What is the Conservative to make of all this?
The evidence of the civil society’s degradation cannot be ignored. A confluence of government policies, both long-standing and more recent, is transforming the nation in ways that threaten its survival. The Statist, of course, looks over the horizon and sees opportunity. The demographic changes he is importing and protecting empower him. The poor and uneducated enhance the Statist’s electoral and welfare-state constituency.
The Statist finds common ground with the neo-Statist, which is best exemplified by this statement by former Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp: “We are going to make sure that America is open to legal immigration because that is the wealth and the talent and the entrepreneurial skills for the 21st Century.”57 Of course, if legal immigration emphasized wealth, talent, and entrepreneurial skills, American society would be the better for it. Instead, it emphasizes birthright citizenship and chain migration and encourages illegal immigration, which have led to the current state of immigration anarchy.
Alexander Hamilton wrote that the well-being of society depends “essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment, on a uniformity of principles and habits, on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice, and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”58 He added, “In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all-important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.”59
For the Conservative, to say that America is a nation of immigrants and no more is to conflate society with immigration and treat them as equivalents. They are not. Immigration can contribute to the well-being of society, but it can also contribute to its demise. The social contract is a compact between and among Americans, not Americans and the world’s citizens. The American government governs by the consent of its citizens, not the consent of aliens and their governments. Moreover, American citizens are not interchangeable with all other citizens, American culture is not interchangeable with all other cultures, and the American government is not interchangeable with all other governments. The purpose of immigration policies must be to preserve and improve the American society.
It is all the more astounding, therefore, that the Statist and neo-Statist nearly succeeded in radically and permanently altering “the harmony of the ingredients” in American society when, in 2006, they proposed a so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA), which, according to the Heritage Foundation, would have not only granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, but would have allowed an estimated 103 million legal aliens to migrate to the United States over twenty years.60 How? The huge increase in the number of legal aliens and the grant of amnesty to illegal aliens, layered on top of chain migration and birthright citizenship, would have drastically and quickly increased the number of new legal immigrants and the nation’s overall population. Moreover, future efforts to limit immigration would have been extremely difficult because of the enormous electoral clout such a significant and largely unassimilated ethnic population would exercise. But CIRA’s defeat is likely temporary, since President Obama promises to sign it, or something like it, should it reach his desk.
The Statist has been accustomed to setting immigration policy without notice from the American people. But the people are now witnesses to the events and costs associated with the current state of immigration in their own communities. They have made clear they want some order brought to the chaos. The evidence and prudence guide the Conservative’s priorities, which include securing the borders to prevent not only illegal aliens from crossing into the United States, but criminals and terrorists as well; enforcing current immigration laws, including fining and prosecuting businesses that hire illegal aliens, deporting newly apprehended illegal aliens, and deporting aliens who overstay their visas; denying sanctuary cities federal funds for contributing to lawless behavior; English and assimilation promoted in all the nation’s institutions, not bilingualism and multiculturalism; limits on the number of aliens admitted into the country, to allow for workable assimilation; the denial of most social services to illegal aliens to deter their migration to the United States; repelling Mexico’s interference in the internal affairs of the nation; and the elimination of chain migration and birthright citizenship, which put the alien’s desires before society’s well-being.
As is his practice, the Statist engages in tactics intended to proscribe debate. Those who dissent from his immigration policies are often characterized as exclusionists, nativists, xenophobes, or even racists. The neo-Statist offers no alternative to the status quo and condemns the Conservative for not going along. He not only accommodates Balkanization but panders to it. But the good citizen contributes to the social cohesion of the civil society—for his own benefit and the benefit of that society. And he expects his government to do the same. The Conservative believes that to the extent immigration can be applied to that purpose, it is desirable. When it is not, it is destructive of those ends.
10
ON SELF-PRESERVATION
THE CONSERVATIVE BELIEVES THAT
the moral imperative of all public policy must be the preservation and improvement of American society. Similarly, the object of American foreign policy must be no different. The Founders recognized that America had to be strong politically, economically, culturally, and militarily to survive and thrive in a complex, ever-changing global environment not only in their time but for all time. History bears this out. After the Revolutionary War, the Founders realized that the Confederation was inadequate to conduct foreign affairs, since each state was free to act on its own. There could be no coherent national security policy, because there was no standing army and each state ultimately was responsible for its own defense. The nation’s economy was vulnerable to pirates who were terrorizing transatlantic shipping routes and thereby inhibiting trade and commerce. And the British and Spanish empires were looming threats.
The authority of the national government to raise and maintain a standing army and use military power within the framework of a republican system was among the first matters addressed by the Framers when they presented the finished Constitution to the states for ratification. After reviewing a litany of European interests and conflicts in North America, John Jay in “Federalist 4” wrote, “The people of America are aware that inducements to war may arise out of these circumstances, as well as from others not so obvious at present, and that whenever such inducements may find fit time and opportunity for operation, pretenses to color and justify them will not be wanting. Wisely, therefore, do they consider union and a good national government as necessary to put and keep them in such a situation as, instead of inviting war, will tend to repress and discourage it. The situation consists in the best possible state of defense, and necessarily depends on the government, the arms, and the resources of the country.”1 Indeed, one of the stated purposes of the Constitution is “to provide for the common defence.”2
The Framers understood the complementary purposes of domestic and foreign policy. George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796 is often misunderstood as a proclamation of isolationism. This ignores its historical context. At the time, Washington was concerned with the very survival of the young nation. The address is a call for prudence—not only in dealings and relationships with foreign states, but in issues that threaten national unity.
In his address, Washington warned against the influences of popular passions on establishing permanent and overarching allegiances to, or prejudices against, any foreign power. He issued his warning because the American public was deeply divided in its sentiments relating to the European powers that were at war. The nascent political parties, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists (or Democratic-Republicans), were coalescing around support for different countries—the Federalists for Britain, the Anti-Federalists for France. Throughout his presidency, Washington tried to steer a course of strict n
eutrality between the two countries while promoting commercial relationships and vigorous trade with both sides in the conflict.3 The address makes clear he did so not because neutrality was an end in itself, but because he feared that taking sides could split the country apart.4
Washington also believed that the nation’s survival required a strong national defense. In his first annual message to Congress, on January 8, 1790, barely eight months after taking office, Washington said, “Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention, that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”5 In his fifth annual message, on December 3, 1793, Washington offered a stronger, more substantial elaboration of this principle: “There is a rank due to the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.”6
But few knew better than Washington that America must establish alliances that have as their purpose the protection and well-being of the nation. Without the crucial material aid and military support of France (and other nations), the decisive Battle of Yorktown and perhaps the Revolutionary War itself might have been lost. Washington was neither an isolationist nor an interventionist. Yes, Washington was skeptical of alliances, but when in America’s best interests, he made them. Washington preferred diplomacy to war, but he knew war was sometimes unavoidable. By word and deed, as general, president, and statesman, Washington spent his public life pursuing the preservation and improvement of American society. Washington’s example is thus flexibility in means to achieve the immutable end: national security.
Agreeing with Washington, Claremont Institute senior fellow and University of Dallas professor Thomas West writes, “For the Founders, foreign and domestic policy were supposed to serve the same end: the security of the people in their person and property. Therefore, foreign policy was conceived primarily as defensive. Foreign attack was to be deterred by having strong arms or repulsed by force. Alliances were to be entered into with the understanding that a self-governing nation must keep itself aloof from the quarrels of other nations, except as needed for national defense. Government had no right to spend the taxes or lives of its own citizens to spread democracy to other nations or to engage in enterprises aiming at imperialistic hegemony.”7
West would also agree, however, that a defensive foreign policy does not exclude the necessity of preemptive action. In 1787, James Wilson, a prominent Founder, rejected the argument that America had to wait until attacked to exercise military power and mocked the proponents of this notion: “Whatever may be the provocation, however important the object in view, and however necessary dispatch and secrecy may be, still the declaration must precede the preparation, and the enemy will be informed of your intentions, not only before you are equipped for an attack, but even before you are fortified for a defense. The consequence is too obvious to require any further delineation.”8 Of course, there are occasions when America has suffered grievously, including on 9/11, for failing to act preemptively. Moreover, in the age of rogue regimes pursuing nuclear weapons, there clearly are occasions when preemption is prudent. For a government to be irresolute in the face of a growing or imminent threat to its citizenry is suicidal.
What of the notion of spreading democracy to other nations, which in one form or another appears to be part of the strategy of recent administrations of both political parties?
In 2005, columnist George Will put the question to William F. Buckley, Jr., asking about the war in Iraq.
WILL: Today, we have a very different kind of foreign policy…. And the premise of the Bush Doctrine is that America must spread democracy because our national security depends upon it. And America can spread democracy. It knows how. It can engage in nation building. This is conservative or not?
BUCKLEY: It’s not at all conservative. It’s anything but conservative. It’s not conservative at all inasmuch as conservatism doesn’t invite unnecessary challenges. It insists on coming to terms with the world as it is, and the notion that merely by affirming these high ideals we can affect highly entrenched systems.
WILL: But something odd is happening in conservatism. And we have a president [George W. Bush] and an administration that clearly is conservative, accepted as that, yet it is nation-building in the Middle East. And conservatism seems to be saying government can’t run Amtrak but it can run the Middle East….
BUCKLEY: The ambition of conservatism…properly extends to saying [that] where there are no human rights, it’s not a society I can truly respect. It’s impossible to draw up a template that gives us an orderly sense of “send democracy there,” but let this go for a while. One recognizes that you can’t export democracy everywhere simultaneously.9
Certainly America cannot export democracy everywhere simultaneously, nor should it attempt to. For one thing, it is impractical. There are cultures and regimes that are not receptive to such overtures. Furthermore, the loss of American lives and the enormous financial costs in chasing such unrealistic ends would threaten the preservation and improvement of American society. It would demoralize the population and desensitize it to real threats that endanger the society.
However, there are occasions when democracy building is prudent. The European Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan of 1948, had among its purposes the promotion and preservation of democracy through the provision of billions of dollars in economic and military aid to several European nations defeated in World War II. Among other things, it would and did help repel the spread of Soviet communism through what remained of free Europe, which was clearly in America’s interests. More recently, while democracy may not take hold in Afghanistan for the long term, it is still a perfectly sound objective, given the vacuum that was filled by the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s defeat in that country and America’s subsequent disassociation. The key is that these decisions must never be motivated by utopianism or imperialism but by actual circumstances requiring the defense of America against real threats.
As for Iraq, the Will-Buckley exchange suggests their opposition to the war was a larger criticism of a perceived doctrine requiring the imposition of democracy worldwide—although Will has also called Iraq a “war of choice.”10 America has engaged in wars of choice in the past, including during the nineteenth century, when, under the banner of Manifest Destiny, the United States government increased American territory by military threat and force to include the Southwest, West, and Pacific Northwest. The expansion of the nation’s contiguous borders has undoubtedly improved American society. While America may have felt threatened from Britain, Mexico, and other countries that controlled these territories, the fact is that the nation was intent on expansion.
If the war in Iraq is understood as an effort to defeat a hostile regime that threatened both America’s allies and interests in the region, the war and the subsequent attempt at democratic governance in that country can be justified as consistent with founding and conservative principles. Indeed, since the Will-Buckley exchange, when victory in Iraq appeared elusive to some, changes in military and political strategies dramatically improved the situation. Of course, Iraq is not necessarily a model for future engagements but nor can it be easily dismissed as unreasonable and imprudent. Saddam’s Iraq had a history of aggressive behavior against America’s ally Kuwait (and threatened Saudi Arabia) and had actively pursued nuclear weapons (such as Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, destroyed by Israel in 1981). The United States and its allies no longer face the prospect of a nuclear Iraq under the control of a megalomaniac. For now, at least, it is one less destabilizing threat to American interests.
Conversely, America has, will, and must make alliances with nondemocratic regimes and even former enemies i
f, under the right circumstances, doing so preserves and improves American society. During World War II, the United States allied with the Soviet Union in order to defeat the Axis powers, including Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was a genocidal, imperialistic regime. But America’s survival was at stake. And, in fact, the alliance did preserve the nation. Subsequent to World War II, the Soviet Union was America’s greatest threat. When President Jimmy Carter based his foreign policy on advancing human rights worldwide, it not only led to Soviet expansionism in Afghanistan, Africa, and Latin America, but also toppled the Shah of Iran—a longtime American ally—and catalyzed the Islamic fundamentalist movement throughout the Middle East. Today the Soviet Union does not exist (although Russia remains a threat) but the Islamic regime in Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and is the single most destabilizing force in the Middle East. The doctrinal rather than prudential promotion of “democracy” or “human rights,” as practiced by Carter, can be destructive of America’s best interests.
The Conservative believes that unalienable rights attach to all human beings, but it is not necessarily the responsibility of the United States to enforce those rights. How can it be? However, he also believes that there are times when evil perpetrated by a regime is so horrific that to ignore it tears at the moral core of American civil society. Although there can be no single doctrine that defines the elements of action or inaction in every case, once again prudence must dictate if and when the cost of American lives and treasure is worth intervention on these grounds.