One sentence in what Patrick Guerriero calls “A Special Invitation” to the Log Cabin National “Convention” and Liberty Education Forum (LEF) National Symposium provides a near-perfect synopsis of what is wrong with that ostensibly Republican organization. Patrick writes that at this confab, “We’ll also have leaders from all the major gay rights organizations debating strategy on how to achieve equality.” We have blogged extensively (e.g., here, here and here) about how eager Patrick has been to get along well with the left-leaning national gay organizations, thus the first part of his sentence merely ratifies what we’ve been saying all along.
The second half of the sentence calls Log Cabin’s Republican credentials further into question. It shows that not only how eager Log Cabin is to get along with other gay groups, but also that it has adopted their very lingo, their very ideology (at least on gay issues). In e-mail after e-mail that I receive from Log Cabin and LEF, they blather on (and on) about promoting “basic fairness” (whatever that means in a political context) and “equality.” The same words used by the other gay groups.
In one of my earliest posts, “Equality has been the watchword of gay activists. But not of conservatives and libertarians.” Or as the Cato Institute‘s David Boaz puts it (in his introduction to an essay by the distinguished economist Ludwig von Mises) in his excellent anthology The Libertarian Reader, “The chimera of equality has been a mainstay of socialist visionaries.”
We Republicans, we conservatives, we libertarians remain in tune with the spirit that has animated our nation since patriots stood up against the Stamp Act and threw tea into Boston Harbor rather than pay a duty on it. We believe in freedom. Even PBS entitled its documentary on the American Revolution Liberty!. They didn’t call it Equality!. In the Civil War, Union troops sang The Battle Cry of Freedom. In the Declaration of Independence, our forefathers did indeed recognize that we are “created equal,” but the rights with which our Creator endowed us were “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Recognizing that liberty is essential to our national ideal, the last generation of Log Cabin leaders called their affiliated 501(c)(3) organization the Liberty Education Forum. Despite that name, the group’s monthly e-mail (entitled “Liberty Line”) focuses more on equality than on liberty.
Conservative and libertarian scholars and leaders have long recognized the tension between liberty and equality, and just as the founders of our nation — and those of our party. In the call for the mass convention at which the Republican Party was founded in 1854, Charles DeLand wrote:
In view, therefore, of the recent action of Congress upon this subject (the violation of the Missouri Compromise) and the evident designs of the slave power to attempt still further aggressions upon freedom, we invite our fellow citizens without reference to former political associations, who think that the time has arrived for a union at the North to protect liberty from being overthrown and downtrodden. . . .
Emphasis added. Our is a party devoted to protecting and promoting freedom. And good Republicans should not lose sight of that even when our leaders do.
Not only is freedom a noble goal, but it is a clear one as well. We know what we mean by liberty — the freedom to be able to live our lives as we choose, to associate freely, speak freely, practice the faith of our choice and to choose the life-partner of our choice, even if that individual be of the same gender as ourselves.
Equality, however, is a more abstract concept. As Sir James Fitzjames Stephen wrote in the 1870s, “equality is a word so wide and so vague as to be by itself almost unmeaning.” Robert Nisbet feared a “new despotism” if the state attempted to enforce equality:
Only through operation of a single, centralized structure of power that reaches all individuals in a community, that strives to obliterate all gradations of power, rank, and affluence not of this power’s own making, can these variations and this inequality be moderated.
In order to achieve the abstract goal of equality, we would need a stronger central government with ever-increasing regulatory authority. And that authority would severely limit our freedom.
As I wrote in November 2004:
I’m skeptical of campaigns for the government to enforce equality. How is that to defined? Should the government then limit the number of people who can access this or that blog so that each blog has an equal number of readers? That, however, would limit the freedom of blog-readers to read the blogs of their choice. I could go on and on with hypotheticals showing how government concern for equality would limit our freedom.
Log Cabin’s decision to sign on to this leftist rhetoric — and apparently the ideology as well — of the national gay groups means that its leaders have forfeited the opportunity to present a Republican vision of gay rights based on true Republican principles. To do that, Log Cabin would have to abandon the pursuit of the “chimera of equality” and focus instead on the founding idea of our nation — and our political party–Freedom!
In its eagerness to be accepted by national gay groups, Log Cabin’s national leaders have focused on an idea whose realization has been anathema to conservatives and libertarians for generations. In so doing, have forfeited the opportunity to put forward a new vision for an increasingly moribund movement. A vision which has not only sustained the Republican Party since its inception, not only served as the founding ideal for our nation, but which has also inspired our philosophical forebears long ago on the battlefields of Marathon, Thermopylae and Plataea, in the waters off the island of Salamis and in city-states all over the Aegean and Peloponnese.
It’s unfortunate that Log Cabin prefers acceptance by the gay left to this ancient and noble principle.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
I would define national liberty as the equal and meaning access of all to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Reading about Log Cabin reminds me of the whole John McCain thing in 2000.
I read today that John McCain has told Jerry Falwell he now supports the Federal Marriage Amendment. Is that true?
I know that the response from a lot of people will be that gays brought this on themselves, that’s what happens when we are mean to Republicans, and so on, but if this is true, I’m disappointed McCain has flip-flopped on this after he was one of the leading opponents in 2004. Selling out that much to someone like Falwell isn’t going to get him the nomination in 2008. Many primary voters are still going to prefer someone like Brownback or Huckabee or what have you.
OK, I found one of the articles I was looking for. Apparently Falwell says that McCain told him he was going to support the amendment, and McCain says otherwise.
http://baywindows.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=D2F3DBB3C92E4D42BFB52BF049616751
I don’t know what to think. I guess I will give McCain the benefit of the doubt and he’ll continue to oppose the amendment for the federalism reasons he opposed the amendment in 2004. Sorry for the mixup.
This is pretty interesting, Dan. The distinction between liberty and equality, I think, may have something to with the differences between those like myself who are same-sex marriage skeptics and those like Andrew Sullivan who are champions of same-sex marriage. The supposed basis for same-sex marriage is perhaps formal equality. At the same time, the concept same-sex marriage is pretty irrelevant when it comes to liberty. Yet, I wonder if the distinction can be overly misleading. I think most libertarians and conservatives favor formal equality in some contexts. And, while my interest in liberty leads towards my opposition to anti-sodomy laws, paradoxically, I don’t find any “liberty”-based rights to sodomy in the Constitution because it is silent on that point.
The one thing that I can say for sure is that libertarians and conservatives are highly skeptical of substantive equality or egalitarianism. While I am a bit annoyed with LCRs flirtation with gay leftism and forgetfulness that they are supposedly Republicans (hello!), in fairness, I don’t see them going down that particular road, no?
Wow Dan, you’ve looked into The Libertarian Reader. Cool.
#1 – So that you can have plenty of backdoors for going with verious socialist policies, the antithesis of liberty – No surprise there, GoB.
#4 – For the record – I do think that liberty / libertarianism must imply equality-before-the-law.
As the Declaration says, all men are CREATED equal. They aren’t guarenteed equal results, they do not deserve equal results, and using government force to coerce equal results is invariably stultifying, immoral and destructive. But the principles and operations of the law should apply to them “equally”, in the sense of “impartially”.
For example: Any Member of Congress, however black or white or male or female, should not be able to assault police officers and breeze by security checkpoints without showing any pin or ID whatsoever, when the rest of us can’t. 😉
As for the right to sodomy, to baking cakes, or to any victimless private behavior: I see that in the 9th Amendment, in the guarantee that all States will have “republican” (i.e., non-monarchical, non-totalitarian) governments, and in the very enterprise of having a Constitution – the Constitution’s very purpose being to limit the power of government and leave us, the people, as much power as possible “by default”.
Very well said, Calarato. My problem with Lawrence v. Texas was not the result (which I agree with) but the reasoning. The Court should have worked it through the Ninth Amendment. Wise to bring up that much neglected protection of our freedom. Good comment.
The difference between liberty and equality in the terms of American democracy is this.
Some of us believe you must have liberty to pursue your dreams to the best of your God-given talents and work ethic. If you are able to have more than your neighbor, so be it.
There are others on the Left that believe being created equal means equal distribution of wealth. Never mind they are actually creating ceilings of opportunity for the poor and lower classes. But in their mind is simply IS NOT FAIR that one person is able to acheive something that another person doesn’t have. That is their definition of equality. The fact that rich liberals have more than the down trodden is simply overlooked.
Dan & Bruce:
Can you name one thing that LCR or Patrick Guerriero is doing right? Just wondering.
Michael–nearly every good thing that Log Cabin has done has been on the local level. And many clubs are doing many good things. We did praise the national office last year for supporting the president’s plan to reform Social Security and participating in CPAC and Patrick briefly challenged gay groups for jumping to conclusions on Alito. (And I commended him for that.)
#8 – They ignore where wealth comes from. It doesn’t drop from heaven, for them to simply “distribute”. It’s created by individuals choosing to apply themselves HARD for their own family’s benefit. Left-liberals want to enslave the producers for the benefit of parasites – such as themselves, the intended rulers.
#7 – Thanks Dan.
rightwingprof made an interesting counterargument to me the other day. He said the “retained by the people” phrase in the 9th was strictly meant as a modifier, meaning the 9th’s only meaning is that the people will retain the (few) rights they would otherwise retain, with very great power to regulate people going to the States, because of the 10th.
Needless to say, I disagree 🙂 I think his argument reduces the 9th to a tautology; and that if SOME Framers (not all) did indeed conceive of States as nearly unlimited loci of power in our lives, that approach was vitiated by the Civil War and the 14th, and anyway goes against principles of limited government that the whole Constitution is grounded on. But it was interesting to see the other side of the argument.
#8: And, of course, the ironic thing; if leftist liberals like George Soros, Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, and Jon Corzine WANTED to provide universal healthcare for the poor, they could easily do so; they have tens of billions of dollars in individual wealth.
But that would require them to spend their own money. Meanwhile, as we see, they won’t even pay their “fair share”, as they regularly screech, of taxes.
Really, that sums up liberalism; they want social change and progression, as long as they don’t have to pay for it.
#12 – Yes, but further, the “social change” they want is always somehow in the direction of validating them and increasing their power and their sense of importance and “goodness” in our tiny lives. In other words: rulership. I question what’s progressive about that.
It can’t be anything but a modifier. It’s that English grammar thing.
However, it was nice to have a discussion that remained civil, something that never happens when the moonbats drop in.
The criticisms Bruce makes, of both LCR and other gay groups are valid enough. The problem is that GOP also abandoned the pursuit of “Liberty” a long time ago in favor of the government expansion of political power. There is very little, if anything, about “Liberty” in GOP’s platform today.
You cannot claim that taking the right of states to define marriage as they see fit is an expansion of “Liberty”.
You cannot claim that expanding Presidential powers exponentially under the false purpose of national security is an expansion of “Liberty”. Especially when that now includes taking and holding Americans citizens incommunicado without trial or access to legal counsel, indefinitely. Or non-citizens for that matter. You know, the principle of “Liberty” was meant to apply to all human beings, based on the inalienable humanity as given by the Creator to everyone, not just Americans.
You cannot claim creating new Medicaid entitlements that both limits consumer choices AND takes additional inordinate amounts of taxpayers hard-earned income away from them and puts it into government coffers is an expansion of “Liberty”.
You cannot claim that when the GOP run Congress, with the complicity of a GOP President, balloons the Federal Deficit (Just on social, not military spending!), so outrageously stuffed with every bit of pork little piggy Lott could find, is an expansion of liberty.
Especially when it is going to also take so much cash out of the hands of our children and grandchildren and once again put it into the hands of the government. So no, you can’t claim this is an expansion of “Liberty”.
Bruce defines the problem about the lack of the pursuit of “Liberty” correctly. It’s too bad he doesn’t judge the GOP by the same standards he judges LCR etc.
Actually since LCR has NOT been advocating the expansion of all this spending and government intrusion into Americans lives, both personally and financially, it is actually, for all its faults, much more “conservative” in outlook than the present GOP could ever hope to be.
Once again Bruce, put down the magnifying glass and pick up the mirror.
RWP, I have no technical knowledge of grammar and won’t undertake that argument. I do know that I’ve been speaking English all my life and the phrase wasn’t meant as a “limiter”, shall we say, in the sense you make.
You know alot and so you would know, of course, the reason some Framers opposed having any Bill of Rights at all?
They opposed it because they thought it was self-evident that “rights retained by the people” should be interpreted expansively (and indeed, was the whole foundation and purpose of Constitutional or limited government); so much so, that any Bill enumerating the people’s rights would, by its mere existence, wrongly imply an opposite view wherein the people are (wrongly) limited to enumerated rights, while governments (State or federal) “catch” all other unenumerated powers.
As indeed, has come about. 🙁 The view they feared was certainly Bill Clinton’s view of the Constitution. And, I submit, it is implicit in your view of the Constitution as well.
(you would simply give vast / unenumerated powers to State governments, instead of Federal)
Calarato — April 7, 2006 @ 12:07 pm – April 7, 2006
Under the 10th amendment, the states had extensive powers that had not been ceded to the federal government under the constitution (prior to amendment). If you believe Potter Stewart’s dissent in Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965, look it up), the 9th amendment was not an independent grant of rights. Instead, the 9th amendment was something like we often do in contracts. Specifically, if you list somethings as rights (or obligations) under the contract, that may be taken as a suggestion that something else that is not listed in the contract is a right (or obligation) under the contract.
That’s the only thing it can be — just as the appositive militia phrase cannot be read as modifying the main clause.
That doesn’t restrict what rights can or cannot be recognized. But it also doesn’t by default claim that anything you may want to do is a right.
#19 – Essentially a repetition or re-assertion of what #16 already answers; does not attempt to answer the additional points in #16.
You cannot claim that taking the right of states to define marriage as they see fit is an expansion of “Liberty”.
Ah, but you see, Gryph, that “right” is already being taken from them by gay leftists, who call it “immoral” when they do so and are trying to sue in FEDERAL court to have such laws overturned.
As soon as the gay leftists publicly admit that states have every right to restrict marriage however they see fit, then this argument will be relevant. For now, it’s rather hypocritical.
You cannot claim that expanding Presidential powers exponentially under the false purpose of national security is an expansion of “Liberty”.
The powers of the Presidency have not been expanded. The use of the powers of the Presidency has been.
You cannot claim creating new Medicaid entitlements that both limits consumer choices AND takes additional inordinate amounts of taxpayers hard-earned income away from them and puts it into government coffers is an expansion of “Liberty”.
First, please educate yourself on the difference between MediCAID and MediCARE.
Second, since liberals argue that healthcare is a basic human right, expanding access to it would be INCREASING liberty, not the opposite.
Feel free to argue otherwise.
You cannot claim that when the GOP run Congress, with the complicity of a GOP President, balloons the Federal Deficit (Just on social, not military spending!), so outrageously stuffed with every bit of pork little piggy Lott could find, is an expansion of liberty.
Especially when it is going to also take so much cash out of the hands of our children and grandchildren and once again put it into the hands of the government. So no, you can’t claim this is an expansion of “Liberty”.
Think of it this way, Gryph.
If the children and grandchildren you mention will benefit from spending now, there’s no reason not to do it.
No Child Left Behind is an excellent example; yes, you may be borrowing to fund their education now, but doing that greatly increases both a) the possibility that they can pay it back and b) the upside potential of their earning power.
What you are saying is akin to arguing that you shouldn’t borrow money for college because you’ll have to pay it back in the future; in the meantime, you should work at whatever job you can get until you can save enough to cover it.
You are correct that the liberal tendency to spend tomorrow’s money on welfare checks for those today is unsustainable and leads to a reduction of liberty; just look at France.
But remember that you and Andrew Sullivan chose to endorse for President a person whose stated goal was to accelerate doing so, versus someone who has done so in a very limited fashion by comparison.
Andrew Sullivan endorsed Kerry because he thought spending would be more restrained with divided government. I agreed. The intense partisanship displayed even here is proof of that reasoning. Kerry would not have gotten the time of day from a GOP lead Congress. And you can bet that Congress would have acted to sharply limit the President’s overreaching of his constitutional power. You can bet they will be squealing like stuck pigs when President Hillary starts using those powers.
rightwingprof — April 7, 2006 @ 1:25 pm – April 7, 2006
…just as the appositive militia phrase cannot be read as modifying the main clause.
Presuming that this refers to RKBA in the second amendment, this is preposterous. Your assumption would read the “appositive militia phrase” out of the constitution. Any doctrine of statutory construction (and, for these purposes, the constitution is a statute) would endeavor to make use of every portion of the statute.
Whoops. I earlier mistook GPW for GP, I should remember to read the byline more closely. Bruce has written so many knee-jerk howler letters that I tend to have a knee-jerk repsonse to him.
_______
If the debate referenced in the announcement is an actual “debate” I don’t see the harm in it. In fact it could do a lot of good. It’s not as if HRC could proclaim socialism a good idea and get a good reception from the LCR dinner crowd. The gay groups do tend to live in a bubble. It would do them some good to hear other points of view. Of course, if GPW and GP choose not to go the convention then I guess those other points of view won’t get aired.
I really don’t see why Bruce and Dan don’t get more involved with LCR. I know they were in the past. If they don’t like the direction its taken, then why not work within it to change it?
I’m sure they probably don’t agree with everything that the GOP party leadership does either, but I haven’t seen them leave the GOP over it.
Patrick in #15, this was my post. 🙂
And you make some very valid criticisms (from a conservative standpoint) of the president’s policies. You claim that Bruce (when you assumed him to be the author of the piece) doesn’t judge the GOP by the same standards he judges Log Cabin. Well, I wrote the piece and believe we should hold the Administration to this standard. It’s why I gave the president poor marks when I graded him on the Reagan legacy.
As to why we don’t get more involved in LCR, well, I was in the past, but when I found that despite my leadership, the time and money I put into the group, that I got no recognition from the national office. And I was not the only leader so slighted. There is simply no way to change the group from within. At their “convention,” there will be no plenary, no opportunity to elect officers to set policy. It’s a top-down organization. And until that changes, I’ll stay out.
I went last year. And there was no forum where I could publicly criticize the group. LCR didn’t even hold a panel to consider the merits of its non-endorsement strategy given the president’s re-election victory.
They may not be leaving the GOP, but they rarely praise the party to which they claim allegiance.
Andrew Sullivan endorsed Kerry because he thought spending would be more restrained with divided government. I agreed.
Both you and Andrew Sullivan need to be made aware of the fact that the last time that worked, such as it was, was with Bill Clinton — and he was not a liberal Democrat.
Clinton’s genius was in being able to charm without carrythrough and sell without delivering; thus, he was able to keep the self-interested minority groups that constitute the Democratic Party off his back without actually having to GIVE them anything.
But Kerry? Kerry would have actually had to DELIVER on his promises. (Except to gays, who, as Andrew Sullivan so brilliantly illustrated, never seem to realize the hypocrisy in blasting one supporter of constitutional amendments stripping gays of rights and calling “pro-gay” and “gay-supportive” someone who also does.)
I will take a group of Republicans who are philosophically opposed to excess government spending in power any day over a divided Congress and an ultra-liberal spendthrift as President.
Then again, I lack the insane and irrational hatred of Bush that Andrew Sullivan possesses.
“Andrew Sullivan endorsed Kerry because he thought spending would be more restrained with divided government. I agreed.”
That was a particular inane / insane thought, then, in view of the fact that Kerry openly proposed trillions in new spending programs and entitlements over Bush’s existing increases / programs.
Sorry, meant “particularly”.
NDT says:
A) Comparing what a Kerry Presidency would have been to what Clinton’s was is not possible. Congress was much more evenly divided between donkey’s and elephants at that time. Kerry would have been facing a completely dominated GOP Congress.
B) You are practicing a double standard when you criticize Sullivan or myself for supporting an anti-gay candidate (Kerry) when you continually do the same exact thing (Bush etc.) The difference being that Andrew and myself only supported Kerry during his run for the Presidency. You support Bush, etc. 24/7.
C)
So would I, unfortunately there don’t appear to be any of those kind of Republicans in the House right now and very few of them in the Senate. And there certainly isn’t one of them in the White House.
D) So NDT, when is the nude calendar coming out?
Gryph –
I just now remembered – Let me pause a moment to humbly thank you once again for deigning to make further exceptions to your clear policy against reading and responding to the collectively ‘worthless’ comments here that you DON’T read due to their eternally lacking value for you.
It’s so good to know that you DON’T read our comments, yet here you are taking upon yourself the heavy burden of making constant exceptions to your policy, sacrificing yourself for our benefit with FOUR replies in this thread alone! (and more in others) Yay!! 🙂
The first thing the Declaration of Independence says is “self-evident” is that we are all created equal. Only after that does it mention unalienable rights to life, liberty, and (sort of) property. Just as ISIL.org’s “Philosophy of Liberty” video shows how life, liberty, and property are all variations on life (future life, present life, and past life), I think, as the Founders did, that equality underlies all of our rights (individual sovereignty only works if we’re all equal — nobody can have more rights than anyone else).
In fact, just as I think libertarians should reclaim the term “liberal” from the left, we need to reclaim the word “equality” from the LGBT left. There’s nothing “equal” about enhanced penalties for queer crime victims or special employment protection laws for LGBT folks. They took our word, and I say we take it back. True equality, at least in a political sense, must mean equality under the law. Any other definition that says some people are more equal than others is positively Orwellian newspeak.
Rob, I agree and thank you. Gosh, now I will have to check out your .org! 🙂
Gryph:
A) The difference isn’t that marked — plus the usual infighting between more-conservative and more-moderate Republicans.
B) I made my views on the matter abundantly clear.
C) Depends on what one defines as “excess”. As I’ve mentioned, there are perfectly-rational reasons for prescription drug coverage and No Child Left Behind; the former because judicious use of prescription drugs cuts down on hospitalization expenses and the latter because liberal states like California keep turning out sub-par students as the price of satisfying teachers’ unions built to shield incompetents.
D) (wink)
Excellent comment, Rob Power!
Just to follow-up…
I checked out Rob’s site and there is this statement: “If…you prefer the US to strike its enemies down BEFORE they actually do something against us) then you are probably not a libertarian.”
Saddam did a lot against the U.S. and the world; so in reality, the statement would not apply to the Iraq war
But having said that, it sounds like it was meant to apply, or as code-speak for saying that to be a libertarian, I have to be against the Iraq war. In which case, I’m pretty definitely not a libertarian!!! LOL
But I sort of knew that already.
To clarify, ISIL.org isn’t “my” site. I occasionally send them a check and buy their brochures to give out at our pride festival booths. But I’m in no way affiliated with them.
“My” site, if you can call it that, would be:
http://www.OutrightLibertarians.org
I just mentioned ISIL’s video, because it shows how life, liberty, and property are all inextricably linked, just as I think liberty and equality under the law are. Hence the tagline I gave to our web designer for the Outright website: “From Liberty Springs Equality.”
Admittedly, there’s some debate on our national committee about this tagline. (In fact, it was one of those who doesn’t like the tagline who sent me the link to this blog entry.) But until we come up with something that rolls off of the tongue as nicely (and ties in so well with our logo of the rainbow springing from Lady Liberty’s torch), we’re probably going to stick with it. I don’t think anyone who knows anything about Libertarians will mistake the word “Equality” to mean equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. Though I’m starting to doubt it, I at least hope that this is what LCR means when they use the word.
Rob Power, as long as Log Cabin refuses to distinguish its goals on gay issues from those of the other gay groups, I fear Log Cabin’s leaders will let “equality” mean whatever HRC wants it to mean. And that prospect is not comforting.
Yes Rob, outrightlibertarians.org is the one I visited for comment #35.