The incoherent Mount Vernon statement

Here’s a fun little game called Spot the Self-Professed Conservative Self-Contradiction:

A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.

* It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
* It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
* It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
* It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
* It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.

As the example of every war from De Bello Gallico to World War II should make eminently clear, America not only has no national interest in “advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world”, but all attempts to do either are inherently contradictory to the principle of limited government based on the rule of law. There is not a single argument for “advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world” that will not directly and demonstrably violate the principle of limited government based on the rule of law.

Go ahead, feel free to try to make one. And, one notes, with no small amusement, that this incoherent Mount Vernon conservatism would require the USA to at least consider going to war with both the European Union and the People’s Republic of China as well as abandoning its military bases in Okinawa, Afghanistan, and Iraq. American freedom is in the American self-interest. Greek freedom or Chinese freedom may or may not be in the American self-interest, but obtaining the wherewithal required to forcibly impose freedom on the Greek or Chinese people, or anyone else around the world, is totally and utterly incompatible with both limited government and the rule of law. This is a matter of statistical and historical fact.

Needless to say, I won’t be signing it, my long affection for Mount Vernon notwithstanding. One of the more pleasant drives you can ever make is to take the top off the MG and drive from Oldtown Alexandria to Mount Vernon.