THE “LIBERTARIAN” PUFFERY OF GLENN BECK
ADD TO THIS CRITIQUE BECK’S OAFISH AND IGNORANT SLAMMING OF GEERT WILDERS….RSK
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5691/pub_detail.asp
Exclusive: Glenn Beck – Less than Half the Battle
William R. Hawkins
My February 23rd column criticizing some of Glenn Beck’s overwrought rhetoric drew a large number of comments. Most of them simply said that they agreed with Beck’s criticism of liberalism and his opposition to the socialist direction of current policy, and that I should not be turning on an ally in the ideological struggle for America’s future. All well and good. I also agree with most (though not all) of Beck’s analysis of the wild deficit spending and unjustified expansion of government control over large parts of society. I also reject the radical notions about human nature and moral values at the core of left-wing philosophy.
My point about Beck, however, remains. Mere criticism of the left is not enough, and wild rants against “government†are dangerous. To build a conservative movement capable of leading the premier civilization of our time and the world’s only Superpower requires a positive vision of government’s role in national affairs.
I am not the only conservative to raise this issue. On the same day my FSM column appeared, radio host Mark Levin jumped on Beck’s performance at the Conservative Action Conference. I would agree with this part of Levin’s comment,
I have no idea what philosophy Glenn Beck is promoting. And neither does he. It’s incoherent. One day it’s populist, the next it’s libertarian bordering on anarchy, next it’s conservative but not really, etc. And to what end? I believe he has announced that he is no longer going to endorse candidates because our problems are bigger than politics. Well, of course, our problems are not easily dissected into categories, but to reject politics is to reject the manner in which we try to organize ourselves. This is as old as Plato and Aristotle. Why would conservatives choose to surrender the political battlefield to our adversaries — who are trashing this society – when we must retake it in order to preserve our society? Philosophy, politics, culture, family, etc., are all of one. Edmund Burke, among others, wrote about it extensively, and far better that I possibly can. But all elements of the civil society require our defense.
What I would make more explicit is that when we talk about “politics” we are talking about the use of government authority and power to promote some end. Conservatives have broader values that give its movement content, whereas libertarians tend to avoid content. Whatever “freedom” produces is okay with them. But there is a line between liberty and license. Conservatives draw that line based on what is good for society. Beck often acts as if to worry about the national community is something only “socialists†do. This equates conservatism with irresponsibility, which is not a winning platform.
For example, on the day my column appeared, Beck attacked President Teddy Roosevelt for having established the Food and Drug Administration. This was another example of Beck’s sloppy research, as the FDA did not take on that name until 1930 during the Hoover administration. What Beck was really criticizing was the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which TR signed. But is it really a Marxist notion to prohibit from interstate commerce adulterated, misbranded, or unsafe food and drugs? The root of this regulatory idea goes back to the Patent Office in 1846 and the Department of Agriculture under the Lincoln administration. Does Beck really think Americans don’t want their health and safety protected from dangerous products? Haven’t we had enough recent scares from poisonous imports from China?
Making “government†the generic enemy, rather than specific acts judged on their merits, is not just intellectually lazy, it is foolish. How many libertarians does it take to change a light bulb? None. They just sit in the dark and wait for the “invisible hand†to do it for them. And it is a long wait. The failure of strong, effective government to perform its core duties will alienate nearly everyone. It will also lead to corruption if officials lack any sense of higher public mission to offset the blandishments of lobbyists to only serve private interests.
The renowned economic thinker Joseph Schumpeter feared that the collapse of a genuinely conservative politics would create a vacuum in which socialism would triumph. Schumpeter had fled his native Austria to escape the Nazis, and after a stay in England came to the United States. He joined the faculty at Harvard and became the president of the American Economic Association. He is known for his theory of “creative destruction†which describes the dynamic character of economic progress. He defended the rise of “big business†because large resources are needed to support technological advancement. He also saw the entrepreneur as the driving force in a modern economy.
There was no question in his mind that capitalism could outperform socialism, but the choice of systems would be made in the political realm, and even in democratic states he feared that socialism had the edge. He laid out his argument in his 1942 masterpiece Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, written at a time when the totalitarian threats of the Nazis and Soviets loomed large.
Schumpeter feared that capitalism’s very success would be its downfall. He worried the country would become so dominated by business interests that other social and cultural institutions, the ones that give a civilization its enduring values, would wither and die. Not only would this leave the general population feeling empty and alienated, it would deny society a leadership class capable of thinking in the broader terms needed to sustain the nation. A decisive victory by Wall Street over competing centers of belief and authority would destroy “the steel frame†that holds society together. And into the cultural and political void would march the Left promising to restore stability and order.
Schumpeter felt the bourgeois class “is ill equipped to face the problems, both domestic and international, that have normally to be faced by a country of any importance.†He noted “The stock exchange is a poor substitute for the Holy Grail….the ledger and the cost calculation absorb and confine.†And Schumpeter also found throughout history “the merchant republic invariably failed in the great game of international politics.†He had just seen the dismal display of appeasement that had been put on by the capitalist democracies in the face of Nazi Germany (and repeated many times since).
It is the necessary role of government to exercise authority on behalf of the national community, and to bring the ambitions of business within its charge. Otherwise, capitalism will destroy itself. To do this, government should be sympathetic to the legitimate needs of business while at the same time insulated from business pressure so as not to become compromised or corrupted. Short-sighted business groups are opposed to conservatives thinking about anything but their material gains. The role of libertarians within the conservative movement has been to prevent conservatives from using state power to uphold the “steel frame†of civil society.
Since the left has no such constraint on its use of “politics” (state power) to advance its agenda, there has been a ratchet effect in the direction of social decay even though the public does not want to go this route. Hence Schumpeter’s pessimism.
Beck is on a libertarian jag. He wants to stop the left, but does not want to advance the right, at least not a movement with a comprehensive view of a society worth conserving. This is why he keeps picking on Teddy Roosevelt. It is not because TR was some sort of left-wing “progressive†as Beck erroneously claims. That is nonsense. It is because TR is the kind of conservative leader libertarians cannot stand. A man of principle and vision who called for a “New Nationalism†modeled on the ambitions of the Founding Fathers for a “more perfect union†as the basis of a great American civilization. Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan were in the same mold. It is cohesion, not anarchy that America needs if it is to avoid Schumpeter’s grim prediction.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor William R. Hawkins is a consultant specializing in international economic and national security issues. He is a former economics professor and Republican Congressional staff member.
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