"Which is exactly why so many of
today's so-called conservatives are so quick to dismiss it. If there is
an interloping ideology on the Right today, it is not libertarianism but
neoconservatism, an ideology born not of limited government philosophy
but of ex-socialists who migrated Right in reaction to the counterculture
of the 1960s. Today, neoncons are devoted to promoting the maintenance
and expansion of America's global empire."
Are Libertarians 'Conservative'?
Neoconservatism, not libertarianism, is the
true aberration on the American Right
By Jack Hunter
Published 04/08/10
During a question-and-answer session at the 2010 Conservative Political
Action Conference in Washington, D.C., one man opined, "One thing
I've learned here at CPAC is that the 'C' actually doesn't stand for
'libertarianism.' It's not 'L'PAC." When Congressman Ron Paul won
the annual straw poll at CPAC, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh made a point
to tell his listeners that CPAC wasn't conservative this year because a
libertarian had won.
Both men are worse than just wrong. They're out of their minds.
Arguably the most popular history of American conservatism, George H.
Nash's book The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America
begins with libertarianism. In the first chapter titled "The Revolt
of the Libertarians," Nash states: "For those who believed in
the creed of old-fashioned, classical, 19th-century liberal
individualism, 1945 was especially lonely, unpromising, and bleak. Free
markets, private property, limited government, self reliance,
laissez-faire -- it had been a long time since principles like these
guided government and persuaded peoples."
Chronicling the intellectuals who tried to rectify this bleakness, Nash
begins his history with two men: economists F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von
Mises. Then he explains how these libertarian heroes kick-started the
American conservative movement. Few actually used the word
"conservatism" in 1945, a term that began to gain popularity
when Russell Kirk's book The Conservative Mind was published in
1953 and with the founding of William F. Buckley's National Review
in 1955. Nash notes that even Kirk was inspired by both Hayek and Mises,
writing to a friend that these men represented a "great school of
economists of a much sounder and different mind."
After Hayek and Mises, Nash then cites Albert Jay Nock, publisher of the
unabashedly libertarian magazine The Freeman in the 1920s. Writes
Nash: "Nock came to exert a significant amount of influence on the
postwar Right," yet was so libertarian that "Nock verged on
anarchism in his denunciations of the inherently aggrandizing
State." Noting the impression Nock made on a young Buckley, Nash
explained that "it was Nockian libertarianism, in fact, which
exercised the first conservative influence on the future editor of
National Review."
Edwin J. Feulner, Jr., president of the conservative think tank the
Heritage Foundation, says, "Nash's work is one of the very few books
that must be read for a full understanding of the conservative movement
in America." However, Feulner's Heritage Foundation advertises on
Limbaugh's show, where the host is seemingly oblivious to the fact that
the American conservative movement could not have existed without
libertarianism. Furthermore, pundits like Rush often claim to be
"Reagan conservatives." However, they seem to forget that in
1976 said Reagan, "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism
is libertarianism." As you can see, advocating for "limited
government" without employing some degree of libertarianism would be
logistically impossible.
Which is exactly why so many of today's so-called conservatives are so
quick to dismiss it. If there is an interloping ideology on the Right
today, it is not libertarianism but neoconservatism, an ideology born not
of limited government philosophy but of ex-socialists who migrated Right
in reaction to the counterculture of the 1960s. Today, neoncons are
devoted to promoting the maintenance and expansion of America's global
empire.
Whereas traditional conservatives considered war -- and the massive
bureaucracy necessary to wage it -- an occasional, necessary evil,
neoconservatives consider perpetual war a good precisely because they
believe it is America's mission to export democracy to the rest of the
world.
Questioning the cost or wisdom of waging perpetual war is considered
unconscionable or even "unpatriotic" to neoconservatives, which
is why they are so dismissive of libertarians and others who question
foreign policy. Most neoconservatives instinctively realize that their
ideology is incompatible with the libertarian's pesky obsession with
limited government, giving neocons reason to marginalize, or expel, any
libertarian influence that threatens to expose the statist nature of
today's mainstream conservative movement.
Considering their new, radical definition, it's easy to see why Rush and
other mainstream conservatives don't consider libertarians part of their
movement --because they're not. And while it remains to be seen how the
irreconcilable differences will play out between limited government
libertarians (whose numbers are growing) and big government
neoconservatives (whose ideology still dominates), let there be no more
ignorance about which philosophy is truly more alien to the historical
American conservative movement. And let there be no further delusions
about which philosophy was most responsible for creating it.
Reprinted with permission from
Charleston City Paper.
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=758
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
