BHL Outreach … To Conservatives?

By On June 6, 2012 · 6 Comments · In Social Justice

We BHLers are getting noticed by a wider array of groups (hopefully by more once we kick off Tomasi-fest). It’s exciting in part because we are increasingly setting the terms of the debate between libertarians and progressives, insofar as progressives are interested in having such a debate. We’re also setting the terms of the debate amongst libertarians. It’s a fun, exciting and intellectually fertile project.

BHL is in many ways a project that is almost a form of outreach. Our intent is to synthesize political ideas that are often seen as mutually exclusive to make the case for libertarianism more attractive to many groups. But so far we have interpreted our attempts at conceptual depth and unity as part of an outreach to progressive/egalitarian liberals and more traditional libertarians.

This may leave the conservative wondering if the BHLer has anything to say to her. And so far our answer has implicitly been, “Not much.”

But it’s not really true. While many conservatives favor moralistic legislation on virtue/perfectionist grounds and BHLers oppose such legislation, we oppose moralistic legislation on virtue/perfectionist grounds from the progressive left as well. Further, while few BHLers accept conservative moral or theological beliefs, there’s nothing in the BHL idea that necessarily contradicts one’s personal views about the morality of, say, abortion or gay marriage, or the truth of Christianity.

Further, BHL friendliness to social justice actually moves us closer to many conservatives, especially Roman Catholic conservatives who have endorsed a robust conception of social justice for decades (and arguably centuries).

I think the reason we don’t reach out to conservatives is partly for historical reasons. Many libertarians feel used and abused by the American right. For decades libertarians have tried to cooperate with conservatives, only to be marginalized and ignored on issues of critical import. And insofar as conservatives take on our policy proposals, they typically botch them and so discredit them in the eyes of the public. Most importantly, almost all libertarians view neoconservative foreign policy as wicked and unconscionable. And for that reason, they have often stridently opposed what is often called the right especially since 2000.

However, anyone who has spent any time with Ron Paul types knows that this narrative is too simple. For after all, there are tons of socially conservative libertarians. And there are plenty of social conservatives who are more libertarian than many progressives.

My point is this: BHL outreach is not inherently limited to the left and traditional libertarians. Our heretofore myopic focus is just a contingent matter of sociology and interest. BHL is not essentially hostile to conservatism.

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  • Krinein_ev

    Wouldn’t the analogous argument structure of BHL vis-a-vis liberals but applied to conservatives take the following form?

    Abandoning the legislation of morality would produce a more virtuous populace; elimination of religiously motivated social policy cultivates traditional (religious) values.
    I’m not sure if conservatives find that anymore than the liberals targeted by BHL. Can the same socio-political structure generate the mutually exclusive outcomes required for everyone to get the sort of society they want? After all, there  are deep seated disagreements about all sorts of issues: e.g., gays will be given societal recognition or they won’t.

  • Jonathan Watson

    Dear Kevin:

    A number of weeks back, one of your contributors posted a blog entry which was entitled “Rand Paul, Asshole and Moral Pervert.” After several commentators expressed dismay at the tone of his post, he updated the post and added: “But what’s the point of having a reasoned debate? Has anyone on the other side ever, even once, come to this position as a result of reasoned arguments from relatively uncontroversial principles?”

    I commented:

    “Yes, they have. But, if one begins by defining anything one’s opponent says as ‘controversial’ and ‘unreasonable’, then nothing the ‘other side’ says could possibly be reasonable and uncontroversial.”I received no response to my post – but then, I did not expect that I would. I have been disappointed by the discussion of social issues on this blog, which too often are treated exactly as the previous post did – angry slam, ignored, dismissed as backward or irrelevant, etc. “Not much” is not exactly what you have said to conservatives – it has more often been “why would you bother”, as put by the Rand Paul post.

    If you want to attract conservatives, then consider truly engaging arguments by conservatives on good websites, such as The Imaginative Conservative - http://www.imaginativeconservative.org/, Front Porch Republic - http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/, First Principles - http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/, Mirror of Justice - http://www.mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/, Public Discourse - http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/, etc.

    It does not look like, as far as I can tell, that these blogs are engaged regularly (if at all), by members of BHL. If members here could intellectually and intelligently engage them, I suspect it would do quite a bit to “outreach” to conservatives.

  • http://www.realadultsex.com figleaf

    “after all, there are tons of socially conservative libertarians. And there are plenty of social conservatives who are more libertarian than many progressives.”

    Huh?  Are you just figuring this out?  Not to sound prickly or anything but the extreme affinity for and frequent indistinguishability between libertarians and conservatives is the primary problem with wider acceptance of libertarianism!

    I’m so startled that you think it’s anything other than simple that Paul Ryan could both be an Ayn Rand fanatic and a 100% party-line blood-red Republican.  What next?  Are you going to say we might be surprised that the Pauls, the Kochs, and other prominent “libertarians” are compatible with their near-fanatic adherence to hard-right conservatism on all but about three relatively superficial social matters (tepid support for gay rights, over-the-top support for legalized drugs, and isolationism) while having nearly 100% affinity for conservative ideology, say, against reproductive freedom for women, against freedom of association for employees but in favor of government intervention in the interest of not only general but individual and specific business interests, against progressive taxation in favor of regressive taxation, against all forms of environmentalism even when government is not involved, against any curbs on all traditional forms of racism, sexism, and xenophobia except possibly where it’s found to reduce costs or leverage of labor, etc.?

    The reason BHLs are so important is precisely because heretofore there’s been virtually no daylight at all between the vast majority of prominent, influential libertarians and hard-line Republicans.  That you could imagine otherwise subtracts rather than adds to the credibility of the BHL cause.

    figleaf

    • http://millsrevenge.tumblr.com/ Mill’s Revenge

      I think you’ve hit upon the problem. The “conservatives” that BHL is seeking here don’t seem to exist outside the ivory tower. The politicians who call themselves “conservative” are autocrats who give lip service to libertarians. They want to reduce their own tax burden and “freedom” for themselves but have little interest in anything else.

      So when does the outreach start to us utilitarians? We don’t exist in the political scene, but I think a lot of us are out in the real world.

  • billwald

    The conservatives (who think they are “middle class”) think they superior morally and socially to the working class.  These middle class conservatives have bought the line that they would be rich if only the labor unions and the government would get out of their way. The working class are all lazy union slugs and government employees.

    Their problem is they still need someone to haul their trash and bus tables. Until all manual labor can be automated they will have to tolerate working class people at least within commuting distance.  I’m guessing that social programs began as public health measures. As long as the working class needs to come within spitting distance of our owners . . . .

    When 10% owns 90% of everything worth owning the true middle class will live in gated estates and downtown guarded high rise condos.  The 1% will have 1000 acre estates and live-in serfs. The 90% working class will be free to starve. 19th century Russia, here we come.  

  • michaelstrong

    Although I am never offended by anything Richard Dawkins says about religion, I regard the progressive project of trying to control the cultural norms of religiously conservative subcultures as morally illegitimate in much the same way that colonialism was morally illegitimate.  If indigenous cultures have a right to self-determination, what is the logic for having a specific “past due” date on religious origins that suddenly eliminates the right to self-determination?  Should we respect the cultural and religious norms of the Sikhs, founded in the 15th century, but not the Mormons, founded in the 19th century?  Why exactly?  

    Or should we not acknowledge any culture’s right to self-determination?  Are we supposed to use military force to coerce everyone around the world to live the way that people do in Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Marin, or the Castro?  

    If we acknowledge that it is somehow wrong, at least sometimes, to impose Cambridge cultural norms on, say, the Navajos, why is it that we should impose a Harvard law professor’s ideas on an inner city Pentacostal congregation?

    For me, the notion that individuals have a right to consent to specific moral communities is, on the one hand, a libertarian right – but one with profound benefits, so to speak, to conservative communities.  If libertarians truly support a society based on voluntary consent (while supporting the notion of a safety net), then BHLs would, on the one hand, support safety nets, but on the other hand they would support voluntary communities of shared moral visions – even if those moral visions were inconsistent with secular liberal theological beliefs.

    See also Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind,,” and consider the implications of this perspective for school choice, as in “School Choice and Adolescent Well-Being,”

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/school_choice_and_adolescence.html