Quote Of The Day
November 20, 2008
7:55 AM CST
In talking about the alliance between libertarians and social conservatives come these words of wisdom:
“America is not about unfettered freedom. America is about a particular type of liberty that has been the glory of the Western heritage, ordered liberty. Freedom without a strong moral basis ends up being an empty promise.”
I’ve always said that the common ground that exists between what I call “commonsense libertarianism” and conservatism is the desire for limited government.
But that’s a broad statement, and the devil is in the details. Libertarians argue that government has no role in social/moral policy, whereas conservatives feel, as the author of the above put it, that ”Man-made law… should seek to be in accord to some degree with divine and natural law.”
Indeed, not to feel that way is the common ground between libertarians and socialists, although even there, the devil is in the details: libertarians want to leave morality to the individual, while socialists want the State, and its laws and regulations, to be the supreme moral arbiter.
I have often said that libertarians can form the conscience of conservatism—that, ultimately, the desire for “hardly any” government is a handy brake on the desire of many conservatives for “a little too much” government.
The conclusion of all this is that the three points of the political triangle (libertarianism, conservatism and socialism) are all held hostage by their relative extremes: the anarchists, ultra-religious and totalitarians, respectively. I find little to choose, and much to dislike, between anarchists, the Religious Right and MoveOn.org (albeit for different reasons in each case). All are extremists, all make me uncomfortable, and all offer solutions which, ultimately, are either unworkable or whose outcomes are destined to cause massive misery.
And finally, I am convinced that if we accept the compromises inherent in the phrase “ordered liberty” and eschew the temptation to be selfish brats, religious nutcases and statist goons, I cannot help but feel that there is still hope for this noble republic.
But even then, there are many devils in the details.
