Redstate

S*** CIVILITY.

By Martin A. Knight Posted in Republicans — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Andrew Klavan's (author of Shotgun Alley, True Crime, Don't Say a Word) latest submission in the most recent edition (Spring 2007) of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal magazine is a very good read - though, to be completely honest, I am yet to come across an article in the City Journal that is not a very good read. The very first sentence of Klavan's column seems especially designed to annoy all the right (i.e. Left) people ...

The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don’t have to lie. I don’t have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don’t have to declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine. I don’t have to say that everyone’s special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions are a path to God. I don’t have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one ...

Of course, like everything, this candor has its price. A politics that depends on honesty will be, by nature, often impolite. Good manners and hypocrisy are intimately intertwined, and so conservatives, with their gimlet-eyed view of the world, are always susceptible to charges of incivility. It’s not really nice, you know, to describe things as they are.

Klavan is one of those rarest of creatures, a Conservative in the entertainment industry living in Southern California, surrounded by liberals on all sides. So whenever the subject turns to politics he is accustomed to gasps of horror, shock and disbelief, and the eventual shunning for his shocking breach of etiquette in expressing views that trespasses on any one of the Left's many taboo areas.

... because we’ve allowed leftists to define the language of political good manners — don’t say women are less scientific; don’t remark that black people bear the same responsibility for their actions as whites; don’t point out that the gunman was a Muslim, it’s not nice — the sort of person willing to speak the truth isn’t always the sort of person you want to be seen with.

For the purpose of this diary though, this was the salient point;

This, I believe, is the reason conservative politicians so often lose their nerve, why they back down in debate even when they’re clearly right. No one wants to be condemned as a brute ...

In place of "brute" think instead of those staples on the typical liberal's list of terms of endearment i.e. "racist," "sexist," "homophobe," "hater," etc. and all that other stuff those paragons of tolerance and open-mindedness on the Left regularly coo at anyone to the Right of them.

Either way, Klavan's attribution of conservative politicians' (read: Republican) cowardice to the fear of being seen as impolitic boors reminded me of a speech by another conservative, this one not an author or columnist but an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas. In February of 2001, Justice Thomas delivered the Francis Boyer Lecture at the American Enterprise Institute's Annual Dinner in Washington DC - it was titled "Be Not Afraid".

He pointed out the same thing that Klavan echoes six years later ...

None of us should be uncivil in our manner as we debate issues of consequence. No matter how difficult it is, good manners should be routine. However, in the effort to be civil in conduct, many who know better actually dilute firmly held views to avoid appearing "judgmental." They curb their tongues not only in form but also in substance. The insistence on civility in the form of our debates has the perverse effect of cannibalizing our principles, the very essence of a civil society.

Klavan's article, on somewhat the same subject, six years later, ends;

Still, mannerly as we would rather be, truth-telling continues to be both compelling and ultimately satisfying. There is, after all, something greater than courtesy. “Firmness in the right,” Lincoln called it, “as God gives us to see the right.” We find ourselves at a precarious moment in an endeavor of great importance: namely, the preservation of Western rationalism and liberty. It does mankind no good to allow so magnificent an enterprise to slip away merely for fear of saying the wrong thing.

Justice Thomas put it in somewhat similar terms:

We must not allow our desire to be decent and well-mannered people to overwhelm the substance of our principles or our determination to fight for their success.

The thing is that while Andrew Klavan was talking about the Right's mistake in giving the Left free rein in deciding what is within the precepts of decency and civility in public life, and that it is often necessary to violate these strictures in service of a higher principle, Justice Thomas' 2001 remarks also focused on standing fast in the face of the torrents of criticism and calumny that would surely follow from the usual suspects.

... it is my humble opinion that finding the right answer is often the least difficult problem. Having the courage to assert that answer and stand firm in the face of the constant winds of protest and criticism is often much more difficult.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 78, "It would require an uncommon portion of fortitude in the judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of the constitution, where legislative invasions of it had been instigated by the major voice of the community." This point is rarely stressed enough.

The trait that Hamilton singles out — fortitude — is fundamental to my philosophy of life, both as a judge and, more fundamentally, as a citizen of this great nation.

Expecting an "uncommon portion" of fortitude from elected officials is more likely than not to result in disappointment, but the fact of the matter is, especially for us Republicans, this type of courage is just as needed in the folks we elect to the Legislative and Executive branches as it is in the nation's judges. Far too often, we find Republicans in elected office shying away from strongly defending and advocating the positions on the issues that they campaigned on, all in order to avoid causing offense to their Democratic counterparts or some liberal organization that makes some claim to moral authority on an issue.

Thomas identifies an "overemphasis on civility" as being a major cause of this lack of fortitude in our elected officials. And because the Left, largely through their friends in the Press, has been given free rein in defining what is within and without the bounds of civil discourse in the nation's politics, conservative politicians tend to silence themselves or fail to respond effectively to liberal arguments and name-calling.

According to the Left, it is not civil, in fact it is downright rude, to be opposed to racial preferences, to gay marriage, to tax hikes, to gun control, to continued government expansion into all aspects of American life, etc. They refuse to argue on the merits of your proposition because it is (always) supposedly racist, sexist and homophobic. And, unfortunately, a lot of people on the Right have bought on to this. You find Republicans accused of racism by someone like Jesse Jackson responding with statements that praise him for his valuable "work" and laud him for his "sincerity."

... by yielding to a false form of "civility," we sometimes allow our critics to intimidate us. As I have said, active citizens are often subjected to truly vile attacks; they are branded as mean-spirited, racist, Uncle Tom, homophobic, sexist, etc. To this we often respond (if not succumb), so as not to be constantly fighting, by trying to be tolerant and nonjudgmental — i.e., we censor ourselves.

I think this "overemphasis on civility" is at the heart of the current deification of "moderation" and "bipartisanship" in today's politics. Republicans consistently failed to push through conservative legislation in the past six years even with majorities not because the arguments for them were unsound but because a significant portion of the caucus in both Houses (and the President in the White House) were too busy being solicitous of the other side even when it was obvious that the Democrats were not acting in good faith. What concerned far too many Republicans was preserving their image as "bipartisan" and "moderate", being polite - so much so that they elevated it above the pursuit of their agenda.

Witness Denny Hastert leaping to the defense of William Jefferson even while he knew that the Democrats were running their campaign on the fiction that corruption in Congress was a strictly Republican trait. Witness John Warner's continued slavish devotion to Senate "comity" even as Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy are openly making the entire notion a joke. Worse, witness George W. Bush's continued steadfast refusal to forcefully counter the Democrats' frankly ahistorical accusations that he misled the nation to war and sacrificed the lives of over three thousand of America's servicemen and women for some reason other than what he and the vast majority of Democrats agreed on and voted for.

Like I've said before, I continue to find better and more convincing arguments in favor of, and in defense of, the President's policies (and conservative policies in general) written by anonymous posters/commenters on the Internet that I have ever seen on the official websites or heard from the mouths of Republicans in both Congress and the White House. And these are arguments that will not only be convincing to committed Republicans but to those people in the middle whose votes we need to win a governing majority.

And the reason why we do not see these arguments, and instead find pale diluted versions of them or silence, is that they are not "civil" - they are hard hitting, they criticize, they expose, they offend. They annoy the wrong (i.e. right) people, and so we find Republican politicians appealing for "bipartisanship" when they know they'll not get it, letting insults slide by on the Sunday talk shows, rising to the defense of Democrats caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Justice Thomas put it perfectly;

This is not civility. It is cowardice, or well-intentioned self-deception at best.

There comes a time where it is necessary to have a fight. In fact, considering that the fact of the matter is that at the fundamental level Republicans and Democrats disagree; on the role of government, the size of the government, the scope of government, etc. those times will come regularly and often. And it is betrayal of the oath to serve to weaken one's arguments, to timidly lower one's volume or sacrifice those principles that got one nominated and then elected in the first place.

There are times where issues defy bipartisan resolution ... and that is emphatically not a bad thing. We need to stop viewing partisanship as some sort of evil and stop elevating bipartisanship to a sign of sainthood. Partisanship is one of those key indicators of a vibrant democracy. Kate O'Beirne wrote an article about this need to worship at the altar of bipartisanship in a December issue of National Review last year;

Although Washington lore faults congressional Republicans for ushering in an era of poisonous partisanship, Pelosi’s plan to recapture the House meant a ban on any bipartisanship. She enforced a party loyalty that had House Democrats deliver “the most unified voting record in 50 years,” according to the Washington Post. In 2005, her caucus voted along strict party lines 88 percent of the time. In 1997, 51 House Democrats supported a Republican budget that significantly reduced domestic spending. Last year, there wasn’t a single Democratic vote for a five-year GOP budget plan with far more modest reductions ...

... The celebrated “bipartisanship” of the GOP’s wilderness years was typically due to a few rogue Republicans who voted with the Democratic majority. For example, the late congressman Hamilton Fish was the principal Republican sponsor of the 1991 “bipartisan” Civil Rights Act. Fish declined to run for reelection in 1994 because of poor health, and spent his entire 25-year congressional career serving happily in the minority. He once explained that he “was better suited to the less confrontational, more pragmatic political style of a minority leader. I’m not a confrontational person, so I don’t know if I would have been a more successful person as a member of the majority. I doubt it.”

Because the Democrats (thanks to the fact that their friends in the Press would always cover for them) never mean it when they call for "bipartisanship," - reserving the term strictly for when Republicans assist in passing liberal agenda items - Republicans end up shooting themselves in the foot i.e. "Gang of Fourteen", McCain-Feingold, stripping voucher programs out of NCLB, etc. all in order to appear "bipartisan" - to be nice, to be civil. As smagar put it in mbecker's response to Congresswoman Kay Granger's, Republicans are all too willing to sit around wishing for "sunny days and lollipops and fuzzy bunnies on the Capitol lawn."

The following is one of my favorite Reagan quotes;

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

Being a Republican should mean that there are certain issues (in fact, a whole bunch of them) on which a Republican in Congress, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would never be able to see eye-to-eye on. We shouldn't apologize for that, and neither should we care that it would result in the New York Times accusing Republicans (and not Reid or Pelosi) of failing to rise "above partisanship" and being "bipartisan"

The Great Communicator figured it out from the outset; to achieve bipartisan co-operation you have to, paradoxically, be ready to be partisan - and let your opponents know that you do not value their feelings more than your agenda. Reagan is considered a great President today because even though he compromised on policy where unavoidable, he never compromised on principle and never hesitated in ignoring the Democrats' demands and whines, going over the heads of the media and appealing directly to the American people with the best arguments for himself and his policies. Despite being a gentleman at all times, he took every opportunity to launch the most powerful and effective broadsides at his opponents whenever he disagreed with them.

That was partisan and it was perfectly legitimate. And the Democrats and their media friends moaned, groaned and shrieked about his refusal to "rise above partisanship", be "bipartisan", to be "civil." He must always be ready to browbeat the Democrats and battle with them on the information front, to use the bully pulpit to convince and unite a majority of the American people behind him and against them. Then he would get "bipartisanship." And in the end, the Democrats saw which way the wind was blowing and they went along on many items on his agenda that they ordinarily would never have done - that's how it works; "bipartisanship" but on his terms.

Another way of looking at this is; "Peace through strength." Ironically, to achieve "bipartisanship", one must be ready to eschew it, and one must be ready to stand fast, unapologetic when the torrents of outraged shrieking and oppobrium comes his way as a result of his standing on principle, even if he has to violate the bounds of "civility" and ignite a CONTROVERSY!! or SCANDAL!!!

Justice Clarence Thomas once again;

Today, no one can honestly claim surprise at the venomous attacks against those who take positions that are contrary to the canon laid down by those who claim to shape opinions. Such attacks have been standard fare for some time. Complaining about this obvious state of affairs does not elevate one’s moral standing. And, it is hardly a substitute for the courage that we badly need.

If you trim your sails, you appease those who lack the honesty and decency to disagree on the merits, but prefer to engage in personal attacks. A good argument diluted to avoid criticism is not nearly as good as the undiluted argument, because we best arrive at truth through a process of honest and vigorous debate. Arguments should not sneak around in disguise, as if dissent were somehow sinister. One should not cowed by criticism.

In my humble opinion, those who come to engage in debates of consequence, and who challenge accepted wisdom, should expect to be treated badly. Nonetheless, they must stand undaunted. That is required. And, that should be expected. For, it is bravery that is required to secure freedom.