Conservative Magazines Not For Liberty
Via Tyler Cowen, Daniel Klein offers up a study that proves the obvious:
Conservatives say they are for small government and individual liberty, but a content analysis of leading conservative magazines shows that most have preponderantly failed to take pro-liberty positions on sex, gambling, and drugs. Besides many anti-liberty commissions, the magazines may be criticized for anti-liberty omission—that is, failing to oppose anti-liberty policies. Magazines investigated include National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Enterprise, and The American Spectator. We find that National Review has had the strongest record on liberty on the issues treated, while the others have preponderantly failed to be pro-liberty or have even been anti-liberty.
I sort of doubt that anyone was genuinely confused about this, but now we have a real study to prove it. On the other hand, conservative do take the freedom of business enterprises to have a negative impact on the quality of the air you breath, the quality of the water you drink, and the stability of the climate you live in very seriously. They’re also pretty keen on the freedom of employers to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. These are important freedoms to many Americans.
37 Responses to “Conservative Magazines Not For Liberty”
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February 26th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Conservatives also take the freedom to torture muslims very seriousy.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Of course such a study won’t change the minds of the millions of “conservatives” out there that believe that principles devoid of empirical foundation are the guidance for their “movement.”
This is helpful…Although it would be more helpful to point out that at least some of us actually try to rely on the facts to guide us.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
That’s always been the divide on liberty. Liberals and the left traditionally define liberty as the liberty of the disenfranchised and dispossessed, be it factory workers or African-Americans or gays or women. Conservatives have traditionally defined liberty through the lens of the elite minority, be it businessmen or the Southern Bourbon aristocracy or the gated community or the megachurch pastor.
It’s even clearer when you focus on “economic liberty,” a focus of the Right. Conservatives will tell you that liberals and the left don’t care about economic liberty – especially focusing on taxation, regulation, and unions – but the truth is that liberals and the left focus on economic liberty from the position of the worker rather than the employer. Hence, union rights, social insurance, economic regulation, progressive taxation, etc. are considered part of economic liberty in the liberal imagination because they construct sources of countervailing power to give workers independence from their bosses.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
On the contrary, I think a lot of people are confused about this. “Freedom” and “liberty” have become completely bastardized terms due to right wing propaganda and these bastardized terms will no doubt play a large part in the GOP push to regain power.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Taking the position — as Issiah Berlin did — that only negative liberty is real, and that positive freedom (and substantive freedom for that matter) are no more than covers for power over people — taking this position, that’s one thing. I know I can have a real conversation with it.
But just about expressly saying that within a society, government should only concern itself with the liberty of some — and that this some consists primarily of the better off, moreover — that’s something else. I guess all you can do is point out the contradiction.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Dang, Steven Attewell beat me to it!
February 26th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Honestly, I agree with the general conclusion. It’s pretty obvious that conservative notions of freedom are pretty narrowly tailored to their own interests.
That said, I don’t know that their failure to embrace legalization of drugs or gambling or whatever proves that point well. And to the extent that it does, I’m not sure we fare any better–support for legalization is pretty tepid among democrats/liberals too.
I would also imagine that many conservatives would argue that government excess has corrupted the social foundation required to permit drug use/gambling; you *could* legalize drugs if you were confident that people had the moral character or whatever to not abuse them, but unfortunately that character is lacking and has been sapped by years of welfare, blah blah blah. Not saying I believe it, but they do at least have a rationale for it.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
“They’re also pretty keen on the freedom of employers to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.” Really? Republicans have a “Employers should be able to fire you because you are black” platform? It is true that the Christian Right wing of the Republican Party ran the Libertarians out to the margins, and criminalized victimless crime such as prostitution, gambling, drug use. But supporting employer discrimination? I suppose the Christian Right may want to send gays and muslims to hell, but that would be a different issue.
You had a solid post there MY, not sure why you had to tack on that silliness at the end.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Liberals and the left traditionally define liberty as the liberty of the disenfranchised and dispossessed, be it factory workers or African-Americans or gays or women. Conservatives have traditionally defined liberty through the lens of the elite minority, be it businessmen or the Southern Bourbon aristocracy or the gated community or the megachurch pastor.
Well-put.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Daniel Klein also did what seems like a similar thing a while back with Paul Krugman’s columns.
http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/KleinBarlettCharacterIssuesJanuary2008.pdf
Here’s an exchange that he and I had about it. As you can see, I didn’t think much of that exercise.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/02/dan_klein_to_pa.html
February 26th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
But they do practice liberty! Their definition of liberty is the freedom to take away someone else’s liberty, and nobody is allowed to stop it because that would impinge on their liberty to take away yours. How much more pro-liberty can you get? Can this really be a free society if they can’t crack down on those who offend their “religion” or “values” or “sensibiliites” or “economic interests?” How are they to manage?
February 26th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Really? Republicans have a “Employers should be able to fire you because you are black” platform?
Well I’m sure they’d phrase it differently, but… to some extent, yes.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
It’s good to know that conservatism is on the wane, and Obama and the Democratic Party are ushering in a wonderful new world of full liberalism, including free drugs, abortions on demand for anyone at any time, and free and open gambling for all!
February 26th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
And wasn’t the core belief of the neo-cons to deliver freedom from tyranny and democracy to 3rd world dictatorships through the barrel of a gun? That policy turns out to have been quite misguided and poorly executed, but it did seem based on a belief that freedom and liberty were important and should be exported. From Reagan and the iron curtain to Bush and Saddam Hissein, conservatives have taken a much more aggressive approach to topling totalitarian regimes. That seems a much more significant stand on liberty than whether or not we legalize pot (though I wish we would do that!).
February 26th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
“They’re also pretty keen on the freedom of employers to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.” Really? Republicans have a “Employers should be able to fire you because you are black” platform? It is true that the Christian Right wing of the Republican Party ran the Libertarians out to the margins, and criminalized victimless crime such as prostitution, gambling, drug use. But supporting employer discrimination? I suppose the Christian Right may want to send gays and muslims to hell, but that would be a different issue.
This doesn’t make any sense. First, isn’t it a libertarian position that employers should be able to hire and fire whoever they want, whyever they want? So the Christian Right might not have anything to do with it. And second, you almost admit that the Republican Party would be OK with discrimination against gays and muslims. But you’re confident that the party would never support discrimination based on race?
February 26th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
“Really? Republicans have a “Employers should be able to fire you because you are black” platform?”
Not in so many words. But I’m pretty sure if you got fired and you’re black and you’re pretty sure those are related, they would oppose you having any realistic means to rectify the situation. See the near-lockstep opposition to Ledbetter.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I guess it’s the counterbalance to the “You have more than me through your hard work in a useful industry and I’m jealous of your success” that seems to dominate the left these days.
This was a great post till the bullshit at the end. Libertarians are tired of being blamed for every little retarded Bible interpretations the religonuts come up with by the hour.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Ha ha ha. Here I was nodding in agreement with all you stupid bozos –and then Obama’s new Attorny General comes along and proves you are all full of shit.
He also proves that Matthew was right this morning when he argued that we need the evil Republicans to keep the Democrats in check.
From http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=6960824&page=1
“The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.
PHOTO Wednesday Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Obama administration will seek to reinstitute the assault weapons ban which expired in 2004 during the Bush administration.
“As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons,” Holder told reporters
…
“I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent, would be something that would be permitted under Heller,” Holder said, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller, which asserted the Second Amendment as an individual’s right to own a weapon. ”
———–
Way to go, Eric. This is one way to really revive the Republicans, give them lots of popular support, and ensure that they will take back one House of Congress in 2010
February 26th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Marijuana legalization is a lot more popular than Republicans right now.
They sure have a “keep people from voting because they are black” platform.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
The ONLY fucking thing which ensures that the common citizen has ANY rights under our corrupt oligarcy is the threat of a popular revolt.
And the ONLY thing which ensures that threat is taken seriously is widespread ownership of unregistered firearms that can’t be seized.
So Eric Holder just showed how all of you people speaking of the rights of the common citizen are full of shit. Because you support a party is is disarming the American people as a prelude to scrapping all of our other rights.
Maybe you think rights are maintained by shooting off your mouth. By verbal protests. So how did that work for the blacks in the ante-bellum South?
February 26th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
The problem with this post is that it takes solid fact (Republican opposition to Liberty in cases of personal choice such as sex, drugs and gambling), moves into off-topic fact (Republican support of business instead of the environment) and then ends with bullshit propaganda (Republicans support discrimination).
Matthew Yglesias is frustrating because he is such an intelligent and well-spoken advocate of the progressive agenda, but he so often slips crap like that into otherwise solid arguments and undermines his entire position. I suppose it is a symptom of living too deep in the echo chamber, and even the brightest minds are susceptible to it.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Here in Maine, we have an open-land use policy — the right of the public to use privately owned land, that’s based on a ages-old unwritten agreement: treat industrial landowners (the owners of Maine’s northern forest, the largest carbon sink in the northeast) as individuals in policy making in exchange for unfettered access to individual people.
But real individuals get something out of the agreement — the right to hunt, fish, boat, hike, camp and otherwise have a good time on private land that they don’t own.
I can’t say the same for the coal-fired plants in Ohio; their liberty to emit point-source pollution means that here in Maine, we can’t eat the fish we’re free to catch on private property; the fish are filled with mercury. MidWestern energy corporations being treated as individual infringes on my right to eat fish.
Somedays, I wish I could shove that national review of conservatives up their national standard. Failing to be responsible for anything except profit is still a failure.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I’ll say. What’s more “useful” than placing bets on the mortgage bubble continuing to rise forever?
February 26th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Re notorious PAT’s question “What’s more “useful” than placing bets on the mortgage bubble continuing to rise forever? ”
————
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe an automotive/petroleum complex that relies on your whores –excuse me, Congressmen — spending 4200 American lives and $38 in tax dollars to sustain every $2 gallon of gasoline you sell.
There’s a reason why Karl Rove giggles whenever he says “Free” Enterprise.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
“The first bill signed into law by President Barack Obama, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, resets the 180-day period women have to file a discriminatory pay lawsuit every pay period.
Former President George W. Bush called it a “business killer” when the proposal originally entered the 110th United States Congress.”
Link
February 26th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
“All four Republican women in the Senate voted for the Ledbetter Act, named for a Goodyear Tire manager in Alabama who discovered she was being paid less than male counterparts.
But 36 male Republican senators voted against the law, as did a top-heavy majority of House Republicans.”
Link
February 26th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
And the ONLY thing which ensures that threat is taken seriously is widespread ownership of unregistered firearms that can’t be seized.
I’m with you on this being a good reason to oppose gun bans, but why would a government only have to fear a citizenry armed with unregistered guns? Remember that “well-regulated” is right there in the 2nd Amendment.
I don’t see why there should be a problem with registration as long as it’s made clear that the government will respect your right to own those weapons. Registration can help track guns used in criminal activity, restrict gun ownership by felons, etc.
February 26th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Re Adam Villani’s comment “Remember that “well-regulated” is right there in the 2nd Amendment.”
————-
1) Yep, lot’s of things are in the Constitution.
Like a ban on torture (”cruel and unusual punishment”), on warrentless searchs, on imprisoning people without criminal charges(Habeas corpus) and providing a right to trial by jury.
So how’s that working out?
2) Also, I seem to recall a Ninth and Tenth Amendments that haven’t been supported by the Supreme Court in a coon’s age.
February 26th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I think it is a good thing that we have different definitions of freedom – I get rather irritated with the Hertiage Foundation’s Freedom index, which produces one dimension of what it calls freedom – the freedom of the greedy kleptocrats to prey on the rest of the population – as though there weren’t several others. But such is the freedom to define freedom. Myself, I think freedom is best promoted when there is a healthy struggle between different sectors of society – organised labor power, for instance, vs. the oligarchs. One of the great tools of freedom is a very high tax rate on the wealthy, to keep them from entrenching their position in society. I think societies that, for instance, harbor billionaires are definitely on the road to serfdom. Strong, expropriative measures are needed to stifle the feudal impulse.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Notorious PAT – The Democrats should be proud of the Ledbetter act; gender pay differences should become a thing of the past. And clearly the Democrats look out for the needs of minorities better than Republicans, just like Republicans consistently look out for the rights of gun owners better than Democrats. But that is a matter of degrees – Republicans weren’t trying to legalize discrimination of employees based on gender. By following that logic, if Democrats voted against a bill to increase some kind of funding of Isreal for valid economic and politcla reasons, one could say that Democrats support the destruction of Isreael. That would be silly and dishonest.
My point is that Yglesias took issues that conservatives really do (unfortunately) stand for, and mixed in issues they don’t stand for just because conservatives don’t approve of the same remedies as he does. It was intellectual dishonesty and I wish he would stop it. The left has enough on its side right now to win its battles honestly and above-the-board, and taking cheap shots will just diminish the longevity of their gains in the long run.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are lapdances, video poker, and the pursuit of crystal meth.
February 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Conservative ‘liberty’ is simply the liberty of the strong to fuck the weak.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Matthew in Austin:
I think the point that NotoriousPAT was alluding to was that, especially because Republicans tend to focus more on negative liberties, and the liberties of the elite individual, and because they at least say they believe in a smaller Federal government, they tend to oppose Federal mechanisms for enforcing civil rights and civil liberties, and since they don’t like trial lawyers, recently they’ve begun to oppose judicial mechanisms for the same. Now, this doesn’t equal approving discrimination, but the approval of the status quo has the same effect.
You can go through American political history since the 1960s, when the GOP really began to go anti-enforcement, and see this happening. It starts with Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts because he didn’t believe in Federal intervention into “states’ rights.” You can follow the thread through to Nixon’s opposition to busing and scatter-site housing as mechanisms for reversing segregation and his “New Federalism,” or Republican opposition to “activist judges” and “racial quotas” since the 70s, or Reagan’s famous embrace of “states rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I’m with you on this being a good reason to oppose gun bans, but why would a government only have to fear a citizenry armed with unregistered guns? Remember that “well-regulated” is right there in the 2nd Amendment.
The problem is that registering guns has always, or almost always, been followed up by using the registration lists to confiscate guns.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I’ll say. What’s more “useful” than placing bets on the mortgage bubble continuing to rise forever?
Don’t know where to start. Those that placed bets, namely the ones that loaned money, were hurt far more in the collapse of the housing bubble than those who simply went bankrupt and back to their apartments. The rest of us can now afford a house for it’s actual cost to build. And the ones who lost 1/3 of their 401k’s, well theres this thing called risk, and it’s a mother fucker for the lazy investor.
I find it absurd how bold Democrats are. To openly blame a product of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Housing Reinvestment Act on Republicans is nothing short of schizophrenic.