The Cato Institute Can Do Better Than This

They have an event planned:

Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP

BOOK FORUM
Thursday, May 10, 2007
12:00 PM (Luncheon to Follow)

Featuring the author, Victor Gold.

The Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Vic Gold was deputy press secretary for Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, which launched the conservative revolution in the Republican Party. He went on to collaborate with President George H. W. Bush on his autobiography and to coauthor a satirical novel with Lynne Cheney. But today, he says, the Republican Party is run by people Barry Goldwater wouldn't recognize-some of whom are identified in his polemical subtitle. His new book is a lively jeremiad against "a fiscally irresponsible, ever-expanding federal government," a messianic foreign policy, a theocratic view of church and state, and a Republican Party that has accepted all those unconservative ideas. Join us to hear Vic Gold discuss the war for the soul of the GOP and the prospects for restoring its commitment to limited government and a constrained role for politics.

There are so many things wrong here.

Using the term "Holy-Roller" to describe the social conservative wing of the Republican Party is unnecessarily insulting and inaccurate--like calling the Cato Institute's members the "libertine" wing of the Republican Party, instead of libertarian. Honest people can disagree about appropriate policy with being insulting.

"A messianic foreign policy": Sorry, but the decision to invade Afghanistan was hardly messianic. While one might argue that Iraq has turned into a real mess, it was a pragmatic decision to fix the problem of the Arab Middle East by infecting democracy into one of the countries that was perceived by almost everyone (including most Democrats) as a serious potential threat to the United States.

"a fiscally irresponsible, ever-expanding federal government": there are people that you can blame for this in the Republican Party, but the "Holy-Rollers" aren't the ones who have been pushing this--and I'm not sure that you can put the blame for this on the "neo-cons." A lot of this is traditional pork barrel politics--a problem no matter whether Democrats or Republicans hold office.

"a theocratic view of church and state" "a Republican Party that has accepted all those unconservative ideas": This is just nonsense. The social conservatives are trying to get America back to a relationship between government and religion that was present from the Founding until the 1950s. Mr. Gold may not want that, but claiming that it is "a theocratic view" shows a real misunderstanding of the role of religion in American history.

To claim that this is an "unconservative idea" means what? In the sense of "reluctance to change a way of doing things"? No, it is very conservative. Argue that it is bad policy if you want, but it isn't "unconservative."

I'm disappointed that the Cato Institute would stoop to this level.