Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Oren Cass Gets It

Via James Hohmann at WaPo:

"When you had a situation where the free market was delivering the social outcomes that conservatives most prized, libertarians and conservatives tended to agree,” [Cass] said. “What we've seen more recently is a growing understanding that the market does not necessarily in all cases deliver a set of social outcomes that conservatives prize.”

Or, to put it a different way, libertarianism and conservatism are not and never have been allies as such.

Libertarianism is a river that always flows in a particular direction (toward a future of freedom) on principle.

Conservatism is an improvised beaver dam of pragmatism built to block/contain that river.

Every so often, the dam breaks and conservatives yell "see, we're going in the same direction!" as they float down the river helplessly until they can get their acts together to start their blocking operation again.

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