Letters to a Young Conservative Read Free

human nature is flawed, and freedom is frequently used badly. Conservatives understand this. Conservatives defend freedom not because they believe in the right to do as you please, but because freedom is the precondition for virtue. It is only when people choose freely that they can choose the good. Without freedom there is no virtue: A coerced virtue is no virtue at all.
    Consider an example that contrasts the conservative and libertarian views of freedom. If you said to a libertarian, “What if 300 million Americans opt to become pornographers like Larry Flynt? Would that constitute a good society?” While the conservative would emphatically answer no, the pure libertarian would have to answer yes, because these people have chosen freely. As this example illustrates, libertarianism is a philosophy of choice without political concern for what people actually choose. Thus, although many libertarians live virtuously, libertarianism as a philosophy is indifferent to virtue. In this respect it differs markedly from conservatism.
    Admittedly, vast areas of programmatic agreement exist between libertarians and conservatives. Both believe that the federal government has grown prodigiously and that it needs to be severely curbed. Even on social issues, libertarians and conservatives are often on the same side, although not always for the same reasons. A few years ago, I heard a conversation between a conservative
and a libertarian. The conservative said, “I am distressed by the idea of fornication in public parks.” The libertarian replied, “I am distressed by the idea of public parks.” And on the policy issue in question, the two found themselves in happy agreement.
    Conservatives, like libertarians, resist looking to the government to redistribute income. But on some occasions, conservatives are willing to use the power of government to foster virtue. Libertarians find this appalling. “If you won’t trust the government with your money,” one of them said to me, “how can you trust it with your soul?” Well, nobody is putting the government in charge of morality or salvation. But government policy does influence behavior, and conservatives are not averse to using the instruments of government, such as the presidential bully pulpit or the incentive structure of the tax code, to promote decent institutions (such as intact families) and decent behavior (such as teenage sexual abstinence).
    The issue that best illustrates the libertarian-conservative disagreement is the drug war. Libertarians say that the “war against drugs” has been a failure, and this seems to be true. But what if the antidrug effort could be conducted in such a way that it was a success? Libertarians would still have to oppose it because in principle they are against the idea of the government regulating drugs. Conservatives, who may agree with libertarians that our current antidrug campaign is imprudent and inefficient, would generally have no problem with a
more sensible campaign that effectively reduced the use and abuse of hard drugs.
    Chris, I am not asking you to relinquish your libertarian beliefs. But I think your libertarianism would be intellectually richer if it were integrated into a more comprehensive conservative philosophy that advanced a substantive vision of the good life and the good society. In other words, the best argument for freedom is not that it is an end in itself but that it is the necessary prerequisite for choosing what is right. Think about it.

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    The Education of a Conservative
    Dear Chris,
    I am glad that you found my letters contrasting conservatism and liberalism (and distinguishing both from libertarianism) to be helpful. You pronounce yourself a “libertarian conservative,” and this seems to me an excellent way to preserve your libertarian economic philosophy within a broader conservative worldview.
    Let me go on to address your questions about how I became a conservative, and how I became involved with the