Statecraft, soul craft, and Freedom Conservatism
Alexander Salter
American conservatives are once again debating the fundamentals of politics. On one side, national conservatives argue the state should make us good. On the other side, a new coalition of Freedom Conservatives argues the state should make us free. Both sides can claim a rich intellectual heritage in classical, Christian, and American political thought.
While we can never separate politics from virtue, we must recognize liberty has a special place of honor in our public life. Freedom Conservatives have the better of the argument: We can best secure virtue if we embrace a liberty-first approach to politics.
SCHUMER CHOOSES DECLINE FOR SENATE DECORUM
The Freedom Conservative statement of principles made a splash when it launched in July. Now with over 200 signatories, it boldly proclaims the necessity of liberty for the common good. Americans have a basic right “to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force,” founded upon “the inseparability of free will from what it means to be human.” This hearkens back to the mid- to late-20th century’s fusionist conservatism. While the principles are not explicitly religious, it is easy to see the influence of Christian anthropology: We honor the image of God in all human persons by not coercively subjecting their will to ours.
Liberty is the first principle of American politics. But it is not the only principle. Freedom Conservatives do not believe any and all values beyond freedom must be banished from the public square. Far from it: They acknowledge that human nature requires communally secured virtue. But politics, especially national politics, is not the first place we should look for help in living the good life. Civil society is. Churches, schools, fraternal organizations, and a host of other nonpolitical and noncommercial entities are civic virtue’s first line of defense. The state should support these institutions, not usurp them.
Affirming liberty does not mean ideologically fixing an unmovable boundary between the private and public spheres. Freedom Conservatives understand that government has a positive role to play in securing the common good. While national conservatives look to a muscular administrative state in Washington to promote virtue, Freedom Conservatives instead champion the cause of state and local government. The best way to unify a large and diverse nation such as the United States is to transfer as many public policy choices as possible to families and communities, they insist. American federalism, enshrined in our Constitution, not only allows but encourages governments closer to the citizens they serve to embrace more substantive ends than liberty alone. We don’t need to abandon our cherished institutions to achieve political virtue. We need to return to them.
Local government is better situated to promote the good than national government for two reasons. First, citizens can reasonably disagree about what ends they wish public power to promote. Allowing significant policy variation at the municipal, county, and state levels can help members of the public find the arrangement that helps them flourish. Second, we often don’t know which policies are best. Empowering local governments permits democratic experimentation. While basic human rights are nonnegotiable, there is great value in subjecting government action to trial-and-error processes. Think about today’s contentious policy areas, such as education, the environment, and healthcare. We need all the information we can get on what works and what doesn’t. Freedom Conservatives recognize this and thus embrace smaller jurisdictions’ potential as laboratories of self-governance.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Govern less, govern locally — these are the prerequisites of liberty, as well as the common good. Putting freedom first helps us achieve a host of more substantive moral goods. National conservatives deserve credit for critiquing a stale and unresponsive establishment. But they’re wrong to claim to have moved beyond a dead consensus. While policies and priorities may change, the principles of American conservatism are permanent. Freedom Conservatives are right to recommit to our constitutional tradition, “the best arrangement yet devised for granting government the just authority to fulfill its proper role.” Liberty and virtue are indispensable to our politics, and we can have both if we order them properly.
Alexander William Salter is the Georgie G. Snyder associate professor of economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University, a research fellow with TTU’s Free Market Institute, and a Young Voices senior contributor. He is a signatory of the Freedom Conservative statement of principles.