TOWARD A MORE LIBERTARIAN CONSERVATISM

Senator Rand Paul

Reagan once said, “I believe libertarianism is the very heart and soul of conservatism.” Too often they are portrayed as competing or even incompatible ideologies, but I agree with Reagan. Returning to a more libertarian conservatism would return us to a sharply more limited government and radically more pro-freedom agenda.

More and more Americans are becoming alarmed by the size and scope of government power and its daily intrusion into our lives. I often illustrate our distaste for this government power with the story of the little girl who wanted a hundred dollars. She says she’ll do good things with the hundred dollars, so she writes a note. She writes, “Dear God, please send me a hundred dollars.” The postmaster gets the letter and he doesn’t know what to do with it, so he sends it to the White House. The president gets the letter and says, “Oh, that’s cute. The little girl wants a hundred dollars. Send her five dollars; she’ll be happy with that.” So the little girl gets the five dollars. Her parents always told her to write a thank-you, and so she starts out her letter. She says, “Dear God, thanks for the five bucks. But next time, don’t send it through Washington. They stole 95 percent of it.”

If you’re a conservative, you don’t want to send it to Washington at all. If you’re a moderate, you say, well, instead of five bucks, if they could only return ten bucks, everything would be okay, and if you’re a liberal, you think the richest aren’t paying enough; they’ve got to pay their fair share. You think they should send it all in.

But seriously, it is about a philosophy. A philosophy—to my mind and to the minds of a lot of conservatives—that started with Barry Goldwater. When I decided to run for the U.S. Senate, I reread Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative, the first edition of which was published in my home state Kentucky in Shepherdsville, near Louisville. There’s a quote toward the beginning of the book that I believe is a good summary of what undergirds American conservatism. Goldwater writes:

I have little interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I did not propose to promote welfare, but I proposed to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass new bills, but to cancel out old ones. I don’t intent to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel out programs that do violence to the Constitution. I will not attempt to find out whether legislation is needed before I determine whether it is constitutional. And if my constituents complain and say that I am neglecting their interests, I will inform them that I was told that their chief interest was liberty, and in that cause, I am doing the best that I can.

Goldwater’s words encapsulate my own conservative philosophy. The conservative’s task isn’t simply to make government more efficient, but to reduce its scope to those functions given to government by the Constitution.

THE CONSTITUTION

Limiting government is one of the purposes of our Constitution. The Founders wanted our government’s functions to be narrow and few. They wanted safeguards against government overreach and abuse. They wanted checks, balances, and explicit protections that were lacking in the government from which they had declared independence. The founding generation, as students of history and philosophy, understood that government anywhere will always try to expand infinitely and aggrandize itself at the expense of liberty.

Ronald Reagan said in his Farewell Address, “As government expands, liberty contracts.” Our country was founded on this sentiment. The Founders feared government and loved liberty. The Constitution they created is essentially a conservative document.

It is also in many ways a libertarian document.

Some of the most prominent Founders would today be considered libertarians, as their strict limits on government also included outlining and protecting the rights of citizens. Their deep respect for the principles of individual liberty has always been an integral part of what has made America one of the greatest and most prosperous nations in human history.

What the Founders intended, and what many conservatives and libertarians want today, is a system that keeps decision making close to the people. Most conservatives and libertarians have always wanted government under which bureaucracy remains small and does not hamper the talents and aspirations of the individual. The federal government should not do what the states can do for themselves, the states should not do what local governments can do for themselves, and local governments should not do what families, faith groups, and individuals can do for themselves.

Today, we have a federal government that perverts aspects of the Constitution to supersede state, local, and individual rights.

EXPANDING THE POWER OF GOVERNMENT

Revisiting The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater mentions the Supreme Court case of Wickard v. Filburn. I’ve joked that I think I’m the only person who has run for the United States Senate in modern times to overturn Wickard v. Filburn. Perhaps my friends Mike Lee and Ted Cruz might take exception to that claim.

What is Wickard? It was a perfect example of government expanding its constitutional bounds. It was also really the beginning of big government in the United States.

In the 1940s, the courts told farmer Roscoe Filburn, who wanted to grow twenty acres of grain, that he could grow only fourteen acres of grain. Filburn resisted, insisting that it was his land and he could do as he pleased. In an attempt to avoid any lengthy battles, Filburn grew the fourteen acres the government dictate allowed, but also grew six acres more for his personal use. The crop grown on the additional six acres would be fed to his cows to avoid breaking any interstate commerce laws.

But a lengthy battle came anyway. Filburn’s case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, “By your inactivity, by your restraint, by not engaging in commerce, you could have indirectly affected the price of grain.”

With this decision, the Supreme Court opened Pandora’s box. We had gone from a limited constitutional republic to a purer democracy where the majority—or mob—rules and the Commerce Clause could literally mean anything. It was an absurd and unprecedented decision.

I’ve remarked that if my shoes were made in Tennessee, the federal government can still regulate my walking in Kentucky. Though it’s meant to be a punch line, it’s also generally true—that is the current expansive notion of the Commerce Clause. So much growth in government jurisdiction and power came about through this new and elastic concept of that clause. For the next half century and then some, not one congressional law was struck down as unconstitutional.

Think about it. In sixty years, not one law passed by Congress was struck down.

Why is this so important today? Because so much overregulation and government growth that conservatives deplore today is a direct result of this interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

ObamaCare is a primary example. The legal battle over ObamaCare wasn’t about health care, per se. It was about the Commerce Clause and the power to tax. It was a court decision based on the precedent set by Wickard v. Filburn—the idea of inactivity, of not participating in commerce by not purchasing health insurance.

Columnist George Will called ObamaCare “the last exit on the road to unlimited government.” He’s right. If the federal government can impose ObamaCare, what, exactly, are the limits of government power? Does the Constitution restrict and define the size and scope of government anymore—or not?

When Benjamin Franklin walked out of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, he was asked what type of government he had helped to devise. Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

We haven’t kept it. Or at least we haven’t kept enough of it.

I have often called myself a constitutional or libertarian conservative, because it is abandonment of constitutional principles based in individual liberty that has taken America down the wrong path. I believe it is also the reclamation of these principles that can restore the Founders’ vision.

In our domestic policy, cases like Wickard vs. Filburn set the precedent for arrogant centralized authority to sap the traditional rights of localities and individuals. ObamaCare is a perfect example, where the federal government stretches definitions of the Commerce Clause to force people to purchase health care via individual mandate. There is such a wild imbalance today between what the Constitution allows and the federal government demands that we can only imagine what the Founding Fathers would think of modern American government.

GOVERNMENT EXPANSION IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS

This arrogance of centralized authority is by no means restricted to domestic policy. Conservatives of all stripes have long agreed that the primary function of the federal government is to maintain a strong national defense. But there is debate and division among neoconservatives, libertarians, and others about what this means. Our military should be used to protect our vital national security and interests. But should it also be used to police the world, nation-build, and export democracy? Is the power to declare war reserved for the legislature, as the Constitution states, or it is now within the powers of the executive branch?

The Founding Fathers gave the power to declare war to the legislature for the same reason they were so particular about delegated powers throughout the Constitution—to limit abuse and check power.

The debate within the Republican Party over whether to intervene in Syria was between those who believed we must follow the Constitution and allow Congress to declare war and those who believed the president could go to war without consulting Congress. To say that we don’t have to follow the Constitution because so many other presidents have taken military action without consulting Congress is essentially to say that ObamaCare is justified because of precedent going all the way back to Wickard vs. Filburn.

Is our justification for centralizing authority in our federal government simply that the Constitution can be ignored because it has been ignored for so long? If this premise is accepted, then there is little prospect for conservatives ever to stuff the federal government back into its constitutionally limited box.

There is now what many are calling a libertarian-leaning wing of the Republican Party. These Republicans have been some of the most vocal opponents of ObamaCare, and they have also been stringent in demanding that the president seek approval from Congress before going to war.

This is no coincidence. Domestic and foreign policies involve separate issues but not separate principles. In both our domestic and foreign policies, government must be restrained. It must be limited. The law must be followed. And the Constitution must reign supreme.

LIBERTY MUST BE DEFENDED

We need respect for the individual and the rule of law again. We need a more constitutional conservatism. We need a more libertarian conservatism.

When I held a filibuster in the Senate over whether or not the president should have the authority to kill an American citizen without due process, those thirteen hours on my feet were about more than the specific issue of drones. The filibuster was about what kind of power the president has. It was about how much power the federal government has taken on and how much of the Constitution it thinks it can ignore. And it was about whether we were going to let the president and the federal government get away with overreaching their constitutional bounds.

There are factions within the Republican Party that I believe give government too much benefit of the doubt.

When President Obama says he won’t use drones against citizens, some Republicans give the benefit of the doubt to the executive branch. When the National Security Agency admits it is monitoring the phone calls of every single American, certain Republicans say we should simply trust it. When the Department of Justice seizes the phone records of the Associated Press and other newspapers, some Republicans turn a blind eye. When the Internal Revenue Service targets Tea Party groups, some Republicans deplore such behavior but insist it is just few rogue actors. In fact, some in our party don’t even consider such behavior abuse anymore.

If we are a conservative party, there is something very wrong with the thinking of these Republicans.

If the GOP is the party of smaller government, we must also be the party that is suspicious of government at every juncture. Thomas Jefferson believed that the price of liberty was eternal vigilance. Republicans should be that vigilant party. Patrick Henry declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” Today, too many Republicans say exactly the opposite—take my liberty or we’re all going to die! Tap my phone! Spy on my e-mail! Drone my neighbor! Do it to protect me!

National security is the primary and most important function of government. But, as Benjamin Franklin noted, when you trade liberty for security, you get neither. A number of polls taken in the summer of 2013 in the wake of the NSA revelations showed that most Americans feared government overreach in trying to “protect us” more than they feared terrorism.

We must always have intelligence gathering and commonsense protections in place to reduce the risk or terrorism or any other threats to our security. But there must be limits. The Constitution must be obeyed. The Bill of Rights must be followed.

Conservatives must always err on the side of individual liberty and be suspicious of government, not the other way around.

ECONOMIC FREEDOM MEANS OPPORTUNITY

The good news/bad news scenario I tell people is this: the bad news is, we’re in the midst of a crisis. The number one threat to our national security is our debt. But the good news is that we live in the greatest country ever created. We are exceptional because of the set of ideas that we embrace. We are exceptional only as long as we embrace those ideas. It is a generational, transgenerational fight and a war to see if we can keep a republic and stay true to our founding principles. It’s been slipping away. The Democrats can have lots of the blame, but Republicans deserve blame also. This is a bipartisan problem; we are letting our nation’s exceptionalism slip away as we let the government do more and more things.

Our freedoms have also created incredible wealth in this country, which has bolstered our national security. We won the Cold War because our engine of capitalism defeated their engine of socialism. We had to have a strong national defense to win, but our emergence as the world’s sole superpower really occurred because our nation’s economic engine beat socialism.

If you come by your wealth honestly, if you work hard, if you come up with a great concept, if people buy your products, by all means, make as much money as you can and employ as many people as you can. Your success will increase our nation’s prosperity. And let us not be embarrassed by that.

Not only should we refuse to be embarrassed by creating wealth; we shouldn’t be embarrassed by insisting on economic freedom from government. We all need to understand that there is nothing that’s really free given by our government. Somebody always has to pay for it.

The future of political conflict in America will be between two concepts. It will be between the people who believe that you can have success and that anyone can achieve in our society—the American dream—and those who want to just divide up the existing pie and try to redistribute it. I think there are enough people left in America who believe in the American dream. I think that the future of conservatism is about promoting a free market system that creates incredible wealth, and for that wealth to allow for incredible humanitarianism. If we make the national discussion about that, conservatism will win.

A COALITION FOR LIBERTY

Where the Republican Party has the most potential to grow is also where it needs to be more libertarian. We need to bring this message to the youth of America.

Young people do not believe the promise that Social Security and other programs will be there for them. They recognize that they are drowning in student debt and entering an unpromising job market. And they fear what a huge national debt means for their future. Young people have seen the promises of big government come up empty. They are ready for new ideas based on free market competition and more individual choice.

Younger generations want the government out of their lives in almost every respect. They don’t want politicians involved in their personal lives or those of their neighbors.

Young Americans want more liberty and less government. And they want more opportunity.

There are countless independents and even disenchanted Democrats who would be attracted to a Republican Party that was more tolerant in its tone, more dedicated to attacking big government in all its forms (like abolishing mandatory minimum sentencing), and more serious about enhancing and protecting the liberty of all Americans.

Ronald Reagan’s coalition featured this broad swath of Americans. To be nationally viable and to win elections, the Republican Party will need to broaden its base again. A more libertarian Republican Party can also feasibly make headway in blue states and places on the West Coast and in the Northeast, where Republicans have been uncompetitive.

“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” Goldwater also said. In our own time, more liberty—and pursuing it in a more aggressive manner than we have—might also be the key to winning more elections.

By reviving Reagan’s “heart and soul” along with Goldwater’s pursuit of liberty, that movement can be revived to successfully limit government and return the nation to the constitutional principles of its origins.

More liberty is desperately needed. Our rights and protections that we have always enjoyed as Americans are under assault like never before.

Republicans can win again and so can conservatism, and it is libertarian conservatism that can best do it by defending our cherished liberties.