Poor Michael Gerson. The former speechwriter for George W. Bush writes about libertarianism more than any other major columnist. And yet, after at least six years of attacks, he still can’t grasp the concept. Take today’s column defending Rick Santorum against “anti-government activists.” I pointed out his error in calling libertarians “anti-government” in 2010:

Libertarians are not against all government. We are precisely “advocates of limited government.” Perhaps to the man who wrote the speeches in which a Republican president advocated a trillion dollars of new spending, the largest expansion of entitlements in 40 years, federal takeovers of education and marriage, presidential power to arrest and incarcerate American citizens without access to a lawyer or a judge, and two endless “nation-building” enterprises, the distinction between “limited government” and “anti-government” is hard to see. But it is real and important.

This time he includes me as his example of an “anti-government activist” and purports to quote my objection to Santorum:

David Boaz of the Cato Institute cites evidence implicating him in shocking ideological crimes, such as “promotion of prison ministries” and wanting to “expand colon cancer screenings for Medicare beneficiaries.”

The first quotation there is from Jonathan Rauch’s review of Santorum’s book, It Takes a Family, and the second is from a New York Times article on Santorum’s campaign brochure listing all the pork he’d brought home to Pennsylvanians. As for Rauch’s list of Santorum’s ideas for an activist federal government, here’s what I quoted:

In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, “Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of ‘Big Government’ conservatism.”

They sure will. A list of the government interventions that Santorum endorses includes national service, promotion of prison ministries, “individual development accounts,” publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, economic literacy programs in “every school in America” (his italics), and more. Lots more.

Out of that list Gerson picks “promotion of prison ministries” as a dismissal of my concerns. Some readers might well think that government sponsorship of Christianity in prisons is problematic enough. But others might think that you don’t have to be “anti-government” to oppose the three new government transfer programs that immediately follow the reference to prison ministries.

More importantly, though, Gerson ignores my main criticism of Santorum. In 749 words rebutting the libertarian criticism of Santorum, Gerson never actually names it. Here’s the core point that Gerson didn’t deign to address:

Santorum had already dismissed limited government in theory. Promoting his book, he told NPR in 2006:

One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

He declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against “this whole idea of personal autonomy, … this idea that people should be left alone.” And in this 2005 TV interview, you can hear these classic hits: “This is the mantra of the left: I have a right to do what I want to do” and “We have a whole culture that is focused on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness … and it is harming America.”

Does Gerson think that that is a good statement of American conservatism? Is that what he thinks the Republican party should stand for? If so, I invite him to say so — as Santorum does — instead of using a column in one of the nation’s most important newspapers to attack straw men.

At least he does understand that libertarianism is not conservatism but rather “is actually a species of classical liberalism, not conservatism — more directly traceable to John Stuart Mill than Edmund Burke or Alexis de Tocqueville. ” Also traceable to the American Founders and the Declaration of Independence. And he’ll find three selections from Tocqueville in The Libertarian Reader.

Gerson writes, “Oppressive, overreaching government undermines these value-shaping institutions.” And then he goes on to endorse social engineering in the tax code, the war on drugs, bans on “obscenity,” government transfers to charities and businesses, and by implication all the programs that Rauch noted in Santorum’s book.

So maybe the most important line in Gerson’s essay is the headline:

Rick Santorum and the return of compassionate conservatism

He’s saying that if you liked the Bush administration, you’ll like Santorum. But those of us who didn’t like, as I noted above, a trillion dollars of new spending, the largest expansion of entitlements in 40 years, federal takeovers of education and marriage, presidential power to arrest and incarcerate American citizens without access to a lawyer or a judge, and two endless “nation-building” enterprises will not want to repeat the experience.

Rick Santorum has declared himself against  “this whole idea of personal autonomy, … this idea that people should be left alone,” this fundamental American idea of the pursuit of happiness. What do conservatives not get about that?

Michael Gerson Just Can’t Get Enough of Libertarianism is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

With former senator Rick Santorum suddenly attracting attention in Iowa, it’s time to dig up some of our previous reporting on Santorum.

In 2006, as Santorum campaigned his way to an 18-point loss in his Senate reelection race, the New York Times reported that he…

…distributed a brochure this week as he worked a sweltering round of town hall meetings and Fourth of July parades: “Fifty Things You May Not Know About Rick Santorum.” It is filled with what he called meat and potatoes, like his work to expand colon cancer screenings for Medicare beneficiaries (No. 3), or to secure money for “America’s first ever coal to ultra-clean fuel plant” (No. 2)….

He said he wanted Pennsylvanians to think of him as a political heir to Alfonse M. D’Amato of New York, who was known as Senator Pothole for being acutely attuned to constituent needs.

So . . . the third-ranking Republican leader in the Senate wanted to be known as a porker, an earmarker, and Senator Pothole.

Santorum had already dismissed limited government in theory. Promoting his book, he told NPR in 2006:

One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

He declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against “this whole idea of personal autonomy, . . . this idea that people should be left alone.” And in this 2005 TV interview, you can hear these classic hits: “This is the mantra of the left: I have a right to do what I want to do” and “We have a whole culture that is focused on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness . . . and it is harming America.”

No wonder Jonathan Rauch wrote in 2005 that “America’s Anti-Reagan Isn’t Hillary Clinton. It’s Rick Santorum.” Rauch noted:

In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, “Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of ‘Big Government’ conservatism.”

They sure will. A list of the government interventions that Santorum endorses includes national service, promotion of prison ministries, “individual development accounts,” publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, economic literacy programs in “every school in America” (his italics), and more. Lots more.

Rauch concluded,

With It Takes a Family, Rick Santorum has served notice. The bold new challenge to the Goldwater-Reagan tradition in American politics comes not from the Left, but from the Right.

At least Santorum is right about one thing: sometimes the left and the right meet in the center. In this case the big-spending, intrusive, mommy-AND-daddy-state center. But he’s wrong that we’ve never had a firmly individualist society where people are “left alone, able to do whatever they want to do.”

It’s called America.

Rick Santorum v. Limited Government is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• Shifting America’s focus away from individual liberty is waging war on the future, not winning it.
• U.N. “authorization” is the Emperor’s new fig leaf for war with Libya.
• Why are we fighting Mexico’s drug war?
• David Boaz remembers Geraldine Ferraro, who helped advance the war against gender discrimination in politics.
• Chris Preble eulogizes the Weinberger/Powell doctrine against the backdrop of the Libyan war:

Tuesday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The health care debate has illuminated how little regard many members of Congress have for the U.S. Constitution.

First, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) said, “There ain’t no rules here… When the deal goes down … we make ‘em up as we go along.”

Then, House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI) claimed that the Constitution’s non-existent “Good and Welfare clause” grants Congress the power to compel Americans to purchase health insurance.

Now, Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) admits he doesn’t really care whether the Constitution grants Congress that power:

Off-camera: Where in the Constitution…

Rep. Hare: I don’t worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest.

Off-camera: [Laughter.] Jackpot, brother.

Rep. Hare: What I care more about — I care more about the people that are dying every day that don’t have health insurance.

Off-camera: You care more about that than the U.S. Constitution that you swore to uphold!

Rep. Hare: I believe that it says we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Now you tell me…

Off-camera: That’s the Declaration of Independence.

Rep. Hare: It doesn’t matter to me. Either one…

[Lots of childish sniping.]

Off-camera: Where in the Constitution does it give you the authority to…

Rep. Hare: I don’t know.  I don’t know.

Off-camera: That’s what I thought.

Of course, that doesn’t really capture how annoying both the congressman and his interrogators are.  So here’s the video:

Rep. Hare is channeling Chicken Little: because the sky is falling, we don’t have time to worry about the Constitution’s restraints on congressional power.  We all know how that story ends.  Indeed, true to the fable, there’s no convincing evidence that Rep. Hare’s solution would save the lives he thinks it would save, and it could even cost lives in the long run.  (Fun fact: Wikipedia reports that in early versions of the fable, Chicken Little is actually a hare.)

In addition to brushing up on their Chicken Little, Rep. Hare and his colleagues might want to rent A Man for All Seasons to remind themselves why it’s important to pay attention to what the law actually says:

Sir Thomas More: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Constitution, Schmonstitution — The Law Is What I Say It Is is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Scary news today from Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker: despite losing his reelection bid in 2006, former senator Rick Santorum is still thinking about running for president. He tells Parker that he represents the Ronald Reagan issue trinity: the economy, national security and social conservatism. And he’s the limited-government guy:

Both pro-life and pro-traditional family, Santorum is an irritant to many. But he insists that such labels oversimplify. Being pro-life and pro-family ultimately mean being pro-limited government.

When you have strong families and respect for life, he says, “the requirements of government are less. You can have lower taxes and limited government.”

But Santorum is no Reaganite when it comes to freedom and limited government. He told NPR in 2005:

One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

He declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against “this whole idea of personal autonomy, . . . this idea that people should be left alone.” Andrew Sullivan directed our attention to a television interview in which the senator from the home state of Benjamin Franklin and James Wilson denounced America’s Founding idea of “the pursuit of happiness.” If you watch the video, you can hear these classic hits: “This is the mantra of the left: I have a right to do what I want to do” and “We have a whole culture that is focused on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness . . . and it is harming America.”

Parker says that Santorum is “sometimes referred to as the conscience of Senate Republicans.” Really? By whom? Surely not by Reaganites, or by people who believe in limited government.

Rick Santorum and Limited Government? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Colleague Dan Mitchell sent me this heart-warming press release from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international government organization.

Tax collectors worldwide to co-operate in revenue-raising to offset fiscal deficits.

The sub-heading is “Tax Commissioners Worldwide Join Forces To Tackle Fiscal Challenges Posed By The Financial And Economic Crisis.”

Crazy me, but I thought the way to get out of the economic crisis was for businesses and entrepreneurs to start investing and hiring again. But no, the key is apparently to launch a global drive to drain more money from the damaged private sector and fatten up the coffers of bloated governments.

The chair of the OECD’s Forum on Tax Administration, Pravin Gorhan, helpfully points out in the press release: “Tax plays a fundamental role in development through mobilising revenue, promoting growth, reducing inequalities and reinforcing governments’ legitimacy, as well as achieving a fair sharing of the costs and benefits of globalisation.”

You don’t have to be a libertarian to see what a government-centric view these OECD officials have. Taxes promote growth? I don’t think so. And we don’t need to hear about “reinforcing governments’ legitimacy” from an unelected government body that has been far overreaching its authority to force policy changes on the democratically elected governments of lower-tax nations.

If you don’t think this sort of worldwide police effort jibes with the American ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you should contact your member of Congress because U.S. taxpayers pay one-fourth the budget of the Paris-based OECD.

Here Comes World Government is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog