Is it Heroic or Not?

An article by John Hulsman today at OpinionJournal takes on Michael Gerson’s “heroic conservatism.” It is by far the most concise and most devastating critique of compassionate/big government/heroic conservatism I’ve yet seen. I’m convinced that the big split in conservatism is not between social/religious conservatives and whatever we call the other side, but between limited and big government conservatives. To give you some indication of where I come down on this; it is very difficult for me to type the words “big government” next to the word conservative. In my mind they are mutually exclusive, oxymoronic and inherently at war with one another.

I love the way Hulsman draws the distinctions, which are incredibly important and need to be made over and over again. I'll take out a few paragraphs for your rumination.

What about the longtime conservative belief that limited, accountable government works best--that it is the form of government least likely to squander resources, thwart private initiative, impinge on freedom and avoid harmful, unintended consequences? Unheroic, says Mr. Gerson. What about the quaint notion that government should live within its means? Short-sighted when people are suffering, says Mr. Gerson. Little wonder that Mr. Gerson's co-workers in the White House (from which he retired earlier this year) called him, only half-jokingly, "the Christian Socialist." As it happens, Christian socialism--going back to R.H. Tawney and Tolstoy--has an honorable intellectual tradition. But its tenets are an awkward fit for America in general and for the Republican Party in particular.

The U.S. government has been pouring billions and billions of dollars into the welfare state since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, with results so wayward that, for decades now, a cottage industry has grown up among policy intellectuals to document all the disappointing results and ill effects. The welfare reform of Bill Clinton's first term grew out of such a critique. Still, Mr. Gerson equates "caring" with government spending, as though, self-evidently, yet more "visionary" programs are the best way of dealing with poverty, addiction and children at risk.

To the traditional conservative, it is more heroic--that is, more honest and realistic--to acknowledge that such problems are too deeply ingrained to be solved by a far-away Washington bureaucracy. Traditional conservatives since Edmund Burke have put their faith in the organic forces of society--family, community, civic institutions. In America, such faith has made common cause with commercial dynamism and the opportunities it creates for upward mobility.

Mr. Gerson will have none of it. Siding with FDR and Woodrow Wilson, his acknowledged heroes, he assumes that traditional conservatives do not care about American society's problems. He never stops to ponder whether traditional conservatives disagree with his statist prescriptions precisely because they do care.

Spot on! The self-righteousness of these big government types is a perfect contrast with the inefficacy of their supposed solutions. Yet it’s we limited government types who are heard hearted Scrooges who don’t care about the poor. Clearly we have a more difficult time making the case for limited government, because it’s easier to demonize and spew platitudes, as big government types tend to do. Americans are also more easily persuaded that big government isn’t a threat to our way of life. Of course that is only true until it's too late. And self-government and personal responsibility are just tougher sells, but sell we must.