The Liberty Hawk

Justin Stapley explains new centrism further and delves into what constitutes the sphere of natural law, explaining several of the ways both parties have abandoned it.

(Note: This episode was recorded before Justin’s viral article about his future with the GOP. He’ll discuss his choice to either stay in the Republican Party or declare his independence in the next episode of the podcast)

This is the 2nd episode of The New Centrist Podcast. You can listen here, or read the transcript below. You can also subscribe and listen to the podcast on the following podcast apps:

New Centrism Isn’t Wishy-Washy

In the last episode, I introduced myself and the basics of where I stand politically. Today, I’m going to delve a little bit deeper. After the release of my first episode, I’ve had some feedback that reflects what seems to be confusion over where I stand and the point I’m trying to make by calling myself a new centrist. I even saw a few comments go so far as to call me “wishy-washy”. 

Much of this reaction is based on an understanding of old centrism. They’re assuming that by using the term centrist I have an undecided or ponderous ideology or that my worldview is inconclusive and uncertain. Let me put these ideas to rest right now. I’m not an old centrist. 

The other kneejerk reaction is to equate being a centrist with being a moderate. This is also not quite the case. Moderates are generally those who place pragmatism above and beyond ideology. They may lean one way or the other ideologically, but try to stay focused on the idea that we should just do “what works”. Moderates often treat policy considerations as a grab-bag of different ideas, a mixing and matching of ideological flavors.  

While I do have a stronger sense of pragmatism and moderation than I used to, I’m still definitely not a moderate. My problem with moderates is that they often ignore the very real fundamental differences in ideological traditions. Their mixing and matching ends up blending ideas that just can’t truly exist together. This is a path to dysfunction, especially when foundational principles of American governance are ignored or set aside. 

Being a centrist, even being an old centrist, is not the same as being a moderate. Being a centrist is a statement of ideological location on a spectrum. Being a moderate is thinking you can move past ideology and just do “what works” as if ideology isn’t a very important consideration of what can work, or what should work. 

New Centrism and the Sphere of Natural Law

So, if I’m not a moderate and if I’m not an old centrist, what does it mean to say I’m a new centrist? As I mentioned several times in the first episode, the political spectrum has stretched and the political landscape has moved beneath our feet. I am not a new centrist because I’m “wishy washy” or because I’ve changed my fundamental political philosophy. I’m a new centrist because the two major American political parties, and the movements they represent, have shifted to the margins, leaving me and those like me in the middle of warring authoritarian factions. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I didn’t leave the parties, the parties left me. 

To be clear, I’m very much still center-right, a conservative centrist. I’m a classical liberal, in the tradition of the founders and the enlightenment philosophers. And, I’m a modern conservative in the tradition of Buckley and Goldwater. I would even still be a republican, if that party actually adhered to its traditional platform. I know many of my “nevertrump” and “exgop” followers on Twitter and Facebook have trended to the center-left in their opposition to the Republican Party and Donald Trump. I also know I have many followers who are part of hashtag resistance who follow me because I’m willing to speak out against Donald Trump. These groups will probably be frustrated from time to time, if not quite regularly, because I remain strongly rooted to traditional conservative ideology. 

But back to the question at hand. What does it mean to say I’m a new centrist, especially given that I’m still conservative and am not a moderate? It means that, despite the marginal creep of America’s Left and Right political wings, I remain rooted in the sphere of natural law. 

The Traditional Left-Right Horizontal Spectrum

Alright, here’s where we are really going to have to take a deep-dive in order to explain what I mean by the sphere of natural law.  

First off, I’m going to have to explain something about the traditional Left-Right horizontal idea of a political spectrum: it doesn’t actually exist. Oh, there’s definitely a political left and a political right. But that political dichotomy exists within a broader and far more nuanced political spectrum that is better represented by a grid system. 

Before I explain this grid system, let me help you wrap your mind around what I’m talking about. Often the political spectrum is viewed as conservative on the right and liberal, or more accurately progressive, on the left. Since this horizontal spectrum is more often used for propaganda purposes than for actual understanding of political thought, its viewed differently depending on which side you’re on.  

If you’re on the right, you think of the political spectrum as right towards freedom and left towards tyranny. Funny enough, if you’re on the left, you think of the spectrum as exactly the opposite. So, who’s right and who’s wrong? Clearly, something’s missing here. 

Let me throw another wrench into this idea of a horizontal political spectrum. Let’s say someone is socially conservative but fiscally liberal. Does that put them in the middle of the spectrum? But wait a minute, someone who’s fiscally conservative and socially liberal would be very different, wouldn’t they? Yet, wouldn’t they also be in the middle? And, how does the horizontal spectrum handle different means to similar ends? 

I mean, I’m a social conservative. I’m very religious, I have very traditional views of morality and family. But, I don’t want government to force my views on others. I just want the government to leave me alone. I want do what I want do and believe what I want to believe. I believe truth endures on its own merits, and that using the government to assert what I believe to be true would only taint and corrupt that truth. 

So, if someone who has the same moral values I have believes differently than I do about the use of government to assert those values, are we still at the same place on the political spectrum? We both agree on desired ends, a moral and traditional society, but we have very different views on the ends to those means.  

I hope you’re seeing the problem with all of this. The horizontal political spectrum ignores some very real political nuances. It’s a gross over-simplification that enables some misguided and very foolish ideas. Worse, it masks the dangers of extremes. Neither side’s correct in believing that freedom is secured by going one way or the other to “purity”. Instead, freedom is a balance of just concerns. 

Political Grid Spectrum

So, how does a proper political spectrum look? Well, first off, there is no perfect presentation. We’re talking about very complicated philosophies that stretch off in thousands, even millions, of different directions. But, the best presentation we can arrive upon is a dual-axis grid with four quadrants. 

There are actually a lot of different proposals for such political spectrum grids, with the horizontal axis and the vertical axis representing different types of political directions. The interpretation I find most compelling is one that has the horizontal axis representing tradition on the right and radical on the left with a vertical axis representing liberty at the top and authority at the bottom.  

Now, we have a political spectrum that can more accurately define different flavors of political thought. And, we can more easily see the extreme margins that exist on all sides. Stray to the far to the right and you have a non-plural society that Is hostile to change and different lifestyles. Stray to the far to the left and tradition and values are completely thrown down and destroyed. Stray too far toward liberty and away from the rule of law and anarchy reigns. Stray too far towards authority, and liberty gives way to an all-powerful state that controls the lives of its citizens entirely.  

And, each of these directions can combine with one or the other justifications for them. You can have both radical and traditional authoritarian governments. You can have anarchies that result as opposition to one or the other types of authority.  

Where Is the Sphere of Natural Law?

And here, we arrive at the idea of balance and the sphere of natural law. The US Constitution is singular and unique as the first attempt to create a government that recognizes the realities of the human condition and attempts to forge a balance of all concerns. It created a society where both the traditional and non-traditional can live in relative harmony. It created a system of government based on the idea of ordered liberty, that liberty and authority can strike a proper balance that allows them both to live and thrive in support of each other instead of in perpetual opposition to each other. 

This realm of balance occupies the center of the spectrum, trending outward to the point where balance begins to be lost. This is the sphere of natural law. The space where neither anarchy nor authoritarianism and neither ultra-tradition or ultra-radicalism have sway. It is the realm of constitutionally limited government, ordered liberty, and of plural society.  

With a few unfortunate but heartbreaking exceptions, American political thought generally stayed within this sphere of natural law for the first hundred years of the nation’s existence. The conflicts between the federalists and the anti-federalists, the Federalist Party and the early Republican Party, and the Democrats and Whigs were often more about the nuances of the founding vision than about moving beyond or abandoning it.  

Even the Republican Party of Lincoln, though trending more in the traditionalist direction, still held quite firmly to the ideas of the founders, as evidenced by the Gettysburg Address and other speeches by Lincoln and his contemporaries.  

Marginal Drift

Things began to slowly drift with the introduction of non-American, and generally European, political ideas into American thought. For most of the 20^th century, this involved the infusion of socialist and Marxist flavored movements and political leaders, represented by progressivism and populism. Even slower moving, but revealing itself suddenly and intensely just recently, are the ideas of nationalism. 

All of these ideas are decidedly outside of the sphere of natural law. Progressivism, as it channels economic and sociological ideas connected to Karl Marx, trends both towards the radical and authoritarian margins of the spectrum. Nationalism, as it flirts with aggressive and xenophobic cultural ideas, also trends towards authoritarian margins but in the direction of tradition.  

The results of such marginal creep, on both sides, is not something we have to guess at. We’ve seen all of this play out before. Europe fought devastating wars over these competing extremes and both of them are steeped in blood. Radical authoritarianism is best exemplified in the Communism of Soviet Russia. And traditionalist authoritarianism is best represented by the Fascism of Nazi Germany. 

Am I saying that Democrats are Communists and Republicans are Nazis? No. Thankfully we are not that far gone. Yet. But judging by the way each party and movement are playing off of each other’s excesses, it is far within the realm of possibility that the far-right and the hard-left could fully embrace these most abominable of extremes and garner enough traction to rip our republic apart. 

I hope I have some of you still with me. As I said, this was definitely a deep dive. To put things in better context, let’s look at some modern politicians and their policy ideas. I hope I can demonstrate how our political conversation has moved beyond the sphere of natural law. 

Democrats and Radical Authoritarianism

Let’s start with the Democratic Party. A lot of pundits on the right and center-right have derided the Democratic Primary as the “woke” primary. They’re not without reason. The primary season was kicked off by an apparent rush to the hard-left of progressive thought. Many of the candidates seemed to have the initial goal to out-bernie Bernie Sanders. It’s striking that the political role model of this primary process is an independent who openly calls himself a socialist. Only Joe Biden, and several others who’ve yet to achieve any real following, have channeled the mainstream progressivism of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. And, none of them reflect the classically liberal tinged progressivism of a JFK Democrat. There are definitely no blue dogs here. 

Even Joe Biden and others like Buttigieg, Yang, or Bloomberg, touted in the media as the moderates in the race, would still, if elected, be the most progressive presidents we’ve seen since LBJ.  

And what of the policies being touted by the progressive Democrats? Down the list, we can see a grab bag of policies that trend decidedly towards the radical and authoritarian realms of the political spectrum, many of them far beyond the sphere of natural law. Several of these ideas would completely erode the foundations of our constitutional government. Packing the Supreme Court? Removing the Electoral College? Infringing on the right to bear arms, if not voicing a desire to remove this right altogether? These are all attempts to tear down tradition. These are radical ideas.  

And, let’s not forget the myriad of proposals that would increase the government’s involvement in our private lives and limit individual freedom and choice. Both Sanders and Warren are in favor of socialized medicine, a healthcare model that only gives the people a single choice for healthcare, a choice ran by the government. The Green New Deal, and its derivatives, posit that the only way to deal with warnings from scientists of rising global temperatures is to embark on an economic scheme of near-absolute centralized government control. We have also seen on college campuses across the country, and increasingly from ideas and proposals in the Democratically controlled House of Representatives, an effort to silence speech that reflects more traditional views of government and culture. Culturally, the hard-left has moved far beyond their purported live and let live demands and now demands silence, if not celebration, in response to their radical departures from tradition. 

America’s political left has clearly gone far afield of the sphere of natural law, occupying a marginal area in the lower-left quadrant of the spectrum we have been discussing. Progressivism, already a radical, authoritarian, and collectivist ideology, has only trended further in those directions in the last two decades. Old Democrats or Democrats portraying themselves as more moderate or more accepting of traditional viewpoints would have a hard time gaining traction in this progressive Democratic Party. I’d even venture to say that figures like Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, or John F. Kennedy would fail to receive the Democratic nomination in this radical climate. 

Republicans and Traditional Authoritarianism

Now that I’ve ticked off a good portion of the audience, let’s switch to the Republican Party and anger everyone else. While the Left has lost its constitutional grounding, the Right has, as Charlie Sykes puts it, lost its mind. For all the excesses of the Democrats, at least it can be said a good portion of them know and understand what they are. They understand they are attempting to leave both cultural and political traditions behind. Many of them are radicals and revolutionaries and they know it and own it. The same cannot be said of much of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.  

They’ve taken the off-ramp from the high road. They’ve exited the highway of consistent principle. They’ve chosen the wrong fork and left the path of limited government and constitutional ideals. And most of them don’t even know it. 

As I mentioned in the first episode of the podcast, what was once the conservative movement is now a populist movement full of angry nationalists and culture warriors. They’re counter-revolutionaries, anti-liberals, and reactionaries. Much of who they are, and who they support, is determined by a sense of aggressive opposition to both the real and perceived excesses of the Democrats. In this struggle, no excess is too excessive and no hypocrisy is without justification because the excesses and hypocrisies of the enemy is always worse.  

Fear of losing a cultural struggle to Leftist radicals has led to a declaration of political war, a war that justifies setting aside foundational principles. A movement that once expected and demanded moral living and abiding character in its leaders now justifies support for anyone willing to champion culture war priorities and stick it to the Left. A movement that once manifested itself as The Tea Party, demanding fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, now rolls its eyes at such concerns, it being a distraction from the cultural battle at hand. A movement that once understood the dangers of the imperial presidency and the Leviathan of centralized government, now happily wields these monsters for their own designs. 

This isn’t ordered liberty. This isn’t a movement trying to conserve and reassert American traditions of government. This is an ultra-traditionalist authoritarian uprising of anger and discontent. These are nationalists seeking the arm of government to put their cultural foes in their place, to seize control by any means possible. 

We need only look at some of their ideas and policies to confirm this movement has trended away from the sphere of natural law.  

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign spoke of a deportation force, of a Muslim ban, and of forcing a sovereign nation to pay for a domestic construction project. Each of these ideas violates basic principles of modern conservative philosophy. Most conservatives agree that illegal immigration is a problem, but even just a few years ago most would concede that mass deportation would essentially require martial law to accomplish, a centralizing of power and authority in the federal government that no true conservative wanted. And, while border security has always been a plank of modern conservatism, the idea of forcing a neighboring country to pay for it was absurd. We believed in sovereignty. America’s original foreign policy was the Monroe Doctrine, voicing to the world we would defend the sovereignty of the nations on the American continents against European involvement. Now, we’re okay with abandoning our belief in the sovereignty of our neightbors because we want a big beautiful wall? And perhaps most egregious of all is this idea of a Muslim ban. We, conservatives, who have fought to ensure that freedom of religion is a secure and fast feature of our society were suddenly willing to support a religious test on immigrants to our country? I was frankly astounded as self-proclaimed constitutionalists and Christians suddenly began repeating ideas,I’d only heard touted by extreme anti-religious atheists, ideas that had been directed at Christians and that are held at bay by the 1^st Amendment. And when I pointed out the inconstencies with constitutional law, with the ideas of natural rights, what was the answer I received from those who often call Democrats traitors for their unconstitutional excesses? “The constitution isn’t a suicide pact” they would tell me.  

And this was just resulting from Donald Trump’s campaign. His presidency has made the marginal drift of the conservative movement even more stark. A major plank of conservatism has always been a resistance to centralized economic planning and support for the free market. Yet, they now treat Donald Trump as CEO of the American economy and celebrate his interferences with the free market. Sure, there has been a lot of deregulation, something a normal Republican president would have done. But this has been accompanied by arbitrary protectionism. And protectionism is literally the use of centralized government power to shelter a country from the realities of a global free market. This would be enough of a departure from conservative doctrine, but Trump has enacted this economic policy mostly using the pen-and-phone approach pioneered by President Obama, an approach that had many clamoring his impeachment of not so long ago.  

The emergency powers of levying tariffs, given to the executive branch by Congress, have been wielded by Donald Trump as an ordinary exercise of the office. Entire economic markets have been wiped away as Trump has arbitrarily engaged in trade wars and disputes with international friends and foes alike. And it’s American consumers and American farmers who have borne the brunt of these trade wars. American agriculture is on life support, being held aloft by government subsidies, again largely enacted arbitrarily by President Trump outside of the legislative process. This new bailout has now risen to higher levels than the auto bailouts under President Obama and, unlike the auto bailouts, it is unlikely this money will ever be paid back. 

But what about the budget? Trump promised to balance the budget in eight years, so where are we at now that his first term in office is winding down? There is no other way to describe where we are other than at a complete and total abandonment of fiscal conservatism by the Republican Party. This last year saw the yearly budget deficit rise to the levels only seen in the early years of the Obama presidency, when he was in the midst of crafting stimulus packages. When asked about this failed promise, Trump cavalierly said, “Who the hell cares about the budget?” 

But most concerning to me has been the acceleration of accumulated powers and autocracy in the office of the president accompanied by the stripping of institutional integrity and independent authority of Congress.  

Sure, the Constitution gives the power of the purse to Congress. But when they don’t fund Trump’s wall, he can just issue an executive order and fund it anyway.  Political opposition, the importance of the political minority? No, they’re obstructionists and unamerican traitors. The independence of the court system, the checks and balances of judicial review? They’re just activist judges seeking to overthrow the will of the people. What about having Senators and representatives stand on principle and represent their state’s unique interests? No, we need to give trump members of congress who will support his agendas. 

And to add to all of this has been the crazy directions now being taken by defenders of Trump during the process of his impeachment. The various points of their argument add up to what amounts to a growing belief that the Presidency is completely unchained. Trump has flat out said “I have an article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president” and enablers have arisen to argue this is, in fact, the case. 

Think about it. Much effort has been made to narrow the scope of impeachment to indictable crimes. Absent such indictable crimes, many Republicans have denounced the House’s vote on impeachment as an illegal coup. And yet, as we learned at the conclusion of the Mueller investigation, the DOJ has a policy that a sitting president can’t be indicted.  

Trump’s defenders further argue that a President can’t be impeached for exercising legitimate article 2 authority and that, if the President disagrees with the nature of an impeachment inquiry, he can thwart the entire process by ordering his subordinates to ignore congressional subpoenas. To the argument that action taken using legitimate article 2 authority for personal interest is impeachable, his defenders respond that as the elected President his personal interests are the national interest.  

Put all of these arguments together. They’re claiming impeachment is a coup if not built on an indictment but that a sitting president can’t be indicted, therefore a president can obstruct the impeachment process at will because he hasn’t been indicted, and that all of it is a waste of time anyway because he is free to conflate his personal interests with the national interest.  

The Republicans who not long so ago spoke of impeaching Obama for his use of the imperial presidency are now actively engaged in crafting a presidency that is unindictable, unimpeachable, and unrestrained in the use of power and authority.  

As if this extension and expansion of the imperial presidency weren’t enough, they seem content to further sink Congress in the process. As we speak, the Senate seems poised to acquit the President of wrongdoing without calling witnesses. This elected body, traditionally considered the world’s greatest deliberative body is declaring its willingness to shirk one of its most important functions because voters demand absolute loyalty to President Trump. Far from a fully executed impeachment trial that seeks to believably acquit or remove the President, this process is becoming nothing more than ritualistic institutional suicide. The integrity of the Senate is literally being laid down on the altar of Trump. 

There should be little doubt that while most of the Republican Party still see themselves as conservatives, they have become populists and nationalists who now occupy the traditionalist authoritarian margins of the political spectrum. Far into the lower right quadrant of the grid we discussed earlier. They are far afield of the sphere of natural law. 

Stepping Off the Rameumptom

To reference another occasionally used Utah saying, I’m going to step off of my rameumptom now. I hope if my rantings and diatribe accomplished anything, its to help listeners better understand that I am far from “wishy-washy” but view myself as part of a remnant of principled Americans, the few who are actually staying consistent to their beliefs and firmly planting their feet within the sphere of natural law. New Centrism, if it is anything, is an attempt to move beyond the hyper-partisan interplay and to recognize the health, and the very future, of our republic relies on re-centering our society on the traditions of limited government, ordered liberty, and plural society. On re-centering the parties and movements back into the sphere of natural law. 

Before I go, I’m sure some of you are wondering just where I fall in this political grid we’ve been talking about. I’m a liberty-minded conservative. I value both liberty and tradition. I general eschew radicalism and am absolutely opposed to any encroaching authoritarianism. I am in the upper-right quadrant of the political grid, but firmly within the sphere of natural law. I have very firm and abiding principles and beliefs. I know exactly where I stand.  

Anyone who has made it to the end of this episode and still thinks I’m wishy-washy is engaging in some pretty serious philosophical projection. Such people may find it difficult to continue projecting uncertainty on me in order to dismiss me. 

Thanks for listening to the New Centrist Podcast. You can follow me on twitter and facebook, or send your email questions and comments to JustinStapley@TheLibertyHawk.com. Remember to never take my word for it. Get out there, do the research, build your own opinions and conclusions. None of us has a big enough perspective to arrive upon the truth on our own.  

God bless you all and stay free my friends. 

Justin Stapley is the owner and editor of The Liberty Hawk and the voice of The New Centrist podcast. As a political writer, his principles and ideas are grounded in the ideas of ordered liberty as expressed in the traditions of classical liberalism, federalism, and modern conservatism. You can follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.