For me the choice facing Republicans and Americans in this election is very simple. Eighty years of progressive government have left us with a system of government that doesn’t work and is not sustainable. The reason this happened is that progressives, in their admirable commitment to help the downtrodden and disadvantaged, unintentionally opened the government up to capture by special interests across the board and at every level. The most basic reason to be “anti-establishment” is that today’s GOP establishment serves special interests every bit as much as the Democrats do. Both parties have bought into the progressive scheme of government for special interest, and sooner or later the American people were going to start losing trust in government, as I argued a few days ago on the homepage.
So the simple question to ask of a politician is this: Is that person in favor of government for special interests, or government for all the people? What it means to be in favor of government for special interests is to embrace subsidies for special groups, and hidden forced transfers in the form of protections from competition, for the benefit of special groups. What it means to be in favor of government for the public interest is to embrace a competitive economy of free exchange, with regulations to protect health and safety and to protect third parties against negative effects of those transactions, such as pollution. The former requires unequal protection of laws, and different rules for different people — in other words, progressive government. The latter requires equal protection of the laws, and the same rules for everyone — in other words, conservative government.
The ethanol issue is a perfect illustration of the proper way to view this question. In Iowa there are ethanol subsidies and ethanol mandates. Both are examples of government for the benefit of special interests, but subsidies are better than mandates because in the case of on-budget subsidies at least you know how much working families are paying out the nose to pad profits of agribusiness in Iowa. With mandates and other protections from competition, the massive losses that society suffers are almost impossible to calculate — in fact they are hidden from public view, often for the very purpose of protecting the politicians who sell out to special interests from the fury that should fall on them for defrauding the public.
The bottom line is this: If you are angry at the establishment, and you embrace a candidate who openly champions ethanol mandates, I have to tell you with all respect that you’re missing something, and you’ve wound up on the opposite end of where you should be.
Conservatives have fought for decades, from the founding of NR through the careers of Milton Friedman and Barry Goldwater, to our present day of tea-party constitutional revival, to reverse the damage that the progressive and New Deal movements inflicted upon our Constitution. We have fought to build a consensus for economic liberty and property rights, for freedom of exchange, for limiting the power of government to serve special interests, so we can restore the society the Constitution originally envisaged — a society of self-reliance, self-government, and freedom. Conservatives have fought for these things because we believe that those who need opportunity the most are getting screwed a million different ways with our present system of government, namely the progressive system of government, which both parties have bought into for far too long.
If a politician then comes along who cares not a whit for any part of that conservative consensus, and who on the contrary proudly proclaims his willing membership in this progressive scheme of government of, by, and for special interests, and his intention to continue and even expand it, and the American people start following that person in droves, movement conservatives will hopefully see the danger and sound the alarm. In the meantime, people should focus on the critical litmus test that all conservatives can embrace: Does the politician believe in elevating special interests above the people?
If that politician supports ethanol mandates, you know the answer already.