Fear The Opposition
It was perception of Bill Clinton’s ethical vacuum, the sense that everything he told us about being ‘centrist’ and ‘moderate’ reflected neither a belief nor a promise, but political calculation to be abandoned in favor of his leftist agenda as soon as he firmly held the reins of power, that made conservatives so nervous. And his initial actions, from ‘gays in the military’ to an attempt at radical government overhaul of the health care system, reinforced that perception.
Ironically for conservatives, in hindsight it is clear that Clinton’s tendency to tailor his story to pragmatic political expediency, far from being a danger, was his saving grace. For we now know that his agenda tended to follow his story rather than the other way around; and if by intent he was reluctant to keep his centrist promises he also refused, in the face of negative polling, to stick to his liberal principles. In the end his major threat to conservatism was not the policies he actually implemented but the inspirational rhetoric with which he accompanied his capitulations.
Despite a campaign in which he seemed intent on demonstrating otherwise the most worrying aspect of a future Al Gore presidency for conservatives was exactly the prospect that he, unlike his predecessor, might not be a political coward. For liberals that is also the most worrying aspect of the current Bush presidency.
If the potential for a ‘conservative’ agenda now seems so ominous to idealistic ‘liberals’, how must the practice of the ‘liberal’ agenda under Clinton — and the last eight years of Democratic superciliousness in promoting that agenda — have appeared to idealistic ‘conservatives’? A lot like this:
- The right to private property, and any profits it may generate, is to be abridged at the slightest excuse – except, of course, for your right to continue living in your apartment for as long as it amuses you, at whatever rent-controlled price you agreed to during the recession ten years ago when you moved in, and regardless of the owner’s desires or plans.
- Failure of the government to pay wholesale for creation of anti-social or misanthropic works of art amounts to censorship – but absolute prohibition of certain words and ideas involving women or ‘protected minorities’ or ‘conservative’ values on public college campuses or in political debate does not.
- Freedom of conscience is to be afforded the greatest respect, especially when it involves refusing to go along with what is popular or traditional, like standards of public decency or respect for authority and institutions – unless, of course, it involves not wanting to rent the spare room in your conservative Christian household to a gay activist couple.
- Privacy is a bedrock principle of liberty, to be protected from government intrusion at all costs – unless what you choose to do with your privacy is smoke a cigarette, or school your children at home, or keep a gun in your house for protection against those who would violently invade your privacy.
- ‘Needs’ – as in, “No one needs a gun or an SUV; rich people don’t need the extra money they earn – are to be the primary criterion for deciding what is to be prohibited by the government. ‘Wants’ – as in, “he wants to work as an artist; she wants to stay home with her children; they want to choose their own doctors – are to be conflated with ‘rights’, and used to define what the government should mandate or subsidize.
- Slavery — the coercive extraction from an individual of his/her labor and time for another’s benefit — is an abomination. But coercively extracting from an individual his/her money — the fruits of his/her labor and time — to provide for others’ ‘rights’ to housing or health care or child care or electricity or food is not only justified but noble and morally uplifting.
- Any antisocial act, no matter how heinous, can be excused by an unfortunate personal history, or ennobled by a communal grievance, or forgiven in the name of compassion — except acts of ‘greed’, meaning a desire to keep what one already has, or what one may earn in the future through physical labor or diligence or daring or intellect or talent or beauty.