Old Minority
Posted on March 13th, 2009
by Daniel Larison |
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The amusing thing about New Majority is that it styles itself as representing creative and new conservative ideas, but routinely churns out some of the most hidebound conventional stuff imaginable on many of the policies where the conventional position has badly damaged the reputation of conservatism and the GOP. Take, for example, John Gardner’s complaint that Obama has signed the omnibus appropriations bill that contains a provision that “revents implementation of a provision in NAFTA that permits properly licensed Mexican trucking companies from operating throughout the United States.” This is the sort of thing pro-sovereignty conservatives have been insisting on for years, and in the end it comes from the Obama administration and a Democratic majority in Congress. At least those reform conservatives who are indifferent to border security and controlling illegal immigration are being consistent in their hostility to this rule, but why anyone else would want to oppose a provision that improves border security and highway safety will have to remain a mystery.
Filed under: economics, immigration, politics
It’s not much of a mystery. The plutocrat wing of the party has long been very clear that they’re not only indifferent to illegal immigration and consumer safety, they’re actively hostile towards government regulation in these areas as a threat to laissez faire capitalism.
Perhaps I phrased it badly. I get why there are some people on the right who have no problem with any of this, but what never makes sense is why the bulk of the movement, which is ostensibly interested in border security, controlling mass immigration and public safety, goes along without much protest. I mean, they’re allowing Obama to take up the high ground of national sovereignty, public safety and border security. I can imagine a few more comprehensive embarrassments for the right, but this is right up there.
The “bulk of the movement” hasn’t been on the same page on border security and immigration for quite a while, I think. Witness the internal crapstorm that was the Bush immigration plan…
As for public safety, that may be true of bread ‘n butter law enforcement issues (although there’s still those pesky libertarians…), but this rarely extends completely to civil regulatory authorities, even ones that don’t directly involve the bogeyman of trial lawyers.
Arguments like Gardner’s above do cry out for a satire of knee-jerk free traders as a literal cargo cult, but I fear I’m not up to the task after 5pm on a Friday.
Daniel, I’ll answer your question directly. Go to the AEI dinner post and look carefully at the attendees. These people aren’t concerned about Mexican trucks because they don’t drive!
I mean look at those rictus smiles and boneless hands. Can you imagine any of them tooling down some highway in Oklahoma? Apart from the women, could they even fix a flat?