Thoughts From CPAC

The crowd’s reaction was mixed.  Boos and angry shouts of “No!” clashed with cheers of vindication as Mitt Romney was declared the winner of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference Straw Poll.  This three-day conference—the largest and most famous of its kind, with over 10,000 participants—is an opportunity for conservatives to join together in small-government, traditional values brotherhood, but is it good for the conservative movement, and is it good for the country?

The mixed reaction to Romney’s straw poll victory was indicative of the nature of today’s conservatism.  Based on his policy positions, he would probably be the most conservative presidential nominee in recent history.  He is pro-life, pro-second amendment, pro-traditional marriage, strong on immigration, strong on defense, espouses austerity, the Ryan Budget, and the repeal of Obamacare and Dodd-Frank.  And yet, he is inadequate for some conservatives. 

The conference was chock-full of varying personalities, but not varying opinions – I’ll get to that later.  It involved journalists, like Jonah Goldberg and Cal Thomas, giving insightful analysis and thoughtful recommendations for future action.  It included former political figures, like Herman Cain and Sarah Palin, engaging in unabashed self-promotion in an effort to maintain their grip of some sliver of the conservative population and to sell more books.  It also involved current political figures, like Senators Rand Paul and Jon Cornyn, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, clearly and passionately espousing the principles of conservatism in a way that reflected positively on themselves, their states and their cause. 

The general drift of the proceedings, however, was an unflinching, unequivocal, and stunningly tactless bombardment of President Obama and the policies of the last three years.  Obama was described as a radical, a socialist, a failed president, hater of the rich, hater of the poor, and – my favorite – an argument in favor of contraception.  Speakers and participants alike railed against welfare (which breeds dependency), Social Security and Medicare (which are bankrupting the country), gun-control (the essence of liberal overreach), and gay marriage (disgusting).  In some of these areas their points are valid, but the level of anger and, at times, heartlessness with which the participants viewed these issues is a recipe for electoral disaster. 

Which brings us back to Romney.  For all his conservative bona fides, many conservatives don’t believe he’s gone far enough, or is passionate enough.  Foster Friess, a wealthy investment banker and Santorum supporter, introduced the former Pennsylvania Senator and began with a joke: “So a Liberal, a Moderate and a Conservative walk into a bar and the bartender says, ‘Hey Mitt.’”  In his remarks, Santorum argued that Romney disqualified himself from the Republican primary race by passing and continuing to defend Romneycare, a Massachusetts health care reform bill with many similarities to Obamacare.  Gingrich called Romney “timid” and “moderate.”  Without using his name, Texas Governor Rick Perry spelled out the conservative dissolution: “We do the American people no great service if we replace the current embodiment of Big Government with a lukewarm version of the same.” 

Current conservatism views Mitt Romney, whose own policies would put Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley’s to shame, as a “lukewarm version” of Big Government ideology.  Is this viewpoint good for the conservative cause or good for the country?  I don’t think so.  And this attitude applies to my larger point about CPAC itself. 

As I walked through the halls and the lobbies of the DC Marriott, two things struck me.  First, I was amazed by the overwhelming sense of otherness and isolation that hovered over the hotel like a heavy fog.  The three-day conference progressed completely devoid of outside influence and alternative opinion.  It was as if the conservative movement was acting out their own version of Gilligan’s Island, stranded on the sandy beaches of small-government philosophy, bolstered in their conservative camaraderie, and surrounded by the seas of liberalism and the circling sharks of the Obama Administration.  They must act in unison if they want to survive.  Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes the phenomenon as a Matrix-like “consensual hallucination,” an unwavering, psychological adherence to their image of the political world.  But the lack of disagreement and dissent will only weaken the conservative movement and deter its success. 

Writers such as David Brooks, who has written about the political skill and admirable leadership qualities of President Obama, or Andrew Sullivan, the gay conservative blogger who opposed the war in Iraq and the torture of detainees, are not welcome at CPAC.  Politicians such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have been willing to compromise and work across the aisle, are also not welcome in more conservative circles.  These figures are viewed as disloyal to the cause of conservatism.  But as Edward R. Murrow stated, “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.  When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”  In this case, the death of loyal opposition within the conservative movement is a precursor to the death of conservatism as we know it. 

The second thing that struck me is a result of the first.  Without dissent and debate, the participants of CPAC carry the cross of conservatism with a biblical surety and unwavering passion.  The result is a myopic vision of America and its political landscape.  Participants immediately dismiss welfare and deem its recipients lazy, manipulative malcontents without even considering the plethora of factors (low education spending, lack of law enforcement, poor health care and health education) which deprive millions of the opportunities we enjoy.  They dismiss any type of gun-control as a massive overreach of statist government without considering the thousands who die every year from gun deaths.  They dismiss what they see as the homosexual perversion of marriage without even considering the implications of personhood for the LGBT community.

In many ways, their positions are fundamentally sound.  The welfare system is flawed and does, in some cases, breed dependence.  Universal gun-control does infringe on the rights of those who hold their second-amendment rights dear to their heart.  Gay marriage may negatively affect the fundamental values of our society.  But the way the conservative movement carries itself, most clearly portrayed in the three-day proceedings of CPAC, lacks tact, nuance and the ability to compromise – all valued skills in politics and in the basic art of persuasion. 

Mitt Romney may not be the most conservative candidate in the Republican field.  He may lack a certain fluency in conservatism (most likely the result of being a result-focused pragmatist for much of his life in the private sector).  But a Republican Party that decides Romney is not a conservative at all is a Republican Party doomed to failure.  And a conservative movement that lacks nuance and rigorous internal debate does nothing but harm itself and the country at large.  

War and the American Ideal

A few weeks ago, a video surfaced with four American soldiers urinating on the bodies of two Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan.  One of the soldiers jokes, “Golden, like a shower” and another look down at the bodies and wishes them a “good day.”  All of this was captured on video and, as with almost everything captured on video these days, uploaded to YouTube. 

The response from the powers that be was swift and damning.  Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called the act deplorable—the White House agreed—and Arizona Senator John McCain, a former POW in Vietnam, said that it tarnished the image and reputation of the Marine Corps. 

Nancy Sherman, a professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and the first distinguished chair in ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy, stated that “the act is a violation of professional military conduct and the fundamental moral requirement in war of showing dignity and respect to the dead.” 

Furthermore, the act of urinating on a corpse is not sadistic or driven by anger—feelings that would be understandable, though acting on them still unacceptable—it is an act of degradation and shame.  Particularly in an environment of religious tension between the Middle East and the West, an act such as this is pure stupidity and has both strategic and philosophical implications. 

Earlier this week, a member of the Afghan National Army (our allies) killed four French soldiers. The soldier stated that he did it because of the video of the American soldiers degrading the body of his countryman.  Reports have also surfaced that the Taliban and Al Qaeda have begun using this video as a recruitment tool.  These are the real implications of the stupidity shown in the video.  Lives have been lost, will continue to be lost and the enemy will become stronger because of it. 

But there is a greater issue at stake: the moral standing of the American Republic and its example to the world.  Some have come out in recent weeks to criticize the Obama Administration’s response to the conflict.  Florida Congressman Allen West, a former Army Lieutenant Colonel, said “the Marines were wrong…As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”   Texas Governor Rick Perry said the desecration was a “stupid mistake,” called the criticism “over the top,” and claimed it reflected the Obama Administration’s “disdain for the military.”

California Congressman Duncan Hunter also urged that the marines “not be used for the purpose of making a statement to our partners in the region” meaning the soldiers shouldn’t be punished harshly simply to mend relationships with Afghan President Hamid Karsai or the Taliban during efforts at peace talks.  The most stunning of defenses I’ve heard came from a woman on talk radio who defended the marines by saying “they’re just kids.” 

This incident is not simply a mistake, a moment of unsound judgment.  Marines are some of the most highly trained soldiers in the world, but more importantly all U.S. soldiers understand that they are not simply “killing machines” but are rather the most numerous and visible representatives of the ideals of America in the world. 

Congressman West is right.  War is hell.  He went on to compare the incident to the American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu (made famous by the movie Black Hawk Down), and those tortured, beheaded and hanged in Iraq and Afghanistan.  War is hell, but what sets the United States apart is the way that it carries itself in the world, represented by the very soldiers who have been trained to kill – an interesting paradox. 

Whether in China, Burma, Syria or Rwanda, the United States has always opposed human rights violations and fought tirelessly — using diplomatic and military means — to defeat these abuses.  That is what we represent.  Those marines were not only degrading the bodies of their enemies, they were degrading the very ideals they are fighting to protect and defend. 

Alexis de Tocqueville once said “Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles.  Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.”  On that day, the spirit of our humanity was moved, and for that moment we shrunk in our stature and example.   

The Nature of Responsibility

In the January 2012 edition of Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens—possibly the greatest intellectual of the last 30 years—addressed the issue of death from the perspective of one currently experiencing it (he was recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer and died on December 15^th).  He stated that there were only two things keeping him from fatalism and resignation: “a wife who would not hear of me talking in this boring and useless way, and various friends who also spoke freely.”  Not even Hitchens—the great atheist, wordsmith, luminary—was able to exist without partaking in society and relationship. 

During a conversation I had with him last semester, President of the Washington Institute and author of The Fabric of Faithfulness Dr. Steven Garber quoted Vaclav Havel—the recently diseased President of Czechoslovakia—who said that “the secret of man is the secret of his responsibility.”  I began thinking about the elusive nature of responsibility.  In many ways, it seems as though its meaning has remained a mystery in our culture--or, more nefariously, been purposefully subverted to emphasize the supposed victory of reason over emotion in the Modern and Postmodern ages. 

At the core of the idea of responsibility—truly at the core of humanity itself—is the importance of understanding our place within society and relationships.  We, as a culture, have a tendency to equate responsibility with independence.  We see responsibility as living on our own, buying a car, paying a mortgage, etc.  But true responsibility necessitates actively engaging with both our emotions and the values that our emotions articulate.  As New York Times columnist David Brooks discussed in his book The Social Animal, “Your unconscious, that inner extrovert, wants you to reach outward and connect…your unconscious wants to entangle you in the thick web of relations that are the essence of human flourishing.”

Brooks underscores the fact that the dichotomy of reason and emotion—particularly the supposed victory of reason over emotion—is a false one.  We view emotion as an untamed beast, unable to be controlled or even understood.  But Brooks states that “Reason and emotion are not separate and opposed. Reason is nestled upon emotion and dependent upon it. Emotion assigns value to things, and reason can only make choices on the basis of those valuations. The human mind can be pragmatic because deep down it is romantic.”   Far from being outside the realm of reason or understanding, emotion is the very foundation of reason, organizing the principles and value structures of our lives like an architect drawing blueprints for a building.  Our emotions, which guide our subconscious, seek to be in relationships.  We are, as Aristotle called us, social animals.

Even the ancients understood this concept.  Aristotle, writing in the 3^rd century BC, also said that “Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.”  In the ancient poem Inferno, Dante and Virgil traverse the levels of hell passing through those which housed souls guilty of the sins of lust, gluttony, murder, theft, and falsehood.  At the final level resides sinners guilty of disloyalty to kin, country, guests, and lords.  To understand why Dante reserves the final level of hell (where Satan also resides) with the most gruesome of punishments, we must realize that Aristotle’s writings were, in many ways, the foundation of Dante’s thought.  Disloyalty is the worst of all sins in Dante’s conception because it is the destruction of relationships which are at the core of humanity.  It is, in essence, a perversion of humanity itself. 

Havel, reflecting on his time as a playwright, said “What is important is that it is far harder to store a play away in your desk drawer than it is poetry or prose.  Once written, a play is only half done, and it is never complete and itself until it has been performed in a theatre.”  The parallels to Brooks’ work are enlightening.  Writing a play—like living an independent, solitary life—is a wholly irrational, unfinished, and unfulfilling exercise.  Only in its engagement with society at large, the carrying out of its ideas in a physical and social manner, is theater—and life—consummated.  In this principle we find the true nature of responsibility.

True responsibility is understanding the benefit we can receive from and the good we can infuse into our community—whether it be a family, a city, or a church—and doing the work necessary to maintain and build up that community.  It is understanding the foundational role of the emotions and letting them guide our path and order our value structures.  The micro and macro problems we face as a society and as a country are complex and divergent, but at the core of many is a lost understanding of responsibility.  The key to future solutions may lie in the resurgence of this understanding. 

The secret of man is the secret of his responsibility. 

Jon Huntsman is the Most Electable Republican

For the last three years, the Republican Party has been engaged in a struggle to define itself.  They have seen the backlash resulting from the failed policies of the Obama Administration and realized that this is an opportunity to reassert the small government, free market, low tax pillars of Conservatism.  We have seen the emergence of the Tea Party, the sweeping midterm election of 2010 and the increasingly abysmal daily tracking polls for President Obama.

As the Republican primary commenced, this struggle played out in the constant tug and pull between a resurgent Republican base and the party establishment.  It is, as the media has portrayed it, a struggle between philosophical catharsis (Newt Gingrich) and electability (Mitt Romney).  But that dichotomy is deeply flawed.

Romney has been seen since day one as the establishment candidate with a broader appeal to independents and thus better general election chances.  The reality of the situation, however, is that Romney’s persona does not appeal to the country at large.  In a year when the electorate loathes the political process, and the politicians who guide it, Romney’s image of politician through and through will be viewed with skepticism, at the very least.

His electability is in question for another reason: the Obama Administration, which is inept at governing but unparalleled at campaigning, knows his weaknesses and has a strategy in place to defeat him.  They will—in fact they have already started to—paint him as an unattached, job-killing flip-flopper with no moral center, willing to say or do anything and everything to get elected.  It is hard to imagine a more powerful strategy for a general electorate which values consistency and boldness over almost anything else.

Which brings us to Newt Gingrich.  His recent rise in the polls is the result of his constant, vocal, and sometimes outlandish criticism of Barrack Obama, a cathartic experience for Republican voters who are angry and passionate about defeating him in 2012.  But Conservatives, Liberals, and the Obama Administration itself realize the ease with which they would cruise to victory were Gingrich nominated by the Republican Party, for two reasons.

First, his bombastic personality, which is a positive in the primary election, would become a negative in the general election and the chances of him saying something too outlandish would increase day by day.  His past statements, such as when he stated that “people like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz” or when he described himself as a “definer of civilization” paint a picture of a Nixonian candidate, one with bold ideas and political prowess but hindered by substantial personal flaws.

Second, Gingrich is not the bastion of Conservatism that the Tea Party thinks he is.  The flip-flops on issues such as climate change, the individual mandate, and Libya are well known.  But more importantly, Gingrich has shown an utter disregard for some Conservative principles.  Last week, Gingrich committed Conservative heresy by responding to Mitt Romney’s statement asking the speaker to return the $1.6 million he received from Freddie Mac with his own challenge to return the money Romney made “bankrupting companies and laying employees off” at Bain Capital.  To equate crony capitalism and influence peddling with the market realities of capitalism itself is to completely misrepresent Conservatism and its principles, something voters will realize under greater scrutiny. 

If the Obama Administration is content with facing Mitt Romney in the general election, they are licking their chops at the potential nomination of Newt Gingrich.  But the dichotomy of Gingrich and Romney is flawed because it doesn’t include the candidate who is the most electable and who the Obama Campaign is most worried about, Jon Huntsman. 

As Conservative columnists George Will and Erick Erickson pointed out, Governor Huntsman has the most Conservative record of any of the Republican candidates.  The Wall Street Journal and most recently The Tax Foundation, a Washington based Think Tank, endorsed the Governor’s tax and jobs proposal as bold and transformative.  The New York Times ranked him as the most likely Republican candidate to defeat Barrack Obama.  He appeals to independents because of his consistent record, his foreign policy experience and his nuanced demeanor. 

The true dichotomy is not between catharsis and supposed electability; it is between candidates seeking political absolution through shallow verbal barrages and a candidate with the leadership credentials and bold proposals necessary to win.  Put simply, it is true electability.  Jon Huntsman is truly electable and he is the right leader to set the United States on the path toward future sustainability.