What Is It We Conserve Again?

The world at large seems to have an inaccurate definition, at best, of the word conservative. They would say conservative means unwilling to change, stodgy, boring, stuck in the past, overly careful. And in the political world, the way the media (aligned with Democrats/ liberals/ progressives/ socialists) defines conservative as racist, bigoted, jingoistic, stingy, as well as unwilling to change, etc.

It’s always better to define your own terms, rather than to have enemies define who you are.

Back in October I wrote a piece called “What We Conserve.” I said then that I’d like to ask presidential candidates, “Are you conservative—and, if so, what is it you want to conserve?” In Saturday’s Republican debate in New Hampshire there was a question that came close, asked of three candidates in different forms. So I’d like to take a look at how they answered, and then compare to the standard I was looking for. (I’m editing Kasich for length, but trying not to cut anything essential to the meaning. You can get the entire transcript here.)

The moderator here is ABC’s David Muir. He asks John Kasich first:

MUIR: We’re going to turn now to what it means to be a conservative, and I want to turn to Governor Kasich.

Governor, while campaigning here in New Hampshire, you were already asked about groans from some conservatives after your endorsements from the New York Times, and the Boston Globe. You said, quote, “What conservatives have to know is they have to say, look isn’t it nice to have a conservative like me liked? And, maybe they ought to think about it because if I get elected president, the Republican party and the definition of conservatism is going to change.”

How would you change conservatism?

KASICH: Well, first of all, look. As the New York Times said, he’s certainly not a moderate, but he can bring people together to solve problems. The fact of the matter is I’ve cut taxes more than anybody in the country this year. I have balanced budgets, the federal budget, the state of Ohio budget…

But, here’s the beauty of it, it’s not just balancing a budget, it’s about jobs….

We have to have economic growth, but once we have economic growth I believe we have to reach out to people who live in the shadows. I believe we need to help the mentally ill, the drug addicted, the working poor. We need to help the developmentally disabled to rise, and we need to help our friends in the minority community develop entrepreneurship.

In other words, in America, conservatism should mean not only that some rise with conservative principles, but everybody has a chance to rise regardless of who they are so they can live their God given purpose. That’s what conservatism should be.

OK, to summarize, conservatism means solving problems, cutting taxes, balancing budgets, jobs, economic growth, and then helping the disadvantaged to rise.

I don’t want to quibble over words, but conservatism might lead to those things, but it isn’t those things without a context of some philosophy.

Next David Muir turns to Donald Trump:

MUIR: Mr. Trump, you’ve heard the argument from many of the candidates on this stage that you’re not a true conservative. Tell the voters watching tonight why you are.

TRUMP: Well, I think I am, and to me, I view the word conservative as a derivative…of the word conserve. We want to conserve our money. We want to conserve our wealth. We want to conserve. We want to be smart. We want to be smart where we go, where we spend, how we spend. We want to conserve our country. We want to save our country. And we have people that have no idea how to do that and they are not doing it, and it’s a very important word and it’s something I believe in very, very strongly.

He does approach this as a word definition question. What we conserve is money, wealth. Conservatives are smart about spending, about economic issues. And we conserve, or save, our country, unlike the incompetents failing to do that now.

So, it’s a conservative approach to money, not defined, and saving our country, not defined. If this were a high school answer, I’d give it a B-. Not completely wrong or irrelevant, but very surface. If this were a college answer, I’d send it back for a rewrite, with some details, and more than just “conserve money and country” without showing anything concrete about what that might mean.

Next David Muir asks Marco Rubio to respond to Trump’s answer, which he uses it to give his own definition:

US Constitution
image from Wikipedia

MUIR: Senator Rubio, you have said yourself that you don’t think Donald Trump is running as a conservative. Did he convince you?

RUBIO: Well, I think conservatism is about three things and Donald touched on one of them, but it’s about three things.

The first is, conservatism is about limited government, especially at the federal level. The federal government is a limited government, limited by the Constitution, which delineates its powers. If it’s not in the Constitution, it does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to states, local communities, and the private sector.

It’s about free enterprise, which is an economic model that allows everyone to rise without pulling anyone down. The reason why free enterprise is the greatest economic model in the history of the world is because it’s the only economic model where you can make poor people richer without making rich people poor.

And it’s about a strong national defense. It’s about believing, unlike Barack Obama, that the world is a safer and a better place when America is the strongest military and the strongest nation on this planet. That’s conservatism.

I didn’t cut any of his words. When you only have a minute or two, you have to be concise, and he was. Three parts: limited government, free enterprise, and strong national defense. That is close to being the complete three-legged stool of conservatism, except that he separates out small government and strong security, along with free enterprise. Those three are considered the basics by many. But small government and strong security both apply to the Political Sphere. So what's missing is the social/civilization sphere—which Rubio in general is strong on. So although his answer misses that, he’s pretty  good.

I’m always looking for better, shorter, more direct ways to say things. So I was interested in an interview Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse did on MSNBC with Chuck Todd in late January. 

Here's the transcript:

CHUCK TODD: What is a conservative, in your view, today? Define conservatism in the 21^st Century, via Ben Sasse.

BEN SASSE: Thanks. That is a great question. America is the most exceptional nation in the history of the world, because the US Constitution is the best political document that’s ever been written. Because it says something different than almost any people and any government has believed in human history. Most governments in the past said might makes right, and the king has all the power, and the people are dependent subjects. And the American founders said, “No. God gives us rights by nature, and government is just our shared project to secure those rights.”

Government is not the author or source of our rights, and you don’t make America great again by giving more power to one guy in Washington, DC. You make America great again by recovering a constitutional republic where Washington is populated by people who are servant leaders, who want to return power to the people and to the communities. Because what’s great in America is the Rotary Club, it’s small businesses, it’s churches, it’s schools, it’s fire departments, and it’s little leagues across this country.

What makes America great is not some guy in Washington who says, “If I had more power I could fix it all unilaterally. That’s not the American tradition.

So, we conserve the Constitution. It’s about government preserving our God-given rights. To recover the Constitution, we need servant leaders. America is great because of good American people and local organizations.

He covers the political and social sphere, but the economic sphere only by inference. Still, in a brief minute he nails it. “Government is just our shared project to secure those rights” is a sentence worth memorizing.

I still take longer than a minute to get the ideas out. But here’s a review of what we conserve in each of the three spheres, from the October piece: 

     Political: If we’re going to conserve our liberties, that means government does nothing to infringe on our God-given rights….

If you’re listening to candidates, see if they have a commitment to conserving/restoring our Constitution, and can enumerate some of these limited duties of the proper role of government.

     Economic: There’s a simple way to prosperity: those who earn wealth get to decide how to spend it.

Government doesn’t have much business being involved in the economy, except to protect our property….

So, a conservative not only wants small, limited government, but limits spending to the proper role of government, leaving the largest portion of income to the people who earn it.

This conservative approach to the economy is the engine behind thriving prosperity and unlimited innovation. A conservative gets out of the way of a productive people, and does nothing more than protect the people’s wealth and their freedom to pursue their work.

     Social/Civilization: Civilization requires a people accountable to God. Such people value family, innocent human life, property rights, and truth. Such people respect one another and generally live together in peace despite differences in belief and culture….

A conservative leader recognizes that religion is… an essential institution helping us understand what our rights are, and what our obligations to one another are….

A conservative leader lives a life that shows commitment to family. Such a leader would have no sexual scandals coming up from the near or distant past. Such leaders would be so consistent that all those who know him/her would stand up to defend against such an accusation, because they would know such an accusation is inconceivable.

A conservative leader gives charitably, privately. He/she tithes (ten percent of income) plus more, regardless of income level.

A conservative leader is honest and consistent, so that his word is his bond, and everybody knows it. He doesn’t make behind-the-scenes deals in darkness. He doesn’t engage in crony capitalism, either receiving “bribes” or offering them. He’s not beholden to donors; anyone who would donate to him does it with the clear knowledge that as an elected official he will vote based on principle.

We can sum this up the same way we did in October:

The answer to what we conserve ought to include clear evidence of understanding of the Constitution and its purpose, strong commitment to the free market and property rights, and strong personal religious practice that values family and marriage, innocent life, and truth. And the answer must come naturally, as part of the basic vocabulary, because the person is a natural conservator of freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

Comparing Resumes, Part I

The Spherical Model is about the principles that lead to freedom, prosperity, and thriving civilization. There’s a political sphere to that. But I am not a political pundit. I have opinions, including opinions on candidates, based on how we best get to the goals, which are embodied in adherence to the US Constitution, free enterprise, and a righteous people with strong families.

Sometimes getting to the goal involves talking about candidates and elections. Getting it right this election year—this election primary, which is upon us—is critical for the survival of our civilization.

I’m not trying to be hyperbolic. Currently our leadership is sinking us fast into the tyranny zone. But for the capital we had built up through years of relative obedience to the principles in the Constitution, we would be as deep into tyranny as any European socialist nation, and possibly closer to various dictatorships. The goal to “transform America” was literal and purposeful. If you want to understand what “progressive” means in the political world, it is moving purposefully toward tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

The only way out is to stop and turn the country around. Northward, in Spherical Model terms.

It is not enough to elect someone who might not sink us as fast. We have to do everything right for a good long while. We have to restore. The difference right now is drastic. Just consider the difference between today’s Supreme Court, which ordered us to redefine marriage so that has nothing to do with permanency, exclusivity, and parenting biological offspring. We have a chance to get 2-4 more “progressive” activist justices or 2-4 Constitution-upholding justices. And the effects of these appointees will be with us for two or more decades.

We need a leader who understands and follows the Constitution. One who can identify our God-given rights and the role of government to protect them—and government’s limit to that role.

We need a leader who understands that any government spending beyond its limited role is money that would be better spent by the people who earned it. We need a leader who recognizes the power of a free market economy combined with a charitable people to bring on prosperity and lead everyone out of poverty.

We need a leader who lives a life of integrity. Someone honest, selfless, steadfast, and preferably really smart. We need him to understand and value family. He needs to be religious—so that he understands what “God-given rights” means.

Right now, a week or so before the Iowa caucus, the first circus of the season, the Republican Primary appears to be mainly a two-person race: Trump and Cruz. So I’d like to spend a couple of days comparing them to the rubric we conservatives have been carving in stone these past seven years.

Today I’ll recount Ted Cruz’s resume, and see if he qualifies. Next post I plan to see how Trump measures up.

Ted Cruz, interview with Glenn Beck in October

Ted Cruz—Born for Such a Time as This?

Last week I was listening to Glenn Beck radio; he is a Cruz supporter. He happened to say something like, “If you could get a candidate that was exactly the Constitutional person you want….” And then he went ahead and listed Cruz’s resume. I looked for the segment this week, but don’t remember which day it aired, so I didn’t find it. Finally I did an online search and found a piece written last August, which I am pretty sure Beck was reading from.

I’ve been familiar with Cruz's background—we covered a lot of it here in Texas when he ran for the Senate. And I’ve heard his father, Rafael Cruz, talk about his background as well. The resume starts after high school, so I’ll start with a recounting of the high school experience, which I wrote last February:

As Ted was entering high school, he was introduced to a leader of the American Enterprise Institute who got him reading classics. From there, Ted, in a group of five, formed what was called the Constitution Club. They memorized the Constitution. They toured the state, doing Rotary Club lunches and other forums. They would write the Constitution on several blackboards while people were eating. Then they would give speeches on free market economics.

A young Ted Cruz gave some 80 such speeches during his high school years.

Now, for the resume. As I said, I tracked it down to an article from August, by Young Conservatives editor John S. Roberts, which linked a piece from 2013, where the resume had appeared; Roberts has updated with Cruz’s efforts in the Senate:

§  Graduated valedictorian in 1988 from Second Baptist High School

§  Graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 1992

§  Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1995

§  1992 U.S. National Debate Champion representing Princeton

§  1995 World Debating Championship semi-finalist representing Harvard

§  Served as law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, making him the first Hispanic ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States

§  Served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008, making him the first Hispanic Solicitor General in Texas, the youngest Solicitor General in the entire country, and the longest tenure in Texas history

§  Partner at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice

§  Authored over 80 SCOTUS briefs and presented over 40 oral arguments before The Court

§  In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz assembled a coalition of 31 states in defense of the principle that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms

§  Presented oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

§  Defended the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds

§  Defended the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools

§  Defended the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States

§  Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission

§  Domestic Policy Advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush on the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign

§  Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation

§  Ted Cruz is currently junior US Senator from Texas, defeating Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst who was heavily favored and backed by the DC old-guard GOP

§  Defeated Democrat Paul Sadler in the general election

§  Endorsed by The Tea Party and the Republican Liberty Caucus

§  AWARDS: “America’s Leading Lawyers for Business,” Chambers USA (2009 & 2010); “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America,” National Law Journal (2008); “25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century,” Texas Lawyer (2010); “20 Young Hispanic Americans on the Rise,” Newsweek (1999); Traphagen Distinguished Alumnus, Harvard Law School

§  On November 14, 2012, Cruz was appointed vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee

§  Unlike Obama, Cruz didn’t sit in the U.S. Senate and vote “present.” He has sponsored 97 bills. Here are a few crucial pieces of legislation sponsored by Cruz:

§  ObamaCare Repeal Act

§  Prohibit use of drones from killing citizens of the United States within the United States

§  Disarm Criminals and Protect Communities Act

§  Firearm Straw Purchasing and Trafficking Prevention Act

§  Defund Obamacare Act of 2013

§  A bill to amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to permit States to require proof of citizenship for registration to vote in elections for Federal office

§  A bill to designate the United States courthouse located at 101 East Pecan Street in Sherman, Texas, as the Paul Brown United States Courthouse

§  A bill to require the Secretary of State to offer rewards of up to $5,000,000 for information regarding the attacks on the United States diplomatic mission at Benghazi, Libya, that began on September 11, 2012

§  State Marriage Defense Act of 2014

§  A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the intentional discrimination of a person or organization by an employee of the Internal Revenue Service

§  A bill to prohibit the Department of the Treasury from assigning tax statuses to organizations based on their political beliefs and activities

§  American Energy Renaissance Act of 2014

§  A bill to deny admission to the United States to any representative to the United Nations who has been found to have been engaged in espionage activities or a terrorist activity against the United States and poses a threat to United States national security interests

§  SuperPAC Elimination Act of 2014

§  Free All Speech Act of 2014

§  Guantanamo Bay Detainee Transfer Suspension Act of 2014

§  A bill to require the Secretary of State to offer rewards totaling up to $5,000,000 for information on the kidnapping and murder of Naftali Fraenkel, a dual United States-Israeli citizen, that began on June 12, 2014

§  A bill to prevent the expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program unlawfully created by Executive memorandum on August 15, 2012

§  Sanction Iran, Safeguard America Act of 2014

§  Expatriate Terrorists Act

§  Operation United Assistance Tax Exclusion Act of 2014

If you heard that he doesn’t play well with others, how do you explain the coalition building in his record? If you’ve heard that nobody likes him in the Senate, maybe you’re not asking the right people; maybe you’re listening to the one’s he’s standing up against (the entire Democrat party and a good portion of his own party)—which is what we elected him to do. We didn’t elect him to go make friends with the people who were failing us Americans.

One baffling complaint I’ve heard is that Cruz doesn’t sound genuine, or that he sounds like a preacher. If you think he’s not genuine, you haven’t done your homework. If you think he sounds like a preacher, and that’s offensive to you, maybe you need to recognize your own filter, turn it off, and listen again. What you’re hearing is articulate truth from a genuinely good man, who loves our country and sees clearly that the way to say America is to return to the brilliant, inspired Constitution, and also happens, not coincidentally, to love God.

You might not know that he has a special skill, like a photographic memory, only auditory, called an audiographic memory. He hears something, and he has perfect recall. So sometimes you’re hearing him say the same things again, with the same words, not because he has slickly memorized a script, but because he remembers how he last said it. Example: “If I’m elected president, let me tell you about my first day in office. The first thing I plan to do is to rescind every illegal and unconstitutional action taken by Barack Obama.” That was from the closing statement of the first debate in August. He says is again and again, on radio, in townhalls. He probably says it the same way in casual conversation. He means it.

Interestingly, it’s almost exactly what Marco Rubio is now saying. In last week’s debate Rubio said, “When I become president of the United States, on my first day in office we are going to repeal every single one of his unconstitutional executive orders.”  He has begun saying it in interviews and townhalls as well. I’m glad Rubio is saying it too; they all should say it and mean it, if they want to be our president. But maybe he ought to give a hat tip to Cruz, since some of us have pretty good memories too.

Trump isn’t saying it. He says executive order abuse is wrong generally, but he’ll use executive orders too, since Obama started it—only he’ll use them for better purposes. And stuff.

Someday we’ll do fuller coverage of Cruz’s religious belief, which I believe is genuine. For now I’ll just link to this video telling the story of his faith: here.

In part II we’ll take a closer look at Donald Trump.

Conserving

Conserve: to keep from being damaged, lost, or wasted; save.[i]

Conservative is one of those words I use fairly frequently, even in reference to myself. I’m talking about conserving the Constitution and it’s principles of freedom. I’m talking about living the principles that build wealth and spread prosperity, rather than waste or profligacy that lead to poverty. I’m talking about the principles that lead to civilization, away from savagery.

But I’m finding it doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.

I started thinking about this after I happened to hear a discussion on Glenn Beck radio last week. He and crew, Pat and Stu, were talking about the Republican candidates (including those not yet officially in the race) and what factions of the party those individuals could satisfy.

Beck is libertarian (which I am not quite), so I shouldn’t expect the same point of view I have, but we agree on so many things, I forget there are differences. But he described the “conservatives” in the party as something other than I would understand.

The discussion followed an interview with Gov. Rick Perry, prior to his announcing a campaign a week or so from now. It was in that interview that Perry recalled a meeting with the president in which he mentioned that National Guard being kept 50 miles from the border wasn’t close enough—and the president turned to Valarie Jarrett and asked if that was the case, because he didn’t know where he had stationed troops. Anyway, that was May 20^th, if you have the ability to go hear it.[ii]

After the interview, Glenn and team started discussing the various candidates, and how they attract the various segments of the Republican party. Glenn asserts that there are four boxes:

GB: So, what it is, in one box, you have to have the GOP. That is the one with the most number in it. Establishment. People who just pull the lever for the Republican, no matter who the Republican is. So there are four boxes: one is GOP; one is conservative; one is religious; one is Tea Party/libertarian.

And then Stu asks for a better definition, which gets to the part that I’ve been thinking about:

Stu: Can you explain the distinction, in this particular scenario, what conservative is? Would you say it’s more like a hawkish...?

GB: Fiscal conservative, yeah, hawk. You know, somebody who is…

Stu: What differentiates it from Tea Party?

GB: Um..

Stu: Hawkishness?

GB: No. I would say Tea Party is more small government.

At this point they have some discussion about Reagan, that he was conservative, but he wasn’t small government. I took issue with it. Their examples were the border—which was supposed to be the one-time amnesty combined with closing the border, so that the issue would be gone forever. But, since the border wasn’t closed, that amnesty was the example to prevent us from ever giving in again. A learning opportunity. Knowing what we know now, would Reagan today offer amnesty? I don’t think so.

And the other example was that Reagan didn’t get rid of the Department of Education, and the Tea Party/libertarians want to. But they forget—Reagan wanted to; he tried. But he was working with a Democrat Senate and House the whole time he was in office. The measure of whether he was conservative would be, did he do the most conservative things he could get done (like lower taxes, which boosted the economy big time)? And what would he have tried to do with a willing Congress?

And I don’t really relate to the term “hawkish.” Reagan was able to end the Cold War without conventional warfare—because he was willing to fight if needed, and he stood firm. What a concept!

In the end of their discussion of candidates, they decided that two candidates—who are leading in Glenn Beck’s monthly online poll (so, not scientific, but gives you a sense of what his listeners believe)—each fill three of the four boxes. Gov. Scott Walker has the GOP establishment box, the conservative box, and the Tea Party/libertarian box. And Ted Cruz has the conservative box, the religious box, and the Tea Party/libertarian box—but he’s missing the biggest box, the GOP establishment. Which, if you define the bigness of the GOP as “People who just pull the lever for the Republican, no matter who the Republican is,” is irrelevant, because whoever gets the nomination will get those people. What’s really at stake is the fundraising and support of establishment politicians and their supporters. By the way, here in Texas, the GOP loves Ted Cruz; he ran away with the straw poll at the state GOP convention last June.

I understand that it’s a game to measure candidates with these four boxes. But it’s imperfect. I’m a Republican precinct chair, as several members of our local Tea Party are, and I’ve tried to do my civic duty all along. Many Tea Partiers awoke in 2010, when Obamacare got pushed through. I was already awake. Tea Partiers at that point began educating themselves—with more training on the Constitution among regular non-student adults than I’ve ever seen. Maybe more than have studied it on their own since the founding. So Tea Partiers are for small government—because the Constitution is about limited government. So I’m a conservative, religious, Tea Party, GOP-er. Hmm. And I don't think I'm all that rare.

What is a conservative if not for small government, as enumerated in the Constitution? It’s hard for me to picture conservatism without all four boxes—with the possible exception of GOP establishment, although conservatives are totally willing to reform an imperfect party that at least has potential.

The Political Sphere
of the Spherical Model

This is where the Spherical Model helps. We don’t need to separate out into local or big government Republicans; the questions that get us to the freedom zone are about the proper role of government and about the proper level (lowest, most local level possible) for any particular issue.

And the economic question is not whether we are pro-business or not; you can’t be a fiscal conservative unless you’re in favor of freeing up the free market. That’s beats crony capitalism or centrally controlled socialist economies every time. A conservative conserves the principles of the free market—which might at times require radical change from the status quo of regulatory tyranny.

People who claim to be fiscally but not socially conservative are not deep thinkers; they cannot get prosperity without civilized people making it possible. Sure, we’ll welcome their vote, but they’re not the leaders toward the world we want.

So then, the social question is, simply: Do you favor civilization or savagery? We know what gets to civilization. A religious people are required, because no one else will self-rule. We self-rule because we live God’s laws, which are higher than our own personal, changeable sense of ethics. God grants us our rights, so without God, the tyrannical leaders grant or take away “rights” at their whim. And our laws reflect our own willingness to live the Ten Commandments: honor and protect family, respect private property, be honest, don’t murder. Without these basics, it really doesn’t matter what you think about race, gender, climate, or some other pet virtue.

You can’t know what good is, if you don’t know who God is; He defines good.

It would be nice to have a better word than “conservative.” I looked up synonyms in a thesaurus, and that was disheartening: cautious, conventional, die-hard, establishmentarian, guarded, hidebound, middle-of-the-road, moderate, quiet, reactionary, right-wing, sober, Tory, traditional, unexaggerated, unprogressive, verkrampte.

I did a Google Translate on that last one; it means cramped. I tried translating “conservative” into German, and it gave me a much kinder cognate: konsesrvativ. Plus some other adjectives that mean essentially, cautious, careful, wary, or prudent, which are at least better than cramped.

So, the thesaurus thinks conservative means something very uncool. I can live with uncool; I pretty much always have. But I don’t like inaccurate.

I could use the Spherical Model shorthand of north on the sphere—and I do. But until the world catches on to this new vocabulary, I will probably keep saying I’m a Constitutional, fiscal, and religious conservative.

I very much prefer the Webster’s definition for conserve, which I used at the top of this piece. I want to conserve our Constitution and the way of life it offers. I want to keep it from being damaged, lost, or wasted. I want to preserve—conserve—the highest freedom, prosperity, and civilization that we have obtained, or return to that pinnacle by repairing the decay we’ve experienced.

I don’t trust that a single elected official, even a president, can undo all the damage. But having someone who loves those things worth preserving is a start. And such a person could inspire many more to work on the challenging restoration. So I won’t be looking for a person who fits enough boxes to win an election; I’ll be looking for a person who understands what’s at stake and loves freedom, prosperity, and civilization as much as I do.

---

[i] Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition © 1982.

[ii] Glenn Beck Radio, May 20, 2015, from 1:44:30 to about 1:58:00, available by subscription.

The Political Sphere Is Round

This is the last post for 2014, and I thought it might be a good time to re-introduce the Spherical Model. I’ve done this from time to time, since the blog title is obscure when you don’t know what it’s about. This is just an intro. For more full information, go to the SphericalModel.com website. And there’s also a best-of-the-blog collection, Part I, Part II, and Part III. But for now, here’s a first step.

_________________________

Back in 2004, during our homeschooling decade, I was looking for a way to explain political ideas. And I began to ask questions, like: Is there a better way of looking at political ideas than right or left?

Because there is nothing innately conservative about the right or innately liberal about the left. In fact, the directional terms come from the seating arrangement of European parliaments, in which conservatives favored retaining the monarchy while liberals were in favor of people’s power.

So the typical line model we use to describe political ideas as right and left is just a seating arrangement. Yet we’ve come to think of this line as a spectrum.

Political conversations tend to describe the far ends as extreme, assuming there’s some virtue in being balanced in the middle. And we refer to our nation as center right—just a little more conservative than exactly center.

But what are the extremes? Do we assume communism or socialism at the extreme left, and fascism at the extreme right?

That can’t be right, because communism and fascism are both totalitarian statist tyrannies, just slightly different flavors. Nazi means “national socialist party” and the communist Soviet Union’s name was Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

So if Nazism and communism aren’t diametric opposites, then what are the logical extremes?

How about total government control, or tyranny, versus total lack of government control, or anarchy?

That’s better. Then freedom is that perfect balance in the middle.

But wait; there’s a problem with this model too: It’s common in history for people suffering in anarchy to turn for relief to total government control—anything for security. But in this model, as a people move to the left, they have to pass through that balanced freedom section. You’d think that it would be very common for someone to stop and say, “Hey, this freedom is good. Let’s stop going leftward and stay here.” Yet that pretty much never happens. But going directly from chaos to state control is historically common.

Plus, notice that there’s not that much difference between the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of anarchy. Total government control means the state has all the power—the police, the military. The state can do what it wants, and the mere citizen is without any rights except what the state decides to grant.

Anarchy, on the other hand, means that power belongs to whoever is stronger and meaner than the next guy. If you threaten to beat people up (or kill them) if they don’t give you all their belongings, and you’re strong enough to mean it, then you have power. If someone else is stronger or better armed than you are, then you have to yield power to them.

In other words, anarchy, while less organized, is power in the hands of the strongest and best armed—just like a tyrannical government.

So maybe government tyranny and anarchic tyranny are pretty close to the same thing. When I show this, I use a ribbon, labeled at the ends, and fold it in half, so it looks something like this:

Tyranny and freedom are really the opposite extremes.

Not bad. But it puts all those different kinds of tyrannies in the same location, and maybe there are differences.

A simple line doesn’t give us the dimensions we need.

So, how about if we use three dimensions—a sphere? If we draw a line at the equator, we can separate freedom (northern hemisphere) from tyranny (southern hemisphere). And then we can draw a longitudinal dividing line, with more local interests in the western hemisphere and larger interests—from state to nation, to international, in the eastern hemisphere.

I call this the Spherical Model.

Political Sphere



Down in the south, you can see that one side of tyranny is the chaos of anarchy, and the other side is the totalitarian control of government tyranny. It’s easy to get from one to the other—which is what much of world history has shown us. You can have communism, socialism, and Nazism as separate patches in their quartersphere, based on how much control they exert on their people (southern direction), or how far they plan to expand (toward the eastward extreme of world domination).

Up north in the freedom zone, location is mostly a matter of whose interest. Free people don’t yield power to a governing authority beyond the appropriate interest. Families make their own decisions about the care, upbringing, and education of their children. Communities on up to cities and counties decide on local law enforcement and protection needs. States (or provinces) deal with their particular infrastructure and laws. Only very limited powers are granted to a nation—as are enumerated in the US Constitution. And that sovereignty would never yield to an international power, but would cooperate with other free sovereignties concerning international issues.

If we identify ideologies according to level of control exerted onto free people, and also their level of interest, we can identify location on the sphere. And that will tell us how close we are to thriving in the northern freedom zone.

Economic Sphere

We can use the spherical model again for economic ideas: the north will be the prosperity of free enterprise, and the south will be the poverty of controlled economy. Those differences have direct relationships with political ideologies, so we can overlay the economic sphere right over the political sphere and see how things interrelate.

Social Sphere

And what about social ideologies? Again, we can use the same sphere; the north will be civilization, and the south will be savagery.

In all three overlaying spheres, the question becomes, not which is better, left of right? But what are the principles of freedom, prosperity, and civilization? There’s no too far north extreme; there’s only getting north enough and doing what it takes to stay there, generation after generation, without southward slipping.

The political, economic, and social spheres all have their own set of principles for reaching true north. We can take on the economic and social spheres another day, but I’ve started with the political sphere because it’s the easiest to see as the alternative to the right/left model.

So, if we want to be north on the political sphere, there are some questions that let us know whether we’re heading in the right direction:

• Is the policy being debated something that an individual has the right to do, and therefore has the right to delegate to his/her government? For example, a person has the right to protect his own life and property. He can, therefore, combine resources with his neighbors and hire a government entity, such as a sheriff, to do that job for him. Similarly, the several states can combine to delegate the power of defending the nation to a national government entity. Conversely, a person does not have the right to take his neighbor’s excess grain production, for example, and bestow it on himself, because his neighbor was more prosperous in a particular season. He can, of course, ask his neighbor for charity, but he cannot coerce the neighbor to give. That would rightfully be considered theft. Therefore the person cannot delegate the redistribution of wealth to the government to do for him—that would place him too far south on the sphere.
• Does the policy infringe in any way on God-given natural rights, such as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights? Does the policy infringe on the free exercise of religion or try to establish a particular sect as a state religion? Is political speech hindered? Does the policy infringe on the right of citizens to bear arms? Does the policy constitute an illegal search or seizure? Does the policy deprive a person of life, liberty, or property when the person has not committed a crime for which that deprivation is the just sentence? Does the policy try to claim for government a power that was not specifically granted in the Constitution? etc. If the policy infringes on the God-given rights, then government cannot take that power without usurping power from the people—which is too far south on the sphere.
• Is the idea being debated a proper role of government: some aspect of protection (including national defense, protection from interstate crime, enabling international and interstate commerce, standardized weights and measures and currency to protect the value of wealth, the judiciary that guarantees the protective laws), as enumerated in the Constitution? If not, then accepting the idea is outside the Constitution—and is too far south on the sphere.
• Is the perspective appropriately local? It is important that any issue be handled at the most local level possible. Parents should decide the means, methods, and curriculum for educating their children, for example. An issue that affects a state should be handled at the state level, not the national level. National decisions should not be ceded to some international body. An inappropriate interest level is too far south on the sphere.

Next time someone suggests you are (or an idea is) far-right extreme, check to see whether their position is more accurately some level of southern statist tyranny. Missing the possibility of the entire northern hemisphere of freedom is common. Most of world history shows an oscillation between statist tyranny and anarchic tyranny, or from one statist tyranny to another. Change the discussion by changing the terms and then dealing with principles. Then move north to freedom.