Incrementalating 101
For those of your who have worked Operation Politically Homeless booths, or
done any other quiz-based outreach, I have some questions for you: How many
pure liberals (100,0) did you detect? How many pure conservatives (0,100)?
How many pure totalitarians (0,0)? If your results were anything like the
ones I have gotten, then the number of purists of the competing ideologies
was considerably less than the number of pure libertarians!
And even when we drop the requirement of “pure” down to “radical” (80+),
libertarians are still quite competitive or even ahead of the other ideologies.
I have observed this even using the Enhanced Precision Political Quiz in 2D.
Granted, some of this bias is due to the fact that radicals of other
stripes are less likely to approach our booths, but I still think this observation
has significance. When it comes to number of hardcore radicals, we are competitive
with the other extremes of the Nolan Chart. Where we are dreadfully behind
is in the number of mobilized moderates.
Much of the failure of the libertarian movement stems from defining it
too narrowly. If the Democratic or Republican parties were to filter membership
with as strict an oath as the Libertarian Party membership oath, they would
be out of business overnight. The DP would have the membership level of the
Communist or maybe the Green Party and the RP would be down to the size of
the Constitution Party.
Conservatism is Natural
If it works, don’t break it. Or at least, be very careful when breaking
it. This is especially true for the important things in life. For frivolous
matters like movies and clothing fashions, these rules do not hold, but for
government they do!
These rules are built into our genes! They are a powerful survival reflex.
People are naturally conservative, not in the Republican Party sense, but
in the sense of aversion to dangerous radical change. The ideological center
is almost always going to be close to the status quo no matter where that
status is on any absolute political scale. (Exception: after the conclusion
of major wars, people still remember how to live with the smaller, pre-emergency
government and are eager to quickly return to such.)
Let us do a thought experiment: suppose the Libertarian Party were to
have achieved power with a landslide victory in 2000. Washington fills up
with political appointees who have no experience governing, and the president
is a person with zero executive experience. (Writing is a solo profession,
not exactly good preparation to head a gigantic bureaucracy!) Assuming that
this didn’t lead immediately to WW IV, let us look at the ramifications of
a Browne administration carrying out what was promised, along with Libertarian
state governments making similar radical changes.
- The national park system ends up in the hands of Disney and the other
entertainment conglomerates.
- Millions of old people are kicked out of nursing homes, lose their
own homes and experience other losses as their Social Security checks disappear,
their government bonds lose their value and they lose their Medicare and
Medicaid benefits.
- The U.S. government loses the credit rating that it had built up since
the days of Alexander Hamilton.
- The stock market crashes along with many major banks.
- Bankruptcies are everywhere.
- The welfare ghettoes explode in violence as the handouts end. This
ends after shop owners use machine guns in self-defense.
- Unskilled workers find their wages plummeting as they have to compete
against immigrants willing to live in shacks.
- Third World shantytowns spring up around the major cities as the immigration
floodgates open.
In short, the United States would be well on the way to becoming another
banana republic.
Rapid change, even toward a beautiful idea, can be horrible. The people
were right not to vote for certain Libertarians!
Conversion by the Sword
I am not advocating that we drop our radically different view of where
the U.S. should eventually be (though I do have some disagreements with the
long-term vision of LP Platform...). I am advocating that we run candidates
who focus on what can be beneficially carried out over the term of the office
for which they are running. Replacing the income tax with nothing is not
a viable 4-year plan when most of the federal budget is debt service and
already-promised entitlements. Duh!
If we implement part of our vision, many will see the wisdom in that
part after seeing the results. Some will then be ready for more of our vision.
If we make marijuana legal, then people will think better of legalizing cocaine
after seeing the benefits of legalizing marijuana – especially if we have
a tax on marijuana. If we get the middle class to pay for their education
directly while giving school stamps to the poor, we will raise a new generation
that hasn’t been brought up by government employees. Surely, this will lead
to a change in attitude.
Eli Israel referred to this process as “Conversion by the Sword”, and
I think he deserves a round of applause for doing so.
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