{"id":205,"date":"2011-08-18T20:39:48","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T00:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=205"},"modified":"2011-08-18T20:39:48","modified_gmt":"2011-08-19T00:39:48","slug":"mark-levin-ron-paul-and-conservatism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/08\/mark-levin-ron-paul-and-conservatism.html","title":{"rendered":"Mark Levin, Ron Paul, and Conservatism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Levin is a talk radio show host who, like his colleague and friend Sean Hannity, prides himself on being a \u201cReagan conservative.\u201d\u00a0 From as far as I can determine, it is with justice that he describes himself as such.\u00a0 The problem, however, is that a \u201cReagan conservative\u201d isn\u2019t a real conservative at all; for all practical purposes, \u201cReagan conservatism\u201d is just another name for neoconservatism.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

This is an attack against neither Ronald Reagan, \u201cReagan conservatives,\u201d nor neoconservatives.\u00a0 That Reagan never succeeded in eliminating a single government program, much less an agency, and that federal spending increased exponentially under his watch are just a couple of the considerations that some have invoked to argue, quite persuasively, that Reagan was not <\/em>a real conservative.\u00a0 At the very least, if he was a conservative, his presidency didn\u2019t prove to be all that successful as far as his conservatism was concerned.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

But Reagan aside, judging from the policy prescriptions endorsed by Levin and all self-avowed \u201cReagan conservatives,\u201d the verdict that \u201cReagan conservatism\u201d is evidently synonymous with neoconservatism is inescapable.\u00a0 Levin, for example, expresses zero regrets for having lent his enthusiastic, unqualified support behind George W. Bush\u2019s mission to transform the Middle East into a bastion of \u201cdemocracy\u201d via the Afghan and Iraq wars\u2014a project that, few people can now seriously deny, was fatally flawed in both conception and design.\u00a0 For that matter, Levin had been a virtually uncritical supporter of Bush\u2019s agenda generally, an agenda that no one remotely familiar with conservatism could honestly characterize in those terms.<\/p>\n

Why does all of this matter?\u00a0 Well, Levin, you see, is not too terribly fond of Ron Paul, and he spares no occasion to dismiss the Texan congressman as a crank.\u00a0 Recently, he reiterated his claim that Paul is neither \u201ca real conservative\u201d of any kind nor \u201cthe Father of the Tea Party.\u201d\u00a0 My objective here is to show that whether Levin\u2019s remarks on Paul\u2019s relationship to conservatism and the Tea Party are sound or not, given his commitment to precisely that vision of the world and concomitant style of governing against which traditional conservatives and Tea Partiers are now railing, he hasn\u2019t the authority to pass these sorts of judgments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To put it more simply, Levin<\/em> is the one who is not <\/em>a real conservative.\u00a0 And he certainly is not <\/em>a Tea Partier.\u00a0 If Levin was a real conservative or Tea Partier, he would have been outraged over the foreign and domestic policies of George W. Bush and his Republican-controlled congress. In the real world, though, Levin endorsed many of these policies.\u00a0 If Levin was a real conservative, he would have long ago recognized the irresolvable conflict between simultaneously championing \u201climited government,\u201d on the one hand and, on the other, an interminable \u201cWar on Terror,\u201d for the latter theoretically justifies every conceivable instance of government intervention both here and abroad.<\/p>\n

Ron Paul, though, has<\/em> steadfastly opposed the very same governmental activism that Levin has always supported\u2014and he did so before opposition to it became popular among Republicans.\u00a0 Paul was a Tea Party of one before the Tea Party movement emerged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As recently as 2008, many may recall the derision with which Ron Paul was met when he warned audiences and his colleagues about the impending economic crisis.\u00a0 He was roundly ridiculed when he sounded the alarm over the ruinous practices of the Federal Reserve, and mocked just as loudly when he remarked\u2014repeatedly\u2014upon our inability to sustain the stratospheric costs in treasure and blood exacted by our \u201cWar on Terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

The political tides have turned in just three years, and this is indeed a good thing.\u00a0 Yet in spite of the fact that time has vindicated Paul, and in spite of the fact that by every objective criteria\u2014fund raising, poll results, influence with \u201cindependents\u201d and \u201cmoderates\u201d\u2014Paul is a serious presidential candidate, his fellow Republicans and other \u201cReagan conservatives\u201d like Levin haven\u2019t so much as apologized for the unjust treatment to which they subjected him before circumstances proved that he was right and they were wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Far from admitting the error of their ways, they continue to treat Paul disrespectfully by suspending their negligence of his accomplishments just long enough to insult him.\u00a0 Coverage of this year\u2019s Ames Straw Poll is a classic instance of this tendency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Congresswoman Michelle Bachman just barely beat Paul for first place, and although Tim Pawlenty came in a distant third, there was scarcely a word mentioned on Fox News or in so-called \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio about Paul\u2019s high showing\u2014or about Paul at all. Bachman, in contrast, has been all of the talk and Pawlenty, who many of the same talking heads had just the previous week described as a \u201cformidable\u201d or \u201cappealing\u201d candidate, performed so poorly that he dropped out of the race altogether!\u00a0 Even Rick Santorum, who finished in the Amespoll behind <\/em>Pawlenty, received favorable mention by Chris Wallace the following day for his<\/em> showing.<\/p>\n

Mark Levin is no conservative.\u00a0 He is a neo<\/em>conservative.\u00a0 Yet his judgment of Paul is not, for this, necessarily incorrect.\u00a0 Philosophically speaking, Ron Paul is not <\/em>a conservative; he is a libertarian.\u00a0 <\/em>What is interesting, though, is that Walter Williams\u2014the black \u201cconservative\u201d economist who has been guest-hosting Rush Limbaugh\u2019s radio show for years\u2014is no less a libertarian than Paul. Not only do Williams and Paul subscribe to the same \u201cfirst principles\u201d\u2014the \u201cnatural rights\u201d philosophy of John Locke\u2014Williams has referred to Paul as his \u201cfriend,\u201d and he has stated on more than one occasion that if America\u2019s Founding Fathers could visit our time, Ron Paul would be one of a tiny handful of politicians with whom they would be able to identify.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

This is interesting for Limbaugh, a good friend of Levin\u2019s <\/em>who is widely recognized as \u201cthe King\u201d of \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio, not only is comfortable allowing the libertarian Williams to host his show; he mistakes this libertarian for a \u201cconservative.\u201d\u00a0 But if Williams\u2019 cause, regardless of its philosophical inspiration, is compatible with Limbaugh\u2019s \u201cconservative\u201d cause, then, because Williams and Paul hold virtually identical views, Paul\u2019s libertarian-inspired cause should be judged compatible with the cause of \u201climited government\u201d to which neoconservative establishment Republicans like Levin and Limbaugh routinely pay lip service. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, this is all going to be lost upon Levin. This isn\u2019t because he fails to grasp my logic; it is because he does not <\/em>care to grasp it.\u00a0 When Levin says of Paul that he is \u201cno kind of conservative,\u201d he is not drawing fine philosophical distinctions between Paul\u2019s metaphysical suppositions and those of the average Republican candidate; what he is saying is that Paul doesn\u2019t deserve to be a contender in this race, and possibly doesn\u2019t deserve to be a Republican at all.<\/p>\n

Yet if this is true, then Williams doesn\u2019t deserve to host Limbaugh\u2019s show or be affiliated with the GOP in any capacity.\u00a0 And if this <\/em>is correct, then Limbaugh doesn\u2019t deserve his reputation as the premiere \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio host, for if he really was a conservative, then he would never think of allowing a faux conservative like Williams within miles of his \u201cgolden EIB microphone.\u201d\u00a0 But if Limbaugh is no conservative, then neither are those\u2014like Levin\u2014who consider themselves ideologically kindred spirits with El Rushbo.<\/p>\n

Either by way of this line of reasoning or Levin\u2019s own record of supporting Big Government Republicanism, it is obvious that Levin is wrong about Paul and, truth be told, wrong about his own identity as a conservative. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Jack Kerwick,\u00a0Ph.D.<\/p>\n

originally published at The\u00a0New American\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Levin is a talk radio show host who, like his colleague and friend Sean Hannity, prides himself on being a \u201cReagan conservative.\u201d\u00a0 From as far as I can determine, it is with justice that he describes himself as such.\u00a0 The problem, however, is that a \u201cReagan conservative\u201d isn\u2019t a real conservative at all; for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMark Levin, Ron Paul, and Conservatism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mark Levin, Ron Paul, and Conservatism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mark Levin is a talk radio show host who, like his colleague and friend Sean Hannity, prides himself on being a \u201cReagan conservative.\u201d\u00a0 From as far as I can determine, it is with justice that he describes himself as such.\u00a0 The problem, however, is that a \u201cReagan conservative\u201d isn\u2019t a real conservative at all; 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