Keeping The State Healthy
Richard quotes from Walter Block, who has apparently taken leave of his senses:
True confession time. Before Palin (BP), I was leaning toward Obama. I thought he was marginally less likely to drop a nuclear bomb on some hapless third world country than mad bomber McCain. I regarded, and still do, foreign policy as more important than domestic, given that “war is the health of the state.” And, there was very little to choose between the Republocrats and the Demopublicans on economics. Socialism from both quarters (although I admit it, the prospect of Alan Dershowitz on the Supreme Court did give me pause for thought). But now, after Palin (AP), I am shifting my allegiance to the Republicans.
In other words, even though he regards foreign policy as more important than domestic policy, GOP domestic policy is not sufficiently different to merit consideration and the Palin choice changes absolutely nothing about GOP foreign policy–Mr. Block does not even make the effort to claim otherwise–it must be time to back the GOP. Mr. Block joins those wavering Obamacans and other right-wing hopers in being swayed into supporting a GOP nominee whose policies they found so objectionable that they were almost driven to support a left-liberal Democrat, only to yield in the final stretch because Mrs. Palin (that Mrs. is all-important, it seems) has arrived. It doesn’t make sense, and it is pretty clear that everyone knows that it doesn’t make sense, which is about par for the course with the electorate this year. After all, a significant bloc of anti-Bush and antiwar conservatives voted for McCain in the primary–never mind that he backed Bush on pretty much every major policy of the last eight years–so it shouldn’t be too surprising if they back McCain/Palin. It does seem harder to understand support for this ticket when it comes from a Rothbard-invoking, Bourne-quoting, high-information libertarian professor. You will not be surprised to read elsewhere in his column that he hallucinates the possibility of Palin appointing Ron Paul to be Vice President in the event that she succeeds to the Presidency and considers this within the realm of possibility. Mr. Block is also compelled to make this outlandish claim:
The Barr-Root ticket is arguably less libertarian than Sarah Palin.
That would be an interesting argument to read, since I’m fairly certain it would involve dwelling on Barr’s past record that he has repudiated and ignoring everything Palin has had to say about foreign policy and the treatment of detainees since she became the VP nominee. Suffice it to say, I am planning to vote for Barr. For some reason opposition to the PATRIOT Act, Real ID and the FISA bill seems better than support for these things, which is what a vote for McCain or Obama means.
Mr. Block’s confession is an example of what I was talking about earlier today. I can understand a pro-life foreign policy hawk* finding a McCain/Palin ticket to be very exciting and worth supporting–it is the new fusionism in action. I understand that most people who call themselves conservatives and most people in the GOP would fit this description, so in this narrow sense I do see why there has been an enthusiastic response from all those who already think McCain’s bellicosity is a plus. Iraq War/Culture War is a pairing that satisfies most members of the party, and if social conservatives are content to have their priorities ignored in exchange for a little symbolism they have found their dream ticket. Even though poll after poll during the primaries showed that Republicans wanted a Repblican in the mold of Reagan and insisted that Bush was not such a Republican, Bush’s approval numbers among Republicans remain shockingly good even now (see question 5 crosstabs) and in the average Republican’s view it is not really an indictment of McCain and Palin to say that they represent Bushism. On the contrary, it would be considered a compliment. If Bush did not attend the convention thanks to a timely excuse of having to cope with hurricane relief, this was a tactical distancing of the party from the man an overwhelming majority of the delegates would still regard as a successful, unappreciated President (no, really!). So I can wrap my mind around the activist and rank-and-file response, but I confess my complete bewilderment when I read something like what Mr. Block has written. If Rothbardians respond with this kind of gushing, regular Republican voters would have to go overboard just to keep up.
*Whether it is consistent to be pro-life and to be in favor of all the things many hawks favor is another question, but not one that can be resolved here.
“‘The Barr-Root ticket is arguably less libertarian than Sarah Palin.’
“That would be an interesting argument to read, since I’m fairly certain it would involve dwelling on Barr’s past record that he has repudiated and ignoring everything Palin has had to say about foreign policy and the treatment of detainees since she became the VP nominee. Suffice it to say, I am planning to vote for Barr. For some reason opposition to the PATRIOT Act, Real ID and the FISA bill seems better than support for these things, which is what a vote for McCain or Obama means.”
I, too, was more than slightly taken aback by Block’s analysis here. I have to admit, though, that, this weekend, my support for Barr was weakened along the same lines that many more traditional and libertarian conservatives’ support for McCain has strengthened, to wit, the running mate.
Driving back to the Beltway from Philadelphia, I tuned into a.m. sports talk radio and endured a most unpleasant commercial, wherein Wayne Allyn Root offered some special gambling deal on one of the bigger games this weekend — maybe Miami? I recognize that, just as Barr, even as he has repudiated his past record, isn’t, perhaps, the ideal LP candidate for die-hard LP partisans, Root really isn’t the idea v.-p. candidate for those of us of a more conservative bent who support Barr; many have probably accepted him, though, so long as Barr leads the ticket. Moreover, I recognize that “gaming” is Root’s field; nevertheless, something about hearing the running mate, of someone whom we’re supposed to take seriously (as I have, and do), trying to lure foolhardy, perhaps already drunk, football lovers into big-ticket gambling sits uneasily with me.
“So I can wrap my mind around the activist and rank-and-file response, but I confess my complete bewilderment when I read something like what Mr. Block has written. If Rothbardians respond with this kind of gushing, regular Republican voters would have to go overboard just to keep up.”
Let the bewilderment continue. Everyone from Rothbardians to hard-core right Libertarians:
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/27968074.html
To dissident cruncy cons,
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/09/sarah-had-us-at-hello-larison.html
Are intrigued by Palin. Lower information voters who lean right at all are going to be (metaphorically) blown away by the “Thrilla from Wasilla” Will Wilkinson wrote something the other day that I think perfectly captures what is going on here:
http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/09/04/sex-culture-and-sarah-palin/
First:
“Democratic politics, in the end, is not about rational deliberation. It is about coalitional signaling. It is about expressive solidarity. It is about identity and emotion.”
…
“Palin exudes sexual confidence and maternal authority, which in a relatively conservative culture like ours is the most recognizable and viscerally comprehensible form of female power. It makes a lot of men uncomfortable, but that’s because it’s the kind of female power they are most often subject to, and most often fail to successfully resist. I spent much of my life taking orders from women a lot like Sarah Palin — women like my mother and my Iowa public school teachers. Indeed, it makes a lot more emotional sense for me to feel led by by a woman like that than by some hotshot Air Force pilot. When a guy with a buzzcut says “jump,†I say “screw you.†When a woman like Sarah Palin says “jump,†I am inclined to deferentially inquire into the requirements of this jump.”
Unless Palin proves to be a total blithering idiot (and I have no reason to expect she will; check out her debates with Murkowski & Knowles in 2006) she is going to have a gravitational pull on this race that is going to be hard to capture in standard polling, and may be the vehicle that a lot of voters use to smuggle their discomfort with Obama on election day.
The Obama camp is also in a bit of a pickle: if they go after her hard, they’re the lout’s who are beating up on the girl. If they don’t, they’re the 90-lbs. weaklings who are getting their heads handed to them by a 5 foot 3 inch hockey mom in high heels.
As I’ve said before, Root is ludicrous and an embarrassment. I can understand why people put off by the LP ticket or just by Root would be drawn to Baldwin, let’s say, and I have no complaints if that is how people want to vote. Those who want to stay home or leave the presidential ballot empty also have my sympathies. But the idea that the foremost warmonger in Congress and a windfall profits tax-signing governor who jokes about detaining people without due process are the superior libertarians is simply preposterous, and anyone who twists himself around making those sorts of rationalizations has no business complaining when McCain wins and starts another war or begins infringing on other civil liberties. Someone can make an explicit anti-Obama argument for this ticket, I suppose, just as Obamacons can make purely anti-McCain arguments on the other side, but the one argument I intend to resist strongly is the idea that something has changed substantively about the GOP ticket that now makes it more acceptable to those who previously found it terrible.
Of course I agree that democracy is driven largely by identity and emotion, as I tried to stress in the previous post, and this is why I find it such a dangerous form of government, but while this may explain what is happening I don’t think it excuses it or makes it any better than reasonably well-informed people are falling into the trap. Voters back candidates with whom they have the so-called “gut-level connection,” but after at least the last 16 years I want to emphasize that this yields such bad policies when it comes to serving the national interest and the common good that visceral reactions cannot be trusted and should be actively resisted. These reactions may be part of the way things are, as the passions are, but that does not mean that we should make idols of them or treat the most viscerally appealing candidates as the most “authentic.” It occurs to me that if we suffer from disordered desires as fallen people it is likely that the candidates we feel drawn to under the influence of these desires are the candidates who will ultimately do us the most harm.
I know the source was Larry Flynt, but how credible do you find the rumors that Barr was involved in procuring an abortion for one of his previous wifes? Even if he claims to have repented, it forms a nasty contrast with Palin and her Down Syndrome baby. (The three wives may be bad enough – how I can condone in Barr what I condemned in Giuliani?)
For me, however, this could be moot, since the Secretary of State in my state (usually one of our few halfway decent state officials) has denied Barr ballot access on a technicality, although Barr has sued in response. I could write in Paul, but you can’t really write someone for president, can you, unless you have a slate of electors pledged to his name?
“It occurs to me that if we suffer from disordered desires as fallen people it is likely that the candidates we feel drawn to under the influence of these desires are the candidates who will ultimately do us the most harm.”
Daniel, I’d be interested to see a list of which disordered desires you’d say are lending support to each of the candidates. I hadn’t thought of it in that light, and you apparently have.
” *Whether it is consistent to be pro-life and to be in favor of all the things many hawks favor is another question, but not one that can be resolved here.”
This is one of the reasons I have for supporting the new Palin/McCain ticket (no, not McCain/Palin). If we just measure by lives lost, any chance of overturning Roe v. Wade is worth a shot, given that Obama and McCain are equally likely in my mind to keep us tied up in interventionist wars. Obama’s multiple wars would likely mean turning our troops over to the U.N., while McCain’s entanglements would be fewer but larger.
Another support for Palin is what appears to be a sincere attempt at limiting corruption and lobby influence. The jury is still out on that though.
I was leaning towards Barr, but the addition of Root has me wavering. With lots of family in Vegas, I’ve spent more time there than I’d like, and Wayne Allyn Root is so closely linked with Vegas in my mind that I reach for a bottle of hand-sanitizer when I hear him speak (if you’ve never traveled to Las Vegas, don’t.)
@James -
Barr claims to have repented rather a great deal; indeed he might well set a record among semi-major party candidates for the number of things he was for before he was against them.
But in terms of Barr’s wives, it’s at least imaginable (though pretty unlikely IMHO) that he didn’t commit adultery, unlike a fairly large number of recent Presidents and Presidential candidates, and Barr would have to reach low indeed to undercut Giuliani’s personal record (Gingrich being the only real competitor to Benito G. I can think of at the moment in that particular contest). So if were in your position I might still try to vote for Barr – I’m sorry to hear that you may not be able to.
I moved in the exact opposite direction as the fools described above.
Before Georgia, I was deciding between Barr and McCain.
Georgia was strikes one and two.
Palin is strike three.
McCain is out. He simply cannot be trusted with the power of war and peace, and frankly I’m not sure I even trust him with nuclear weapons.
To put my thoughts to music (with apologies to Oscar Mayer):
My candidate has a first name, its R-O-B-E-R-T
My candidate has a second name its B-A-R-R
And everything I hear McCain say
makes it clearer every day
that he gives me N-A-U-S-E-A.
Jeez, you guys are bending over backwards trying to justify something of such little importance. I never knew splitting hairs could be an art form. It’s just a vote–remember its designed to be diluted to the point of worthlessness, unless your real objective is a weird kind of self-expression; some of these contorted rationalizations bring Cirque du Soleil to mind.
I gave up worrying about my participatory effect on electoral politics when Ron Paul dropped out. Really, stop trying to twist yourselves into supporting any of the awful choices we’re faced with this season—it’s a sad sight. (BTW, I valued the Ron Paul candidacy primarily for its shit-stirring effect, not its electoral viability)
Channeling the occasionally lucid Jesse Ventura, sometimes the best endorsement you can make is “None of the Above”
Daniel
But the idea that the foremost warmonger in Congress and a windfall profits tax-signing governor who jokes about detaining people without due process are the superior libertarians is simply preposterous, and anyone who twists himself around making those sorts of rationalizations has no business complaining when McCain wins and starts another war or begins infringing on other civil liberties.
No, neither Professor Block has taken leave of his senses, nor what you call preposterous above is preposterous. Justin Raimondo has identified the real reason for phenemena like these: The Bizarro Effect, the result of a hole ripped open in the space-time continuum since 9/11!
I am glad people like you, Scott Richert, Justin Raimondo, and a few others are still immune to this effect.
I don’t have a problem with a candidate who admits to having changed his mind, or for that matter one who has sinned and repented. If those of us who inhabit the Larison parallel universe are ever to have any political influence, many others will have to think better of their prior political enthusiasms.
Is Barr perfect? Hardly, and he doesn’t seem to be particularly engaging. He does, however, have decent positions on some important issues–foreign wars, central government expansion, taxation and deficits.
It is just a vote, and unless one lives in a swing state, a merely symbolic one. Barr, Baldwin, goni’ fishin’ on 11/3. Unless there’s some radical change, those all seem reasonable choices to me.
Yes, it is symbolic (esp. since I vote in California), and at this point, likely to be Baldwin. Barr is fine and I don’t have any problems with his changed mind on several positions (he wouldn’t be human otherwise), but Wayne Allyn Root reinforces Raimondo’s theory with this gem:
http://www.wayneroot.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080908-102443
[One of my heroes Ronald Reagan once changed the world by forcefully demanding, “Mr. Gorbachov, Tear down this wall.†I now throw down the gauntlet to my college classmate. “Barack, take up my challenge. Show us your grades.†]
(do we also open up the topic of “grade inflation” in Ivy League schools, and others such as Stanford and figure out if any of these guys’ grades running for any of these offices are a measure of anything worthwhile?).
RK,
thanks for the link. I just read Roots blog. I’m going to have to think on this now. I detest gambling, and Roots connections to gambling are a HUGE strike against him in my estimate, but I really like the tone in his blog.
Thanks for the link!