Can Conservatives and Libertarians Form a Coalition to Save the Constitution? – Part VI

A Libertarian Conservative Coalition?

Before I end this series with some practical bottom line suggestions for cooperation between libertarians and conservatives I thought I would provide some thoughts from a conservative friend I often correspond with.

Part of the problem libertarians face in working with conservatives comes from our legitimate idea that civil society needs to handle many of the things that government now purports to control, maintain, and underwrite. Libertarians usually wish to go a little further in that direction than conservatives. But unfortunately for libertarians civil society is on shaky ground these days.

This particular conservative friend of mine has a theory about what made the U.S. a great country and powerful defender of constitutional government. He calls it the Four Pillars theory. "They are Our Republican Democracy, Our Capitalist system, Our historical reliance on Christian Principles, and the physical safety afforded by our Ocean Borders."

He contends that civil society as we know it and more importantly my ideal governmental institution, i.e. classical constitutional democratic republican government cannot function without all of them interacting in a reinforcing manner. I tend to agree although our ocean borders will have to be replaced by military high technology.

He had a comment about the scope and reflections of this series of posts and suggested that I add something about the special nature of the Constitution which I tried to do in Part II.

He also indicated that liberals and many others think that just because something is a “good idea” the Federal Government somehow needs to pass a law about it with little thought as to whether the Constitution would actually allow it without an amendment and with even less thought about the true purpose and nature of the document. This of course is a pernicious result of the “living” document concept.

He pointed out that people like Hamilton didn’t want a bill of rights. Not because Hamilton didn’t believe in rights but because our rights were in effect axiomatic and a legitimate government could only be instituted by people with rights, i.e. rights came first and then government. His specific observations were:

They actually are righteous in their belief that the way to ensure that
everyone behaves properly is to legislate it, forgetting that it was the people
(i.e. founders) that defined the extent of the government duties and
obligations, not the other way around.

Hamilton was emphatic about that. In effect, he recognized that if we were to have a “contractual” relationship with our government; that is that we agree to allow the government to “manage” our lives in exchange for certain rights and privileges, then (like in all contracts) there would need to be a negotiation, or an arbitration to settle arguments over which rights the people actually have or to make changes. Instead, he proffered that it was necessary that we keep the Constitution as a document that only defines the obligations of the Federal government, all else being left to the
people.

It was the people; he said that gave the government rights specifically formulated and defined by the various states. He wanted no Bill of Rights, considering them unnecessary since, in the Constitution, “the people surrender nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations." He likened them to political arrangements between sovereigns and subjects, where the people would wind up depending on the government to define their rights. He wanted it kept the other way around and warned against stipulations defining the people’s rights like those between kings and their subjects. The arguments between the federalists and the anti-federalists are legendary and make and interesting study, especially as we
now look back on 225 years of subsequent practice.

Whether you agree on the exact number of "pillars" one thing should be clear the social, economic, and moral strengths that supported our democratic republican constitutional system have been under attack for many years.

It seems to me that only a very few citizens have any concept at all regarding issues like the above that were debated when the Constitution was written. Yet this and other important issues were central to the reason the document was created in the first place.

What is important to understand is that in the view of the Founders legitimate governments protect the rights of their citizens but they are not the source of those rights which are natural or God given. This is the founding principle and philosophy behind our republic. Just because we haven’t always lived up to that principle does not change the fact that no other nation on earth was founded on such a profound and radical idea.

I have to believe that both libertarians and conservatives would agree that it is very important for our education system to cover these ideas in an unbiased manner. We allow all sorts of people inside and outside of our education system to offer their “considered” opinions on the Constitution and its meaning while providing almost no information on the ideas of the people who wrote it.

One of our key problems is that the moral integrity and the willingness to defend our socioeconomic system that was underwritten by our Judeo-Christian heritage are in massive disrepair and are constantly assaulted by the mainstream media and our education system which has become nothing more than a socialist propaganda mechanism for leftists. Yes, there were secular philosophers that contributed much and informed citizens should know about them but there is no denying the importance of our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Although I was raised as a Christian, today I probably would best be described as a deist not an atheist but not a devout follower of any organized religion either. Yet I acknowledge this moral heritage because it is an important fact and is part of the moral underpinnings of our laws. The idea that we are on the verge of becoming a theocracy is cultural Marxist propaganda. The only theocracies today are Islamic states.

Furthermore it is important to teach the truth. The U.S. is not a perfect nation but on balance it has done many more good things than bad. It is important that all citizens understand this especially the young ones. In U.S. schools today it seems to me that what is taught is not American history but negative American history. This will be a long difficult fight and the outcome is decidedly uncertain.

Two Sets of Suggestions:

Now here are my suggestions for practical cooperation between libertarians and conservatives in two critical areas.

Direct Political Cooperation:

1. We should support only those politicians who show a clear understanding of constitutional issues and who are against the “living” document concept and the misuse of the phrase “general welfare”. In fact it might be a good idea to demand an amendment to the Constitution that requires every elected federal official to make a statement in writing describing his understanding of the Constitution and its purpose. That means they would actually have to read it!
   
2. We should support only politicians who show a clear understanding of economic issues and are against profligate government spending and understand that we need a strong and stable currency backed by more than hot air from folks like Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke.
   
3. We should support only politicians who indicate a genuine commitment to reducing the size of the federal government and who will demand that any new initiatives introduced in Congress be specifically authorized by the Constitution.
   
   Any such new initiatives not authorized must be implemented only by an amendment to the document. That also means ending actual departments and moving back toward what is actually allowed by the Constitution. The departments of Education and Commerce come to mind immediately. They are just not needed. Other things will either be phased out or we will agree on an amendment. This will be a very long and contentious process.
   
4. We should support only those politicians who are willing to scrap our current Byzantine tax system, and add a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Whether you favor consumption taxes like the FairTax or a flat income tax let’s make it clear the status quo won’t cut it any longer.
   
5. We should endeavor to convince all libertarians and conservatives to work together at all levels to strengthen the Constitution and to agree to leave contentious issues between them in abeyance until we have restored the Republic.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. Consider a conservative who meets all the constitutional philosophy criteria but is in favor of strict drug laws. If he has the best chance to beat a collectivist in an election, libertarians should vote for him and support his campaign. Another example would be a Libertarian or libertarian Republican who is not happy with our large oversees military commitment. Ron Paul and Peter Schiff come to mind. Conservatives should vote for them and support them because they are committed to limited constitutional government.

Educational Cooperation:

1. We should support school vouchers. It isn’t a panacea but it will help break the hold of the cultural Marxists on our education system.
   
2. We should support the right of parents to home school their children and demand reasonable rules for this activity. We can’t let the unions, politicians and government bureaucrats throw up unreasonable roadblocks.
   
3. Knowing that we will get no help from the education establishment we should encourage all conservative and libertarian institutes like Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, etc. via e-mails and other means to launch a joint educational effort to teach as many citizens as possible about the Constitution and its founding principles and about basic market economics.
   
   All of these institutes have some educational outreach programs but we need an all out coordinated effort to reach lots of folks. Maybe it should take the form of a joint foundation. We should make sure that we indicate that we will financially support such an effort. How this is done is best left to the experts. Maybe it can be done by a combination of TV, Internet, town hall type meetings, free formal classes, etc. Maybe 30 minute TV ads every day for the next 3 years is the answer! Maybe prizes or scholarships for students that write the best explanations of documents like the Federalist Papers would help. I just don’t know.
   
4. We should write, call and e-mail your representatives in Congress to introduce a bill that would require every person entering government service to complete a course on the Constitution and the Founders basic view of this document as part of their training. If they are going to swear to support and defend this document against all enemies foreign and domestic, they should at least know what it says and have some understanding of the basic ideas behind its creation.

When it comes to the area of education we have to break the stranglehold of the cultural Marxists. That will take money and a long term commitment. I believe that if we don’t do that any political gains will only be brief holding actions. People will not support ideas they do not understand or have been indoctrinated to believe come from 18th century tedious treatises of no value in the modern world. The Constitution and the philosophy of the Founders must to be part of the education of American youth either in the regular educational system or outside of it.

Let's Agree to Disagree on Certain Issues

Disagreements between libertarians and conservatives are important but surely a commitment to make real progress on limited government defined by the Constitution and the principles upon which it is based has to be the highest priority. If we cannot make progress toward that goal, how can we expect any progress on other less important issues? I am convinced that if we don’t do this the collectivists will win.

Conservatives may not always agree with libertarians. But there is one thing they can count on from all libertarians (large or small L). If there is something libertarians really think the federal government should take on or some change is required in our government that isn’t explicitly allowed by the Constitution they will try to convince 2/3rds of the Congress and 3/4ths of the state legislatures to support it. If they can’t do that then they will accept the fact that as Mick Jagger said in 1969: “You can’t always get what you want.” They won’t try some weasel like maneuver to circumvent the Constitution a la the collectivists and their “living” document make it up as you go along strategy.

The “living” document concept has caused incalculable harm to this republic. It has in effect without the consent of the governed transferred the power that the Constitution declared as being automatically in the hands of the citizens of this country (see my conservative friend’s comments on Alexander Hamilton above) to its politicians and government bureaucrats. I think the “living” document concept is a canard and unmitigated sophistry. Think hard about it and see if you agree.

So what would be the best outcome of all this verbiage? I can’t speak for anyone else but for me it would be this. Someone will read this series of posts or just some of them and pass some ideas along or just talk to others about these issues. More people will think about the issues, come up with more or better ideas and just maybe somebody like Newt Gingrich will say: “Yeah, I can do something about this political situation and this education problem. I’ll just sit down with guys like Dick Armey, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, John Cornyn, Mike Pence, Jim DeMint, some folks at Heritage, Cato, NRO, Townhall.com, etc. and get things rolling.”

Then I can go back to being a techie, building web sites and web stores and burying myself in database and software manuals secure in the knowledge that the Constitution will be safe at least for a while anyway.