The New Fusionism by Thomas Fleming

PERSPECTIVE The New Fusionism by Thomas Fleming ^ ^ T n the government of Virginia," said John Randolph in a minority that we call democracy. He was almost entirely X 1830, "we can't take a step without breaking our shins without cant. Freeing his own slaves, he nonetheless ridi over some Federal obstacle." Randolph's metaphor was a culed the political doctrine of equality as subversive of all minor exaggeration 160 years ago; today, it would be a gross liberty. "Sir," he once observed, "I am an aristocrat: I love understatement, because today that federal obstacle has liberty. I hate equality." This aristocrat was also a radical been erected so high, so deep, so strong, that we can scarcely JefFersonian who opposed every move to increase the size take a step of any kind. This same federal government and scope of government, while at the same time resisting stipulates how we shall rear our children, how we may attempts to take away voting rights from smaller free-holders conduct our business, whom we may choose or refuse as our in Virginia. companions. The whole of our private and social lives are Randolph once occupied an honorable place in the hemmed in by various decrees, restrictions, and codes — pantheon of American conservatism. He and the other Old and not just by the national government. State and local Republicans had so profoundly influenced the course of jurisdictions, with what little driblets of power they have left, Southern political thought that Henry Adams selected are just as eager to invade our homes, to tell us what we can him — in addition to Captain John Smith and Thomas smoke, drink, and say. Jefferson — as one of the pernicious Virginians who needed Randolph himself made a similar complaint in the matter debunking. Russell Kirk's M.A. thesis, Randolph of Roa of a billiard table that some members of Congress thought noke, helped to launch Dr. Kirk's career as the most an evil. "In Virginia," he said, "we are and I trust shall ever authentic voice of traditionalist American conservative be alive to States rights. But have the people no rights as thought, and this book—imbued with the sentiments of against the Assembly? All oppression commences under Burke and the traditions of prescriptive right — has been specious pretexts. I have wondered that no rural, or rather kept in print by the Liberty Fund, an organization whose rustic, Hampden has been found to withstand the petty very name declares its sympathies. tyranny which has as good a right to take away his wife's Randolph and Calhoun were once studied by conserva looking-glass or frying pan as his billiard table. By what tives who also respected Herbert Spenser and Lysandor authority is this thing done? Under color of law, I know, but Spooner, Henry Adams and Irving Babbitt, Friedrich Hayek a law in the teeth of all principles of free government." and Ludwig von Mises. It is instructive, occasionally, to Randolph was a lover of liberty, an Old Republican who spend a morning reading early issues of the l^ew Individual cherished minimal government and distrusted all forms of ist Review. There you will find Milton Friedman almost tyranny including that tyranny of a majority manipulated by cheek by jowl with Richard Weaver, a firey interchange 10/CHRONICLES LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED between Ronald Hamowy and William Buckley on the because they seem to live in the revolving door between influence of National Review, as well as article after article Republican administrations and lobbying organizations. by competent scholars honestly coming to grips with the They are, for the most part, shills for whoever will pay them. reality of the New Deal revolution. In the old days, it was big business Republicans; today it is The richness and variety of the right in those days is multinational companies and foreign interests. They have astonishing. What is especially striking is the absence of a changed the words, but the tune is still "M-O-N-E-Y" (the party line that could keep out serious minds. Louis Brom- best things in life are free / but you can give 'em to the birds field (a highly respected northern agrarian novelist), journal and bees). ist and novelist Rose Wilder Lane, novelist and fruitcake In this new conservative movement, Pat Buchanan is Ayn Rand could all be read with respect by people who regarded as a dangerous bigot, while A.M. Rosenthal of the looked to George Stigler and Milton Friedman for econom New York Times is celebrated as a great conservative ic wisdom. All were anticommunist, but there was no commentator. Welfare is not evil per se, and only needs consensus on the Cold War. The hysteria over containing some adjustments — enterprise zones, workfare, and educa and/or rolling back the Communists was manufactured tional choice — to make it an issue that can secure votes for almost entirely by ex-Communists who, if they better Republicans, jobs for conservatives, and contracts for loyal understood the motives and goals, wildly overestimated the supporters "in the community." The new conservatives abilities of their former cb-conspirators. have all but given up on the natural institutions of family In recent years many of those on the right—reaction and community and are ready to embrace Checker Finn's aries, conservatives, and libertarians — have had ample cause latest gimmick: total education for the total state. (Finn is for melancholy reflection on what their movement had said to be the brains behind the new Education secretary. turned into: a narrow-minded ideology that justified the What a thought.) high salaries of fundraisers and foundation managers. Out of the ferment of their discontent it is just possible that something positive might spring up, and last autumn Donald Devine brought together a group of mostly Wash ington conservatives to consider the prospects for reawaken It is too late to think about conserving. ing the right's historic commitment to limited government. There is not much left of the Old Republic, At the same time, a group of "Old Right" conservatives and which has been bloated into a swollen and libertarians went to Dallas to hold the first meeting of the cancerous empire that threatens to devour John Randolph Club. all the life and energy that still exists. he John Randolph Club grew out of a series of T meetings and conversations initiated by an exchange of letters between Murray Rothbard and me. As it turned out, we were both disturbed by the development of new and Some of the right's left turn toward big government is the highly rigid orthodoxies among conservatives and libertari direct result of the libertarian schism and the neoconserva- ans. Big government, minority rights, and globalism, it tive alliance. But if conservatives have suffered from the seems, are the new conservative creed, and it is now heresy libertarian defection (or rather expulsion), the reverse is also to oppose the steady march of progress toward the New true. Liberty as a rallying cry has always attracted a certain World Order. But the libertarians are hardly any better off^ number of eccentrics who were looking for nothing more than the conservatives. Recently a prominent establishment exalted than a justification for their vices. (It's no accident libertarian (Ed Crane of the Cato Institute) attacked Lew that so many lifestyle libertarians gravitate to San Francisco.) Rockwell and other paleolibertarians as social fascists. Why? With traditionalists and social conservatives out of the way, Because they think that marriage between a man and a the path was clear for a takeover by the misfits, the group woman is preferable to marriage between a man and a man that Murray Rothbard usually describes as druggies, grifters, or a man and a sheep. and losers. With the official conservatism turning socialist and offi cial libertarianism turning libertine, we began to wonder o much for how and why we have been holding where things went wrong. The most obvious answer is that S meetings. What do we hope to accomplish? The first all along, libertarians and traditionalist conservatives needed piece of business on our agenda is the restoration of debate each other. It was only the presence of the libertarians in the and free expression. If Pat Buchanan and Joe Sobran so-called fusionism of the 1950's that prevented the monar criticize the present government of Israel, they are branded chists, authoritarians, and starched-pants dandies with spats as anti-Semites; if Anthony Harrigan calls for a critical and waxed mustaches from taking over, and when the scrutiny of unfair Japanese trade practices, he must be a libertarians were kicked out of the coalition, their place was xenophobic mercantilist, an enemy of free enterprise, and a eventually taken by a determined cadre of Trotskyists and lackey of the textile manufacturers. But if these ad hominem Marxist revisionists who proceeded to construct a whole raft attacks on motives are to be permitted, why does no one of new. conservatisms: Big Government conservatism, win question the vicious anti-Arab sentiments of the neocon- dow of opportunity conservatism, and progressive conserva servatives, or the flood of Oriental money in which the tism. It is simpler to call these people, wherever they happen conservative free traders are swimming? to be living at the moment, Washington conservatives. To most of the political questions that vex us in our time, I MAY 1991/11 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED have no ready answers. What I do know is that we need from the lawyers and politicians who govern only in their more, not less discussion from journalists and scholars whose own interests.

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