Posted under Conservatism & Health Care & Media
When I was an undergraduate in college, a fellow student of my acquaintance had the nickname “The Reason.” (I am being as vague as possible to protect the innocent.) This young man was a really nice guy, but was not, shall we say, particularly hip. He belonged to a certain fraternal organization. This fraternal organization also had the reputation for being, shall we say, less hip than many other fraternal organizations on campus. You can see where I’m going with this. Now why this young man was allowed to pledge this fraternal organization, organizations which typically pride themselves on their hipness, I do not know. Perhaps it was because he was a legacy. Perhaps it was because this particular fraternal organization happened to cater to a certain ethnic and religious minority and they were therefore duty bound to accept all comers who were also members of that ethnic and religious minority. Perhaps they just had a big heart. Again, I do not know. But whatever the case, whenever the less hip status of this fraternal organization was brought up, the fellow student of my acquaintance was cited as … well you guessed it … “The Reason.”
David Lindsay is a sometimes right, often frustratingly wrong, but always interesting blogger at the American Conservative website. David Lindsay is also, like my fellow student, “The Reason.” He is also my Facebook friend, but may not be after he reads this.
Let me explain. Recently there has been a lot of chatteramong paleoconservative, libertarian and other elements of the alternative right that the American Conservative has lost its way. There is even the suggestion, perish the thought, that the magazine and website are drifting left.
Why all this concern? David Lindsay is “The Reason.” Lindsay may not be “The Only Reason,” but he is certainly “A Major Reason.” But “A Major Reason” doesn’t lend itself to nickname status quite as well so I will stick with “The Reason.”
Personally I have defended the American Conservative from this accusation although not always without my own doubts. But that is a discussion for another essay.
David Lindsay writes under the blog heading “Post Right.” This blog is, as the name suggests, written by people who fall outside the traditional Left/Right dichotomy. As such, it is probably not reasonable to expect pure paleoism from Lindsay, but Jack Hunter and Nathan P. Oringer also write under the same blog, and I rarely disagree with either of them while I only occasionally agree with Lindsay.
Lindsay is a British conservative. Therefore he does not share the American right’s love affair with the free market. This frustrates the more libertarian leaning AmCon readers to no end. While I am much more favorable of the free market than Lindsay, he is philosophically correct that laissez-faire capitalism is not inherently conservative and historically speaking was leftist in origin (classical liberalism.) While I do not question the efficiency of the market place, conservatives should be very careful to avoid economic reductionism and economic man thinking which can quickly degenerate into nothing more than the flip side of Marxism.
But Lindsay also does not share the American right’s commitment to limited government, especially regarding health care. So Mr. Lindsay has proceeded to lecture us over and over and over and over … on the benefits of Universal Single Payer Health Care. It is this incessant drumbeat for big government health care that occasions this little rant.
Lindsay envisions a social conservative, anti-capitalist, big government synthesis, because … well basically … that’s how they do it in England. But I have a news flash for Mr. Lindsay, America is not England and American conservatism is not English conservatism. I recall what the late great Lewis Grizzard used to say about Yankees in the South. Heavily paraphrased he suggested that Yankees were more than welcome to come down here and eat our grits, drink our sweat tea, and even marry our women, just as long as they didn’t tell us how they used to do it back in Cleveland. Southerners don’t care how Yankees do it in Cleveland, and Mr. Lindsay, American conservatives don’t care how you do it in England. We have our own tradition that we are trying to conserve (imagine that), and government run health care would trample on, not conserve, that tradition. Not to mention the difficulty of cobbling together the coalition he envisions.
Mr. Lindsay and I have been round and round in his blog posts, but for the benefit of most of the readers who have not followed our little spat, I will go over this again. It is all very simple. Conservatives seek to conserve. (Crazy thought I know.) One thing that conservatives in America should seek to conserve is the constitutional Republic left to us by our Founding Fathers. One aspect of conserving that constitutional Republic is the quaint little idea that the Constitution should actually be followed. (Another crazy thought.) Strict Constitutionalism is not the sum total of conservatism, but it is difficult to defend as authentic American style conservatism anything that doesn’t include strict constitutionalism. I realize there could be rightist objections to “constitutionalism,” but that too is for another essay. In this case Lindsay is not a rightist objecting to constitutionalism on some principled grounds. He simply doesn’t consider the Constitution an impediment to government run health care.
The Constitution does not authorize Federal involvement in health care delivery. Period! If you think it does then please provide me with the Article and section that does so. Therefore, a conservative, who is seeking to conserve our constitutional Republic, cannot support a government program that tramples upon the concept of enumerated powers enshrined in the Constitution. If he does then what, pray tell, is he conserving?
If we had honest political discourse in this country then liberals who support government run health care would provide the Article and section of the Constitution that authorizes it. Lacking such (I’ve read it, and it ain’t in there.), they would either drop the subject or seek to amend the Constitution so as to authorize it. But alas we do not have honest political discourse in this country and instead we have liberals babbling about the “general welfare” and “interstate commerce” clauses and a “living and breathing” Constitution when they are not just ignoring it altogether. Invoking the Preamble, broadly interpreting the commerce clause, or fancying the Constitution a living document is clearly a thought pattern of the left in this country. How anyone can think casual disregard of the Constitution as written and intended is conservative, or could serve conservatives well, is beyond me. I’ve said it many times on his blog, and I will say it again, David Lindsay does not get American conservatism, and until he does he will remain “The Reason.”
Cross posted at The Committee for Constitutional Health Care blog.
S.L. Toddard on 11 Nov 2009 at 2:15 pm #
Quite correct. There are three positions one may take in support of any proposal for government action:
1. They may argue that it is within the powers delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, and cite which Article etc
2. They may argue that it is not within the powers delegated but that it is necessary, and therefore propose a constitutional Amendment to delegate that power
3. They may argue that it is necessary even though it is not within the powers delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, and that it should be enacted regardless.
Put simply, the first two are reasonable and consistent with the Rule of Law in a Constitutional Republic. The third is not – it is an argument in favor of abandoning the Rule of Law and embracing in its place, in the name of political expediency, the Rule of Man and arbitrary power. Which is to say, Tyranny.
Jeremiah Whitmoore on 19 Nov 2009 at 5:51 pm #
Excellent essay,
Mr. Lindsay also has a bizarre fetish involving a fictional paleocon Democrat party that exists solely in his mind. He has this strange notion that the Democrat Party is the Bob Conley, Jim McDonald, James Traficant party and doesn’t recognize that these men are aberrations.
As far has health care is concerned, Mr. Lindsay desires that the Federal Government provide universal health care. Of course it never occurs to him that this could be done more efficiently and constitutionally at the state level. In fact, several states have already made substantial progress towards realizing Mr. Lindsay’s hopes. As an Englishman, he can only see things through a unitary lens.