I was reading an article on Townhall.com today, and through double layers of indirection learned that David Brooks said in the New York Times…

There is not yet an effective Republican Leadership Council to nurture modernizing conservative ideas. There is no moderate Club for Growth, supporting centrist Republicans. The Public Interest, which used to publish an array of public policy ideas, has closed. Reformist Republican donors don’t seem to exist. Any publication or think tank that headed in an explicitly reformist direction would be pummeled by its financial backers. National candidates who begin with reformist records — Giuliani, Romney or McCain — immediately tack right to be acceptable to the power base.

I have to wonder about this. I think that Mr. Brooks is confusing things rather than helping. He begins his opinion piece this way…

It’s only been a week since the defeat, but the battle lines have already been drawn in the fight over the future of conservatism.

In one camp, there are the Traditionalists, the people who believe that conservatives have lost elections because they have strayed from the true creed.…

To regain power, the Traditionalists argue, the G.O.P. should return to its core ideas: Cut government, cut taxes, restrict immigration.

Are these really the core ideas of the G.O.P.? Perhaps, but they’re not the core ideas of conservatism. These ideas are derived from the core ideas of conservatism: Ordered and yet individual liberty; Limited government; Personal responsibility; The rule of law.

Cutting government is a core idea for the G.O.P. because the base of the party is made up of conservatives, who believe that the scheme of limited government as laid out explicitly in the Constitution and implicitly in the Declaration of Independence allows the most personal freedom and happiness for the people while ensuring order and security. Cutting taxes is a core idea for the G.O.P. because a limited government confining itself to the duties and responsibilities laid out in the Constitution does not need to redistribute wealth or use the misguided notion of deficit spending to “stimulate” an economy. Restricting immigration is a core idea for the G.O.P. because it makes no sense to flood our population with people that have no respect for our laws and founding principles. This is not to say that immigration is bad, but rather that we need a sensible policy of that allows people who yearn for liberty in an ordered society to immigrate while blocking the immigration of those that would instead turn our country into a model of the ones that they couldn’t abide.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

This poem, found on the Statue of Liberty, expresses the free immigration policy that some would espouse — let everyone in, especially the “wretched refuse.” I think that the “yearning to breathe free” should be our guide.

But to return to Mr. Brooks…

The other camp, the Reformers, argue that the old G.O.P. priorities were fine for the 1970s but need to be modernized for new conditions. The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety.

Mr. Brooks once again applies the wrong labels. We would call these people RINOs — Republicans In Name Only. The principles of today’s conservatism are based upon ideas that work. The notion of individual liberty within an ordered society does not need modernization. It is at the core of our founding. The principle of limited government exists not so much because of a hatred of government — some government is needed after all to maintain an ordered society and to protect that society from external tyrants — but because a limited government infringes upon individual liberties less than an unlimited one. The so-called reformers, believing that “American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government” are really nothing more than socialists in disguise. They would be better served by the Democratic party than the G.O.P. The notion that “new policies are needed to address inequality” is not a conservative notion, and it flies in the face of the need for individual responsibility in an ordered society.

No government policy can address inequality without impeding progress, despite the label that so many would place upon such a policy — progressive. In order to ensure economic equality, or as some on the left mislabel it, “economic justice,” a government policy must take from those that engage in behaviors that result in economic success and redistribute to those that engage in behaviors that result in economic failure. It must punish success and reward failure. It must discourage innovation, investment and frugality and reward conformance, profligacy and consumption. It must pull down those at the top to try to raise those at the bottom. This isn’t “economic justice”, it does an injustice to those that have done well.

The true reformers in the G.O.P. are those among us that believe that corruption in government must be rooted out. The true reformers in the G.O.P. are those among us that believe that our government has vastly exceeded its authority under the Constitution and seek to return it to its proper and limited role in our lives. The true reformers in the G.O.P. are those among us that believe that the principles upon which the framers crafted our form of government are principles that work, and that provide for the most happiness for the greatest number of people. The principles of individual liberty and individual responsibility in an ordered society are what made our nation great. American exceptionalism comes not from a powerful government ruling over its people, but rather from individuals exercising their liberty, pursuing their own happiness and showing responsibility for themselves and compassion for others.

Mr. Brooks and the so-called reformers want to see the G.O.P. become completely indistinguishable from the Democratic party. They’d like to see the party abandon conservatism.

It’s clear that they don’t believe in the country that our founders created. They’d rather sacrifice their liberty to a bloated bureaucracy that reduces us all to numbers and impersonal drones. That’s not reform. It’s just the same old story wrapped in a new name.

http://perrinelson.com/2008/11/14/1278.aspx

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