May 28, 2003

Dear Fellow Conservative:

I have been amazed that a little memo from a simple professor--who credits his involvement in the conservative movement back to the earliest days of National Review in New York when Buckley, Meyer, Kirk, Kendall, Bozell and other brilliant conservative intellectuals were inventing modern conservatism--could have caused such a widespread reaction. Very many people obviously have identified with its message that mainstream, intellectual conservatism needs a shot in the arm if it is to escape irrelevance, as represented by the hundreds of supportive individual e-mails I have received on the subject, including a score from major conservative leaders. I thank you all for your time and thoughtful responses.

A few people disagreed with the memo, which is their prerogative, so I have been encouraged to respond to them. Rush Limbaugh complained on the air, thinking that he was being criticized for being insufficiently conservative, when the only entities mentioned at all in the memo were opinion magazines. My comments were directed towards the so-called conservative journals of opinion in the New York/Washington area that shape what he marginalizes as "Beltway" policy. Rush's mass audience and he himself are important in upholding true conservative principles of limited government but decision-makers in Washington, for better or worse, rely mostly on journals for their ideas.

One opinion magazine that was indeed criticized in the memo-because it was so important in my own development--unfortunately proved my case in its response. National Review could not comprehend the most important modern insight about government, made by modern conservatism's icon and Nobel laureate, F.A. Hayek. He recognized that the principle reason for the ultimate failure of national central planning was the inability of the government to process widely disbursed, localized and situation-specific information effectively in complex social settings. The magazine could not understand why that limitation would also apply to the U.S. trying to administer a world empire.

Dropping bombs is simple but the fog of post-war administration is just as subject to the law of unintended consequences as price controls, if not more so, especially on a worldwide scale. Ludwig von Mises explained it very simply in his little book, "Bureaucracy." National Review disingenuously countered that it had not called for the occupation of Syria (which my memo did not even mention) when the issue is how long should the U.S. administer Iraq (and, maybe Iran), for months or for Bill Kristol's gutsy, if wrong, preference for a 20 year occupation, about which National Review has yet to take a stand.

On the domestic side, NR claimed that its current editor had not meant to praise the British journal, The Economist, for its middle of the road ideology but for "the quality of the writing." But my concern in the memo about National Review on domestic matters was not its content-I said it deserved "credit" for its positions-but for its lack of passion about matters of limited government. To wit, NR's current issue has 20 editorials, only 3 of which even cover domestic policy. The first one does not appear until item five, regarding the president's tax cut. Its editors write, "Our view is that the priority of the dealmakers should be to enact the most pro-growth tax bill possible" and that the cuts should be "temporary" [that is, use dishonest scoring] if necessary to retain the good provisions (which did not include the reduction of the capital gains tax, the most pro-growth measure). Very Economist-reasonable, to do what is "possible." But why should conservative opinion writers allow policy to be left to the shady "dealmakers"?

My sense is that we have drifted away from our first principles and we had better reclaim them before it is too late. Obviously, many other conservatives share my concerns. They are unwilling to concede that an intelligent passion for American mainstream conservatism cannot be inscribed upon paper in a serious journal of opinion. The original National Review and conservative movement were all about defending the first principles of ordered liberty, limited government, traditional values and adherence to the Constitutional principles of the Founders. This did not include becoming foreign policy imperialists or domestic dealmakers.

Real conservatives need to raise a higher standard with bold colors, as Ronald Reagan so wisely put it.

Sincerely,

Donald Devine