Friday, April 01, 2005

Ryan Sager at it again; cracking up fusionism

It will be a long time coming, but the great conservative-libertarian crackup is beginning to tear away at that time tested coalition envisioned by Frank Meyer years agao. Ryan Sager observes:


... there's where the big shift has occurred -- where the fusion's grown cold: While libertarians still believe in their half of this equation, many religious conservatives are shedding their skepticism when it comes to the state.


While some libertarian types may have been upset with President Reagan's deficits, he was at least singing from their hymn book: Government is the problem, not the solution. George W. Bush on the other hand has never even gone to the trouble of aping a small-government posture. Instead, Bush has adopted one of Reagan's other famous lines, sans irony: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.


This represents a fundamental shift in the direction of the Republican Party and a threat to its traditional alliances. The shift is self-evident. Instead of being the party that tries to rein in entitlement spending, the Republican Party is now the party of the $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Instead of being the party that is opposed to even having a federal Department of Education, the Republican Party is now the party of extensive intrusion into local schoolhouses by Washington, D.C. And instead of being the party of the rule of law and state's rights, the Republican Party is now the party of Congressional intervention into the thoroughly adjudicated medical decisions of an individual family.


Now, to be clear: What's most disturbing to libertarians about all of this is not that the shift in the traditional alignment will hurt the Republican Party at the polls -- at least in the short term. What's disturbing is just how powerful the idea of a "God-and-government" coalition could be.

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