Posted 4:19 PM by extinct

Libertarians, American Patriotism, and American Conservatism: An Early or Late July 4 Entry

This entry on the subject of libertarians, American patriotism, and American conservatism probably belongs on July 4 but this article from The American Prospect, which includes the near-ferocious skepticism of many of us libertarians to the Iraq venture and the direction of the Republican Party, encourages one to lay out one's thinking about the issues of conservatism, patriotism, and libertarianism without regard to particular occasions.

And just the other day, I think it all came together for me. What all came together? The answer to why many of us libertarians who can be so critical of our national policies, both foreign and domestic, and lately the Republican conservatives of certain stripes, nonetheless feel so strongly an enduring traditional patriotism, a natural pro-Americanism, and a lingering comfort and identity with the American Right.

It all comes together in this basic observation: that Americans' sense of identity and honor is rooted in what we libertarians esteem the most -- a sense of liberty. Recall that overplayed song – “I’m proud to be an American/ Where at least I know I’m free.” For all its jingoism, war context, and falsity on many issues, it reflects the authentic and sincere traditional in-bred American association of pride and honor with political freedom.

The failures of American liberty, from slavery to protective tariffs, from drug wars to Iraq wars, and the hypocrisy of the rhetoric of freedom, do not detract from the sincerity of our belief in freedom, and the many actual sacrifices and successes in trying to make it work.

The association of national honor and liberty also explains something else: why libertarians find a home on the American Right. Despite many radical and untraditional tendencies, non-anarchist American libertarians have a basic conservatism in the sense that they care about American national honor, because of its association with liberty.

Sincere caring about national honor is a ”right-wing” characteristic.

I may find myself in agreement with a Euro-lefty on the Iraq attack or other foreign overstretches, and some other things, but in the end, I like America. I like what the Euro (and American) lefty doesn’t like. I like our passion for private gun ownership, our disdain of government management of social wealth. I like technological modernity, I even like oil producers whatever the sins of the companies. I like the resistance to the idea that health care should be a national government program. I like it that tax cuts evoke favorable passion. I am ambivalent about capital punishment but I like that our society believe in holding individuals fully and equally accountable for the deprivation of others’ rights.

I like the fact that the rhetoric of liberating Iraq proves seductive to Americans, even if fundamentally wrong-headed in purpose and execution.

It is even a qualifiedly attractive feature that we care enough about liberty to be, from time to time, conspicuous hypocrites about it. Hypocrisy, the adage goes, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. I can celebrate that our national honor is such that it requires us to pay tribute not to just any social good, but to the most important virtue a political jurisdiction can possess: liberty. We Americans feel strong enough about it that we have to pay tribute to it even at those times it is irrelevant or we dishonor it, at home and abroad. (Operation "Iraqi Freedom", Operation "Enduring Freedom", the "free world" , etc.)

Patriotism, the love of our way or what our way should be, appeals to American libertarians because of our national sense of honor is rooted in liberty. Such an appeal not only affords us an identity but is also a virtuous call to vigilance.

With our national honor rightly placed, the call to hard work remains alive: to bring that libertarian sense of honor to fruition.