deanpence

Bill Kristol, Poor Little Tyrant

In a New York Times op-ed from a few weeks ago, Bill Kristol had this to say to encourage his fellow “conservatives”:

It’s not easy being a conservative movement in a modern liberal democracy. It’s not easy to rally a comfortable and commercial people to assume the responsibilities of a great power. It’s not easy to defend excellence in an egalitarian age. It’s not easy to encourage self-reliance in the era of the welfare state. It’s not easy to make the case for the traditional virtues in the face of the seductions of liberation, or to speak of duties in a world of rights and of honor in a nation pursuing pleasure.

As a moderately-conservative libertarian who’s supporting Barack Obama for president, I have a few questions for him:

1. What real conservative can say, with a straight face, that our “comfortable and commercial people” have the “responsibilities of a great power”? First, a true pro-capitalist conservative would tell you that comfort and commerce are things worth fighting for, not deriding. Second, the same would deride not our comfort but any tyrannical delusion that we have any duty but to our own happiness. This is what makes you a “neo-conservative”, Kristol. You’re not a conservative at all. You’re a wannabe tyrant. We’ve seen what happens when a true neocon gets power and decides he has a responsibility to spread democracy.
2. Where is this excellence you’re defending? Neoconservatism put Bush in office. Or are you talking about the growing divide between the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor and progressives’ fight to end special access to legislation by fat cats who are hell-bent on delivering us straight to corporatist fascism? While character and achievement varies from person to person, our representation in Congress and our treatment under the law must always be equal, or do you really want the fascist oligarchy that would result from ignoring that?
3. Have you ever lived on welfare? I’m not one to defend handouts, but do you, Mr. Kristol, have any idea how few people actually want to be on welfare? Do you know how little money is available to the poor?
4. If liberation is so seductive, perhaps you would care to enlighten us as to what is so deadly about it? Are your “traditional virtues” better simply because they’re older? And why must these virtues be foisted upon others?
5. Have you read the Constitution? Do you have a firm mental grasp on the concept of rights? Don’t answer; I already know you don’t. To speak of duties in a world of rights is to speak of nothing but tyranny, Mr. Kristol. No one, especially the government, has the right to demand any positive action from anyone. To say that I have a duty—a responsibility without consent—to anyone or anything is the height of the slave-driving, divine-rights world our ancestors dug themselves out of to make this country a free one.
6. Lastly, you betray your ultimate failure as a human being by decrying the pursuit of pleasure. For those of us who know better, lasting happiness is the highest goal in life. What else is freedom for except the right to pursue happiness in the best way we know how? To insinuate otherwise is to relegate us to the role of fodder for the state.