Be very afraid...

That is the underlying subtext of Mark Lilla’s piece titled “Reading Strauss in Beijing” in the New Republic. Lilla says many of his Chinese Graduate Students are interested in reading Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt. They want to study these philosophers so they can implement these ideas in China. Unfortunately, Strauss and Schmitt were critical of modern ideas we all take for granted today e.g. democracy, separation of church and state, free markets etc. He implies these thinkers were fascist or at least had fascist sympathies. Modern Liberals should put them in the ‘scary’ category along with Neocon (Bush’s) foreign policy and the Medieval Catholic Church.

A minor point in the article is that Strauss was interested in Jewish and Islamic political philosophy, but not Christian. Lilla does not explain why but I think it is because Christianity makes a distinction between church and state (Render unto Caesar...) which is useless to Strauss who wants to make religion a means to a political end. Judaism and Islam are more amenable to civil religion than Christianity. If Strauss was a fascist, then Christians would not be his natural allies.

Neocons: New Deal Conservatives

In this debate with Congressman Paul Ryan, David Brooks argues that the debate over the size of government is misguided; the central question should be the effect on character of the citizenry. For this reason, he is okay with FDR’s New Deal, but not LBJ’s Great Society. Social Security did not corrupt character the way welfare did.

Irving Kristol, the godfather of neoconservatism, also distinguished himself from other conservatives in his arguments against the Welfare State. The criticism made by mainstream conservatives was the Welfare State was either inefficient, unconstitutional, or both. Kristol said, the welfare created dependency among its recipients. The perverse incentives had an immoral effect on the lives of the indigent.

Brooks ends his speech by saying all Conservatives want to turn back the clock; they just disagree about how far they want to go back. For example, Tea Partiers want to go back to the Founding. Claremonsters want to remove the Progressive Era (Founders + Lincoln alone). Brooks himself would draw the line at 1965.

For him, what matters is not the color of your skin, nor the size of the government, but the content of your character.

Pomo Cons and Neocons: Making their peace w/ Big Gov’t

Distinguishing himself from mainstream American conservatism, Pomo Con Peter Lawler joins Neocons like David Brooks by arguing that safety nets such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are constitutional. In this post, he explains that while it might be “manly” to brush off the government’s help, such a position will not win elections.

Of course, a policy’s popularity does not mean it is necessarily constitutional. Or does it? Even the Originalist Scalia says he accepts the New Deal’s (and I suspect the Great Society’s) programs. He gives a three pronged criteria for why he accepts it, but not decisions like Roe v. Wade, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, and Lawrence v. Texas:

1) plausible

2) popular

3) easy to apply

The 2^nd criterion is a variation of what Lawler mentioned. The New Deal and Great Society programs were popular at the time they were passed. Moreover, they were passed by the LEGISLATURE. On the other hand, the Roe and the subsequent cases were and still continue to be controversial decisions. The Culture War questions are not settled and can still be contested. But some form of a welfare state will be with us for the foreseeable future and it is time to make peace with that fact.

Mainstream Conservatives are not satisfied with turning back the clock 40 years; for them it is double or nothing, as the debate below reveals. Paul Ryan, a rising star in the Republican Party, is debating Neocon David Brooks on limited v. energetic government:

Publius on Wikileaks

Wikileaks publication of State Department documents has caused an interesting debate over the necessity of government secrecy v. the public’s right to know. The Federalist Papers discuss this topic in some depth:

It seldom happens in the negotiation of treaties, of whatever nature, but that perfect secrecy and immediate despatch are sometimes requisite. These are cases where the most useful intelligence may be obtained, if the persons possessing it can be relieved from apprehensions of discovery. Those apprehensions will operate on those persons whether they are actuated by mercenary or friendly motives; and there doubtless are many of both descriptions, who would rely on the secrecy of the President, but who would not confide in that of the Senate, and still less in that of a large popular Assembly.

Publius would say the release of the documents will discourage foreign diplomats from speaking frankly to the U.S. State Department in the future.

Harvey Mansfield summarizes another Federalist passage on the topic:

Unity facilitates "decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch." Note secrecy in this list. Secrecy is necessary to government yet almost incompatible with the rule of law (the exception being when congressional committees meet in "executive," i.e. secret, session). Yet secrecy is compatible with responsibility because, when one person is responsible, it does not matter how he arrives at his decision. To blame or reward him, one does not have to enter into "the secret springs of the transaction," as would be necessary if responsibility were shared.

Whatever discussions went on between President Obama and foreign officials about Iran is ultimately irrelevant. What matters is the final product, the policy he endorses in the end. So it doesn’t matter that the Saudi King asked the President to “cut the head of the snake” since he did not do so.

The last argument is from me. The New York Times is providing the megaphone for Wikileaks on this story. By the Times own admission, it has not released everything:

The question of dealing with classified information is rarely easy, and never to be taken lightly. Editors try to balance the value of the material to public understanding against potential dangers to the national interest. As a general rule we withhold secret information that would expose confidential sources to reprisals or that would reveal operational intelligence that might be useful to adversaries in war. We excise material that might lead terrorists to unsecured weapons material, compromise intelligence-gathering programs aimed at hostile countries, or disclose information about the capabilities of American weapons that could be helpful to an enemy.

The criteria it has used for deciding what documents to release and what to hold back is ‘national security.’ Obviously, this is the same criterion used by the State Department for not releasing ANY of the documents. Who is a better judge on this matter? Who has training, and more importantly experience, on this matter? Let’s even grant the State Department has self-interested motives for not releasing the documents. Does that mean the The New York Times doesn’t? What makes journalists so disinterested?