The Spectacle Blog
In excoriating Ann Coulter for speaking at a conference next month of gay Republicans, Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily says:
“The drift of the conservative movement to a brand of materialistic libertarianism is one of the main reasons we planned this conference from the beginning.”
“This conference” is WorldNetDaily’s Take Back America conference, from which Farah has disinvited Coulter. Use of “libertarian” as an epithet, and accusations that advocates of a free society are “materialistic,” have long troubled me. A few years ago, I picked a fight with Rod Dreher over his idiotic statement:”The tragic flaw of Western economics is that it is based on exploiting and encouraging greed and envy.”
Dreher is an idiot — and not a particularly useful idiot, at that — whereas I believe Farah is merely mistaken. Let it be noted that I have strongly criticized the gay rights movement, going so far as to cite Judge Roy Moore’s decision in Ex Parte H.H as demonstrating that the concept of gay rights is “utterly alien to our nation’s legal tradition.”
On this issue, as on many others, you simply can’t get more conservative than Roy Moore (who has been a columnist for WorldNetDaily), and to cite him favorably is to automatically incur the accusation of homophobic theocratic extremism. This is a risk I gladly incur, however, just as I have incurred the risks of defending Ann Coulter, and for basically the same reason: As Lincoln said when critics demanded he relieve Grant from command, “I can’t spare this man — he fights.”
Joseph Farah is also a fighter, and I regret that his disagreement with Ann Coulter over the so-called “Homocon” conference has led to this apparent falling out between them. What Farah describes as a “drift” by conservatives toward “materialistic libertarianism” is, I believe, a misperception, yet another consequence of Republican “brand damage” in the post-Bush era.
As usual when Republicans lose an election, the media cites GOP moderates (“The Republicans Who Really Matter”) scapegoating conservatives, which causes the more spineless Republicans to try to distance themselves from the allegedly tainted right-wing elements of their constituency. Factional infighting ensues, and the conservative intellectual elite then offers some “solution” that, more often than not, leads to even worse problems. This was exemplified in the wake of the Dole ‘96 debacle, when David Brooks promoted “National Greatness” as the panacea for whatever ailed the GOP.
Strangely enough, Brooks’ 1997 prescription for “Big Government conservatism” (an oxymoron) is echoed in Farah’s criticism of “marterialistic libertarianism.” Like Farah, Brooks laid the blame for GOP failure squarely at the feet of free marketeers and advocates of limited government. While I am far more sympathetic to Farah’s Christian conservatism than to the effete centrism of Brooks — or Dreher’s gormless pseudo-spiritual “crunchiness” — I believe that Farah is equally wrong to condemn libertarians. Opposition to big government is a profoundly Christian value, as I argued in condemning the Bush bailout in October 2008:
[B]y displaying the spectacle of government engaging daily in legalized theft, the welfare state tends to corrupt the morals of its citizens.
The gay-rights movement is not libertarian, it is egalitarian, and thus constitutes an expression of the welfare-state mentality. Insofar as the “Homocon” conference supports gays who do not endorse the welfare state, it leads them away from darkness and into light, out of error and into truth.
Who knows how far such a journey may lead? And who knows whether, by inviting Ann Coulter to speak, the “Homocon” sponsors will thereby be entertaining an angel unawares?
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John Hartung | 8.18.10 @ 4:44PM
I'm not sure which part of "tending toward materialistic libertarianism" you are objecting to but since the topic is social, I don't think " materialistic" means financial but rather metaphysical materialism. There is definitely a metaphysically materialistic version of libertarianism that reduces values to desires and evils to harms which could serve as a framework for a "homocon". I would want to respond by defending the intellectual coherence of an Aristotelian immaterialist libertarianism.
John DuBose| 8.18.10 @ 5:03PM
At its core, libertarianism is nothing to do with materialism. Some libertarians do want to use their freedom to get rich. But many have other ideas.
It is about what the relationship of individual persons to the state.
Libertarians believe in their guts that persons came before governments. We humans made government. So governmenst should serve all persons without picking on other persons in the process.
In practice this can be hard to define. But we libertarians know government abuse when we see it.
Russell Nelson | 8.18.10 @ 5:05PM
Some portion of "gay rights" is simple push-back against government discrimination. If a child counts two people as her parents, I couldn't give a crap what gender they are, but my government does. That's wrong.
Marriages of one male and one female have a government franchise. They have benefits enshrined in law which are not available to people in other living arrangements. That's wrong.
Maybe M/F marriages need to be encouraged? Should the government be doing that through legal protection and subsidies? It's the liberals who think that everything good needs to be subsidized by the government. That's wrong.
FurrowedBrow| 8.18.10 @ 9:06PM
Mr. Nelson,
The reason that M/F marriages "have benefits enshrined in law which are not available to people in other living arrangements" is because societies benefit from their future citizens being brought up in that particular living arrangement. Societies do not benefit from other living arrangements. Like it or not, we all have a vested interest in encouraging and supporting father-mother households.
Baloney detector| 8.18.10 @ 11:52PM
Sorry, that explanation just doesn't fly. It is the job of the government to treat its citizens equally not hand out goodies to those who it believes are performing some ill-defined "good". And I have news for you: nobody buys that rationale anymore. I think most non-gullible people know that opposition to gay marriage comes down to one thing and one thing only, religion. To claim otherwise is a bunch of bull.
FurrowedBrow| 8.19.10 @ 12:20AM
How very libertarian of you. Let's review what "the job of the government" actually is: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE . . ."
Treating its citizens equally means applying laws equally. It is not a prohibition against making laws that nurture a functioning society.
You and I may disagree on what promoting the common good entails, but this your post seems to be more about flashing your "I Am Not Religious" credentials to the cool crowd, rather than actually thinking through the consequences of public policy. There were plenty of Not Religious Founding Fathers in the mix. Somehow they didn't think sexual proclivities were important enough to include in the Bill of Rights.
Derek Leaberry| 8.19.10 @ 12:53PM
Governments in America have never treated all its citizens equally and that goes back to 1607. It is egalitarian heresy to think otherwise. It is not conservative to think so.
Farah is an idiot| 8.18.10 @ 11:59PM
Your argument opposing gay marriage based upon the "good" traditional marriage supposedly bestows upon society is not much different than the ludicrous "social justice" arguments we hear from the do-gooder nanny-staters on the left. Do you have a "people not profits" bumper sticker on your car?
FurrowedBrow| 8.19.10 @ 12:28AM
The value of traditional marriage is well-documented within the social sciences. The statists are pushing for radical new policies. I am simply pushing to maintain existing law. It is ironic that you would associate this position with the nanny state, because the nanny state steps in to replace the functioning, successful family unit.
Tom Shire| 8.21.10 @ 3:10AM
What is well-documented is that children prosper in the care of loving, engaged parents, no matter what sex they happen to be. To assert otherwise is to ignore a multitude of studies showing no qualitative difference between children raised in opposite sex households versus those raised in same sex households.
As for "the nanny state," I believe that term refers to an over-protective, overly invasive government that does not allow its citizens the freedom to engage in potentially risky behavior. Laws requiring bicycle helmets, automobile child-seats, seat belts, banning trans-fats, etc. come to mind. I don't think the term "nanny state" is meant to imply that the government literally replaces the family unit. Unless, that is, you happen to be paranoid.
David Lampo| 8.26.10 @ 1:06PM
Amen, brother.
Michael Bates | 8.18.10 @ 5:49PM
I took "materialistic" to be a qualifier of "libertarianism," so "materialistic libertarianism" would be an ideology that focuses on economic liberty and rules out any consideration of cultural or social impact of public policy.
FurrowedBrow| 8.18.10 @ 8:53PM
"Insofar as the "Homocon" conference supports gays who do not endorse the welfare state, it leads them away from darkness and into light, out of error and into truth."
The problem is that it also waters down conservative opposition to the gay agenda. You disable the conservative opposition, and there's no opposition left. Farah is not an idiot for realizing this.
If the gay rights movement is not libertarian, it sure seems to have a lot of "useful idiot" libertarians in its corner -- many of them spending a lot of time pressuring conservatives to just give in.
Farah is an idiot| 8.19.10 @ 12:11AM
So in other words, there can be no such thing as a gay conservative? If you are gay, you are to be viewed with suspicion, automatically treated as one who pushes a left-wing gay rights agenda, and thus excluded from the room, simply because of your sexual orientation? Gays who believe in free markets, lower taxes, smaller government and a robust foreign policy are persona non grata in the conservative movement solely for the fact they are gay? There is a word for people who advocate excluding an entire group of people simply because of unchangeable traits (and don't even try to claim gays can be "cured")possessed by individuals in that group. I will give you a hint: it is a five letter word and it rhymes with spigot.
The post to which I am replying is undoubtedly the work of a bigot, plain and simple. And using the term "useful idiot" as if being gay is the same as embracing or apologizing for a murderous ideology is undeniable proof of that bigotry. I am amazed someone can write such asinine, hateful bullsh*t without being ashamed of themselves.
Farah is an idiot| 8.19.10 @ 12:15AM
That should be himself, not themselves, in the last sentence of my above post.
FurrowedBrow| 8.19.10 @ 12:34AM
You didn't seem to mind the term "idiot" or "useful idiot" when it was used by the author of the above article. That was why I used it. It isn't a term I gratuitously throw around, like, say, "bigot". I was linking my comment to HIS article.
As for the more substantive point you made, gays that are truly conservative can be conservative without forming a sexual identity group for themselves. That is the point. Why can't they just be "conservative", rather than "gay-conservative"?
Derek Leaberry| 8.19.10 @ 12:59PM
The word "bigot", just like the word "racist", gets thrown about so much to drain it of much meaning other than it being useful as a taunt. To be opposed to homosexuality is to support common morality just as it is right to be against adultery, bigamy, child molestation, pimping prostitutes, rape, bank robbery and murder. If conservatism can't defend common morality, there is no reason for it to exist.
David Lampo| 8.26.10 @ 1:11PM
I believe it's Farah and you who are the idiots. As a philosphy of freedom, libertarianism has a good deal in common with "the gay agenda": equal rights to the marriage license, keeping government out of the bedroom, equal access to government services, equal protection of the law. The only people who can't understand that are the theocrats who put their personal religious ideology above freedom, like you.
Bill Jones| 8.18.10 @ 8:53PM
Farah, the warmonger, should go back to his day job of singing YMCA for the Village People.
Eric Dondero | 8.18.10 @ 10:02PM
So, please tell us Joe Farrah, how does your anti-Gay stance, help us libertarian Republicans to reach out to our Libertarian Party friends, and get them to vote Republican this year?
A Libertarian Party candidate in North Carolina for US Senate is currently polling 8 to 10%. Over 800 LP candidates are on the ballot nationwide. Where does 90% of that vote come from? Straight out of the GOP column.
Thanks for making my job - as a proud Republican trying to reach out to Libertarians - a heluva lot harder Joe Farrah.
Farah is an idiot| 8.18.10 @ 11:42PM
Joseph Farah is a Birther nut job and, as is now readily apparent, a bigot. Disinviting someone from a conference because she has decided to speak to gays is undeniably bigotry and there is simply no way to claim that it isn't. Asserting that gay rights are not rooted in our legal traditions is no excuse for treating gays like subhumans.
The anti-gay bigotry of many "professional" social conservatives, such as Farah, is now as ugly as it is antiquated. It is also extremely off-putting.
Russell Seitz| 8.19.10 @ 3:02AM
Iy is diagnostic that Conservapedia ,the idiotarian answer to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, has extended its metaphysical battle against Materialism to excoriating the physics underpinning materials science .
We can't have relativistic electrons running amok in homeschool computers now, can we ?
winston smith| 8.23.10 @ 6:13PM
Thank you for this article. As a lefty I did not realize our vilification of you were working so well.
I had become disheartened.
You made my day.