Editor’s Note: This piece by Paul Weyrich, who passed away this morning, originally appeared in the September 3, 1990 issue of National Review.
Conservatism today must pay the price of its own success. Modern American conservatism arose after World War II as a movement of protest, a dissent against the reigning liberalism. Over the course of half a lifetime it became intellectually respectable and increasingly persuasive as liberalism revealed itself as bankrupt. Finally in 1980 a plurality of American voters decided to give the conservatives a chance to govern — not because they were convinced the conservatives had the answers, but because they were sure the liberals did not. Finding the experience satisfactory, they returned conservatives to the Presidency in 1984 and 1988. In fact, by the end of the Reagan Administration, the very word “liberalism” had become a recognized political liability.
But this accomplishment is not equivalent to convincing the American people that conservatism should replace liberalism as their political faith. This is especially evident in the domain of policy, where liberalism remains competitive, perhaps even dominant. This remains so for three reasons. First, liberals possess a coherent agenda, a vision which is a fertile source of policy initiatives. Second, liberalism is an elite movement, and elites are more easily able to translate their ideas into policy. And third, the liberal movement rests on a network of discrete, readily mobilized constituencies which form strong grassroots coalitions.
On the other hand, as a movement of dissent, conservatives have cast much of their agenda in negative terms: anti-Communism, opposition to big government, resistance to ideological egalitarianism. When an opposition movement gains power, however, it must replace the old politics with a coherent new agenda.
The Reagan administration did not do this. It did not revoke the New Deal or restore state sovereignty or even stop the growth of the federal government. With a few noteworthy exceptions (the salutary improvements in the judiciary, the proposal of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the stimulation of the economy through tax cuts) the accomplishments of the Reagan administration were mainly negative ones: it did less harm than the preceding liberal administrations.
Even during the Reagan years, the political conversation was mainly about liberal ideas, although now they were being rejected instead of accepted. And the liberals are still putting forward new ideas (federal day care, homosexual rights, disarmament, and the peace dividend). Conservatives have to do more than just say no to the liberal agenda; we must have new ideas of our own that can capture the imagination and loyalty of new constituencies. Otherwise the Reagan Revolution will be just an hiatus in the triumphant march of liberal progress.
A new conservative agenda must speak to the concerns Americans feel. At the very time when some intellectuals are hailing the “end of history,” ordinary Americans feel insecure about their present and their future. They worry that their children might be entrapped by drugs, or that the schools will fail to give them a decent education. They worry about crime and the emergence of an apparently permanent underclass. They worry that their children will be unable to live the American dream — to own their homes or support their families adequately. They worry about declining economic productivity, and worry that tomorrow will be worse, not better, than today.
The unifying theme in these concerns is a sense of cultural breakdown, a loss of the moral standards and ideals of excellence that make society function. The conservative agenda must address these concerns by including in its vision of government the role of fostering basic American values — the American culture.
To be effective in this way, our agenda must root itself in the ideals and beliefs which Americans actually hold. America is strong and good because of the virtues which its people have historically lived and which they continue to live today.
ELITES v. THE PEOPLE
Democracy is the one form of government which depends for its success upon a virtuous people. Democracy works only so long as a sufficient proportion of the people are willing to place the common good above self-interest, and only so long as there is a broad consensus on what constitutes virtue.
In a fundamental sense, democracy represents an act of faith in the virtue of the people, on average and over the long haul. We are not speaking here of a utopianism which assumes that men are angels or can be made such, but rather of a confidence that, on balance, the people prefer good to evil and can be entrusted with the responsibility of self-government.
In earlier historical eras, conservatives had been suspicious of this premise. They have sought systemic safeguards against the passions of the mob and advantages for putatively wiser minorities. This attitude is evident in the conservative tradition on both sides of the Atlantic, and, in context, it was one worthy of respect. But it must be recognized that this implicit longing for aristocracy rested on the premise that there were in fact aristocrats — a class of people who were wiser and more virtuous than the mob.
That is no longer a safe assumption. Much of the sense of futility that afflicts our culture today can be traced to the failure of the natural elites in society. When we survey the disarray in the arts, in the academic world, in religion, and in most other culture forming areas of life, we must candidly admit that the leaders of our society are, by and large, less wise than ordinary people. If virtue and common sense are to be found anywhere, it is most likely to be among the middle class, the despised bourgeoisie, who still affirm those permanent things upon which our culture is based.
Therefore, the time has come for conservatism to sever its old ties with aristocratic romanticism and to embrace wholeheartedly an approach which expresses trust in popular majorities and an expansion of the democratic principle. There is a symmetry here: on the theoretical level, our conservative agenda should draw from the virtues which reside in the people; on the operational level, it should move that agenda forward by emphasizing popular sovereignty — by actively using such devices as initiative and referendum, recall, and term limitation. Of course, we must balance this against the traditional conservative fear of tyranny by the majority. The key to striking such a balance is the principle of subsidiarity. More and more, decision-making authority must be located at the lowest possible administrative level. Conservatives must try to focus Policy on the neighborhood, the municipality, the county, and the state.
Ironically, government at the state and local level is still overwhelmingly controlled by liberals, in large part because conservatives have concentrated too much of their attention and energy on Washington. If conservatives intend to advance a governing agenda for America’s future, this must be corrected.
CONSERVATIVE RESTORATION
The prescriptions that follow are not intended as a complete conservative agenda. They are examples of policies which address the cultural roots of the challenges facing America today by drawing upon traditional, functional cultural values.
1. We have traditionally championed the free market as both a force for prosperity and a moral imperative among free men. We have been right to do so. But we should also recognize that while a free market is preferable to other forms of economic organization, its benefits are not equally felt. Poverty, especially among working people, is the Achilles’ heel of the free market.
Work deserves reward. This principle is credible only if those who work are enabled thereby to support themselves and their families decently. National and state tax codes offer the vehicles through which conservatives can ensure that work is rewarded.
Tax policies should be designed to guarantee that any full-time worker with dependents will have sufficient after-tax income to maintain his family at an acceptable standard of living. This means that the dependent exemption in the income-tax code must be substantially increased; that the earned-income tax credit should be expanded; that workers supporting dependent children should receive rebates on their Social Security taxes; and that child-care tax credits should be offered universally to taxpayers with pre-school children.
This will have the effect of making work more attractive to those in marginal situations, and will reduce (if not eliminate) dependency on government social services among the employed.
2. It is a conservative challenge to combat the consolidation of a permanent underclass. The tax proposals outlined above touch only the economic aspect of this problem, which is cultural at root.
Our goal must be to empower those who are in need to escape the culture of dependence. The test of every benefit must be: Does it offer the poor a real chance to escape welfare? Unfortunately, government indicators stress the number of Americans who are reliant on welfare programs. Success is measured by the magnitude of need, not by the fulfillment of need. A modest step should be to press for new indicators to measure our progress in empowering citizens to move up from dependency.
In order to have any success to measure, the conservative agenda must address the cultural roots of the problem. Among the emerging American underclass, functional culture has collapsed. Traditional prohibitions against instant sensual gratification and crime have broken down. Traditional institutions — family, neighborhood, church, school — have lost their hold.
Our policies, therefore, must foster a culture of responsibility, work, and self-respect. To this end, we should link government assistance to behavior that encourages self-sufficiency.
AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) is one example. AFDC fulfills society’s responsibility to care for dependent children and affirms that mothers provide this care best. But in practice AFDC is a major factor in the formation of crippled family fragments consisting of teenage mothers and their children. These mother-child units are all but condemned to perpetual poverty. This segment of the government-created underclass would be better served if mothers under age 21 were ineligible for AFDC and other welfare benefits unless they lived with a parent or guardian.
In any case, a mother’s entitlement to AFDC benefits is derivative and should be conditioned on her fulfilling her parental responsibilities. For example, it should be conditioned on a child’s attendance of school and on the mother’s abstinence from drug use and other behavior that reinforces her dependent state.
If a father has abandoned his responsibility to support his children, AFDC-dependent mothers should be given financial incentives to identify absent fathers and to assist the government to collect child support from them. In those cases where fathers are unable to provide adequate support, AFDC should function as a “loan” paid to mothers in fulfillment of the father’s obligation; a loan to be repaid by the father as his financial condition permits.
The recasting of AFDC is not an agenda in itself but only an example of changes that are necessary throughout our social services; changes that empower the disadvantaged by reinforcing traditional, functional values and by building a culture of self-sufficiency.
3. Martin Luther King was right when he described the family as the “main educational agency of mankind.” The ability of parents to select the educational environment for their children is both a right and the cornerstone of educational excellence. Expanding parental choice in our schools is the sine qua non for improving educational opportunity and quality.
We should embrace recent expansions of parental choice among public schools while working to include private schools among the options available to parents. Full parental choice is particularly important in disadvantaged communities where public schools have demonstrably failed. We should press first to expand choice and empower parents in these communities education enterprise zones).
4. Defense of the right to life responds to such basic American values as compassion for the weak, equality of rights, and reverence for life. Conservatives should not be ashamed to be taking the right position on this question. Our agenda must affirm the right to life.
But we must understand that the vast majority of Americans are profoundly ambivalent on this issue. We must focus the public debate on specific questions that evoke the opposition of the vast majority of the public to the pro-abortion agenda. Our first goals must be to win over mainstream Americans who are uncomfortable with abortion as a means of sex selection or birth control, who believe parental consent should be obtained before a teenage girl receives an abortion, and who believe women should be fully informed before an abortion is performed on them.
And we must recognize that abortion cannot be ended simply by outlawing it. Abortion, like drug abuse, is an example of a culture which holds that the highest moral value is short-term personal convenience and pleasure. In a very real sense, abortion and many of our other problems — drugs, drunk driving, corruption — will not be solved until a cultural-conservative movement creates a new sense of moral responsibility.
5. No one is free if he lives in fear of crime. Every American has the right to walk around his neighborhood during the day or night, to leave his home unattended, to permit his children to walk home from school. When people are denied this right, the sense of community and trust deteriorates; the culture suffers.
We must ensure that Americans are secure in their persons and property. Every neighborhood should have police protection sufficient to deter crime and apprehend most criminals. Often, this will mean more police. Police forces can be strengthened by offering college scholarships or home-buying assistance in exchange for service on the police force (police ROTC). Moreover, volunteers of high-school age should be formed into platoons under military leadership (a domestic Combined Action Platoon program) to undertake direct, non-violent action in support of the civil peace. Such action might include surveillance, neighborhood presence, and unwelcome group “escort” for drug dealers, buyers, and other criminals.
We must ensure that justice — to the accused, to the victim, and to society — is served. Too often the guilty escape punishment through procedural niceties that elevate form over substance. Court procedure must be brought in line with the central function of the courts — determining guilt or innocence. The establishment of a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule is one example of this sort of reform.
And we must ensure that punishment for crime, particularly for violent crime, is appropriate. Punishment should include restitution to victims, in-prison work to defray some of the costs of prosecution and incarceration, and meaningful sentences. Early release should be earned only through some real accomplishment (achieving literacy, earning a general equivalency diploma) and not simply for passive good behavior.
Habitual violent felons must be removed from society. A model is Denny Smith’s Measure 4, which was overwhelmingly approved by the voters of Oregon in 1988. Measure 4 denies parole or other forms of early release for second-time violent felons. Conservatives should press for the passage of similar legislation in every state.
This reform package can reduce the crime rate by making the profession of crime less rewarding. It would empower law-abiding citizens by reducing their fear of crime and reviving their respect for the institutions of justice.
6. The drug trade contributes to our rising crime rate. Half of all arrestees test positive for drug use. And drugs have other perfidious effects. Drug use in the workplace leads to accidents and injuries (e.g., the 1987 Baltimore Amtrak disaster) and costs American business tens of billions of dollars annually through lost productivity, increased absenteeism, workplace accidents, medical costs, and theft. Moreover, drug abuse leads to dependence and undermines the cultural values of self-respect, personal responsibility, and self-reliance. Among the poor, it contributes to the creation of an underclass.
Any capitalist knows that as long as there is a market for illicit drugs, there will be producers and suppliers. The only effective way to reduce drug abuse is to reduce the demand for drugs.
We must raise the stakes for drug abusers. One way is to change the DEA’s mission from drug confiscation to drug contamination. The DEA should contaminate drugs with a substance that makes users wretchedly ill, preferably with distinctive symptoms. The model here is denatured alcohol, which we have, for decades, made unfit to drink by adding an obnoxious substance.
Another way is to promote widespread testing. Our experience with drug testing in the military confirms that testing works, We should require that inmates in our prisons test drug free prior to release and remain drug free during any probation or parole, and that public officials and federal employees test drug-free. We should encourage private business to test employees for drug use.
Government should not empower addicts to purchase and abuse drugs.Thus we should withhold non-earned governmental benefits (e.g., FHA loans, subsidized college tuition, drivers’ licenses, student loans) from convicted drug users.
And, if the drug war is a war, we should consider a formal congressional declaration of war on drugs. The primary purpose of such a declaration would be to disarm the drug trade. Under the declaration of war, any foreign national apprehended for violation of drug laws or any American citizen taken under arms while in possession of drugs would be treated as a prisoner of war. He would have no legal rights beyond those in the Geneva Convention; no right of habeas corpus or of trial. His imprisonment would be of indefinite duration, since he would not be released until the war was over.
7. In order to reduce the power of liberal elites, we must first institute the mechanisms of popular democracy. For example, only half the states now have an initiative and referendum process. Where it exists, the ballot initiative should be the device of choice for pressing constructively polarizing proposals. Where it does not exist, conservatives should demand it as a necessary element of self-government.
Among the other institutional reforms that will accentuate popular democracy are term limitation for office holders (including, especially, judicial term limitation), shorter legislative sessions, the addition of “none of the above” to the ballot, and the localization of government functions.
THE WILL TO GOVERN
We can solve the problems that face our nation. In so doing, we must demonstrate that conservatives can and will govern; that our creed goes beyond simply demanding to “get government off our backs.”
Most of all, by affirming traditional values and the common sense of mainstream Americans, our agenda will effectively polarize the political debate and expose the left-wing agenda as the product of a fringe element hostile to our culture and our civilization.