A week or so ago, I saw Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason magazine, on C-Span, and he made a very astute statement about American politics: Liberals want the government to be your father, conservatives want the government to be your mother, both want to treat you like a child.
Indeed, both of today’s major political ideologies share certain common principles about what the role of government should be in society. They reach different conclusions, but both ultimately push their own brand of noxious paternalism. Here I discuss two of the principles in question. They are very closely related, but each has a certain dynamic that makes it worthy of independent discussion:
(1) Government Should Influence Popular Thought: Liberals and conservatives alike firmly believe that the State should shape the attitudes, ideas, and beliefs of the people. Conservatives and liberals disagree only about what attitudes, ideas, and beliefs are desirable. Both agree that the State should establish civil and criminal penalties for conduct that serves as a bad influence on others. For example, conservatives support the using the criminal law to ban sodomy and pornography because they wish to discourage people from adopting nontraditional (i.e. non-Xian) attitudes towards sexual morality. Liberals, on the other hand, push bans on discrimination in private enterprise (employment, housing, etc.) in order to discourage intolerance.
There are several criticisms one can level at this principle. One stems from the fact that a society is ultimately a collection of individuals, and that, if a popular attitude about a subject exists, it is only because a number of individuals have personally adopted that attitude for themselves. In a free society, people will naturally influence (and attempt to influence) each other’s attitudes about nearly every subject imaginable. Indeed, one of the principal justifications for the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech is that it creates a free market of ideas, and that this free market, in which all ideas are debated and scrutinized, will ultimatlely lead the people to truth.
State attempts to mold popular attitudes are inconsistent with the free market principle and, indeed, freedom of speech altogether. For example, social conservatives simultaneously claim that (1) under the First Amendment, a homosexual has every right to employ the spoken or written word to persuade others that sodomy is moral, but (2) a homosexual should be imprisoned for actually engaging in sodomy, because, if he State permitted him to do so openly, his actions might persuade others that sodomy is moral. Ridiculous! If a homosexual has the right to advocate the morality of sodomy at all, then it does not matter whether he does so expressly, through speech, or indirectly, through setting an example.
(2) Law and Morality Should Be Co-Extensive: That which is legal is presumptively moral, hence that which is immoral should be illegal. Conservatives are well-known for their moral hand-wringing, but liberals are just as moralistic (despite the fact that conservatives are fond of accusing liberals of being relativists or even nihilists). Political correctness, for example, is a leftist moral position, and a great deal of (though not all) the thought that underlies the environmental movement is essentially moralistic in nature.
The problem with this principle is that it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the law. At least in the tradition of English Common Law (which continues in nations founded by English colonists, including the United States), law and morality really have very little to do with each other. An illegal act remains illegal regardless of whether the one performing the act had a noble or an “evil” motive. Likewise, a legal act remains legal regardless of the actor’s motive. For example, it is illegal to steal a loaf of bread. It does not matter whether the thief stole because he was starving or whether he stole because he was simply too cheap to pay or wanted to cause financial harm to the baker.
Although people with any real scope of thought do not accept christian concepts of morality, even from the Xian point of view, there is little that links morality to law. The law is ultimatley created and enforced by humans, and, as such, is limited by practical concerns, including the resources available for enforcement and the community’s willingness to tolerate the measures necessary for enforcement. Morality, on the other hand, has no such limitations. Morality is as limitless as human thought, and only an all-powerful and all-knowing God is capable of enforcing it.
Hence, this principle has led to the passage of many laws that are difficult or impossible to enforce, and this, in turn, has led to a decrease in respect for the law. If the law is to be an effective deterrent, punishment for violations must be swift, certain, and severe. By trying to incorporate the whole of morality in the law, conservatives and liberals alike have created a regime in which punishment is slow, uncertain, and mild.
This leads to two counter-principles that I would suggest as a “Third Side” approach to politics:
(1) Symbolism Alone Justifies No Law: If the only reason you can come up with for a propsed law is that it encourages desirable attitudes or discourages undesirable ones, then you have failed to make a case for enactment.
(2) Law is Practical, Not Moral: The State does not seek, nor even claim to be able, to make people “good.” Rather, the State seeks only to provide the minimum necessary goods, services, and regulations for a free market for trade and ideas to exist. No criminal law should be passed unless unless the State is ready, willing, and able to enforce it vigorously.