Michael Gerson: A yellow light for government

One of the main problems with an unremittingly hostile view of government -- held by many associated with the tea party, libertarianism and "constitutionalism" -- is that it obscures and undermines the social contributions of conservative vision.

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WASHINGTON One of the main problems with an unremittingly hostile view of government held by many associated with the tea party, libertarianism and "constitutionalism" is that it obscures and undermines the social contributions of a truly conservative vision of government.

Politics requires a guiding principle of public action. For popular liberalism, it is often the rule of good intentions: If it sounds good, do it. Social problems can be solved by compassionate, efficient regulation and bureaucratic management which is seldom efficient and invites unintended consequences in complex, unmanageable systems (say, the one-sixth of the U.S. economy devoted to health care). The signal light for government intervention is stuck on green.

For libertarians and their ideological relatives, the guiding principle is the maximization of individual liberty. It is a theory of government consisting mainly of limits and boundaries. The light is almost always red.

Conservatism (as my co-author Peter Wehner and I explain in our recent National Affairs essay, "A Conservative Vision of Government") offers a different principle of public action though a bit more difficult to explain than "go" or "stop." In the traditional conservative view, individual liberty is ennobled and ordered within social institutions families, religious communities, neighborhoods, voluntary associations, local governments and nations. The success of individuals is tied to the health of these institutions, which prepare them for the responsible exercise of freedom and the duties of citizenship.

This is a limiting principle: Higher levels of government should show deference to private associations and local institutions. But this is also a guide to appropriate governmental action needed when local and private institutions are enervated or insufficient in scale to achieve the public good.

So conservatism is a governing vision that allows for a yellow light: careful, measured public interventions to encourage the health of civil society. There are no simple rules here. Some communities disproportionately affected by family breakdown, community chaos or damaging economic trends will need more active help. But government should, as the first resort, set the table for private action and private institutions creating a context in which civil society can flourish.

This goal has moral and cultural implications. Government has a necessary (if limited) role in reinforcing the social norms and expectations that make the work of civic institutions both possible and easier. Some forms of liberty say, the freedom to destroy oneself with hard drugs or to exploit other men and women in the sex trade not only degrade human nature but damage and undermine families and communities and ultimately deprive the nation of competent, self-governing citizens. (The principle applies, more mildly, to softer drugs. By what governing theory did the citizens of Colorado surveying the challenges of global economic competition, educational mediocrity and unhealthy lifestyles decide that the answer is the proliferation of stoners?)

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Michael Gerson: A yellow light for government