Bush Rationalizes Bailouts

George W. Bush, a terrible president in nearly every respect, continues his assault on free markets. As Patrick Buchanan notes and others have verified, Bush told CNN in defense of auto bailouts, "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."

But Bush never had any free-market principles to abandon. He's been one of the more statist presidents, though lagging behind the likes of Hoover and FDR, dramatically expanding the scope and power of the federal government.

Bush's statement is pragmatism on steroids: it is not merely the view that principles are unnecessary, but that they should be actively violated.

But liberty cannot be saved by violating liberty. To the degree that free-market principles are abandoned, the free-market system no longer exists. Free markets are free from the initiation of force and fraud. Free markets exist when government limits its activities to protecting people's rights to life and property. When the government forcibly takes wealth from some to redistribute to others, that is not a free market, it is a politically-controlled one.

Bush might as well say that he's committing theft to protect property or assault to protect the integrity of the victim. He might as well say he's drinking vodka to stave off drunkenness, cheating to preserve fairness, or lying to protect the truth.

The primary reason that American auto manufacturers are in trouble is that they do not function in a free-market system. They function in a system of federal manipulation of the money supply, federal manipulation of the housing supply (which has generally mucked up the economy), federal manipulation of auto production, and federal manipulation of associations.

There is only one way to save the free-market system, and that is to reinstate the principles of free markets, the principles of liberty, the principles of individual rights. By trampling free-market principles, Bush is helping to destroy the free-market system.

Liberty, Not Lies

Terence Jeffrey pointed me to an article by William Kristol for the New York Times that argues against "small-government conservatism." Following I summarize Kristol's reasons.

* Though Jeb Bush has railed against "big-government" policies, "in his two terms [as the governor of Florida] state spending increased over 50 percent."

* "Five Republicans have won the presidency since 1932: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. Only Reagan was even close to being a small-government conservative."

* The 1994 "Contract With America" failed to deliver.

* W. Bush expanded Medicare.

Krisol concludes, "So talk of small government may be music to conservative ears, but it's not to the public as a whole."

But then Krisol adds the following parenthetical note: "Besides, the public knows that government's not going to shrink much no matter who's in power." No, the public knows that Republicans have expanded federal spending even faster than the Democrats.

But this contradicts Kristol's main point. Kristol thinks "small-government" Republicans aren't popular. The truth is that the public knows that most Republican politicians who claim to support a "small government" are damned liars.

Perhaps the reason that the public does not vote for a small government that protects individual rights and economic liberty is that Republicans offer no such policy, and those who claim to do so routinely advocate a massive welfare state, religious controls, and economic controls in the name of "small government."

Rosen: GOP Message Out of Fashion

At the Independence Institute's banquet November 13, Mike Rosen offered his thoughts on why the Republican Party got trounced. While he provided useful historical perspective, he didn't begin to explain what went wrong with the Republican Party.

While Rosen essentially blamed GOP losses on the spirit of the era, in fact the GOP has actively alienated a variety of voting blocks, and that goes a lot further in explaining why the GOP is now in disarray. To summarize my case, the GOP alienated the free-market wing, nonsectarians, most women of reproductive age, immigrants, homosexuals (and by extension most younger voters), and civil libertarians.

Rosen blamed the mortgage crisis on the "perfidy of some capitalists" as well as the ill effects of certain government controls. This is "not in indictment of capitalism, [but] an indictment of human nature." But there is nothing inherent in "human nature" that makes people turn to central economic controls; that's a result of political philosophy. In general, Rosen avoided discussions of the importance of ideas and focused on the forced of history.

Rosen said, "I understand the limitation of markets, the imperfection of markets." This comment contained two confusions. First, the "market" is merely the combination of individual actors. People can and do make mistakes. The "market" is largely the process by which people respond to and correct mistakes, such as by a businesses going bankrupt. Second, Rosen fails to distinguish between the free market and the government controls that caused the crisis (as well as the private fraud that contributed to it).

"Capitalism and rugged individualism are marginally out of [favor] right now," Rosen continued. Perhaps, but it doesn't help that the Republican Party generally has done everything in its power to foster that trend. So it's not as though people are rejecting the GOP because it stands for capitalism; many rejected the GOP because it has rejected capitalism.

The Libertarian Party did poorly, Rosen argued, because its notions of "rugged individualism and independence" are "too rigorous." But this doesn't begin to explain the failure of the LP. This year the party was fractured, and Ron Paul endorsed another candidate. More importantly, the LP typically stands against government, not for liberty, so the party understandably frightens away many voters. (Of course our winner-take-all system favors two parties.)

Rosen's advice for Republicans is to "return to their Reaganite roots... We don't change our beliefs, but we have to better communicate those beliefs." It would help if the GOP had some decent beliefs to communicate. The GOP is currently the party of the religious right. The GOP does not need to better communicate those beliefs, it needs to jettison them completely. Furthermore, the GOP needs to jettison the massive-government "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush as well as the nationalistic, anti-liberty fervor of John McCain. Let us not forget, ever, that John McCain is an enemy of free speech, and as such he richly deserved to lose.

Rosen said Republicans "won't win until the American people are ready to hear our message." No. The Republican Party won't win until it is ready to offer the American people a message of liberty.

See the collected posts about the Independence Institute's 2008 banquet.

Malkin's Conundrum

Earlier this evening (November 13) I attended the Independence Institute's annual banquet. It was a lovely and fun night. Jon Caldara was in top form. Unfortunately, it will probably take me a few days to get up the photographs and audio interviews, as I need to attend to a family matter. For now I want to address the most important issue of the evening: Michelle Malkin's endorsement of faith-based politics in the form of abortion bans.

Hers was an uncomfortable message to bring to the Independence Institute, an organization known for sticking to matters of economics and self-defense and avoiding divisive "social" issues like abortion. Malkin is wrong in principle. And if Colorado Republicans take her advice, they are doomed to perpetual failure.

What of those who, like me, endorse the separation of church and state and advocate a woman's right to get an abortion? Malkin said Republicans should "let them go their own way" -- in other words, leave the Republican Party.

We have left.

The result is that Bob Beauprez lost the governor's mansion, Bob Schaffer lost the U.S. Senate seat, Marilyn Musgrave lost another House seat, and candidates like Libby Szabo lost the state legislature. (See my pre and post election comments on the GOP's faith-based political disaster.)

Fittingly, the Denver Post published Paul's Hsieh's article on the matter the same day that Malkin offered her comments. Hsieh writes:

I want to let [Republicans] know that they lost the vote of many former supporters (including myself) because they have chosen to embrace the Religious Right.

I voted Republican in 1996, 2000, and 2004. I believe in limited government, individual rights, free market capitalism, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms -- positions that one normally associates with Republicans.

But I didn't vote for a single Republican in 2008. I've become increasingly alienated by the Republicans' embrace of the religious "social conservative" agenda, including attempts to ban abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage. ...

[T]he government's role is to protect each person's right to practice his or her religion as a private matter and to forbid them from forcibly imposing their particular views on others. And this is precisely why I find the Republican Party's embrace of the Religious Right so dangerous. ...

The Religious Right's goal of outlawing abortions would violate that important right, and sacrifice the lives of actual women for clumps of cells that are only potential (but not yet actual) human beings, based on religious dogma. As a physician, I find that position abhorrent and deeply anti-life.

As Ryan Sager writes for Reason, this is a widespread trend (leaving aside the controversies over the "libertarian" label):

The Cato Institute has done excellent work over the last few years tracking the shift in the libertarian vote -- the roughly 10 percent to 15 percent of the American public that can be categorized as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Based on an analysis of the American National Election Studies, Cato found that between 2000 and 2004, there was a substantial flight of libertarians away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats. While libertarians preferred Bush by a margin of 52 points over Al Gore in 2000, that margin shrank to 21 points in 2004, when many libertarians -- disaffected by the Iraq war, massive GOP spending increases, and the campaign against gay marriage -- switched to John Kerry.

While it is true that faith-based politics is only one of the issues driving liberty voters away from the Republicans, it is also true that the faith-based politics of Bush and McCain is of a cloth with their big-government spending. Bush ran as a "compassionate" conservative -- i.e., a religiously altruistic one -- while McCain selected the evangelical economic lightweight Palin as he himself suspended his campaign in order to rubber-stamp Bush's $700 billion Great American Rip-Off.

Malkin made a couple of references to Ayn Rand, saying she recently moved to Colorado to get her own piece of Galt's Gulch and that she has "most virtuous" selfish reasons for wanting local conservatives to succeed. I am continually amazed by how many conservatives selectively read Rand -- and understand hardly a word of what she wrote even as they invoke her works. Notably, Malkin did not quote what Rand had to say about abortion or faith-based politics generally.

Unlike Bush and McCain, Malkin sticks with liberty when talking about economic issues. She hammered McCain for supporting the bailout, pushing environmental controls, and lamenting the evils of profits.

Malkin was positively inspirational. She said the proper Republican strategy is "simple: we stand up for our principles." We don't rebrand our beliefs, "we defend them." "We lock and load our ideological ammunition." "We do not whine, we do not wheedle, we fight."

Malkin said Repubicans must oppose any new stimulus, must oppose new "windfall profit" taxes, must oppose federal loan guarantees. "If you get rid of the ability to fail," she said, "you get rid of the ability to succeed." Right on.

Republicans who endorsed the bailout suffered "ideological pollution."

But then, in an instant, the anti-liberty Malkin took the stage. She said Republicans should not "de-emphasize" or hide their "pro-life" -- i.e., faith-based anti-abortion -- stance. To do so also would be to suffer "ideological pollution." Republicans "need to stand up for life unapologetically," she said.

And those who do not share Malkin's desire to impose religious faith by force of law? "Let them go their own way."

However, as Diana Hsieh and I explain, the faith-based opposition to abortion is not "pro-life," it is anti-life. It would sacrifice the lives of actual people to fertilized eggs. I do not advise Republicans to "de-emphasize" or soften their calls to outlaw abortion: I advise them to completely reject faith-based politics and defend the individual rights of actual people.

Malkin's conundrum is the one faced by the Republican Party generally: she tries to defend and violate liberty at the same time. Her stance is fundamentally untenable. It is no coincidence that the religious right is drifting away from matters of economic liberty and increasingly interested in welfare spending, environmental controls, and of course draconian social controls.

Malkin's treatment of abortion contrasted sharply with her comments on immigration. She admitted that there are "cleavages" in the Republican Party over immigration, but also things "we agree on." Oh, you mean that there are no "cleavages" over abortion? The facts prove otherwise. Yet, for Malkin, on immigration Republicans can agree to disagree, while on abortion the nonsectarians must be shown the door. (As I have argued, it remains possible for secular liberty voters to reform a coalition with those religious voters who endorse the separation of church and state.)

As Paul Hsieh reviews, Rush Limbaugh wants to purge the Republican Party of those who decline to toe the faith-based line. Malkin offers the same advice. She wants me to go my own way. So long as Republicans insist on imposing religious faith by force of law, I remain her obedient servant.

See the collected posts about the Independence Institute's 2008 banquet.

Hank Brown Rallies Republican Majority for Choice

This article originally was published by Grand Junction's Free Press.

September 15, 2008

Hank Brown Rallies Republican Majority for Choice

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

"The heart of the Republican Party is here tonight... This party has always been a bastion of protecting individual freedom, and individual rights, and individual opportunity. It took the form of fighting slavery, it took the form of leading the civil rights movement...

"It took a place in fighting to preserve individual freedom as the government became a regulatory monster at the federal level. And even today it takes the form of fighting to save Americans who work for a living a chance and an opportunity to keep a fair share of what they produce...

"And in true form the Republican Party continues to be a champion of individual freedom and individual rights. The issue that we are concerned about tonight is just such an issue. Who in the world ever would believe that the federal government and a federal bureaucrat should have the right to dictate to people their most personal decisions?

"This issue is about individual freedom, individual responsibility -- the very heart of this Republican Party. It's what we've always stood for. It's what's held us together... and what's set Republicans apart. We're the ones who believe individuals have a right to control their own lives. Individuals have a right to decide their own destiny...

"Our gathering tonight is very much in the spirit of this party, it's been the very fiber of what it's believed in and stood for its entire existence. And at the point that we give up supporting and defending individual freedom and choice, we give up the very core of this great party."

Hank Brown, former U.S. Senator and former president of the University of Colorado, shared those remarks last week in Denver with hundreds of supporters of the Republican Majority for Choice (GOPChoice.org), a national group with a strong Colorado presence. The group organized the event to support a woman's right to choose whether to get an abortion and to oppose Amendment 48, which would define a fertilized egg as a person in Colorado's Constitution.

Brown's remarks impress us for several reasons. As one of the elder statesmen of the Republican Party in Colorado, and as one of the state's most respected leaders, his words carry a great deal of weight. He has shown real leadership by championing a cause unpopular with a segment of his party's base. He has restated his party's basic principles. And he has pointed the way for his party to regain the trust of freedom-minded independent voters and Republicans who respect the separation of church and state.

Brown's comments are broader than a single issue: in a few words, he has restated the principles of liberty that we once thought -- and would like to think again -- belong to the Republican Party.

John McCain hardly ever mentions the words "individual rights," and never have we heard him muster much enthusiasm for the concept. Hank Brown said it, and he meant it. While Brown's party side came through when he praised McCain to your younger author, we wish that come November we could cast our presidential vote for a man like Brown.

We know what the opponents of abortion are thinking at this point. "What about the individual freedoms, rights, and choices of the unborn?" Brown did not get into that philosophical debate. As we've mentioned, the paper "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life" at SecularGovernment.us explains why a fertilized egg is not a person.

Other speakers explained why Amendment 48 threatens to outlaw abortion -- even in cases of rape and health risks to the woman -- ban popular forms of birth control, ban fertility treatments, and unleash legal havoc in Colorado.

Brown was joined at the event by other notable Republicans, including Gale Norton, former Secretary of the Interior, and State Senator Nancy Spence.

From Grand Junction, former State Representative Gayle Berry attended. She's on the advisory board for the Republican Majority for Choice. She said her goal as part of the organization is "keeping government out of personal choice... A lot of us would choose life, we just don't want government making those decisions for us." She said she's particularly concerned that Amendment 48 would become part of the state's constitution, beyond the reach of the legislature. Also, "it puts 'person' in a definition that could be carried to the extreme."

Berry also showed a party side. Regarding Sarah Palin, who opposes abortion, Berry said, "I love her... I'm not a one-issue voter, and she's not a one-issue candidate." Berry also pointed out that Bob Schaffer also has come out against Amendment 48, though we note that he has not done so based on any fundamental principle. So the GOP remains conflicted.

In 1967, Republican Governor John Love signed a bill liberalizing Colorado's abortion laws. We're glad to see that, in 2008, some Republicans are again planting roots in the soil of liberty.

Republican Majority for Choice

Recently I learned about a national group called the Republican Majority for Choice. From first appearances, this group seems to be headed in the right direction. The organization writes, "We are deeply concerned with direction of our Party if it continues to endorse a social agenda that is both intrusive and alienating."

The group even has a Colorado affiliate headed by Amanda Mountjoy (whom I don't know). Here's what Mountjoy had to say against Amendment 48 (which would define a fertilized egg as a person):

Making changes to our State Constitution is a serious matter that should not be manipulated by special interest groups with a single issue agenda. This is not the place or the vehicle to debate private healthcare decisions. This initiative is a thinly veiled attempt by an extreme minority to impose their views upon the people of Colorado and will lead to big-government control of some of the most complicated choices facing our families.

Consequences of the initiative would be far-reaching and would not only include a ban on abortion, but also a ban on many commonly used forms of birth control. If the proponents of this initiative were truly concerned about reducing abortion in Colorado, as they claim to be, then they would work to forward proven effective, common sense measures like prevention and education. In the past Coloradans have defeated initiatives that interfere with personal freedom, and the Republican Majority for Choice is confident that Colorado voters will again vote to ensure that reproductive healthcare decisions remain between a woman, her family, and her doctor.

The group's newsletter offers a more detailed case against the measure. (Of course, I recommend the paper by Diana Hsieh and me on the subject.)

Unfortunately, the group seems to veer into unprincipled pragmatism at times. For example, the Colorado chapter claims that Amendment 48 "simply goes to far," following the line from the main campaign against. For reasons that Diana and I explain, that's a horrible position. Also, the group notes, "Thanks to the years of hard work and dedication from the members of RMC Colorado to providing complete and compassionate medical care for survivors of sexual assault, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 60 in to law Thursday, March 15 to mandate hospitals to provide information about emergency contraception (EC) in the emergency room." However, the government has no business dictating policy to hospitals. That said, if hospitals intend to practice faith-based medicine, they should clearly inform their patients of that. So there is some role for the law to play in the matter -- as in any case of contract.

Yet, despite some problems with the RMC, the group represents a positive step for the Republican Party, which, under the guidance of the religious right, has become an enemy of liberty and handed Colorado government to the Democrats.