The annual bleating of banalities known as the “Conservative” Political Action Conference (“CPAC”) has finally wound to a close. So what is a genuine conservative to make of this parade of pabulum?
Second, who in the world can spend an entire three days listening to political speeches? The terms “substantive” and “political speech” have become inherently contradictory over the last, oh, fifty or so years after skating on thin ice together since the dawn of time. And how can a “conservative,” who, at least in the past, by definition rejected the efficacy of political solutions in a free society and a free economy, eagerly seek salvation from…politicians and government? Even yours truly, who admittedly spends far too much time thinking about politics and government, cannot listen to a politician, even a rare politician for whom I have a modicum of respect, expel hot air for more than, say, three minutes or so. To sit there and listen to these carnival barkers for three days and to call one’s self a conservative should induce some soul-searching among those who attend such events.
Third, even when something even remotely substantive emanates from these gab-fests, it is inherently contradictory and hypocritical. The “conservatives” propose lower taxes at the federal level, which is great, though it doesn’t address the real problem, grist for a later, but hopefully not much later, mill. But then they fail to produce any substantive, realistic, or remotely workable, plan for reducing spending. (See, inter alia, my 3/13/13 post, ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF MEDICARE: MR. RYAN STAYS IN WASHINGTON.) And even if they should somehow achieve a miracle and actually cut some domestic spending, the War Party representatives of the CPAC crowd will find some way to blow such savings, and then some, on what they laughingly call “defense” but what is really international proboscis insertion into places where we are unwelcome and in which we have at best limited interests and even less business. (See, inter alia, my 2/1/13 post JOHN McCAIN, CHUCK HAGEL, AND DEFERRING TO HISTORY.)
So, at best, the conservative call to cut taxes amounts to not paying our bills in favor of passing our expenses onto our children and grandchildren, which I never thought of as a conservative principle. And, yes, the Laffer Curve works; I am one of its more ardent proponents. But the Laffer Curve is an economic principle, not a miracle elixir; these deficits are too big to grow our way out of.
At the expense of being accused of further apostasy (Get in line.), it was the great conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, who told us that it was okay not to pay our bills, that deficits didn’t matter, that we could cut taxes and spend on the military and on entitlements ‘til our hearts were content and everything would be just fine. Thus it was the Gipper and the genuine “conservatives” who followed him, some of us skeptically some more wholeheartedly and unabashedly, that set us on the path to the fiscal quagmire in which we are currently sinking. Just look at a chart of debt to GDP since World War II if you don’t believe this.
Fourth, what about the social agenda of the CPAC? I, for one, agree with about 70% or 80% of the “conservative” social agenda. I do differ with the growing “conservative” fixation with gays and have long suspected that it is a case of, as Shakespeare would say, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Do these guys perhaps some doubts about their own sexuality? But I digress. I also am alarmed that opposition to abortion has rather quickly morphed into a genuine uneasiness with, or outright hostility toward, contraception, which I find even more inherently contradictory than “conservatives” spending their weekends listening to lectures on how government can improve their lives.
Regardless, however, of where one stands on the social issues, if one is a conservative, one should be alarmed at the notion that the government should dictate conduct that does not infringe on the rights of others. Yours truly is fine with the “conservative” social agenda when it amounts to opposition to the government playing for the other side but parts company when that agenda becomes advocacy for the government taking the field.
The social issues are important cultural and moral issues, but are at best third rate political issues. At least this conservative’s response to such discussion, regardless of which side is being advocated, amounts to “Why in the world are we talking about these things?” Unfortunately, one gets the impression that many of the CPAC participants, and many who have highjacked the once noble tea party movement, are instead demanding that we waste even more time and effort on these sideshow political issues.
Finally, I was heartened to see that Rand Paul was the winner of a straw poll that asked CPAC participants whom they favored for president in 2016. Though even thinking about the 2016 race at this juncture seems inherently not conservative, yours truly loves the horse race aspects of politics, especially since the stakes are all fool’s gold anyway; no politician, or at least no successful politician, is going to work to reduce the influence of government regardless of what s/he says. Mr. Paul, perhaps seeing a real shot at the GOP nomination in 2016, is perhaps getting too cozy with the “limited government ends at the shore” approach of large swaths of the GOP, but his philosophy is in the right place. Whether it is at all workable in a society that has grown very comfortable with big government is another issue.
The second place finish of Marco Rubio, though, is at least a little troubling. Mr. Rubio seems to be fine fellow, and I was especially heartened that in his first speech as a senator-elect, he blasted George W. Bush (the man who gives LBJ perhaps decisive competition in the race for the not at all coveted title of “Worst President in U.S. History”) at least indirectly, as much as he went after the Democrats. But I have the same problem with Senator Rubio that I have with Paul Ryan (See only my latest screed on Mr. Ryan, 3/13/13 ’s ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF MEDICARE: MR. RYAN STAYS IN WASHINGTON), i.e., how can “conservatives” get so excited about a guy who has never been off the public payroll? As I told a young friend last night, in a perhaps not all that rare instance of my not showing sufficient restraint in discussion of the issues of the day, “If he had ever done anything other than s--k off the public t-t, I’d kind of like the guy.” In Mr. Rubio’s defense, sort of, he is too young to have accomplished, or learned, much in his life in any case. (On the other hand, when I was his age, I, too, thought I knew a lot more than I did.) The same criticisms can apply to the guy in the White House, but I thought conservatives had a different, better approach to government and a more reasoned attitude toward the worthiness of experience beyond the public sector.
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