals Service observes effective discrimination against certain views, opinions, or facts, it shall immediately countermand such discrimination and order remedial action by the offending entity.
3. Officials and employees of the entities in question who refuse to cooperate with the Marshals Service, or to follow its directives pursuant to this Executive Order, shall be suspended from duty but will continue to be compensated at their normal rates during their suspensions, however long they may last.
4. This order shall terminate with respect to a particular entity when I, as President, am satisfied that the entity will no longer discriminate against views, opinions, or facts on the basis of their content.
5. This order shall terminate in its entirety when I, as President, am satisfied that freedom of speech has been restored to the land.
NOTHING TO LOSE BY TRYING
The drastic actions recommended here are necessary because of the imminent danger to what is left of Americans’ liberty and prosperity. The alternative is to do nothing and watch liberty and prosperity vanish from view. There is nothing to be lost, and much to be regained.
And if the actions succeed in the suppression of the left — which is their aim, frankly — the bandwagon effect will do the rest. And there will be a rebirth of liberty througout the land.