How to Explain Conservatism to Your Squishy Liberal Friends:

[EdS]

<FONT SIZE="2" FACE="Verdana, Arial"><CENTER><FONT SIZE=+2>How to Explain Conservatism to Your Squishy Liberal Friends:
Individualism 'R' Us</FONT>
<H3>by P. J. O'Rourke</H3></CENTER>
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Conservatism and the individual


The individual is the wellspring of conservatism. The purpose of
conservative politics is to defend the liberty of the individual and-lest
individualism run riot-insist upon individual responsibility.


The great religions (and conservatives are known for approving of God)
teach salvation as an individual matter. There are no group discounts in
the Ten Commandments, Christ was not a committee, and Allah does not
welcome believers into Paradise saying, "Y ou weren't much good yourself,
but you were standing near some good people." That we are
individuals-unique, disparate and willful-is something we understand
instinctively from an early age. No child ever wrote to Santa: "Bring
me-and a bunch of kids I've never met-a pony, and we'll share."


Virtue is famously lonely. Also vice, as anyone can testify who ever
told his mother, "All the other guys were doing it." We experience
pleasure separately; Ethan Hawke may go out on any number of wild dates,
but I'm able to sleep through them. And, altho ugh we may be sorry for
people who suffer, we only "feel their pain" when we're full of baloney
and running for office.


The individual and the state


The first question of political science is-or should be: "What is good
for everyone?" And, by "everyone" we must mean "all individuals."


The question can't be: "What is good for a single individual?" That's
megalomania, which is, like a New Hampshire presidential primary, the art
of politics, not political science.


And the question can't be: "What is good for some individuals?" Or
even: "What is good for the majority of individuals?" That's partisan
politics, which, at best, leads to Newt Gingrich or Pat Schroeder and, at
worst, leads to Lebanon or Rwanda.


Finally, the question can't be: "What is good for individuals as a
whole?" There's no such thing. Individuals are only available
individually.


By observing the progress of mankind, we can see that the things that
are good for everyone are the things that have increased the
accountability of the individual, the respect for the individual and the
power of the individual to master his own fate. Jud aism gave us laws
before which all men, no matter their rank, stood as equals. Christianity
taught us that each person has intrinsic worth, Newt Gingrich and Pat
Schroeder included. The rise of private enterprise and trade provided a
means of achieving we alth and autonomy other than by killing people with
broadswords. And the industrial revolution allowed millions of ordinary
folks an opportunity to obtain decent houses, food and clothes (albeit
with some unfortunate side effects, such as environmental da mage and
Albert Gore).


In order to build a political system that is good for everyone, that
ensures a free society based upon the independence, prestige and self-rule
of individuals, we have to ask what all these individuals want. And be
told to shut up, because there's no way to know the myriad wants of
diverse people. They may not know themselves. And who asked us to stick
our nose in, anyway?


The Bill of Rights tries to protect our freedom not only from bad
people and bad laws but also from the vast nets and gooey webs of rules
and regulations that even the best governments produce. The Constitution
attempts to leave as much of life as possibl e to common sense, or at
least to local option. The Ninth Amendment states: "The enumeration in the
Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people." Continues the 10th Amendment,
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively,
or to the people."


It is these suit-yourself, you're-a-big-boy-now, it's-a-free-country
powers that conservatism seeks to conserve.


But what about the old, the poor, the disabled, the helpless, the
hopeless, the addled and the daft?


Conservatism is sometimes confused with Social Darwinism or other such
me-first dogmas. Sometimes the confusion is deliberate. When those who are
against conservative policies don't have sufficient opposition arguments,
they call love of freedom "selfish. " Of course it is-in the sense that
breathing is selfish. But because you want to breathe doesn't mean you
want to suck the breath out of every person you encounter. Conservatives
do not believe in the triumph of the large and powerful over the weak and
u seless. (Although most conservatives would make an exception to see a
fistfight between Norman Schwartzkopf and George Stephanopoulos. If all
people are free, George Stephanopoulos must be allowed to run loose, too,
however annoying this may be.)


But some people cannot enjoy the benefits of freedom without assistance
from their fellows. This may be a temporary condition-such as childhood or
being me when I say I can drive home from a bar, just fine, thank you very
much, at three a.m.-or, due to in firmity or affliction, the condition may
be permanent. Because conservatives do not generally propose huge
government programs to combat the effects of old age, illness, being a kid
or drinking 10 martinis on an empty stomach, conservatives are said to be
"mean-spirited."


In fact, charity is an axiom of conservatism. Charity is one of the
great responsibilities of freedom. But, in order for us to be
responsible-and therefore free-that responsibility must be personal.


Not all needful acts of charity can be accomplished by one person, of
course. To the extent that responsibility should be shared and merged, in
a free society it should be shared and merged on the same basis as
political power, which means starting with t he individual. Responsibility
must proceed from the bottom up-never from the top down, with the
individual as the squeezed cream filling of the giant Twinkie that is the
state.


There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no
virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and
"sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable
programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other
people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting
such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money-if a gun
is held to his head.


When government quits being something we use only in an emergency and
becomes the principal source of aid and assistance in our society, then
the size, expense and power of government are greatly increased. The
decision that politicians are wiser, kinder and more honest than we are
and that they, not we, should control the dispensation of eleemosynary
goods and services is, in itself, a diminishment of the individual and
proof that we're jerks.


Government charity causes other problems. If responsibility is removed
from friends, family and self, social ties are weakened. We don't have to
look after our parents; they've got their Social Security check and are
down in Atlantic City with it right no w. Parents don't have to look after
their kids; Head Start, a high school guidance counselor and AmeriCorps
take care of that. Our kids don't have to look after themselves; if they
become addicted to drugs, there's methadone, and if they get knocked up, t
here's always AFDC. The neighbors, meanwhile, aren't going to get
involved; if they step outside, they'll be cut down by the 9mm crossfire
from the drug wars between the gangs all the other neighbors belong to.


Making charity part of the political system confuses the mission of
government. Charity is, by its nature, approximate and imprecise. Are you
guiding the old lady across the street or are you just jerking her around?
It's hard to know when enough charity has been given. Parents want to give
children every material advantage but don't want a pack of spoiled brats.
There are no exact rules of charity. But a government in a free society
must obey exact rules or that government's power is arbitrary and freedo m
is lost. This is why government works best when it is given limited and
well-defined tasks to perform.


The preamble to the Constitution states: "We, the People of the United
States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure
domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general
welfare..." It doesn't say "guarante e the general welfare." And it
certainly doesn't say "give welfare benefits to all the people in the
country who aren't doing so well even if the reason they aren't doing so
well is because they're sitting on their butts in front of the TV."


A liberal would argue that those people are watching television because
they lack opportunities, they're disadvantaged, uneducated, life is
unfair-and a conservative might actually agree. The source of contention
between conservatives and liberals, the po int at which the real fight
begins, is when liberals say, "Government has enormous power; let's use
that power to make things good."


It's the wrong tool for the job. The liberal is trying to fix my
wristwatch with a ball pein hammer.


Government: Robin Hood or just robbing hoods?


Government is an abstract entity. It doesn't produce anything. It isn't
a business, a factory or a farm. Government can't create wealth; only
individuals can. All government is able to do is move wealth around. In
the name of fairness government can take wealth from those who produce it
and give wealth to those who don't. But who's going to be the big Robin
Hood? Who grabs all this stuff and hands it back out? (Remember: even in a
freely elected system of government, sooner or later that person is going
t o be someone you loathe. If you're a Republican, think about Donna
Shalala; if you're a Democrat, think about Ollie North.)


When government takes wealth from those who produce it, people become
less inclined to produce more of it-or more inclined to hide it.
Conversely, when government gives wealth to those who don't produce it,
they too become less productive since they're al ready getting what they'd
produce in return for not producing it.


If government is supposed to make things good, what kind of good is it
supposed to make them? And how good is good enough? And who's going to
decide? What person is so arrogant as to believe he knows what every other
person in America deserves to get? (We ll, actually, all of Washington,
press and pundits included, is that arrogant. But never mind.)


We don't know what people want. By the same token, we don't know what
people need. The government is going to wind up giving midnight basketball
to people who don't have shoes to play in. Then there will be a block
grant to provide shoes, which people wil l boil because what they really
lack is something to eat. And that brings us to expanding the school lunch
program. Pretty soon, it's not government, it's shopping. It's not
Congress and the White House, it's Mall of America-and a bunch of
politicians hav e your charge cards.


Individual liberty is lost when government stops asking "What is good
for all individuals?" and starts asking "What is good?" To ask the latter
question is to abandon a system in which all people are considered equal
and to adopt a system in which all peo ple are considered alike.
Collective good replaces individual goodies. Government will make life
fair. But since limited government is hardly suitable to a task of this
magnitude, the role of government will need to be expanded enormously.
Government will have to be involved in every aspect of our lives.
Government will grow to a laughable size. Or it would be laughable except
for our experience in this century.


Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China and dozens of smaller
places around the world did indeed create just such leviathan governmental
engines of "good," and the dreadful history of the 20th century is in
large part a history of the terrible result s of these collectivist
endeavors. Once respect for the individual is lost, then what do 100
million dead individuals matter-especially if their deaths are for the
"collective good"?


Of course, a liberal would say that a sharing and caring government
doesn't have to turn out this way. It could be something like Sweden. And
there you have it-the downside: 100 million people killed; the upside:
ABBA, Volvos and suicide.


Why collectivism doesn't work


Why can't life be more fair? Why can't Americans take better care of
each other? Why can't we share the tremendous wealth of our nation? Surely
if enough safeguards of liberty are written into law and we elect
vigorous, committed leaders...


Have another hit on the bong.


Collectivism doesn't work because it's based on a faulty economic
premise. There is no such thing as a person's "fair share" of wealth. The
gross national product is not a pizza that must be carefully divided
because if I get too many slices, you have to eat the box. The economy is
expandable and, in any practical sense, limitless.


Under collectivism, powers of determination rest with the entire
citizenry instead of with the specific citizens. Individual
decision-making is replaced by the political process. Suddenly, the system
that elected the prom queen at your high school is in c harge of your
whole life. Besides, individuals are smarter than groups, as anybody who
is a member of a committee or of a large Irish family after six in the
evening can tell you. The difference between individual intelligence and
group intelligence is th e difference between Harvard University and the
Harvard University football team.


Think of all the considerations that go into each decision you make: Is
it ethical? Is it good in the long run? Who benefits? Who is harmed? What
will it cost? Does it go with the couch? Now imagine a large group-imagine
a very large group, say, 250 milli on people-trying to agree on every
decision made by every person in the country. The result would be stupid,
silly and hugely wasteful-in short, the result would be government.


Individuals are not only smarter than groups, they are also-and this is
one of the best things about them-weaker than groups. To return to Harvard
for a moment, it's the difference between picking a fight with the
football team and picking a fight with Mi chael Kinsley.


Collectivism makes for a very large and, hence, very powerful group.
This power is centralized in the government. Any power is open to abuse.


Government power is not necessarily abused more often than personal
power, but when the abuse does come, it's a lulu. At work, power over the
whole supply cabinet is concentrated in the person of the office manager.
In government, power over the entire mi litary is concentrated in the
person of the commander-in-chief. You steal felt tip pens. Hitler invades
Poland.


Most government abuse of power is practiced openly, and much of it is
heartily approved by The Washington Post editorial board and other such
proponents of the good and the fair. But any time the government treats
one person differently than another becau se of the group to which that
person belongs-whether it's a group of rich, special-interest tax dodgers
or a group of impoverished, minority job-seekers-individual equality is
lessened and freedom is diminished. Any time the government gives away
goods an d services-even if it gives them away to all people
equally-individual dependence is increased and freedom is diminished. Any
time the government makes rules about people's behavior when that behavior
does not occasion real and provable harm to others-tel ling you to buckle
your seat belt or forbidding you to publish pornography on the
Internet-respect for the individual is reduced and freedom is diminished.


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