As is usually the case, Andrew Sullivan is right on the money in his Sunday Times column about the almost inevitable future of School Choice.
The main reason I keep saying the Left in the U.S. is reactionary, not liberal, is because they've become steadily more and more predictable in one crucial area: if a new idea is based on giving greater freedom of choice to individuals, and it does not involve the pelvis, they will be opposed to it.
It almost goes without saying that the Left in the United States accomplished...
...many astounding things. Without doubt, their efforts on behalf of ending race-discrimination rank among the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century. They've won so many of the big arguments (about race, about women's rights, about public funding for education, about things like Social Security and government assistance to the needy) that it's difficult to imagine what life would be like today without their countless accomplishments. While there have, surely, been people on the so-called "right" who were on their side all along (one need only look to such conservative figures as Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Charlton Heston, and even Teddy Roosevelt to see that), the truth is that these victories were largely theirs, and they deserve the lion's share of the credit.
But the old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be.
The Left lost their biggest battle when most of the world finally realized that socialism is a pipe dream. It's a dead end: soul-destroying and counterproductive at best, outright murderous at worst. Most people, particularly in America, have no real interest in it and never will. Once certain pseudo-socialist programs were firmly in place (medical insurance for the old and infirm, unemployment insurance, and a welfare system that now finally has strings attached so it only helps true hard-luck cases), most people lost interest. While the Left may wish otherwise, most Americans simply do not hate or fear big corporations, and most of them do not resent rich people just for being rich.
Most people today are, quite simply, far more interested in making a living and shaping their own lives to their own choosing, and are not particularly interested in being given handouts and free bennies by an all-benevolent government. Most instinctively understand that government can't give you anything it hasn't taken from someone else. And most do not particularly care if someone like Bill Gates is worth billions, as long as they know he didn't steal or kill to get it.
Socialism is a dead argument, and all the other big issues are won. Where does that leave the Left? Well, for many of them, rather than acknowledging this and getting on the forefront of the new progressivism (a.k.a. "conservatism") they have contented themselves to become today's elite reactionaries. They now rationalize race and sex discrimination under euphemistic terms like "affirmative action" and "Title IX." They have also managed to make the terms "racist" and "right-wing extremist" become the ad-hominem arguments of choice: 50 years ago if you wanted to smear someone whose ideas you didn't like, you called him a "communist." Now you call him a "right-wing extremist." (If you can throw in "racist" or "anti-semite" along with it, so much the better.)
In short, the Left and Right have switched places. The real proof in the putting? The individualism they used to cherish is what they now most reliably consider suspect, dangerous, even (gasp!) "right-wing."
Bush wants to put free-market competition into Medicare by offering beneficiaries a choice of policies; Democrats plan to run against Bush's efforts to "destroy Medicare." Bush wants to give people the choice to invest some of their Social Security money, giving them something they actually own and control rather than just a government promise; Democrats plan to run against Bush's efforts to "destroy Social Security."
Even when they promise tax cuts, they'd rather give you specific tax credits if you spend the money the way they think you should spend it, rather than just taking less money out of your wallet and letting you decide what to do with it.
Really now: was there ever a more idea-bereft campaign than the Gore/Lieberman campaign of 2000? What few ideas they managed to come up with, when they weren't telling black voters that a vote for Gore was a vote for God, and excoriating the "religious right" while Rabbi Joe praised God every other sentence, and promising to "fight for us" against the big nasty drug companies... where was I? Oh yeah. When they weren't busy flogging the country with frenzied class and race warfare, their actual ideas were as stale and predictable as the tides of the Dead Sea: add a fistful of new deductions to the already-bewildering tax code, implement a new Social Security accounting trick and call it a "lockbox," offer a host of new freebies from the government, and otherwise promise to fight free choice wherever possible (except, of course, for the obligatory obeisances to "a woman's right to choose," forever and ever amen).
Nowhere is this authoritarian, reactionary trend more evident than in the recent confused reaction of the establishment Left to recent School Choice victories. As Sullivan notes, some are taking the whistling-past-the-graveyard approach, pointing out that voters still haven't come around to the idea. Others are in a tizzy, suggesting that this blows a hole in the wall of separation between Church & State--as if letting kids go to Parochial schools puts us on a "slippery slope" toward throwing everyone into Re-Education Camps run by the 700 Club and making "Plastic Jesus" the new national anthem.
But above it all, what they fear is that free choice will "destroy" public education.
Yeah. Just like it destroyed the auto industry, the phone industry, the airline industry, the hotel industry, the hamburger industry, and every other industry in this horrible country in its long downward spiral over the last century, right? (By the way, my phone still works. Does yours?)
It's going to take years more work, but I'm willing to predict that within another generation or two, school choice will the the norm. I believe younger generations will look on those who oppose school choice as sort of quaint, oddball species, like Monarchists, Marxists, or Temperance advocates.
In the meantime, the simple truth is that the Left is where you find most of today's reactionaries. As Eugene Volokh has said, conservatives have become populist libertarians, who trust the people and free speech — and liberals have become supporters of elite management, who trust the government and regulation. (Thanks to naval historian Casey Thompkins for the quote.) They even embrace racial discrimination, insisting on calling that "Affirmative Action" so they don't have to think too hard about what they're really advocating.
Hell, the even have their own apocolyptic "end is nigh" element. Repent and turn away from free market consumerism, lest it destroy thee spiritually and bring destruction upon the Earth! Repent, repent, repeeeeent!
Paranoid. Reactionary. Fearful of change. Fearful of the future. Trusting of centralized government over the unwashed masses. Few if any new ideas, but a desperate desire to preserve and extend the status quo. Look first to authority for protection and salvation. There was a time when we called those things "conservative." Increasingly, they seem like "liberalism's" defining traits.
Do I sound angry? I'm not. Do I sound mean-spirited? Maybe I'm a little sarcastic. I am an apostate, and sometimes we get that way. But I just have to ask: am I wrong?
You know, guys and gals, if I was your football coach, I'd be watching you from the sidelines, patiently waiting for you to finish your Cuba Gooding-style endzone dance.
Then I'd tell you that you ought not let the world get the impression that you've never won anything before....
Sheesh.
You won the battle. Now are you going to lose the war?
Here's my advice: Think big, move fast, look ahead.
The liberals are about to eat your lunch. Why? I've already detailed this elsewhere. Check it out.
And as for Andrew Sullivan? He's still fighting the battle that is already over.
The only thing worse than a sore loser is a sore winner.
Wake up! Before it's too late.
I note two things:
1) Ara doesn't say I'm wrong, and,
2) His article anticipates with glee the prospect of greater government control of private schools.
Of course conservatives have won countless victories--on economics, on the nature of communism, on why sexual profligacy is a bad idea, on how free markets work better than nationalized industries, and so on.
In a healthy democracy, both left- and right-wing perspectives will sometimes carry the day. Sometimes one side will carry the day and everyone will realize it was a bad idea and change it. Everyone should prosper as a result. That's called progressivism.
I merely repeat my observation: the left is no longer liberal. It is authoritarian and reactionary. Not that authoritarianism and reaction are always wrong. Do those on the left actually accept this about themselves now?
Read this Notable Quote from Jonathan Last on the historic role of conservatives and liberals. It conforms to your (and my) opinion of the current orthodoxies.
To some extent, anyway.
More later...
As far as you being right or wrong:
No, you are not wrong re: lefties losing this round of the voucher battle.
We thought that the Constitution prohibited this kind of transfer of funds. The Supremes thought otherwise.
Oh well. Doesn't make em right. Just makes it the law of the land. Too bad. Time to move on ...
Like Churchill said, "This is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end. This is the end of the beginning."
So, speaking strictly for myself, I would say again: Look out.
You better think big, move fast and look ahead.
The law of unintended consequences is gonna git you.
And, Dean, you still haven't said I'm wrong about this.
"Conservatives want to get the state out of public education; they may succeed at getting the state into private education.
"Twenty years from now, they may be slapping their foreheads and saying, 'What were we thinking when we crusaded to hook private schools on public money?'
"And the teachers unions, which by then may have extended many of today's anticompetitive public school rules to the private realm, may be saying, 'Boy, were we ever lucky we lost that fight. Now all schools are public.' "
Re: your "countless victory" claim:
Economics:
What exactly falls under the generalized rubric of economics? That capitalism is good and communism is bad? C'mon Dean you're living in the 1920's.
How about the evils of deficit spending? Once upon a time, it was bad. Then it was good. Now it is necessary. Make up your mind! The Dems got flogged for years on that topic, they responded, now they get flogged on the flip side.
Seems to me you don't want to go there.
Nature of communism:
I wasn't raised as a Red Diaper baby, unlike so many apostates to the liberal creed. So that's a straw man argument put up by wrong-headed guys like David Horowitz. BTW, was he wrong then, or is he wrong now? Hmmmmm?
Sexual profligacy is a bad idea:
Um, Dean, you're the one that has written extensively about your private life. No problem, dude; if it feels good, do it, right? No? So...were you wrong then, or are you wrong now?
Just what credibility do you bring to the topic, anyway?
And is this topic a debatable issue of politics? Not to me it ain't.
How free markets work better than nationalized industries:
Another straw man argument! What the hell is a free market anyway?
And if you want one, you better take a time machine back to the days of William McKinley. You and Karl Rove. Cause that's the last we saw of it.
...and so on, indeed!
You guys want to call yourselves conservative, liberal, whatever. It's one label being replaced by another.
I prefer to call you the Party of Certainty.
You can have it. Life is uncertain.
Get over it!
:^)
Dean and Ara,
You both point out some interesting things re vouchers. I believe both of you are correct in your own way.
Ara, you are probably correct that the Department of Education, I mean the Dept. of Let-Me-Tell-You-What-Top-Do, will try to dictate the content of private schools. This may be a long battle; but you point out that the left in America is relentless in pursuing its goal of control. You are probably right, no pun intended.
Dean, you are probably correct that poor people and people tiring of government schools in general will have more choice…for now. I can just hear Barney Frank now; “If these conservatives insist on putting their kids in private religious schools using taxpayer money then they should at least meet some minimum standards.” Ah, the piousness of the left when dictating how private citizens must spend their PRE TAX INCOME. They make me sick.
Alas Dean I believe Ara is probably correct. The left will try using this voucher issue to get more control over your private affairs. The deliberate dumbing down of America will continue.
But I do see two hopes for the future. We must abolish the Federal Department of Education post haste. The federal government in Washington D. C. does not educate anybody. They only DICTATE how local school districts must spend their local money setting bogus standards, dictating unfunded mandates, etc.
The Dept. also spends beaucoup money. It’s all wasted. If we rid ourselves of this monstrosity then we save big money and we regain local control of school districts. We can spend our own money again as we see fit. Troubled school districts can still appeal to state governments for assistance.
Abolishing the Income Tax and with it the sixteenth amendment will rip authority and power away from the federal government as no other action could. The ability to tax is the ability to destroy. If the feds permanently lose the ability to directly tax citizens we can the unburden ourselves of an abusive agency. We would no longer have politicians who can monkey with our tax code for social engineering purposes.
Doing these two things will return some control to private citizens retaining the spirit of the voucher issue. I have reached the conclusion that the problem with government is not that it abuses power. The problem starts when they have the power to abuse. And abuse it they will.
Respectfully,
Kevin Brehmer
Regarding Jonathan Last's remarks: It was William F. Buckley Jr. who first described a conservative as being a person who stands athwart history, yelling "stop!"
What some people miss is the remark's subtlety, and its humor. In one sense, it was a shot at Marxist dogma, with its insistence that hard-core socialism was the inevitable end-result of history.
But on a deeper level, it connotes the rueful assumption that, of course, you cannot stop history. The very idea is laughable, as history is all about change and change is inevitable. You can just change the word "history" to "change" and the quote works just as well--which is why it's so clever.
Conservatism in this formulation acknowledges that the conservative instinct -- the instinct to conserve -- is inevitably going to lose. Mores change. Great works of art and literature are lost. Great things are forgotten, lessons learned by previous generations have to be learned again. Eventually, we all die.
Sometimes people who despise conservatives miss all this. They miss the subtlety, the humor, the humility, the human-ness of it. I remember once, over some beers, a friend of mine who had an almost kneejerk dislike of conservatives (and probably wasn't quite sure why he liked hanging out with me) pounced when I mentioned the Buckley line about standing athwart history.
"Yes!" he said. "Opposed to Martin Luther King! And Ghandhi!"
"...and Lenin, and Stalin, and Hitler." He thought about that for a while, and didn't say much. His views may have changed some since then, I'm not sure.
Anyway: Change isn't always good. Conservatives instinctively understand that. We tend to forget that it was highly conservative (Christian) religious figures who were the only ones willing to stand up and speak out against Hitler in Germany at the height of Nazi power; the more "liberal" denominations were either silent or outright endorsed the regime. The Whites who fought the Reds in Russia may not have all been noble or thoughtful, but they, too, were fighting something evil.
You'll find conservatives have an almost universal love for history. They seek the wisdom of the past that has been lost to successive generations--and to learn lessons from the mistakes of the past that may help guide us into the future. "Oh boy, here we go again" is something you'll hear conservatives mutter a lot. (Santayana was a conservative.)
Conservatives instinctively dislike postmodernism, because it places all values on an even plane, refuses to make value judgements, and tears apart traditional understandings of right and wrong. They do not accept the notion that change is axiomatically good, or that old-fashioned values are necessarily oppressive or bad.
The best line of Jonah Goldberg's life so far was when he observed that people who excoriate Western Civilization, obsessing over its past of racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, etc. are not just missing the fact that other cultures have been as bad or worse. What they are missing is that their own criticism of Western civilization is based on values thoroughly grounded in Western tradition. When they attack Western Civilization, or America, they "take a sledgehammer to the very soapbox they stand upon."
Having said all this, I have to note that a growing number of people calling themselves "conservatives" are, in fact, people who are unhappy with the status quo and seek to change the system to make it better. All their ideas and most of their arguments are based on classical liberal notions. I remember arguing with a very old-style "right wing" conservative (an honest-to-God Canadian Monarchist--I kid you not) who growled that most of America's "conservatives" were really liberals. I've come to believe that's correct.
We see increasingly today that what conservatives most fiercely embrace and try to preserve is the classic liberal western tradition. And the people we call "liberal" are increasingly looking reactionary, afraid of change, afraid to contemplate the notion that things they've believed all their lives might not be right after all. They increasingly seem to lack ideas; almost all they do is fret about what will happen if the changes conservatives propose come to light.
We are in a very interesting place right now. You may call it postmodern politics, but I don't like the term because I think it carries the wrong baggage. If much of the 20th century was about the rise of socialism and collectivism, the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st herald the coming ascendancy of libertarianism and individualism. As with any new, rising force for change, it has those who react against it.
The reactionaries won't be wrong about everything, of course.
As for economics and all the rest: For goodness sakes Ara, I'm giving the Left all kinds of kudos for getting many very important things right. Why must you call me to task for noting when they've gotten things wrong? Or is it, as Emmett Tyrell likes to sarcastically remark, "Being a liberal means never having to say you're sorry?" Or, like Peter Collier says, that the only consistent credo of the Left is "don't look back?"
On Economics: Oh, I'll be happy to go there, any time. The Left won some significant battles on economics, but by the end of the 20th Century, it had lost the war. Can't you just be man enough to admit it? %-)
As for my sexual past: I wouldn't want to go overboard and imply that I was some sort of womanizing dynamo. But yes, I slept around. But I don't buy the notion that you have to be a perfect example of what you espouse. What was it Jane Galt said about "mountains we aspire to, not caves we hide in?" The free love movement wasn't what I'd call a conservative movement.
As for conservatives being "the party of certainty": Okay, I'll take that if you'll accept that you guys are the party of values-neutrality, and rejection of such oppressive notions as "logic" and "fact." ;-)
Are you certain Arafat is a terrorist, by the way?
Kevin, I've been meaning to respond to your comments.
I do not fear the Department of Education. Nor do I see any possibility that it will be dismantled in our lifetimes. I have often asked people if they can tell me what exactly the Department of Education does, and they can never tell me. But I think you exaggerate its power or its influence. Conservatives are pilloried and vilified any time they try to point out that the Department of Education is worthless--the demogogues just use it as proof that conservatives hate education. Getting rid of it is a pipe dream. However, while I agree that it is nothing but a sinkhole for wasting funds, I don't agree that it has all that much control over local schools.
Similarly, while I agree that the income tax is fundamentally destructive and fundamentally un-American, I believe it will take another generation or two at least to get rid of it. In the meantime, there's much that can be done now to improve education.
People on the Left may be gleefully contemplating gaining control over private schools, but I don't believe they will succeed in the long run. I believe the overall effect in the long run will likely be positive, at least for kids trapped in failed schools.
Dean,
I find it exceedingly ironic that I, as a liberal, am the one of that has an avowed observance of religion and an aversion to free love. And you, the conservative, are just the opposite.
What's more, I've sent my two kids to private Jewish day school for over a decade, and am somewhat unimpressed with the magical quality of private schools that you so roundly champion.
We need to discuss this more.
Dean,
You point out an interesting challenge to conservatives and their principles. I do not believe I exaggerate the influence of the Dept. of Education (DOE).
Gwinnett County School Board member Louise Radloff illustrated the influence of the U.S. Department of Ed. to the Gwinnett Republican Party at their Saturday breakfast on August 1, 1998 @ the Holiday Inn in Suwannee, GA. She expressly stated the school board must follow directives (unfunded mandates) from the Department of Education in Washington D.C.
She gave one example of how the DOE forced the Gwinnett County School Board to spend $80,000/year providing medical care to one schoolgirl out of the school system’s budget. This is a total of $960,000.00 ($80,000 * 12 years)! That’s a lot of moola for ONE student. The DOE provides no funds for this girl’s medical services, either.
This is also one excellent illustration of the federal government forcing an unfunded mandate on a LOCAL school system. That means they tell you how must spend your LOCALLY raised tax dollars. I believe this also illustrates the influence the DOE wishes to have over your child’s education, too. After all, if they can dictate that schools must provide non-educational services I guess they can dictate other “educational” services, too.
“The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” by Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt illustrates the decay of American public education. She worked in the Reagan DOE. This book illustrates her point using some DOE documents.
I will take time for the real left in America to get control over private schools. But remember, they are relentless. I see the benefit for kids in failing school systems as short term unless we can rid ourselves of the DOE, which will dictate content in private schools. It is only a matter of time.
I also disagree it will take another generation to rid ourselves of the Income Tax. There are two groups right now actively campaigning to abolish it. Americans for Fair Taxation can be reached @ http://www.fairtax.org/. That National Retail Sales Tax Alliance can be reached @ http://www.salestax.org/. Anyone can personally contact me @ fairtaxer@yahoo.com who is interested in more information.
Respectfully,
Kevin Brehmer
Truely tremendous blog!
Truely tremendous blog!