Who Will Defend Family in 2012?

The Republicans bill themselves as the party of the family. They defend family values, or at least they oppose certain anti-family policies such as abortion and same-sex marriage. The reason for this concern is that the family is the bedrock of society. The family is the little society in which human beings receive their moral formation, fitting them for the larger society. As goes the family, so goes law and order and prosperity and decent service in the check out line.

The other reason for this concern--the negative one--is that the family has come under devastating assault over the last two or three generations. In some communities, it doesn't even exist. Those communities are the poorest, most crime ridden, most blighted in every way.

In my Worldmag column this week, "The Semi-conservative Republican Party," I take the GOP to task for not going beyond the defense of individual liberty (political and economic) to the rigorous and systematic defense of the family, the social unit on which the enjoyment of that liberty depends fundamentally.

I write: "Ronald Reagan appointed a Special Working Group on the Family to examine all policies for their impact on the family. That was good as far as it went, but the work needs to be less reactive. A thoughtfully crafted, fully coordinated family policy should recognize the requirements for and impediments to healthy family life, and inform the president of whatever measures are necessary and constitutional to strengthen it. State governors and local governments should do the same.

"Conservatives these days are hawkish over how a given tax or regulation will affect small business and job creation, and that’s good. But the family deserves the same protective scrutiny."

A Crash Course in Who We Are

I hope within the next few months (is that asking too much?) to take the civics test for my American citizenship. I will not study for it, of course. If I can't pass this test with a Ph.D. in political science, I don't deserve citizenship or any other kind of honor. But one cannot escape the irony that whereas people from other countries who apply for American citizenship must pass a test on American history and political institutions so that they can participate in our political process more intelligently, people who were born here and have the right to vote simply by virtue of having survived to eighteen years of age can be as abysmally ignorant of these matters as the government school system allows them to be (and that's pretty bad).

Recent developments in Washington--and I'll throw in the last 75 years as well--demonstrate that Americans in general are in need of a remedial course in our political principles. There are many institutions that are working on this national project in adult education. But most recently, David Corbin and Matthew Parks, who teach political science at The King's College and University of New Hampshire respectively, have started an effort in the blogosphere, aptly entitled republican101. Here is one of Prof. Corbin's posts that presents the gist of the blog.

Sarah Palin’s surprise announcement that she was resigning as Governor of Alaska amounted to another bad news day for Republicans. Every news day recently has seemed like a bad news day for Republicans. Which has led some to suggest that the party would do better to resemble its political adversary. This is bad advice. Republicans instead should do the following:

(1) Remember that before there were Republicans, there were republicans.

(2) Consider that the American people are a republican people, not a Republican people.

(3) Understand that this is a good thing.

(4) Begin to transform the Republican party into the republican party.

Well, what is a republican?

John Adams defined a republican as a species of man who ascribes to “an Empire of Laws, and not of men . . .in other words to that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws.” Knowing that there was “an inexhaustible variety of Republics because the powers of society are capable of innumerable variations,” Adams endorsed a republican form of government held together by a regime that “introduces knowledge among the People, and inspires them with a conscious dignity, becoming Freemen.” For Adams, the most excellent form of government encourages excellence in both its leaders and its citizens.

How often has government at any level inspired dignity, excellence, and freedom in the past year?

You might be a republican if you’re still racking your brain.

And if you’re a discouraged Republican, you might think encouragingly about the prospect of the Republican party becoming republican again. If the American people are more republican than they are Republican, Republican politicians would do well to take note.

The Health Care Power Grab and the GOP

The Congressional wheels are turning to give us a government-run health care system before year's end. Everything the Obama administration is planning seems to threaten to smother what is left of our liberty, squander our prosperity, and lay us prostrate before our enemies abroad. The health care issue is no exception.

George Will argues that the President, like his party, has a "dependency agenda" ("The Stealth Single-Payer Agenda," Washington Post, June 21, 2009).

Why does the president, who says that were America "starting from scratch" he would favor a "single-payer" -- government-run -- system, insist that health-care reform include a government insurance plan that competes with private insurers? The simplest answer is that such a plan will lead to a single-payer system. ... The party of government aims to make Americans more equal by making them equally dependent on government for more and more things.

Will brings out the dishonesty in President Obama's rationale's for this government initiative: competition for a system with 1300 providers competing with each other, and coverage for the 45 million uninsured, almost all of whom are either illegal aliens or could get coverage if they wanted it, whether by enrolling in an existing program or just buying it. Yuval Levin and William Kristol expand on this in "Dare To Defeat ObamaCare." President Obama said recently: " One of the options in the exchange should be a public insurance option...[because] if the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and keep prices down."

Levin and Kristol point out what should be obvious to everyone.

It's an interesting statement. We had thought that the role of government was to set rules for honest private competition, which does keep prices down and improve products. And there are reforms that could improve the important rule-setting role government should play, and could increase private competition and transparency. But Obama wants government to be one of the competitors--in the alleged interest of honesty and price reduction. When has a government alternative produced these results?

Consider where this argument leads. Why not a government bread company to keep food prices down and keep food producers honest? Why not a government construction agency to keep home prices down and home builders honest? Why not as parallel government auto industry? Oh, but we have one of those. And a financial sector too. Obama's deceitfulness is disheartening, but only to those who expected better from him.

The Obama plan is so shrouded in terrors that not only does no Republican support it, but several Democratic Senators have positioned themselves against it, and it is opposed also by the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and AHIP, the association of insurance providers.

If ObamaCare fails to pass, Levin and Kristol see then a window of opportunity then opening up for a market-based Republican alternative, one this is more consistent with and even supportive of American liberty.

Karl Rove lists many of these criticisms of the government's health care reform proposal in "How to Stop Socialized Health Care: Five arguments Republicans Must Make." Above all, he says, the power grab would be irreversible. In "ObamaCare Isn't Inevitable," he shares the results of a Resurgent Republic poll that shows Americans generally satisfied with their health coverage, and suspicious of a government run health system and the significantly higher government spending that would attend it.

Americans are increasingly concerned about the cost--in money and personal freedom--of Mr. Obama's nanny-state initiatives. To strengthen the emerging coalition of independents and Republicans, the GOP must fight Mr. Obama's agenda with reasoned arguments and attractive alternatives. Health care must actually be an issue that helps resurrect the GOP.

This leads us to Regina Herzlinger's paradoxically titled article, "Why Republicans Should Back Universal Health Care" (The Atlantic, April 13, 2009). At first glance she seems to be making her peace with some form of government run health plan, but in fact she merely shows how the Republicans can pitch a market based system as universal coverage--and do it truthfully--and save the country at the same time. "With one brilliant foray, Nixon converted the massive threat posed by the isolated China into an asset, secured a favorable mention in history, and stripped the Democrats of a key issue. By embracing their own brand of universal health coverage, Republicans can do the same."

The health insurance system is approaching crisis proportions.

• "millions distort the efficient allocation of labor in our economy by opting for jobs in dying, big companies that offer health insurance, rather than productive ones in small companies that do not."

• "our employer-based health insurance system forces American businesses to pack our massive health care costs ... into the cost of their exports, a huge albatross in a globally competitive economy"

Though most Americans want a better system, and employers would love to be free of the responsibility for providing and paying for employees' health benefits, the public nonetheless has "substantial concern about the Democrats' reliance on universal coverage through a government-controlled system like Medicare." In view of the cost of a government-run, Medicaid style program, the public is also concerned about the inevitable rationing of services. Herzlinger points out that, "the truly sick constitute only 20 percent of health-care users, but account for 80 percent of health-care costs," and so the sick are "a politically vulnerable target for cost control through rationing."

In addition, either doctors will flee the country or people who would otherwise become doctors will choose a more lucrative profession, leading to a doctor shortage and waiting lists for everything from general practitioners to surgery.

There will be far less money for research. "Venture capitalists will find it too risky to invest in markets where one payer controls prices."

So Herzlinger tells the GOP to seize the opportunity to "offer a consumer-controlled universal coverage system, like that in Switzerland."

• "the Swiss choose from about 85 private heath insurers"

• "the Swiss poor shop for health insurance like everyone else, using funds transferred to them by the government"

• In that system, "The sick ... pay the same prices as everyone else in their demographic category"

The bottom line: "This consumer-driven, universal coverage system provides excellent health care for the sick, tops the world in consumer satisfaction, and costs 40 percent less, as a percentage of GDP, than the system in the US."

For more on Herzlinger's efficiency producing, consumer driven, liberty oriented proposal, see my post from February 2008 on Herzlinger's books and her address at The King's College, "Hope for the Health Care Mess."

Scratch Jindal from the List

Well, at least now we know where not to place our hopes for a GOP answer to Barack Obama in 2012. After President Obama's speech before the joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal stepped into the bright and unflattering light of national public scrutiny and made it helpfully clear that he is nowhere near ready for the highest office, and perhaps never will be.



Here is David Brooks's take.



Nicole Gelinas at City Journal has this to say in "Jindal's Missed Opportunity."

Harold adds:

Hold on there partner. Way too early to scratch Jindal. Nicole Gelinas's experise, and it truly is expert, is financial and economic. David Brooks went over to the dark side many moons ago, and is only correct as often, and for the same reason, as a stopped clock. To listen to these two--and a host of other progressive "conservatives" who so want to be included by the cool kids in DC, is to buy into the prevailing sentiment that the way something is said is far more important than what is said. Obama delivered a soothing imitation of a rationally prudent and pragmatic leader offering a program to address the "crisis". (I submit the main crisis is the wholesale government takeover of American life, establishing soul-killing socialism for generations if not forever.) But his words belie his intent--he is not going to waste this "crisis", and his cool rhetoric is like the spoonful of sugar helping the socialist medicine to go down. If Jindal stumbled a bit on his freshman outing, so what? Are we mistaking speech for action? Remember how Clinton used to announce some policy goal, and then act as if the work were done, problem solved? Jindal is only 37; in his remaining time as governor (which is likely to run two terms) he will make Louisiana one of the bright spots in the nation with his tax cuts and regulatory reforms. Standing in an empty hall in front of a camera crew responding to the One in the conspicuous splendor of the House of Representatives and in front of a partisan audience is a gauranteed second place finish, especially when the MSM can be counted on to discount the Republican response no matter what--even before the fact. The "we want to be cool too" Republicans are not helping by assuming the whole of the Democrat critique and taking it on as their own, albeit in a slightly modified form. If style is the only or even the main criteria, we are vulnerable to demagoguery in a way we have not previously seen. Jindal will get better--in fact has been better many times--and will be around as a leading voice for conservatism for decades. I am not dismayed by his bobbling the ball on this play--the game is not over.

David adds in turn:

Harold, after I read your helpful post on Beirut (and, with the news of Hitchens getting a beating, a concerning one), I wondered if I would also find a rejoinder from you to my Jindal post. You did not disappoint.

I can't say you're wrong. I can only say that I'm skeptical.

If he's a learner with uncultivated native ability, I'll be thrilled. But what he needs to learn is the art of rhetoric. Of course you are right that the way something is said is not more important than the way it is said. But what a political leader says gets lost and even distorted if he doesn't master the art of presentation. That includes prudently applying his principles in view of his particular circumstances and audience so that his audience--those he wants to elect him--will embrace the wisdom of those principles. I think he missed on both scores. But we are agreed in hoping that he will grow in office.

Whither Our Good Country?

I have just discovered a fine new journal published by Houston Baptist University called The City. (The online version with blog is Civitate, now on the Principal Blogs list to your right.)

In a post-election forum entitled "Where Do We Go From Here?," Joseph Knippenberg contributes the lead article, and a very wise and insightful one. Joe is fine writer, and an equally fine political analyst informed by a thorough knowledge of the history of political philosophy.

Sadly, very few of the articles are accessible online. So I will pass along just a few quotes that will perhaps entice you to subscribe, as I certainly plan to do. Subscriptions are free.

Barack Obama and his Congressional colleagues will certainly try to capitalize on [the remarkable confluence of events favoring the electoral prospects of Democrats] to construct a "permanent" Democratic majority. But that's much harder than winning an election against an underfunded opponent identified with an exceedingly unpopular incumbent who is said to be responsible for a very unpopular was and an even more unpopular financial crisis. They won't have Bush to kick around for another four years, and from now on, everything they break, they own. ...

Obama argues that the hallmark of a judge,

...is to look out for what were once called 'discreet and insular minorities,' to correct the political process in the name of social justice, whose precepts are to be found, above all, in the compassionate heart of the judge. Law is a tool that empowers the weak, not a framework that protects all of us or a set of principles and rules that constrain everyone. ...

College and university students who take the truth seriously,

...may or may not be Republicans. The GOP will have to earn their support. How can it do so? Perhaps by returning to its roots as the party of Lincoln, a party committed to a thoughtful and self-critical engagement with our country's principles and history. ...

And this on how the GOP should engage the new President.

Republicans can challenge [Pres. Obama] by making two assertions. First, they can insist that authentic care for our neighbors is voluntary and relational. If government takes the lead, it lets us off the hook, crowding out our own efforts. In other words, it demoralizes not only the recipient but also the potential giver. Second,...they can agree with President-elect Obama (sic.) that opportunity is the name of the game, but argue that the great engine of that opportunity is the private sector, not government. This is not a celebration of greed, but rather of contagious self-reliance. ...

Reflecting on what Gingrich called "the opportunity society and on what George W. Bush called an "ownership society," Knippenberg writes,

...wealth is simple an instrument for leading a good life and that a good life is not simple a matter of consuming more and more. It is, as Aristotle recognized a long time ago, about having the capacity to judge and act for oneself and in common with others, embodying and expressing virtues that include courage, moderation, and generosity, among others. It is this moral element of the economy that I would have Republicans stress.

If, in lieu of a philosopher king, we need philosopher journalists to address our rulers and those who elect them, then Knippenberg, who is not only professor of politics at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, but also a contributor on the No Left Turns blog, is one who fulfills that role.

The City is published three times a year, and subscriptions are free of charge.

• If you would like to subscribe to The City, simply fill out this form.

• If you would like to subscribe to Civitate.org’s online feed, to receive posts via RSS or email, click here.

GOP Top Ten As Of Now

Perhaps you have read numerous accounts now of what has gone wrong in the Republican party, and of how we can repent and find our way back into the good graces of the wise and good voting public. Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post offers this list of ten Republican leaders and potential leaders who will be offering themselves as the One To Whom We Will Turn when we have learned our lesson for having embraced the Boy King, and the O-phoria has worn off. In traditional, Late Night fashion, he starts with number 10.

10. Steve Poizner, the Insurance Commissioner of California, likely Republican nominee for governor in 2010.

9. Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi since 2003.

8. Jon Huntsman Jr., Governor of Utah.

7. Eric Cantor, Virginia Congressman and now also the House Minority Whip.

6. Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina and newly elected chair of the Republican Governors Association.

5. Bob McDonnell, Virginia's attorney general, and surely the Republican candidate for governor in 2009.

4. Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana.

3. Mitt Romney, who needs no introduction.

2. John Thune, South Dakota Senator who beat former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in 2004.

1. Bobby Jindal, 37-year-old Indian American governor of Louisiana.

Well, print that up and post it on your wall, then check back with it in three years. Or you can just ignore the whole matter, and whoever shows up in three years shows up. Cillizza explains his exclusion of Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. I've heard Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas has ambitions beyond the U.S. Senate.

If you're interested in the particulars on these fine horses, you can read "The Friday Line: Ten Republicans To Watch."

Out of the Wilderness

Did the 2008 elections show that America has become a center left country? The winners seem determined to govern Americans as if it had, as if we were Europeans. Meanwhile Republican leaders remain preoccupied with their red and blue maps, and with refining the tactics that so richly earned them being chased into the wilderness yet once more. The American people however have no desire to be remade in the image of Europe or according to the imagination of our haughty, self-serving, incompetent ruling class. If and when conservative leaders worthy of the name arise, they will not lack followers.

What would it take to lead the American people out of the dark woods, to take power from those who now prepare to dictate our lifestyles as no American government ever imagined it had a right to do? Whoever would lead us out of this mess had better be very sure of how we got in it. Wise hunters use landmarks to find their way out of the wilderness and wisdom in general comes from retracing, backward, the paths that led to error.

Our landmarks, our warning signs are written in victories that paved the way for defeats. In our greatest victory, 28 years ago, Ronald Reagan overcame the me-too crowd within his Party, took center stage and made the love of political, economic, and religious liberty popular again; he spoke American to Americans. Landslide elections followed. Unfortunately, Reagan handed over the seemingly mundane task of governance to the best connected in his Party—a group whose hearts were warmed by the fact that his popularity increased their access to power, prestige, and wealth. And so Bush I so squandered the Reagan legacy with tax increases and granting of the Left’s premises – to him we owe environmentalism’s chokehold on us – that he got only 38% of the vote in 1992 and gave us eight years of Clinton.

Then in 1994 Americans signed up for another American revolution. Republicans offered a Contract With America and again spoke American to Americans. But they turned out to be more concerned with who got the credit, got on meet the press, and got on Air Force One.

And if one ever doubted how American Americans are, note their patience with George Bush II, a leader who spoke American to Americans without understanding what he was saying. While attempting to celebrate America’s virtues, he misunderstood them and handed America’s business to the most incompetent administration in recent American history.

To lead is to gain the trust of those whom you would lead. Good credit in politics is built just like good credit in any other field. It requires understanding what is the right thing to do and then making sure that it is done. At a minimum it means doing what you say you’re going to do. If you say you’re going to cut taxes, regulation, and spending, cut taxes, regulation and spending. If you say you’re going to leave Washington in 6 years, leave Washington in 6 years. Even the most earnest and understanding American stops doing business after the second, third, or fourth bad check. This is pretty elementary.

Keeping hold of this elementary morality is difficult because, as the greatest wilderness survival story of all time teaches us, it is all too human to fall for the temptation to get something for nothing - to turn stones into bread. And for earthly princes, it is even more tempting to pretend to God-like power, and to want power to satisfy their limitless thirst for primacy.

Our first settlers rightly understood that the best way to turn a desolate wilderness into a promised land is to be mindful of these temptations. Our Founders rightly understood that the best way to turn a promised land into a Republic of Virtue was to do the same. And ever since, America has been at its best when its people reject these temptations and demand its leaders do the same.

Conservatives have recently made the mistake of confusing support for Republican leaders who have given themselves over to such temptation with what is right, and good for America. Today's Republican establishment is rotten. The way out of the wilderness requires that we leave it to rot with it’s red, blue, and purple election maps, and recognize that America is still made up of Americans yearning to be spoken to and led in their mother tongue.

-- David Corbin writes as a guest today on Principalities and Powers. He is assistant professor of politics at The King's College in New York City.

Political Counsel for Soft-Hearted Evangelicals

A friend passed along this letter from an Evangelical Christian man whose politics are shifting leftward as he follows what he thinks are the practical implications of his faith.

He writes:

The biggest thing pushing me to Obama (or the Democratic Party as a whole) is a political paradigm shift I've had with regard to a solution to help me "love my enemy." I am willing for my taxes to go to help those less fortunate...those my church and other private organizations may not be able to reach. And while the Republican party tries really hard to protect life inside the womb, once you're out of the womb they could care less about you. Don't abort that baby born into a life of crime and poverty, but sure don't help him get out of that!

Well, where does one start? Vote Democrat, and kill the baby before he even has a chance? Barack Obama voted against a bill (3x!) that would protect babies born alive who were supposed to be killed by abortion. That IS a paradigm shift.

The Democratic approach is to treat people as though they were helpless children and do as much as possible for them. The Republican approach (when Republicans are true to their principles) is to treat people as adults and to help them help themselves. That is not saying, "You're on your own." Effective prosecution of crime (a Republican priority) and policies that promote broad prosperity through healthy free markets (oh, another Republican priority) will help that boy more than Democratic efforts to give him ever more entitlement programs, ensuring that he and the generations that follow him are reduced to being wards of the state. And where are the kids this confused brother describes? They are in cities the Democrats have controlled for the last 50 years.

The difference between the parties is the difference between liberty and paternalism. Liberty frees you to serve God; paternalism offers itself in place of God. The Biblically stated purpose of government is to "punish evil and praise what is good" (I Peter 2:14). That is to say, it is to secure the governed in their liberty so that they can live peaceful and quiet lives in godliness and holiness (I Tim. 2:2). It is to provide a secure environment so that they can go about their business providing for themselves and one another.

Having said that, even if it were the government's place to provide for people in that situation, Democrats want all power concentrated at the highest level, furthest away from the people where it is least responsive to the people and least responsible to them, instead of at the local and state levels. Democrats don't like the people getting in the way of the government "helping" them, for example when poor inner city parents want to be able to choose what school they use for educating their children. Foolish parents, thinking that they have a better understanding of what’s best for their children than the wise Democrats in the government school system.

Lastly, if this brother wants to spend his money helping specifically situated people in specific ways, there are private organizations to which he can give his money (whose effectiveness he vastly underestimates). What he should not do is use the coercive power of government to force others to make the same judgments.

(Never mind the fact that what he and those organizations do is charity, i.e., loving service perhaps even in Jesus’ name, whereas what the government does is entitlement. On that point, he must read how entitlements morally corrupt both the recipients and those who otherwise would be givers in Tocqueville’s "Memoir On Pauperism."* While he’s at it, he should read Tocqueville’s Speech on the Right to Work. I know of nothing better than these two writings to cure a kind-hearted man of his socialist confusions.)

*www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/Tocqueville_rr2.pdf (This links to a pdf file, and does not work directly from the blog.)