Why I am (now) a conservative

No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. – Ronald Reagan

Friends who are familiar with my colorful – initially, and loudly, Red – past have often asked me the provenance of my present opinions.

They can hardly believe their ears when I praise the US invasion of Iraq, or extol the mysticisms of the Catholic Mass, or advocate the wholesale dismissal – followed by the merit-based rehiring at greatly reduced levels – of the entire civil service as a fitting way to downsize Big Government.

My friends will insist that conservative nostrums of individual freedom, small government, and the paramount importance of property rights have no place in a Third World environment like ours. Of what use are these notions in the face of rampant poverty, undeveloped markets and legal systems, and a political culture so dominated by patronage and corruption?

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Such claims, of course, are well-meant. Yet they distressingly sound too much like observations I used to hear from similarly well-intentioned people in America:

That Asians are somehow not meant for Western-style democracy. That individual rights will always take a cultural backseat to Confucian norms of conformity. That an individual’s life and freedom are valued less highly by Asians, thereby priming them for authoritarianism under a variety of disguises. Look at China, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea... the list goes on.

These observations, well-intentioned or not, only inflict the worst kind of racism: One that demeans us, not through overt cruelty, but by patronizing us as somehow less than wholly fit for the challenge of participating in the ongoing competition among free men and nations.

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It is a durable myth beloved by liberals and international agency bureaucrats, who would otherwise have little else to do.

Every crutch we are offered, every dole-out we are given, every protectionist restriction we successfully beg for, only confirms the sneaking suspicion in the patron’s heart that we are nothing but, to varying degrees, his unsolicited burden.

And when that suspicion echoes in our own hearts, therein begins the humiliation. Indeed, the biggest irony is that a lot of this self-destructive thinking originates from us ourselves, masquerading under the seductive labels of nationalism and social justice.

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Years ago, when I had just returned home from the States and didn’t know any better, I attended a symposium sponsored at the Sulo Hotel by various cause-oriented groups opposed to the repeal of the retail trade nationalization law. The sponsors were typically grim-faced, self-righteous types, filled with the nobility of their cause.

During the Q&A session, I rashly stood up to point out that liberalization of the retail trade would in fact lead to lower prices and better quality of goods and services, the invariable outcomes of greater competition in any industry. Consumers would have more choices. The law was an anachronism from an olden time, was racistly anti-Chinese in its origin, and no longer had a place in today’s global economy.

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Naturally, everybody else jumped all over me afterwards. The ringleader was a fellow who made his living, I think, in the steel industry, and he certainly had a field day of it. "The problem with the world today," he thundered, "is that there is too much consumerism! There is too much choice!"

So there you have it. Scratch a nationalist, and underneath you’ll find someone who can’t trust his people to prosper in an all-out competition. Scratch a protectionist, and you’ll find someone who believes people exist for the good of their companies (and citizens for the good of the state), not the other way around. Scratch someone who believes it’s possible to have "too much" choice, and you find a closet caudillo just waiting for the right moment to pop out of his grubby little box.

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So what do I believe in these days, now that I’ve outgrown the easy answers, the flaming rhetoric, the insidious appeal of ideologies that conveniently repackage reality into neat little systems that seduce intellectuals but actually have no connection at all to the hard truths of human nature, as a result leaving the masses even worse off than before?

As a conservative, the first principle I hold to – one that unites all types of conservatives, from libertarian to traditionalist – is our belief that social power is a zero-sum game. Any power taken by government is by definition lost to individuals. Thus, the paramount importance of prudent restraints on the role and reach of government – any government, even the best one in the world.

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Argues the American conservative Charles Murray: "There must be a stopping point, some rule by which governments limit what they do for the people – not just because of budget constraints, not just because of infringement on freedom – but because happiness is impossible unless people are left alone to take trouble over important things."

In short, the conservative nostrum of small government is rooted, not just in fiscal or political theory, but in a very particular vision of what one’s humanity is all about. At the core of that vision is the exercise of one’s freedom in the pursuit of one’s happiness. This includes the exercise of self-restraint on that freedom whenever it infringes another’s, whose pursuit of happiness deserves the same respect as one’s own.

Therefore, any diminution of these freedoms by government – no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how wide the popular support behind it – by its nature must always be tolerated rather than embraced, subjected to restraints, and then abrogated as soon as feasible.

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I promised my high school classmate Alma Manahan to put in a plug for her restaurant, Chocolate Kiss, where she graciously allowed me to write this column.

Chocolate Kiss has become a fixture in the UP Diliman campus, where it sits on two locations at the Alumni Center, one outdoors and another inside on the second floor. It’s a great place to visit if you want good food (priced near, if not within, student budgets), the always invigorating company of young college kids and campus-bound types, and, at night, impromptu musical celebrations and all-around fun.

Chocolate Kiss is open every day from 7 a.m., for early-morning joggers, to 10 p.m., for night owls and other inebriates.

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Readers may write the author at gbolivar1952@yahoo.com.