Interesting post by Lew Rockwell, who is obviously a libertarian, contrasting what he sees as the two contradicting premises that make up the Left and the Right of this nation’s body politic:

The Blog | Lew Rockwell: Are Conservatives Crazy? | The Huffington Post

The problem is this: in the first paragraph, the government is rightly presumed to be the coercive enemy that takes from the people and saps their productivity. . . 

. . . But when it comes to foreign policy, the analysis is entirely reversed. The presumption that the American people and the government are unified is integral to the analysis, as summed up in the plural pronouns “our” and “we,” as if the people have direct control over the foreign-policy decisions of the political leadership. . .

. . . I don’t mean to pick on the right exclusively. The left often offers the inverse of this recommendation. They believe that the government can’t but unleash Hell when it is waging war and spending on military machinery. But when it comes to domestic policy, they believe the same government can cure the sick, comfort the afflicted, teach the unlearned, and bring hope and happiness to all.

An interesting concept, and one that begs a bit of reflective blogging.

So, is this really what Conservatives and Liberals believe the government is all about? I think that in the abstract, one might make the case that these are indeed the concepts that govern our political commentary, but they are ultimately caricatures of the real discussion.

The Conservative view, at least in its current context, is perhaps closest to the truth: there does indeed seem to be a fundamentally flawed logic in the notion of the constantly-warring society not having any control over the domestic tranquility of its populace. It is one that is entirely refuted by history, in fact. But then, I don’t think that many Conservatives are as gun-ho about the whole PNAC thing as the Neo-Conservative variety. Generally, I’ve found most Conservatives to be as completely disinterested in American involvement overseas as they are in Federal involvement in the lives of the people.

In fact, if anything, the current foreign policy is a manipulation of the general outlook of many Americans, Conservative and Liberal alike. After 9/11, despite the “why do they hate us?” rhetoric, the truth is that most Americans believed we owed it to the world to make things better because we knew intrinsically that there was a reason for the anger, if not a justification. What we thought would be acceptable varied, but we all thought something needed to be done. So the Bush Administration talked tough and talked pro-active (still does), and many of us bought it.

What is turning the tide of American politics right now is not the Liberal opinion: we’ve hated Bush from the get-go. What has changed is the fact that Conservatives are waking up to the fact that they’ve gotten us involved in something that Conservatives have sworn time-uncounted not to allow: America as the World-Cop. They’ve discovered that the paternal notion of forcing Democracy on the world is a frighteningly messy thing, that this is not the Baby-Boomer WWII, and now it’s time to take our ball and go home.

This is, ultimately, what is going to kill the Republicans in the next few elections. What will get thier base seething mad and get people out of thier armchairs to vote thier vengeance is the fact that *nothing* about the Conservative agenda looks anything like a Conservative platform.

As for Liberals, Mr. Rockwell posits that a nation that cannot make war abroad without causing damage is incapable of enacting social reforms at home without causing damage. This again is contrary to history. The problem with American foreign policy is not policy, its war. To equate war with social policy is lunacy: they are fundamentally opposite, which is why the Warfare State cannot be allowed to dominate the society.

In fact, in our own history, the Administrations that have done the most for the populace have done the least in the way of war. That is generally a function of economics, since money spent on war cannot be spent on anything else.  To my way of thinking, swapping war for social programs in that equation is an outstanding recipe for a peaceful nation.

Neither do I believe that the government can “bring hope and happiness to all,” exactly.  A socially-involved government simply provides a populist counter-balance to the inevitably authoritarian power structure of human endevour.  Without a democratic government that provides access to education, health care and equal justice, the forces of capitalism would have the majority of the population poor and dumb, a fact also borne out by history.  It is for this reason, and not out of hope for a utopian society, that many of us push for socially-responsible government.