Scott Brown, Senator from Massachusetts

Against all odds, Massachusetts has stood against tyranny.

With over 90% of the precinct results reported, Republican Scott Brown has a 52% to 47% lead over the Democratic Martha Coakley. Mrs. Coakley has conceded the race.

A Brown victory is an extremely positive sign. It sends as strong and clear a signal as any election I can remember. The message is: Government control of people’s lives may prevail everywhere else on earth, but it is still not acceptable in the United States of America.

Image from usflag.org.

It would be hard to overstate the unlikelihood of Democrats losing the Massachusetts Senate seat that belonged to Ted Kennedy for almost half a century. Except for the odd penchant to elect Republican governors, Massachusetts voters are as uniformly leftist as one can find in the nation. This state is solid blue. Opponents hardly need apply; Democrats are a lock in every office from Congressman to dog catcher. We have not had a Republican in a Senate seat since 1972. Only in the most extraordinary circumstances could Democrats lose Ted Kennedy’s seat. (And yes, it is viewed as “Ted Kennedy’s seat” by many in Massachusetts.)

But extraordinary circumstances they are. The credit for the Democrats’ implosion belongs, of course, chiefly to Barack Obama. It is the President who has provided clarity to ordinary citizens – for the first time in decades. (In this regard, I highly recommend the John Lewis article referred to in Note 2.) Elections are ordinarily disgusting affairs, requiring one to choose between two narrowly-differentiated compromisers - the “lesser of two evils,” so to speak - or to not vote at all. Rarely do we get to vote on principles.

Barack Obama has cut through the fog. This Massachusetts special election became a referendum on the administration, particularly on health care "reform." Unwittingly, what the President has made clear more than any of his predecessors (with the possible exception of Franklin Roosevelt) is what a government takeover really means. His heavy-handed blitz upon American liberty, the assembly of czars and commissars that he has dispersed to command over his realm, and his shocking nonchalance in nationalizing private companies, trampling private contracts, and ignoring the rule of law – all have pierced the usual apathy and cynicism. Even in Massachusetts, people are figuring out that this administration is a menace and needs to be stopped.

A Scott Brown win does not mean that all our problems have gone away. There is still no indication that Republicans, after decades of expanding the regulatory welfare state as if they were Democrats, have suddenly decided to do their job – namely, to safeguard individual rights and to begin the enormous task of unclenching the government’s hold on us. It will take a larger cultural shift to thoroughly convince Republicans to be Republicans.

Nevertheless, for the first time in my life, I am proud to live in Massachusetts. Today, many of us have actually deserved to walk on the hallowed ground of Lexington and Concord.

NOTES

1. Flag illustration from “http://www.usflag.org/gadsden.html.”

2. For an excellent exposition of this idea, see John David Lewis’ essay, “Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda,” in The Objective Standard.

Ted Kennedy’s Down Payment

About a week ago, a Boston Globe article noted a somewhat surprising admission by Republicans. At least a few conservatives are recognizing their own party’s culpability in the headlong drive toward universal serfdom in America:

Sure, President Obama is moving toward nationalizing the banks, conservatives grumbled at their annual conference here [in Washington] this weekend. But former President Bush started it, they noted testily, with his $700 billion Wall Street bailout package.

“Sadly, our former president propelled America to socialism - all the way to third base,” with Obama set to bring it home, said conservative columnist Deroy Murdoch. “Our side emerged with neither principle nor power.” [Note 1, emphasis mine.]

I agree with this, though I would say the Republicans “started it” long before last fall’s bailout.

For instance, it was back in 2003 when Republicans initiated and eventually pushed through the prescription-drug bill. “When we get this as a down payment,” said Senator Edward Kennedy, “we’re going to come back again and again and again and fight to make sure that we have a good program.”[Note 2, emphasis mine.] The “we” in this quote, of course, refers to the left-leaning technocratic elite who believe that government compulsion is the answer to every problem, and the “again and again and again” is an apt description of the pummeling America is taking now that this elite wields power. Why didn’t conservatives recognize then that they were doing the job of their alleged opponents?

And lest we be tempted to blame this entirely on George W. Bush, we may go back still further to notice that government spending increased dramatically under the first President Bush and his predecessor Ronald Reagan. (Interestingly, the only intervening Democrat, Bill Clinton, slowed the increase in spending and oversaw significant welfare reforms.) President Reagan in particular was hailed as being the champion of limited government, yet as philosopher Harry Binswanger pointed out on his private email list, far from cutting the budget when he rode in on his election mandate, Mr. Reagan actually proposed a 6.1% increase.

So, why do conservatives give lip service to freedom and limited government, yet fail to actually act accordingly?

The reason is that conservatives cannot escape the logic of their own fundamental premises. Morally, they share the same basic code as the so-called liberals: altruism. The political right may differ from the political left in the particular programs that they advance, but they are in complete agreement that men must serve something “larger than themselves.” For Republicans, it is a supernatural God; for Democrats, it is a secular godhead, such as society or the state.

It is impossible to consistently defend liberty and capitalism on sacrificial grounds. Freedom is inherently selfish - freedom means: freedom for the individual. By “selfish,” of course, I mean not the hedonistic, range-of-the-moment type of selfishness that is commonly connoted, but the long-range, rational self-interest that every human being must exercise to live and flourish.

As long as they hold an adherence to “traditional values” instead of a respect for individual rights as a rationale, conservatives will fail to make their case for capitalism. From “Reaganomics” (which advocated lower taxes not on the grounds that it reduced rights violations, but because it would help to “trickle” the wealth to all) to “compassionate conservatism” (which explicitly bound government activities to religious goals), conservative policies will inevitably erode liberties. Even when sincere emphasis is given to the free market, individual responsibility, and other aspects of liberty, when pressed, the conservative cannot bring himself to say that the reason capitalism is moral is because it permits him to seek his own happiness.

Until and unless the Republicans completely reject sacrifice as a moral ideal, they will simply pave the way for their leftist opponents.

NOTES

1. “Reeling conservatives assess damage,” Boston Globe, 1 Mar 2009, p. A9.

2. Transcript from Judy Woodruff’s Inside Politics, CNN, 18 Jun 2003, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0306/18/ip.00.html.

3. See “2008 Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts,” Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/features/BudgetChartBook/index.html

A Legislative Crime

I realize that the passage of a bailout plan by the House and Senate is all but inevitable, but all the same I sent this letter to Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy, and the Representative of my district. 

Dear Senator:

The notion of using taxpayers’ earnings to “bail out” companies that are going out of business is an outrageous violation of free-market principles.  Government intervention in the economy (via the Federal Reserve and innumerable government programs and regulatory agencies) has caused the failures in the first place; it makes no sense to try to cure the patient by adding another gigantic dose of legislative poison.

If you vote for such legislation, you will be adding to your legacy your participation in the most destructive attack on American principles in my lifetime.  It would be unforgivable... and unforgettable. 

If you wish to correct the problem - and simultaneously grab the free-market baton that the Republicans have long ago dropped - you will refuse to bail out Wall Street firms, work to undo devastating anti-American legislation (such as the Community Reinvestment Act and Sarbanes Oxley, to name just two), and repudiate further government intrusions in economic affairs.

Sincerely,

Stephen Bourque