Eeek! Those Horrid Conservatives!

Thomas Frank, the Wall Street Journal editorial page’s Designated Liberal, penned a truly odd column today. It is, in essence, an ad hominem “proof” that conservatives are wicked, wicked people, and that their misdeeds both stem from, and demonstrate the fallacy of, their philosophy of government.

Again and again, it is the most zealous and high-minded conservative soldiers who lurk behind the movement’s foulest deeds. Richard Nixon, for example, always turned to what he called “right-wing exuberants” when he needed something really dirty done. Among the most exuberant was Tom Charles Huston, a famously idealistic leader of the Young Americans for Freedom, who drew up the administration’s notorious plan for domestic spying. “What does it mean,” asks historian Rick Perlstein, “that the member of Nixon’s staff who was closest to the conservative movement, who was best-versed in its literature and its habits, was not merely the most ruthless malefactor on Richard Nixon’s staff but the one most convinced he was acting on principle?”

What it means is the same hard lesson that conservatives school us in every generation: that “ideas have consequences” -- just not the ones they’d like us to believe are coming down the pike. Should we be surprised that, of the virtuous House freshmen of 1994 who have left government, almost half have become lobbyists? . . .

Supercorruptionist Jack Abramoff offers the most painful example. Here was a man so zealous in his dedication to principle that he once served as a director of The Conservative Caucus’s apparently defunct Political Action Committee. During his lobbying days he enjoyed the assistance of the good-government group Citizens Against Government Waste and the pundit Doug Bandow, a man who had actually written a book deploring Washington’s corrupt ways. . . .

The comfortable course of action for Democrats will be merely to pocket the coming windfall, to burble about how they have lifted the curse of ideology from the land, to replace the current gang of free-marketeers with their own gang of free-marketeers, and to resume the merry triangulations of eight years ago. . . .

Another route is possible, though. If they are willing to go beyond the regal rhetoric of post-partisanship, Democrats might find that they are, for the first time in decades, running against a philosophy of government that has utterly discredited itself. Should they choose to make 2008 a referendum on conservatism itself, they might deliver the knockout blow. They should start with the bad ideas that have delivered such disastrous consequences.

I’ll skip the easy and obvious tu quoque, viz., the Democratic Party’s long and spectacular record of corruption. Instead, let’s examine Mr. Frank’s history and logic.

Tom Charles Huston, assigned the task of drafting a rather stupid and never implemented domestic surveillance program, was “the most ruthless malefactor on Richard Nixon’s staff”? John Mitchell, John Erlichman, H. R. Haldeman, John Dean and Chuck Colson (pre-conversion) have slipped Mr. Frank’s memory? None of them was notable as a zealot for conservative ideas. The Nixon Administration was, in fact, wary of conservatives. A few were included in the Cabinet: Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Simon, Mel Laird, Casper Weinberger, Maurice Stans and a couple of others. The only one ever implicated in Watergate and associated Nixonian misdeeds was Maurice Stans; he was acquitted of all charges.

Jack Abramoff may have once headed a minor PAC, but the offenses for which he went to prison involved lobbying on behalf of Indian casinos, which I’ve never thought of as a first-tier conservative crusade.

Doug Bandow is a curious target. For the past couple of years, he has been loudly calling for American abandonment of Iraq, another not-exactly-conservative crusade.

Still, let’s grant that being a conservative does not confer sainthood. Mr. Frank neglects to explain why the sins of right-wingers derive from ideas like limited government, ordered liberty, economic freedom, individual responsibility, respect for tradition, and support for a strong national defense. After all, it’s not unheard for leftists engage in criminal acts without believing in any of those principles. Doesn’t Ockham’s Razor suggest that we attribute malfeasance to impulses common to all mankind, such as the Seven Deadly Sins, rather than posit one set of causes for the Right and a different, non-ideological one for the Left?

Also, if we are going to judge political positions by the personal qualities of those who espouse them, perhaps we should put aside anecdotes and look at empirical research.

George Orwell once wrote that politics was closely related to social identity. ‘One sometimes gets the impression,’ he wrote in The Road To Wigan Pier, ‘that the mere words socialism and communism draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, nature-cure quack, pacifist and feminist in England’.

Orwell was making an observation. But today a whole body of academic research shows he was correct: your politics influence the manner in which you live your life. And the news is not so good for those on the political Left.

There is plenty of data that shows that Right-wingers are happier, more generous to charities, less likely to commit suicide – and even hug their children more than those on the Left.

Peter Schweizer, whose words I quote, has written a book (Makers and Takers – one guess how he thinks the political spectrum divides between them) summarizing data from the General Social Survey that show conservatives to be, on average, more compassionate, honest, selfless, [insert virtue here] than liberals. He hypothesizes that the difference springs from “modern progressive ideas” that “bring out the worst in people”.

I’d like to believe that, too, but we don’t actually know the direction of causality. Maybe conservative ideas appeal most strongly to happy, well-adjusted individuals and progressive ones to nasty malcontents. That would not tell us that conservatism is better, only that it attracts a nicer clientele. It might nonetheless be a tissue of fallacies. I’ve witnessed many a debate in which the better human being was the worse reasoner. For instance, I know nothing about Thomas Frank’s uprightness of character; I do know that he can’t out-think Winnie-the-Pooh.

I do hope that the Obamacrats take up his recommendation “to make 2008 a referendum on conservatism itself”. I doubt, though, that they’ll be interested. The last time the question was put to the electorate on terms like that was in 1994.

Comments

[Tom Veal]

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I have to make use of my expensive education somehow. “Tu quoque” means “you, too”. It’s shorthand for responding to an accusation by charging that the accuser has done the same thing.

[Paul]

Sir, for those of us who never took Latin, it would be greatly helpful if you would translate Latin words/phrases like tu quoque. Thanks.

[Tom Veal]

Dr. Schweizer’s book, available from Amazon, has the details. For the most part, it is based on the General Social Survey, an academic study of American public opinion from 1972 through the present. Townhall has an informative interview, albeit without footnotes.

[Sam Shaw]

Good morning:

I'm a rabid reader of your blog. Would you mind citing me the sources that Peter Schweizer uses for that insightful piece? I'd love to have the raw data (err, hug counter?) at the ready for the next time I hear someone refer to conservatives as 'baby-killing bastards'.