Language and Tone Matter

Unlike most on the right, I enjoy reading the NY Times house conservative David Brooks. He is a true compassionate quasi-conservative, a moderate-conservative who has patiently filed down his rough edges and sharp corners and installed comfy, cushiony liberal-friendly padding.

Virtue begat prosperity, and the daughter killed the mother.  -- Cotton Mather

He comments intelligently and non-threateningly on Rick Perry’s pledge to work to make DC inconsequential:

The Republicans, and Rick Perry in particular, have a reasonably strong story to tell about decline. America became great, they explain, because its citizens possessed certain vigorous virtues: self-reliance, personal responsibility, industriousness and a passion for freedom.

But, over the years, government has grown and undermined these virtues. Wall Street financiers no longer have to behave prudently because they know government will bail them out. Middle-class families no longer have to practice thrift because they know they can use government to force future generations to pay for their retirements. Dads no longer have to marry the women they impregnate because government will step in and provide support.

Moreover, a growing government sucked resources away from the most productive parts of the economy — innovators, entrepreneurs and workers — and redirected it to the most politically connected parts. The byzantine tax code and regulatory state has clogged the arteries of American dynamism. ( NY Times)

It may surprise my fellow Right Blogistanis to hear me say that the GOP needs to learn to use such language. Yes, I love lashing out at our big feral government, but I’m not a politician. Tone is important. Progressives are rightly threatened by our angry speech, and we have a right to be angry. But politicians are hired to channel that anger into a cogent agenda that is palatable to the broadest base possible.

A prosperous nation with a pay-for-play government will inevitably attract rent seekers.  Another great point by Brooks:

Stable societies are breeding grounds for interest groups. Over time, these interest groups use government to establish sinecures for themselves, which gradually strangle the economy they are built on — like parasitic vines around a tree. (NY Times)

Can we all recognize that?

Can we rally around an effort to not destroy the entire government, but an effort to roll back the worst of its abuses? Can we also agree that human nature tends towards venality, selfishness and corruption?  Can we insist that government craft policies with the understanding that welfare deadbeats and Wall Street cheats will grab it all with both hands and gorge themselves when given half a chance?

I agree with Brooks’ assessment of the problem: Lagging business startups, slowing technological innovations, the dismal state of our educational system, and stubborn poverty and increased social stratification.

I strongly disagree with his solution: More big government. How can a man so smart reach such a tired solution so discredited by empirical evidence?