Dan

Calabrese

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March 12, 2009

Ideology As An End Unto Itself (Even When Correct) Means Disaster

If ideology is an indispensible guide to principled governance, could it also be a destructive force when it becomes an end unto itself? Both sides of the spectrum are currently testing the premise.

America faces a collapsing economy and continued threats abroad. The party in power shows no indication that it has the slightest idea what to do about any of this. The party out of power is preoccupied with a pissing match between a talk-show host and any number of others who might be characterized as RINOs and infidels.

Nowhere does there appear to be a competent person at the wheel. But obsession over ideology is everywhere you look.

Democrats have taken the opportunity, having completely seized the levers of power for the first time in 14 years, to lard up the federal budget to the unprecedented level of 27 percent of GDP. Although they say it’s an emergency measure to address the economic meltdown, it is very obviously not that at all. It is a gigantic and (they think) long-overdue payoff to constituencies public and private who have been deprived (they think) since 1994 when Republicans acquired some degree of power to deny them everything they wanted.

Republicans, with the exception of a very few serious people like Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, are either trotting out Clinton-era talking points or taking up arms in a civil war pitting “true conservatives” vs. “Republicans In Name Only” (RINOs).

And at the center of it all, radio king Rush Limbaugh leads the conservative purity brigades against “reformers” like former Bush speechwriter David Frum, who makes some valid points about the party’s drift, but ruins his own credibility with disingenuous attacks on Limbaugh, boot-licking appearances before liberal media and gratuitous shots at people like Sarah Palin – who, whether you realize it or not, is one of the few solid conservatives who governs like a grownup.

So while Democrats pile up the nation’s debt to serve their ideological constituencies, Republicans engage in a death match about whether to purge their party of the ideologically impure.

In November 2008, my colleague Llewellyn King made an eloquent case that ideology is the worst scourge of good governance in his column titled “End Game for Ideology.” He applied the argument across the political spectrum, but suggested that conservatives have more of a problem with ideology than liberals:

Maybe Democrats should not worry too much about the labeling issue. Not now. But the Republicans should worry about it – and then worry some more. The catchy labels reflect underlying ideology, and the modern Republican Party has been snared in ideology. It is a self-satisfied party, rigid in its beliefs and sure of its virtue.

Rigidity hurts in uncertain times, especially times of economic uncertainty. Too much of the GOP believes if you get the dogma right, good things will come to pass.

Where Llewellyn and I are different is that I am pretty darn ideological, and pretty darn conservative. Lower taxes, dramatically smaller government, elimination of federal departments, free-market capitalism, aggressive pro-American foreign policy . . . I’m for all of it.

But I didn’t arrive at these positions because I went down to the Conservative Club one day and was handed a list of acceptable issue positions to memorize. I engaged in thought and arrived at positions. They are mostly consistent with those considered conservative, so I guess I’m conservative.

Sometimes I think the right’s conventional wisdom is wrong. I think it was wrong on the immigration debate of the past couple of years, not in its desired outcome, but in its approach to the issue. I think abortion is an abomination, but I don’t think the right’s approach to the issue is accomplishing anything.

But suggest to a movement conservative that a different approach might be advised, and the likely response is “I refuse to compromise my principles!” – as if you had asked that they do any such thing.

A confident movement welcomes everyone who is willing to be part of the solution. The sharper your thinking, the better, but some good ideas are better than none. A sputtering, paranoid movement seeks to keep out all but the pure.

It seems to me that a party that just got thrown out of power would take a hard look at itself. The right’s presumption of the moment is that the RINOs spoiled everything. The thinking here is that a lot of principled conservatives also contributed to the problem because they governed idiotically and ineffectively (and sometimes corruptly) – thus making their adherence to principle, however admirable, worthless nonetheless.

But don’t tell that to the movement, which is convinced that any conservative who failed was, by definition, not a conservative, which means that no conservative has ever failed.

At the same time, it seems to me a party that returned to power in part by lamenting debt would not, in its first major action, borrow at record levels to keep its partisan constituencies fat and happy.

But dogma is king. And as conservatives are proving, even correct dogma can screw the pooch when its followers turn it into a god unto itself. I think Llewellyn was on to something.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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