By Daniel Payne
Thursday, September 01, 2016
In the course of any important American political debate,
the Left will invariably accuse conservatives of several things: that we are
averse to “facts”; “anti-science”; guided by animus to the poor, minorities, or
women (sometimes to all three at once); and above all, that we are
“intransigent,” and bound by a “rigid ideology” that prevents us from judging
political affairs with any intellectual honesty.
In no case was this phenomenon more apparent than the
great health-care debate that gripped the nation early in Barack Obama’s
presidency. The Right insisted the Affordable Care Act would be too expensive;
not lower health care prices; lead to a more chaotic, confusing, and
unpredictable health-care marketplace; cause millions upon millions of people
to lose their health insurance; and that the health-care industry would likely
reject a substantial number of the government-sanctioned health insurance
plans.
Conservatives were roundly derided for all of these
predictions. As it turned out, all were accurate: Obamacare is a genuinely
dysfunctional and disastrous law. We were right and they were wrong.
In response, what have Democrats proposed as a fix? A
“public option,” also known as government-run health insurance. In other words,
the Right was correct about the systemic unworkability of Obamacare…and the
Left has proposed to simply double down on it. This raises the obvious point:
conservatives were right to be “intransigent.” In fact, we’re almost always
right about it.
The Left Is Never
Satisfied
This is not an obvious conclusion when liberals are
perpetually bemoaning the demise of “moderate” Republicans, by which they mean
“Republicans who will do things Democrats like.” There is an implied virtue in
the political center, an intimation that, if the GOP will just “cut a deal”
with President Obama or the Senate Democratic Caucus, then everyone will benefit.
In some very limited cases involving complex
issues—immigration policy, for instance—this may be true. But for the most part
it does not behoove conservatives to play ball on issues conservatives
genuinely care about. We have seen, time and time again, whenever the Right
loses a little bit of ground on core issues, the Left will always eventually
want more.
The current Obamacare debate is one obvious example: the
failure of this massive health-care law has simply led to demands for more health-care laws, and assuredly
once the public option fails these demands will one day transform into
full-throated support of single payer (does any serious thinker really doubt
this?).
You can see this attitude elsewhere. In the gun-control
debate, California already has some of the strictest gun-control measures on
the books, yet its governor recently signed into law several sweeping new ones.
We also see the growing demand from mainstream liberal commentators to
confiscate American weapons in an Australia-style ban.
This attitude is evident in the LGBTQ crusades, in
forcing wedding vendors to participate in gay weddings, and in Obamacare’s
transgender mandate, which promises to violate the consciences of doctors
across the country. It’s evident in government fiscal policy: famously, both
Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush agreed to raise taxes in exchange for
spending cuts; the tax cuts came, but the spending cuts never did. You can also
see this always-go-for-more attitude in matters like abortion: a few decades
ago Democrats were committed to keeping abortion “rare,” while these days
they’re committed to forcing taxpayers to pay for it.
One place we can expect the Left to grow ever-more
fanatical is climate change. Liberals seem prepared to do just about anything
necessary to keep temperatures from raising three-tenths of one degree Celsius
over the next decade. One philosopher recently profiled by NPR wants to lower
America’s fertility rate substantially by “penaliz[ing] new parents” with tax
increases for each child born.
Supporters of this plan assure us “it’s not like China’s
abusive one-child policy.” Yet given the reckless climate hysteria in which the
Left regularly indulges, how long do we think it will be before the Democratic
platform calls for forced abortions in order to save the world from “climate
collapse?” I would give it a few decades, and I’m being generous.
Conservatives Need
to Stop Lying to Themselves
These are all areas in which the Left has steadily gained
ground over the years, and they obviously have no intention of stopping where
they are, even as they have often assured conservatives it won’t go any
further: that nobody wants to take your guns, Obamacare will not violate
religious liberty, and government spending really will be reduced.
Here is the hard reality conservatives have to face: the
Left is fully committed to remaking the country, and it will accomplish this by
any means necessary. In most cases the Left uses a gradualist approach: a few
new gun laws here, a new health-care regulation there. After a year or two,
they’ll push a little further, and then a little more. In some cases,
conservatives cede ground willingly, bewitched by the siren song of centrism.
In other cases, the Left plows ahead through elective majorities or an activist
Supreme Court.
In each of these cases, liberals have taken to heart the
lesson of the dueling mega-states in George Orwell’s “1984”: “[T]he object of
waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another
war.” The Left has figured this out. The Right must get serious about it. This
does not mean conservatives have to be mean or mistrustful of their liberal
friends and neighbors. It simply means we must recognize the stakes, and
recognize the terms upon which we are fighting for those stakes.
Conservatives should commit themselves to being as
intransigent and uncompromising in our beliefs as are liberals. It is the only
way to begin to roll things back: from Obamacare, to our leviathan government,
to the entire liberal worldview. The Left is always prepared to move on to the
next battle, the next cultural or political victory. Let’s prepare ourselves
for the same.
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