He writes,

Libertarianism today can accurately be reduced to little more than a paranoia of the ignorant, irrational masses taking matters into their own hands via the ballot box.

Read the whole comment.

For me, the purpose of the ballot box is to enable a peaceful transfer of power and to provide a check against tyranny. It is not to express the will of the people. I suspect that the popular will is not very supportive of the Bill of Rights or individual liberty (surveys largely bear me out).

What libertarians want is that no elite should exercise strong governmental power. This libertarian desire is itself elitist, and it probably cannot survive the broadening of the franchise that took place gradually in the decades following the ratification of the relatively non-democratic Constitution.

Recall that as of 1790 hardly anyone in the U.S. could vote and Senators were elected by state legislatures. The President was to be determined by the electoral college, and some supporters of the Constitution expected that deadlock in the electoral college would be routine, throwing the selection of the President into the House of Representatives.

As things stand, a large chunk of the elite is anti-libertarian. A large chunk of the public is anti-elite, making the populists the enemy of my enemy. But I do not see populists as reliable friends. Libertarians have no reliable friends.

Alberto Mingardi writes,

Chris [Christopher DeMuth] seems to believe that nationalism is sort of a “natural” loyalty of people, which is being jeopardized by international institutions. But is it? Historically nationalism has competed, sometimes ferociously, with other loyalties, beginning with religion and the family (the two main targets of one of the favorite policies of nationalism: a national education system). I won’t argue against the idea that human beings are gregarious and need to belong to something. But that something is more often than not a club, an association, a football team, or a municipality. The nation is quite a remote object: in some countries, it represents a very strong element of identity; in some, it doesn’t. It is more often than not a (political) manufacture, not a spontaneous offspring. In this case, it typically grows by crowding out other loyalties: most notably, indeed, religion.

I have watched several videos from the National Conservatism Conference that was held in DC last month. For me, the most provocative talks were:

Paulina Neuding on how immigration is affecting Sweden.
Mary Eberstadt on social conservatism.
J.D. Vance on libertarianism

Both Eberstadt and Vance scapegoat libertarianism for the opioid crisis. MY thoughts:

1. I would like to see this case made more carefully. Specifically, which libertarian-influenced policies can be shown to have caused the crisis?

2. This reminds me of the way that the left blames the financial crisis of 2008 on “an atmosphere of deregulation” or “neoliberalism,” a narrative that I find unpersuasive. In fact, in the decades prior to 2008, regulations were promulgated with the intention of tightening the safety and soundness of banks. Risk-based capital regulations were a particular tool. The fact that these regulations did not work, and in fact had perverse effects, is an indictment of regulation, not of de-regulation.

And of course, there is also a counter-narrative on the opioid crisis. Jeffrey Miron and others write,

We instead suggest that the opioid epidemic has resulted from too many restrictions on prescribing, not too few. Rather than decreasing opioid overdose deaths, restrictions push users from prescription opioids toward diverted or illicit opioids, which increases the risk of overdose because consumers cannot easily assess drug potency or quality in underground markets. The implication of this “more restrictions, more deaths” explanation is that the United States should scale back restrictions on opioid prescribing, perhaps to the point of legalization.

I am not here to argue for this view. That is not the point of this post.

3. I am surprised to hear that libertarianism has been such a powerful force in American politics and society. I think our record is one of few victories, many defeats. The biggest win was that when the country was fed up with the Vietnam War, we got the draft abolished (but even now there are mumblings about “national service”). We teamed with progressives to legalize marijuana and gay marriage, in the latter case with help from the courts. But when it comes to government spending, unfunded liabilities, the expansion of the Administrative State, and the perversion of the principle of federalism, we have lost big time.

4. Libertarians already were thrown under the bus in the George W. Bush administration. No Child Left Behind. Expansion of Medicare to include prescription drugs. Nation-building. The whole “compassionate conservatism” motif.

5. I don’t think that what the Republican Party needs right now is a circular firing squad. Let the Democrats march under the banner of social justice, and Republicans could counter that with the principle of equality under the law. Let the Democrats champion socialism, and Republicans could counter by championing capitalism. Let the Democrats focus on America’s guilt as an oppressor, and Republicans could counter with a focus on the moral progress of America. Let the Democrats attempt to raise the status of non-traditional sexual identity, and let Republicans attempt to raise the status of grandparents.

Levin says that modern conservatism involves

skepticism of arrogant claims to knowledge and power, and makes us protective of those ways of living that have led prior generations not only closer to social peace and economic prosperity but closer to justice and to God. It also leads us to a reverence for community, for history, for culture, and to emphasize the importance of the preconditions for raising children.

On nationalism, Levin says

The nation is not best understood as one whole to be divided into parts but as the sum of various uneven, ancient, loveable elements. This has everything to do with Burke’s concern for national sentiment and love of country, and with his emphasis on national character. We are prepared for love of country by a love of home.

And concerning our current political temper, he says

Those with whom we disagree in our society are not our enemies; they are our neighbors. They are not out to do harm to our country; they differ with us about what would be good for it. To love our country is to love them too—even when they do not show us the same regard, even when they are illiberal and we have to quarrel with them in the public square.

He writes,

The second notion of identity is not so much a specification of kind as it is a specification of a relationship, and indeed a morally freighted relationship of a particular sort. Understood this way, identity is a concept with discernible religious overtones; it refers to an unpayable debt one kind owes another as a result of an unforgiveable [sic] wrong. It describes a relationship of transgressor and victim.

Later, writing about justice and mercy, he writes that the left

fixes exclusively on mercy–hence the impossibly expensive Green New Deal, the demand that there be free health insurance, or free college tuition, or socialism. . .[The] call for free stuff is the dreamy consequence of confusing supplements and substitutes, which will produce a political nightmare if implemented. There is no free stuff. There is only the mercy of the gift, which elicits thankfulness, or the distorted effort to eliminate the world of payment altogether, which prouces a soul that demands everything.

I would word this section differently. Instead of talking about justice vs. mercy, I would talk about earning vs. entitlement. It appears to me that young people on the left find the concept of earning to be somewhat foreign. Entitlement makes more intuitive sense to them. How much of this is Home Appiens, who takes YouTube and Facebook for granted, without having to earn them? If we are entitled to Google Maps, why aren’t we entitled to health care?

Read Mitchell’s entire piece. In my view, it has not without flaws. But some of his points are apt and very well made.

Whether you call it identity politics, multiculturalism, or the hard left, I think that its preeminence on college campuses exceeds its overall hold on intellectual life. Read Robby Soave’s book, or check out the Intellectual Dark Web on YouTube, or read Quillette, or read National Affairs. There are plenty of well-credentialed people who are not buying what the professors are selling. This is in addition to the not-so-well-credentialed people who may be even wiser still.

He writes,

I care more about having good feedback/learning/innovation processes. The main reason that I tend to be wary of government intervention is that it more often creates processes with low levels of adaptation and innovation regarding technology and individual preferences.

That is my view, also. Hanson concludes,

So when I try to design better social institutions, and to support the proposals of others, I’m less focused than many on assuring zero government invention, or on minimizing “coercion” however conceived, and more concerned to ensure healthy competition overall.

Think of all the ways that the American Founders tried to instill competition in American government: regular elections; Federalism; different branches of government.

But nobody likes to face competition. Over many decades, our government institutions have become less competitive and more concentrated. I made that point in the widely-unread Unchecked and Unbalanced, and I made suggestions for making government more competitive again.