Strawman Conservative vs. Strawman Statist - a battle of ideas

By A. Dent "Aragorn"For a good discussion of individual liberties and statist abuses I suggest Herbert Spencer's "The Man vs. the State", first printed in 1884. It's in the public domain, meaning that the complete text can be downloaded free. My favorite contemporary 'freedom' manifesto in book form is Unintended Consequences. It's a much bigger and thorough book but very much worth reading and passing it along to the next generations.

I wish I could dedicate more time to writing this review but I can tell that neither 'side' is going to appreciate my take on things so my effort will be limited to a very brief discussion.

Levin's book is an honest albeit brief attempt to spell out what 'the conservative' stands for and to show us all how ridiculously absurd the anti-liberty efforts of 'the statist' have become lately. Nothing is unexpected and nothing surprises, not even the many concessions made to the immediate and local issues of the day - after all, the author does host a daily talk show on the radio and most of his audience is currently unhappy or angry Republicans. Reading the book, we learn that the author is on the side of 'the conservative' of course and that both he and 'the conservative' stand for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is unlike 'the statist' who stands for an increasingly oppressive and intrusive state. The conservative wants to preserve individual freedom inside a reasonably sane society of free men while the statist is interested in serving a parasitic, ever-growing and blob-like expanding state. Levin's Manifesto is successful in exposing not only the statist aberration but, not surprisingly, the severe limitations the movement conservatives impose on themselves. The book exposes the many instances where today's conservatives activities and views are indistinguishable from those of the statists they claim to oppose.

- the armies of compassion
- no child left behind
- borrow and spend by the trillions
- listen on and record everyone's phone calls, emails
- making the tax code MORE progressive and the disclosure (to the state) requirements more oppressive
- socializing the prescription of drugs
- maintaining troops in dozens if not hundreds of foreign countries
- torturing American citizens and foreigners
- transforming the 'voluntary' military into a form of indemptured servitude
- expanding NAFTA at the expense of our own citizenry
- initiating numerous 'free trade' treaties, always at the expense of our own citizenry
- viewing the citizens as 'consumers' and the illegal immigrants as 'workers'
- the executive assuming near absolute powers in area it itself defines as 'national security'
- the executive practice of 'signing statements', practically nullifying the laws passed by the legislative
- the department of homeland security
- the war on drugs
- demanding that individuals under 21 can't drink alcohol but insisting that 14 year olds be tried as 'adults'
- secret executive orders
- wars of choice
- the detention, humiliation and killing of tens of thousands of foreigners under the fig leaf of national security
- support for rubber-stamping secret courts granting the state the ability to spy on its own citizens
- the state blackmailing private enterprises into disclosing citizens' private records

And so on and so forth and much, much more. Now, that the horror that was the W regime is an evil in the past and the baton was passed to the statist of the other party,Martin D. Weiss, I have little doubt that Dr. Levin may agree that many of the above were activities or initiatives that 'the conservative' opposes or should have opposed. But, sadly, nearly all of those whom Levin may call 'conservatives' today, Levin included, had little if anything to say in opposition at the time when 'the conservative' team was in control. Sadder still, most of today's self-described 'conservatives' would defend most of the W regime clearly extremist statist behaviors today, including its most outrageous borrow and spend, torture and militaristic accomplishments.

But I digress. Levin's Manifesto, which is the last chapter of the book, is preceded by a number of issue-oriented chapters meant to put us in the proper mood. We are reminded that the Founders were pious men, that it would be good if the Constitution were not a near-dead document but, surprise, moribund it is. We learn that the United States are a union of the several states but, surprisingly, the FDR seems to be more responsible for the emergence of the current near-totalitarian central government than Lincoln was. And, of course, the Welfare state should be less so - see what 'the real-life conservatives' have done to roll it back. Immigration from the Third World should be hmmm... firmly controlled by the state - in this instance 'the conservative' likes the big state while 'the statist' seems not to care much. And, 'the conservative', who likes to maintain huge armies spread all over the world seems not to worry much about such huge armies being impossible absent the kind of huge state that the strawman statist was supposed to promote.

The book, ends with the actual manifesto. Somewhat to my surprise, the mouse's roar gets a little bit squeaky and parochial.

- The feds should not take more than 20% of the nation's GDP. TWENTY PERCENT??? And this is what 'the conservative' views as 'revolutionary'?
- The conservative continues to support income tax - flat, the conservative says but still an income tax. Yes, it's true. The conservative believes that the government should continue to demand from and FORCE individual citizens to disclose to the state and keep track of every single dime they earn and spend. Yes, the conservative don't like the death tax and some other minutia.
- On the 'environment', the conservative mouse demands that the environmental groups be taxed with the implication that other groups such as those that the conservative finds worthy of tax exceptions may keep theirs. And, let's not forget that in the paragraph above the manifesto was calling for the elimination of corporate taxes.
- The judiciary, the branch that, unlike the legislature DID stand up against some of the W regime most outrageous excesses, should have less power and judges must promise to act in ways that 'the conservative' likes before they are confirmed.
- On state administration, the manifesto calls for a 20% reduction of personnel. Somehow, 20% seems to be the magic number (see 20% of the GDP being given to the state - take THAT statist!). By the way, is it 20% of what? Of W's bloated federal bureaucracy? Of Obama's as of today? Of Ronald Reagan's?
- And, most thoughtfully, the conservative would dissolve all state employees unions, whether state employees want them or not.
- What else... oh yes, education. Get rid of the NEA.
_ And so it goes...

In the end, I was somewhat disappointed and more than a little confused. This book's strawman_the_conservative seems to be as much in support of an all-powerful, semi-totalitarian state as its opponent, strawman_the_statist. The conservative's state turns out to be big, intrusive and treating its citizens as much as subjects as the statist's state.

To me, the difference between the true freedom-loving revolutionaries of old and today's tea-bagging protesters is that between the 60 tons of tea dumped in the Boston harbor back then and the little (biodegradable) teabags of April 15, 2009 - where the angry and fearsome freedom fighters made sure that they asked for a 'permit' (from the state) to demonstrate their righteous anger and promised the state to clean the street and the sidewalks of discarded teabags and other rubbish once the demonstration was over and the cameras stopped recording. They might as well do ballet because it would change absolutely nothing.

_________________________________
P.S.
The author suggests that organizations such as the NEA be treated more or less like illegal monopolies, criminal organizations. I would like to raise the ante a little. In my view, it's the political parties that are responsible for most of the freedoms we lost. It's the political parties that, by means of coercion, transform those who were supposed to be the free PEOPLE's representatives into disciplined, obedient partisan tools, no longer representing the people who elected them but supporting some party political agenda as developed by the unelected party machine. Dr. Levin may agree that the political parties, COULD be prosecuted and banned under the RICO laws as illegal power monopolies, the way organizations such as the Mafia are today and organizations such as the NEA which Dr. Levin would like to see banished.

And, being on the party discussion. The books first reference at today's conservatives seems to be more that of the GOP's 'big tent' and not unlike for mayor's Dinkins of New York 'gorgeous mosaic'. He identifies the several flavors of 'conservatives' - none of them statist??? - such as the libertarians, the neocons, the Christians, the fiscals and so on. What do Ron Paul, W, Bill Krystol and McCain have in common? As far as I can tell, it's mostly GOP party membership.

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