Is this argument good to use against paleoconservatives?

[ArcturusMengsk]

I have an acquaintance who happens to believe in what I can only consider to be a variety of anarcho-capitalism ("The market will fix itself!"), and he rejects the slightest form of government intervention as 'socialist'. At the same time, however, he is adamantly right-wing in regards to social wedge issues - he has gone so far as to state that homosexuals ought to be chemically castrated. The closest I can come to labeling his political views are 'paleoconservative', though he's far from a protectionist of the Buchananite variety.

Not being particularly knowledgeable about economics, I can't hope to rebut him individually on that front, and our debates over social policy invariably seem to come down to us agreeing to disagree. That said, however, it seems to me that I've struck upon a rhetorical argument recently that serves as a way to drive a wedge between his economic and social views: there is a fundamental contradiction in his liberal outlook that demands economic individualism while at the same time promoting a collectivist social outlook; in other words, he is a sort of 'socialist-of-the-spirit'. His economic point of view appeals to the Western trope of the self-made man, while his domestic beliefs are essentially collectivistic. It strikes me that there is a rather large disconnect here, but I can't be sure that this stance isn't fallacious without someone else affirming it.

This is all very vague, and I haven't had much time to think it over, so perhaps one of the more enlightened posters here can point out any flaws in this argument, or help me phrase it in a better way. I don't expect it to change his beliefs, but it's the best thing I can come up with off the top of my head.

[Covenant]

Paleoconservatives are traditionalists, not collectivists. They don't see a merit in working as a group so much as they stress the "wisdom of tradition." They are, for lack of a term, "divisional," seeking to limit immigration, restrain cultural intermixing, and generally try to keep America rooted in a cultural and in some cases racial and religious heritage that they trace back to the founding fathers. They tend to be isolationists because they don't see the United States as being part of a global community, and might want to actually leave the UN if possible. For laughs, I went to Conservopedia to see how they define themselves, and pulled a section:

"However, what really sets them apart from other conservatives is much deeper than just policy: they generally reject the Enlightenment in whole or in part; they reject Lockean "contract theory" and the concept of "natural rights" outright. Dr. Donald Livingston, Professor of Philosophy at Emory University, has argued that natural rights are a "philosophical superstition," and that "Whatever they might be, natural rights are universal and apply to all men. Further, they are known by reason, independent of any inherited moral tradition... It follows, therefore, that the doctrine of natural rights must be in a condition of permanent hostility to all inherited moral traditions. Any such tradition, no matter how noble the goods of excellence cultivated in it, can always be seen as violating someone's natural rights under some interpretation or another."

Oh no! Traditions are found to be in violation of my natural human rights? Human rights must be a myth then! Actually, Conservopedia had some decent reporting on this, so I'll add another section. Note, this has nothing to do with your point, just an insight into where he's coming from. Bear with me a moment, here's part of the 'crunchy con manifesto' as published in the national review online:

-Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
-Culture is more important than politics and economics.
-Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.
-The institution most essential to conserve is the family.
-Politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives.

Anyway, I hope that sheds some light. Now, what's he arguing? Is he just a Paleoconservative and you want to show him that's wrong to be? That'll be hard to do, especially since you're asking someone who is a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist to accept the idea that tradition has some inherent flaw. I suppose the best way to do that would be to bring up the concept of Natural Rights, and come prepared with evidence in support of it, and to wrap it in the flag as much as possible. The founding fathers were big on natural rights, so he's going to have to choose--which tradition to follow? The tradition of our enlightenment founders, or the tradition of the pre-enlightenment, pre-American world? That could cause a bit of a brain spasm. Not that he'll decide that the new is better, but it might at least allow you to bring up the idea that as people and cultures change, so must their institutions. These guys are also often big into states rights, low federal government, so you'll want to ask him if the government has any business setting policies that impede a state or a community from enforcing it's own standard of living. And, if so, how can one advocate forcing communities to take violence upon themselves?

Honestly, Paleoconservatism is really a dead-end philosophy, and has ever since the Enlightenment.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Paleoconservatives are traditionalists, not collectivists. They don't see a merit in working as a group so much as they stress the "wisdom of tradition." They are, for lack of a term, "divisional," seeking to limit immigration, restrain cultural intermixing, and generally try to keep America rooted in a cultural and in some cases racial and religious heritage that they trace back to the founding fathers.

That ideology, to my mind, is as collectivistic as any left-wing movement, only in this instance the focus is on "faith and family" or "culture" or "race" rather than the working class. Insofar as they view history as the product of group, rather than individual, behavior, and so long as they emphasize the importance of community as against 'decadent modern individualism', then that belief system is de facto collectivist, just as one can say that a nunnery or monastery is a collectivist grouping despite its lack of class foundation. Then again, I also regard patriotism and nationalism as a form of collectivism as well, and all conservatives save for 'true' libertarians seem to share this in common.

They tend to be isolationists because they don't see the United States as being part of a global community, and might want to actually leave the UN if possible.

Yes, this much is true of my acquaintance. This, however, is not:

Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.

As I mentioned in my initial post, he is a fan of laissez-faire capitalism, and rejects outrightly any government intervention in business of any sort. I've heard tirades of his against Mike Huckabee's economic populism back during the Republican primaries, so this much is untrue of him. For that matter, I've always considered Huckabee basically a paleoconservative as well, so perhaps I'm using the word too loosely.

Now, what's he arguing?

Economic libertarianism, social collectivism, i.e. "The gub'mint better not tax me, but it also better put those gays in their place." This just struck me as a very inharmonious ideological set.

I suppose the best way to do that would be to bring up the concept of Natural Rights, and come prepared with evidence in support of it, and to wrap it in the flag as much as possible.

I myself disbelieve in Lockean theory and its implications (such as Kantianism), but for a wholly different reason: the theory relies wholly on non-falsifiable, metaphysical mumbo jumbo.

As far as the rest goes, it's very hard to tell conservative ideologies apart, mostly because for the last fifty years the entire conservative movement has locked arms and marched together against the New Deal coalition. The past three or four years have shown some signs of splintering in regards to this new 'conservative coalition' - for instance, many of the Big Business conservatives exemplified in the figure of Mitt Romney stood aghast at Huckabee's primary run, while the pure libertarian wing of the party, led by Ron Paul, struck off from the base to try to capture the Republican Party's agenda - but it's still difficult for me to make heads or tails of the intricacies of the thing.

As far as paleoconservatives go, the one I can identify most immediately is Pat Buchanan, but I know that Buchanan favors protectionism and tariffs, while this fellow would view that as a socialist heresy. So perhaps 'paleoconservative' is a poor choice of words on my part - he's never identified himself as such, strictly speaking, but rather that's how I interpreted his ideology - but he opposes foreign interventionism and the Iraq War, and dislikes Bush for his "softness on immigration" and "moral laxitude". Neither is he a libertarian, as he's in favor of increased government interference on a social level.

At least left-wing sectarianism makes various groupings readily identifiable and distinct. Observing various right-wing phenomenon, I haven't the slightest how most of these groups managed to lump themselves together.

[Covenant]

I'd still say it's not really collectivism in that it doesn't believe in the idea that I depend on you, which is part of what collectivism stresses--the bond all people share. What they are in favor of is, essentially, just an enforcement of morality for pure morality's sake. They are handed a morality through inheritance of tradition, and seek to impose that on everyone in their community--and would probably prefer the uncollected, homesteader lifestyle of your nearest neighbor being a day's ride away.

Now, I could be wrong. He might be real into the community being together as a unified force, all trumpeting their cultural background and how this makes them superior. In that case I'd agree with you--that would be collectivist, if he likes it or not. I've usually heard them talk about the individual being the only real 'group' they care for though. They seem uniquely uncooperative. I'd agree with you that nationalism is a form of collectivism though, but probably not enough on it's own to make this guy really consider himself to be one.

But it does sound that his own views are pretty much at odds with each other. A government big enough to enforce morality is, by definition, already too big for his tastes, for obvious reasons. Imagine the infrastructure demands of running a full-blown Inquisition against soverign states and citystates like New York and Chicago, who already declare themselves as sancturary cities for various groups. This would outright explode if, suddenly, each community was essentially given free reign. You'd have a situation similar to what lead to the civil war, and secession from an unjust government would swiftly follow, and lead quickly to America disappearing from the map as a single soverign nation (which he might like) but also disappearing as an economic superpower. You have a nation with an infrastructure that is not well distributed. Once Jesusland and The American Union go their seperate ways, with New Texas and The Soverign Nation Of Alaska breaking off from Jesusland not long after (and Florida being sawed off a little later than that) you'll end up with one agrarian state, one techno-industrial state, a few little balkanized do-nothings and Texas all by itself again.

[ArcturusMengsk]

I'd still say it's not really collectivism in that it doesn't believe in the idea that I depend on you, which is part of what collectivism stresses--the bond all people share. What they are in favor of is, essentially, just an enforcement of morality for pure morality's sake. They are handed a morality through inheritance of tradition, and seek to impose that on everyone in their community--and would probably prefer the uncollected, homesteader lifestyle of your nearest neighbor being a day's ride away.

That's basically the contradiction I'm looking at from my perspective: this guy, and others like him, stress their individualism and 'macho-manliness', but feel that society ought to actively prescribe its moral dictates against excluded castes of individuals in the name of community. There seems to be something of a disconnect here.

Now, I could be wrong. He might be real into the community being together as a unified force, all trumpeting their cultural background and how this makes them superior. In that case I'd agree with you--that would be collectivist, if he likes it or not. I've usually heard them talk about the individual being the only real 'group' they care for though. They seem uniquely uncooperative.

That's basically what I'm getting at. Every conservative I've ever met has proclaimed the primacy of the individual (and by extension unbridled capitalism), often in a chest-beating manner, and yet seems to believe that the individual's behavior down to his sexual proclivities ought to be regulated by society at large for the good of the community. There is something quite clearly amiss here, and I think a successful liberal stratagem for defeating the conservative alignment in the future would be to play this ideological contradiction against itself - to pit the collectivistic, anti-immigrant, pro-white, economically populist and social conservative Mike Huckabees and Pat Buchanans of the world against the more individualistic, pro-immigration (for business reasons), corporatist social moderates like Mitt Romney. (Excuse that run-on sentence; it was the only way I could express myself. )

There is a clear wedge here waiting to be exploited, and as we've seen in the past few years it's beginning to widen itself naturally. All that's needed is a steady hand to pull it apart. Ronald Reagan somehow managed to pull these disparate groups together, and without that central figure the entire grouping seems to be slowly coming apart, just as the New Deal coalition did during the late 60's. Why should a post-modern Paulbot who believes in living without rules be naturally aligned with an intrusive organization like the Religious Right?

I'll think about it for a little bit. The possibility to finish the Reagan Revolution off once and for all is just too good to pass up.

[Count Chocula]

ArcturusMengsk wrote about his friend:

Economic libertarianism, social collectivism, i.e. "The gub'mint better not tax me, but it also better put those gays in their place." This just struck me as a very inharmonious ideological set.

I've had, and still have, a couple of friends who act this way as well. One in particular, who is still a good friend of mine, is as laissez-faire economically as I, but his family values are straight out of Salt Lake City. Yah, he's a Mormon.

Did your friend have a religious upbringing, or grow up in a nuclear family with a traditional, perhaps domineering, father? In my experience, values that are instilled early are very difficult to break as adults, especially when you're talking about amorphous ingrained biases like those against homosexuals. I'm guessing that his attitude extends to any other group that lies outside the pale of 'normal' society. A New York artists' party would probably freak him out entirely!

Laissez-faire economics is a fairly simple concept to gravitate towards, as there is ample evidence comparing 'free' market economies to more totalitarian economies.

What may help you out in your debates with your friend is to ask him if he's put as much thought into his social views and why the gub'mint should do something about it as he did into economics.

You could also use a few examples of how 'government' handling of minority groups has a pretty poor track record. Examples could be the murder of every firstborn in Egypt, both man and beast (Exodus), the forcing of German Jews to wear a Star of David, different restaurants for blacks and whites in the US, etc. etc. Make hime doubt his beliefs; perhaps that will force him to think about his beliefs.

[Darth Wong]

I think you're barking up the wrong tree by pointing out the disconnect between economic individualism and social collectivism in this guy's argument, for the simple reason that his position is not actually based on any of those things.

In other words, I would bet money that words like "rights" and "individualism" and "collectivism" have no real meaning for him, and he just uses them in order to create an elaborate facadce of pseudo-intellectual justifications for what is actually nothing more than rose-coloured nostalgia for a golden bygone era that never truly existed.

He's been fed a pleasing but utterly fictitious fairy tale about America's glorious past, when everything was done a certain way and the world was a better place. All of his arguments revolve around trying to swing the country back to that mythical state, no matter what buzzwords he uses toward that end.

[PeZook]

Well, pointing out this disconnect may get him to think about his position a bit more deeply. You may point out to him that he uses "socialist" as a dirty word, while supporting socialist policies "let's repress homosexuals with full power of the government!".

You won't destroy his worldview with just a single brilliant argument, but maybe you can chip away at it slowly. After all, there are people on this very board who were lolbertarians in the past, and they changed, too

BTW, a good question to ask a die-hard anarchocapitalist conservative is who would defend the Glorious US Way Of Life against the dirty commies if the government wasn't allowed to tax the populace to pay for the military

[Junghalli]

BTW, a good question to ask a die-hard anarchocapitalist conservative is who would defend the Glorious US Way Of Life against the dirty commies if the government wasn't allowed to tax the populace to pay for the military

A lot of them are willing to make exceptions in their anti-tax fanaticism for military spending, thus nicely illustrating George Orwell's contention that war often functions as the great enforcer of reality.

[Count Chocula]

Darth Wong wrote:

I think you're barking up the wrong tree by pointing out the disconnect between economic individualism and social collectivism in this guy's argument, for the simple reason that his position is not actually based on any of those things.

Oof, if so, you're gonna have a real problem breaking through your friend's preconceptions. Worst-case scenario, he's in a "Leave it to Beaver"/Gipper feedback loop, and instead of having any chance of convincing him with reason, you'd have to de-program him and start from nothing.

Maybe subversion is in order....tie him to a chair and make him watch back-to-back HBO episodes of Real Sex, Queer as Folk and Six Feet Under. Feed him tasty dishes from all over the world. Hope for the best.

[Knife]

BTW, a good question to ask a die-hard anarchocapitalist conservative is who would defend the Glorious US Way Of Life against the dirty commies if the government wasn't allowed to tax the populace to pay for the military

A lot of them are willing to make exceptions in their anti-tax fanaticism for military spending, thus nicely illustrating George Orwell's contention that war often functions as the great enforcer of reality.

Indeed. What you are looking at is a modern version of tribal unity against a foreign power. Think of the Guals or Germans against the Romans if you will. Most of these people envision small communities (villages) with a church in the middle and where everyone knows everyone else. This is where the libertarians come in because with such a tiny population, free market will work a lot better. With only a couple hundred people, small local companies can see to the needs of the populace in the way of mom and pop stores, than the government. They envision all these little bedroom communities with their community standards dotting the US and only need a Federal government to protect the system via a military. The good folk will raise up in unity to fight off the dirty barbarians from afar.

That's my take anyway.

[Darth Wong]

Even in small communities, it is quite possible to have entrenched oligarchs who would be pretty much the same as feudal lords without government intervention. I've seen people like this first hand.

[montypython]

Even in small communities, it is quite possible to have entrenched oligarchs who would be pretty much the same as feudal lords without government intervention. I've seen people like this first hand.

Surprisingly, even anime presents aspects of this even when it isn't necessarily the core of the story, one recent series in particular being Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

[PeZook]

A lot of them are willing to make exceptions in their anti-tax fanaticism for military spending, thus nicely illustrating George Orwell's contention that war often functions as the great enforcer of reality.

I've really never seen a Lolbertarian who didn't go against the income tax. Even if they concede that the government should handle he military (some don't even do that!), it seems that it should try and field super-expensive modern weapon systems with property taxes and/or donations, or maybe tarrifs on dirty foreign goods made by good for nothing sand-niggers...