Via Vodkapundit comes a link to this National Journal article that discusses in further depth the contrasts between the individualist/libertarian ideas that led to the Reagan Revolution and the ideas advanced by men such as Senator Santorum:
In Santorum’s view, freedom is not the same as liberty. Or, to put it differently, there are two kinds of freedom. One is “no-fault freedom,” individual autonomy uncoupled from any larger purpose: “freedom to choose, irrespective of the choice.” This, he says, is “the liberal definition of freedom,” and it is the one that has taken over in the culture and been imposed on the country by the courts.
Quite different is “the conservative view of freedom,” “the liberty our Founders understood.” This is “freedom coupled with the responsibility to something bigger or higher than the self.” True liberty is freedom in the service of virtue — not “the freedom to be as selfish as I want to be,” or “the freedom to be left alone,” but “the freedom to attend to one’s duties — duties to God, to family, and to neighbors.”
I haven’t read Santorum’s book, and don’t necessarily plan to, but its clear that he makes an effort to support his idea of the “conservative view of freedom” with quotes from the Founding Fathers, principally men like John Adams and Washington. Even the most conservative of the Founding Fathers, though, would not have supported a government that sacrificed the individual to the family, which is exactly what Santorum seems to be advocating.
For example:
In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, “Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of ‘Big Government’ conservatism.”
They sure will. A list of the government interventions that Santorum endorses includes national service, promotion of prison ministries, “individual development accounts,” publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, economic literacy programs in “every school in America” (his italics), and more. Lots more.
Santorum is obviously a religious conservative who has learned the lessons of the New Deal and Great Society. Goldwater and Reagan viewed government as a necessary evil whose scope should be limited. Santorum and his supports view government as club which they can use to force their vision of the ideal society on the rest of America.
In the end, there is very little philosophical difference between Santorum and the extreme leftists he contends are destroying American society. Both want to use the state to impose their vision of order.
Though he is a populist critic of Big Government, Santorum shows no interest in defining principled limits on political power. His first priority is to make government pro-family, not to make it small. He has no use for a constitutional (or, as far as one can tell, moral) right to privacy, which he regards as a “constitutional wrecking ball” that has become inimical to the very principle of the common good. Ditto for the notions of government neutrality and free expression. He does not support a ban on contraception, but he thinks the government has every right to impose one
Though not discussed here, he also doesn’t seem to care much about federalism. Another Reagan idea down the tubes apparently.
As I’ve said in the past, if these ideas become part of the mainstream of Republican thought, then the revolution that started with Barry Goldwater, reached its peak with Ronald Reagan, and inspired freedom movements all over the world, will be dead. America will be ruled by either the theocracy of the Right, or the theocracy of the Left. And liberty will suffer no matter who is in power.
With It Takes a Family, Rick Santorum has served notice. The bold new challenge to the Goldwater-Reagan tradition in American politics comes not from the Left, but from the Right.
My question is where are the modern-day Goldwaters and Reagan’s who would be able to fight Santorum for the soul of the GOP ?
Previous Posts:
The Big Tent Gets Smaller
Santorum On Liberty
A New Home For Liberty ?
