Looking back historically, the first two revolutions both have remarkably common elements about them.  Both of the first two revolutions, the American Revolution and the Civil War, were, at an important level, battles over the role of government in America.  This battle is easily seen in the American Revolution, as nearly every history class around will characterize it as a fight against the tyranny of England and the unjust, confiscatory tax policies of King George.  Those who supported American independence were convinced that the Crown was too powerful, and the battle against England was an ultimately successful fight to cast off the reigns of an overpowering central government and return a degree of independence not only to the colonies as nations, but to the colonists as individuals.  Harder to see but no less present are the shades of government oppression in play during the Civil War.  Although the common story is that the Civil War was about slavery, the issue of slaves was more of a proxy for a deeper battle being waged against the reach of the federal government, particularly in southern states which viewed the northern and federal campaign against slavery as an assault on their independence.  The South, of course, lost that battle, and the entire concept of state independence has never quite been the same since.

Of course, at the time of the Civil War, the slow collapse of federalism and the rise of federal power were hardly the foregone conclusions that they appear to have become today.  Nevertheless, the government’s intervention to bring about the demise of slavery set a precedent for using government intervention to cure America’s ills.  FDR and the New Deal, LBJ and the Great Society, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and everything that the Warren Court did, all take their strength from the fact that the government was able to “solve” slavery by aggrandizing power to itself.

What President Obama has now given us is the clearest glimpse to date of the consequences of reassigning power from the people to the government following the Civil War.  No longer is the government in the business of solving real problems like slavery or segregation — to their credit, my parents’ generation has taken care of the lingering inequalities which had echoed through time all the way since the founding.  What we see instead is that the government spends its time building up power by attacking an endless army of straw men, crafting “solutions” for things which are not problems, imagining problems and then purporting to solve them, and providing solutions to problems which would not have existed if not for the government.

The Tea Party movement — a name which, itself, conjures memories of the first revolution — is the first, best indication that the people have had enough.  As I have said now many times, the culture wars of the current generation will give way to a deeper battle over the role of government itself in America.  Tea Partiers all come from diverse walks of conservatism, and many would certainly disagree on many aspects of the culture wars including such staple issues as abortion, gay marriage, and religion.  They have, however, united under a common banner against the size and scope of the government as it exists today and as its current administration wants to grow it long into the future.  The younger generation has reached the point where the fight over liberty itself has become more important than the petty squabbles over what to do with the freedoms that have been secured.

American revolutions have never been about land, or money, or politics, or power.  They have, fundamentally, been about changing the relationship between the people and their government.  It seems to me that America is closing in on rekindling that old fight.  Shades of 1850 might just be about right.

Coincidentally, during the week that saw the announcement of the report on pornography use at the SEC there also surfaced a comment from Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers, defending his company’s ban of pornography “apps” for iPhone and other Apple products. Apologizing to a user for mistakenly rejecting an app with a controversial political cartoon, Jobs added, “However, we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone,” (Android is the comparable product of his new competitor, Google). The Wired article relaying the comment interprets “Jobs’ opposition to porn [as] loud and clear,” but adds no reasons from Jobs for his opposition: Is his a moral objection to pornography, a purely aesthetic distaste, concern about his company’s branding, concern about its market with the parents of young teens getting their first phone, or some combination of all these? The response of many geeks was instantaneous and predictable: Don’t tell me what I can and cannot watch, that’s why I’ll never buy Apple, “The web is about openness. It’s about freedom.” For whatever reason, Jobs seems unyielding and his company vigilant. The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition passes muster, even Playboy without nudity and a reader for the iPhone that allows downloading of the ancient Kama Sutra are allowed, but try to sneak pornographic images into an approved app and iTunes will cut you off.

He then adds:

[O]ne can commend Steve Jobs for steadfastly refusing to allow Apple to become a platform for easy access to pornography, and commend him as well for showing that this can be done through determined business leadership, without recourse to government regulation that can threaten legitimate freedom and impose its own social costs.

But can Steve Jobs really be commended for this? I suppose as one of the “geeks” offering the “predictable” response, Mr. Stoner would be unlikely to have much interest in or patience for my views on the subject of Apple and porn.  I think, however, that it is Mr. Stoner who has missed an important reason why there is little to commend about Apple’s decision to ban pornography from its most newsworthy device.  Although Steve Jobs may be able to limit access to porn, such limits are unlikely to change the hearts and minds of people who would otherwise seek to consume it.

The main flaw in Mr. Stoner’s argument is the unfortunate fact that he reads too much into the distinction between government, on the one hand, and Apple, on the other.  It is, of course, undoubtedly true that Apple is not the government.  Unlike the government, Apple cannot force you to buy its products, and it is far easier for me to buy an EVO-4G instead of an iPhone than it is for me to move from Michigan to Peru.  That said, Apple is, without a doubt, the top central planner of the iPhone environment, and within its electronic walls, Apple acts very much like a fascist government.  While Apple may not necessarily choose winners, they undoubtedly choose the losers of its domain, leaving behind the scattered remains of such notable products as Google Voice and Adobe’s Flash Player, along with many other less notable apps which they rejected from the App Store — and, thus, the iPhone — for numerous reasons, including no reason at all.  Also, like a government, Apple collects sales tax on every piece of software sold for the iPhone, and now seeks to do the same for every advertisement by pushing its iAd service.

In short, while it may be easy to avoid the iPhone environment, once inside, there is very little that can be classified as being “legitimate[ly] free[.]”

With freedom, thus, outside the question, I find it difficult to agree with Mr. Stoner that anything about Apple shutting down porn does anything good for society.  If Steve Jobs were blocking porn as a way to send a message about values, then certainly that would be something to be applauded — except that I don’t think anyone believes that to be the case.  Instead, Apple is engaging in a sort of morally void behavior which just happens to have a desired result.  It is doubtful that anyone who wants to consume porn will find themselves not wanting to consume it because Apple has forbidden the stuff from its iPhone.  People will simply need to go find it somewhere else.

When governments pass laws or companies enact policies that mandate some moralistic result, neither are usually very effective at actually transforming the morals of their citizens or customers.  There is, quite simply, no comparison between choosing to do the right thing versus being prevented from doing things wrong.  Imposing a law against pornography does not take away the desires which bring people to consume it any more than imposing a law of gravity takes away man’s desire to fly.

Rather than trying to outlaw porn, we as a society would be much farther ahead understanding the reasons which bring people to consume it and finding a more wholesome way to satisfy those needs.  If porn is being used as stress relief, we would surely be better off emphasizing other ways to reduce workplace stress either through job restructuring (to combat the cause of stress) or some other physical activity (to direct stressful energies in a more positive direction).  But most important is that people must be made to affirmatively want to do these things, not merely fall into them for lack of a viable alternative.

That said, unlike the government which I consistently believe should be reduced in both size and power, I hold no malice toward Steve Jobs or Apple.  The iPhone, iTunes, the App Store, and all such things are their business and Apple participates in the free market just the same as anybody else.  If Apple wants to banish porn, to choose winners and losers, to lay and collect taxes, or to do any of the other things that they do, then that is entirely their right.

But as I hit “Publish” using my myTouch 3G (with Google), I affirm my own right to make my own choices, and to have my own values to win or lose by the power of persuasion in the marketplace of ideas.

Even if nothing else comes of his comments, what Paul has given us is an interesting starting point for a serious discussion about what it means to be a Libertarian.  To begin with, Libertarianism as a political concept is one that we know from Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign is a philosophy which Liberals can’t stand, and Conservatives tend to have difficulty swallowing.  In a nutshell, Libertarians believe that the government should do no more than it absolutely must.  In support of their philosophy, Libertarians tend to be skeptical of any government institution, even those with long and highly praised histories.  Libertarians also tend to be a bit irreverent when it comes to government institutions.  The skepticism certainly grates on the Left, and the irreverence tends to make the Right nervous.

Both traits, however, were certainly on display during the interview with Rachel Maddow.  In this case, the institution is the Civil Rights Act itself — in particular, the bits that make private sector discrimination illegal.  Even the most simple-minded understanding of the interview reveals that Paul has absolutely no love of discrimination in any form.  I find it inconceivable that he would allow discrimination to go on in any business that he owned, and I think it would be interesting to ask if he would frequent businesses which he knew to have discriminatory practices.  Yet, in his skepticism he clearly sees something improper about outlawing private sector discrimination, and in his irreverence he’s actually willing to say so.

However understandable his statement may be within the realm of Libertarian thought, what has been clear for a very long time is the fact that Libertarian thought does not dominate Conservatism, even the “radical” sort expressed by the Tea Parties.  Indeed, from what I’ve observed, the Tea Parties have been willing to mostly gloss over the deep divide between Republicanism¹ and Libertarianism by uniting on the common ground issue of fiscal responsibility in government.  Whether willful or not, the Tea Parties have done an excellent job of staying away from social issues and focusing intensely on the government’s role in the economy.  Were the Tea Parties a social-issues movement rather than an economic-issues movement, I doubt Rand Paul would have enjoyed much success.

In sum, most of the mainstream commentary about the Maddow interview has gotten the core issue predictably wrong.  However, I hope that Conservatives, at least, will look past the immediate spin from the mainstream commentators and use Rand Paul’s comments to think a bit more deeply about the role of government in society.  After all, we will only be able to put off for so long the evil day on which the Republican/Libertarian divide comes to a head.  The Civil Rights Act provides an outstanding starting point for having an adult conversation about the duties and obligations of our government.

1. For lack of a better term.  Think about the kinds of things Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee, and other prominent Conservative commentators might say to get a feel for what I mean.

People like the Christmas Bomber sit at an interesting mid point between domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and radical Islamic terrorists like those detained at Guantanamo Bay.  There is little doubt that the Christmas Bomber is, himself, a radical Islamic terrorist.  However, despite his allegiance, the details of his attack more closely mirror the events of Guantanamo Bay than they do the events on the foreign battlefield where the Guantanamo detainees were captured — the Christmas Bomber was legally traveling to America and he was arrested on American soil.

All of the arguments holding that the Christmas Bomber should be tried by the military flow, ultimately, from his association with al Qaeda.  This begs the question of whether a person’s trial rights depend in some fundamental way on the groups with which they associate.  There is a good deal of logic to answering that question affirmatively.  After all, al Qaeda is a known terrorist organization which has accomplished multiple attacks against the United States both at home and overseas, and which is willing to say that they are at war with us, even if we are unwilling to return the courtesy.  On the other hand, the very fact that we are unwilling to say that we are at war with al Qaeda (or to do so only haphazardly) is symptomatic with a major problem with predicating rights on associations.

The trouble with linking rights to associations is the arbitrary nature of how associations might be viewed.  The merits of a particular group are decided by the government; al Qaeda may look and act like a terrorist organization, but the United States only recognizes them as such because of decisions made by the folks in Washington DC.  But aside from the sheer irrationality of the conclusion, what prevents those same politicians from declaring another group — say, America’s veterans — to be terrorists undeserving of rights?

In the absence of a deep principle separating terrorist organizations from politically disfavored groups or McVeigh-style domestic terrorists, I find it troubling that so many conservatives are so eager to put the Christmas Bomber into military detention, even though I agree that it is where he belongs.  Even more troubling, though, is the fact that even though I agree he belongs in the military system, I can think of no great principle separating him from McVeigh.

In the absence of such a principle, I find myself in reluctant disagreement with the prevailing wisdom of my fellow conservatives.  The power to commit a person, captured on American soil, to military rather than civilian detention is too great a power to leave in the hands of government discretion.  The potential for abuse as a means to silence political rather than national enemies is too great to be left available to this or any future President.

The original question starts by noticing the “messages [of Star Trek, which] are unabashedly liberal ones of the early post-Cold War era – peace, tolerance, due process, progress (as opposed to skepticism about human perfectibility).”  As an initial matter, I have to seriously wonder if those values are “unabashedly liberal” at all.  Most conservatives I’ve ever met share the “liberal” desire for peace, while recognizing the necessity of violence and war.  Tolerance is itself a universal virtue, and the lack thereof is part of why people came to America in the first place.  Due process is enshrined not once, but twice in the Constitution, and is the first line of defense against arbitrary action by an overbearing government.  Progress, too, is a part of the human condition, and the drive to better oneself rings more true as a conservative principle than as an ideology promoted by the architects of the welfare state.

That said, there undoubtedly are some unabashedly liberal messages to be found in Star Trek.  There is no money in the 24th century, and the Ferengi are thoroughly vilified as capitalist pigs.  The series took some none-too-subtle shots at religion at various points throughout its run.  Dr. Crusher was well known for her skills not only as a physician, but as someone who tangled the Enterprise crew up into situations where they didn’t belong out of her heart felt desire to be helpful.  Star Trek also had Deanna Troi.

When it comes to attracting conservatives, I think where Star Trek truly shines is in its consistent expression of fixed, often conservative, principles.  “The first duty of a Starfleet officer is to the truth,” Captain Picard admonished Cadet Crusher.  The Prime Directive held Federation largess at bay.  Despite the myriad of temptations available to them, Starfleet officers could not be bought off easily, and most would not sell out their principles at all.  To contrast this with the modern liberal, whose principles (if, indeed, he has any) can now be openly bought and sold on the Senate floor, is to find that there is truly no comparison at all.

One of the greatest problems with conservatism is that it lacks the flare of utopia which make liberalism attractive to idealists and dreamers.  Star Trek is able to bring together elements of utopia in a principled culture.  And so, while some of the particular lessons are undoubtedly high on the liberalism scale, Star Trek brings with it a solid foundation of strong principles and moral clarity which is music to (at least) this conservative’s ears.

“So it’s proper to remind ourselves what that American way entails.”  For most of our nation’s history, Americans have prided themselves on being a free and independent people.  The American tradition, in fact, is founded on freedom, and our Declaration of Independence continues to resonate as one of the guiding lights in what it means to cast off the reigns of an overbearing and distant government.  Our people have fought two wars against our own countrymen (the American Revolution, as then-Englishmen against England, and the American Civil War, as Americans against America) against the real and perceived excesses of government authority.  We have fought, with pen and blood, against Nazis, Fascists, Communists, Despots, Dictators, and Totalitarians to “secure the Blessings of Liberty” not only “to ourselves and our Posterity,”(US Constitution, Preamble) but to anyone else brave enough to fight for the right of self-rule.

It is notable that of all of the government intrusions upon the individual Americans have fought in the past, not a single one has been so personal or intimate as government intrusion into the doctor’s office.  In fact, that singular alcove has been the focus of one of the deepest divides in modern American politics.  Some of the most prominent advocates of government healthcare today are the very same people who harp incessantly on the fundamental liberty of choice and the right to no-government-here privacy when medical discussions turn from unwanted illnesses to unwanted fetuses.  So sharp is the conviction against government involvement in the abortion doctor’s office that every year a march is made in front of the Supreme Court on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  The moral certainty that the government should not direct the fate of people’s lives by interfering with those who help us in white robes is not wrong.  Yet, interfere is precisely what government healthcare by definition would do.

As plenty of other commentators have pointed out by now, government healthcare is a deep threat to American liberty.  Unlike the police and military force which so animated Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, the force of government on our lives through healthcare would be vague and ill-defined.  But once the government has entered our bodies, it becomes far more powerful than a uniformed officer ever could.  Every decision could be rewarded or punished through the evolution of some sort of tax “to help pay for healthcare,” or by lengthening or shortening the line to the doctor’s office.  The government, literally, would have the last word over who lives and who dies.

When Patrick Henry spoke to the Virginia Convention in St. John’s Church, he most assuredly did not have a heart attack, stroke, or cancer on his mind.  Yet, the words “Liberty or Death” resonate through time in the best of the American tradition, and they apply no less to us now in health than they did to the founders in war.  In the American tradition, it is better to die free than live as a slave.

So, what’s so great about the private system?  To be sure, it isn’t perfect.  No system is.  But the private system is able to innovate, able to change, and able to seek out ways to improve.  It is not interested in controlling lives.  The private system allows Americans to live as Americans: Strong, independent, and free.

More crime means you need more government to control crime. In particular, more police. When liberals are asked to cut budgets, the first thing they cut are police. But people hate that, and will often concede to tax increases instead. Victory: liberalism.

Society has a clear interest in preserving herd immunity, as the alternative is significant exposure to serious illnesses like small pox and polio which have not afflicted society for many years.  As my friend rightly argues, if enough people individually make the decision to not vaccinate, the collective risk is nothing short of a possible epidemic.  Clearly a bad thing.  Yet, as my friend observes, a rising interest in natural / holistic medicine and fears about the safety of vaccines (perhaps most notably the thoroughly debunked vaccine-autism link) has moved society closer to a dangerous precipice.  And, as he points out, the most efficient way to prevent a bad outcome is to prevent people from making the decision to not vaccinate.

While my friend’s method may be efficient, it is also a direct assault on liberty.

Whenever people in society are free to make decisions, it is inevitable that some of the decisions people make will be sub-optimal, or flat out wrong.  Sometimes disastrously so.  Knowing the danger, it is tempting to want to step in to reduce the chance of a bad outcome.  It is tempting to step in and say that some decisions are too risky to leave in the hands of the people.

Liberty demands more.  It is impossible to talk seriously about liberty when the only available freedoms are with respect to low risk issues.  Liberty itself is dangerous business and, as history has shown, the freedom to talk about freedom is always one of the first that governments try to strip away.  The reason, of course is obvious: A free person might decide to do something other than what whoever has power wants them to do.

A commitment to liberty demands accepting the fact that some things will not go your way.  To be sure, it is proper to try to persuade people to your side, and much of the discussion I had with my friend focused on how to persuade parents to vaccinate their children even if they may be skittish about the idea.  At the end of the day, however, a freedom itself requires that parents themselves make the decision.

There is only meaning in liberty if the people are at liberty to decide something meaningful.

This week I spent some time talking to some friends who, like me, are basically American proles.  Like our storybook counterparts, we have little if any impact on the political structure of our nation.  Sweet drinks and the manufactured wars broadcast on television are enough to keep us distracted.  However, from these conversations and by remarkable coincidence, I got onto a subject which Orwell’s masses and even Winston himself likely could not understand: The power of community.

As history has shown us time and again, people are at their strongest when they are interconnected in a meaningful way.  The number of connections need not be numerous, and the people involved need not be politically powerful, to have a major impact on a person’s life.  Ask any teacher and they will tell you that the children who excel are almost invariably the children with a parent who gets involved in the education process.  Ask any psychologist and I’m sure you will find that many of their patients leave feeling better simply from having had someone to talk to.

Americans have always had an interesting relationship with community.  We are highly individualist, a reflection of the principles of independence which mark the founding of our nation.  At the same time, we also recognize that no person can be truly independent; school shootings tend to be done by “lone wolves”, violent criminals in general are often social outcasts, and there is a growing consensus that inner-city poverty can be traced in part to the weak family ties which characterize much of urban life.  We are suspicious of government, with its power to create and destroy communities on a whim, tempered, we like to pretend, by the government’s commitment to justice and our own ability to check government misbehavior through the ballot box.  But we are also suspicious of individuals; the manipulative, self-serving creatures who seldom care about anyone but themselves, even when helping others.  The contradictions animate much of American politics.

And so, what were the ideas that prompted this chain of thought?  A faith based community centered on supporting families, and a school centered on creating a communal family for kids who have none of their own.  Both, I think, would be shining examples of how to improve a society.  Hope never requires all of the proles.  A revolution can begin with two.

The essential hallmark of a true blooded conservative appears to be a deep belief in God and Ronald Reagan.  Conservative principles are Reagan’s principles, and those who would seek to deviate are frowned upon or ostracized.  For members of the current political class, for people like Rush, and for Baby Boomers in general, the invocation of Reagan’s name codes for a whole collection of principles and policies which set most or all of the entire definition of modern conservatism.  For these people, who lived through Reagan, the full set of principles is entirely clear, and perfectly summarized in speaking His name.

America has reached a point in time where people who have never known Reagan are beginning to become politically active.  Though they are only just now becoming politically active, the up and coming leaders and opponents of Reagan’s Party are people who were just starting elementary school when Reagan himself left office.  Their knowledge of Reagan comes not from bearing witness, but from teachers and textbooks.  To them, and to the liberals who have no incentive to correct any misunderstanding, he is the man of Iran-Contra, compassionate conservatism, and that silly trickle-down “Reaganomics” thing.  Oh, and the end of the Cold War.

These relatively useless bits of information are not helpful to an up and coming conservative when it comes to understanding conservative principles, particularly if that understanding is meant to make conservatism sound like a good thing.  To make matters worse, young conservatives and pretty much all liberals now define conservatism not in relation to Ronald Reagan, but to George W. Bush.  What Reagan actually stands for has been communicated very poorly from the elder to the coming generation, leaving younger conservatives to pretty much try to make it up as they go along.

Perhaps one upshot of the current squabbling will be an effort not so much to redefine conservatism, but for the people who already know the definition to spend some time filling the rest of us in.