We say we want better leaders, but we often don't act as if we do. We say we want honesty, but when Phil Gramm tells us we run crying to the state when anything goes wrong, we chase him from public life. And we claim we want men who aren't enamored with wielding power, but when we think Fred Thompson isn't fascinated with running for office, we refuse to support him. In short, we say one thing and do the other. We may say we want better leaders, but judging by our actions, we get the leaders we deserve.

For example, look at our current discussion of oil. Thanks to the rise in prices, most on the right are, quite properly, pushing for an end to restrictions on drilling and a removal of the government impediments to building new refineries and other infrastructure. The position is unobjectionable, but the debate is. First, we are admitting to the conceit of the left that a perfectly normal market phenomenon is a "crisis" that the government must solve. Rather than stating first that the increase in prices is the natural outcome of a higher demand, exacerbated by our own lack of oil production, we state it really is a "crisis" which the government must solve. We are conceding the statist beliefs of the left. Second, we are often stating the argument in the protectionist term of "energy independence". That is simply a meaningless term. Unless we are going to pass laws prohibiting the import or export of oil, all energy will be traded on the world market, and, even if we produce enough oil to fill all domestic needs, we will have no illusory "energy independence". Worse still, some go even farther and argue for forcing the newly drilled oil to stay in the US, either arguing for a nationalized oil industry or for what amounts to the same thing, prohibition on export of the oil. And yet this is the supposedly conservative position.

Nor does it get better when we look at housing and mortgages. Again, many are conceding the argument before they begin. There is no lending or housing crisis. Artificially lax lending and artificially inflated housing prices are finally facing market correction, that is a good thing, yet those on the right are afraid to say so. Instead we pretend that the government created housing bubble and lax lending were the natural state of affairs and there is some crisis to resolve. Some may argue that the market should be used to correct this supposed crisis, but even then, by admitting the "crisis" they are buying into the left's premise that the government made distortion was somehow desirable. Worse still, others propose even more interventionist solutions, most simply watered down versions of the solutions on the left, from "debt relief" (meaning some version of forgiveness, that is confiscation of wealth from lenders), or "forbearance", (forcing lenders to wait to collect, usually without interest or at a greatly reduced rate), or some form of government backed refinance. As I said about oil, these are supposedly conservative solutions.

And then we have the social conservatives who push for greater government censorship of broadcast media. Starting from the thoroughly statist premise that "the public owns the airwaves", they proceed to the equally statist premise that the nominal representatives of those "people" can tell others what they can broadcast on those airwaves. Thankfully the growth of cable, satellite and internet broadcasting is swiftly killing the whole "public airwaves" debate, but I still must ask, why are the airwaves "owned by the public"? Do we say your land is "owned by the people" and you only license it? So why should conservatives buy into this argument about airwaves? Should we not be fighting for property rights in broadcast bands rather than admitting the thoroughly socialist "public ownership" argument? Well, probably, but it would not work for the social conservatives, who see the public ownership as the wedge they can use to enact their agenda and force others to broadcast only content of which they approve. In other words, to get their form of authoritarianism they will accept someone else's authoritarianism as well. And, again, this is a supposedly conservative position.

And that is really the problem. Conservatives may whine about "RINOs", and claim that McCain is not representative of the party, but most conservatives behave every bit as liberally as the RINOs they deplore. Maybe they are left on different issues, but the conservative movement has by and large been cowed by the left and continues to argue on terms set by the left. Judging by how most on the right approach problems, if McCain is not representative of Republicans it is not because he is too far to the left, as those opposing McCain are themselves arguing for trade barriers, censorship, nationalized oil, and a host of other positions which would have horrified conservatives of a generation ago.

Worse still, they put these beliefs into action, at least in terms of elections. When was the last time you heard a presidential candidate consistently state "that's not the government's job"? For that matter how often has a candidate even said that about a single issue? I can recall McCain saying something along those lines about the housing crisis, but note how little support that statement got. Rather than rallying behind those who try to limit the scope of government, we instead emphasize the "big plans" the same candidates have. That is, just like the left, we get excited about how he is going to use government, not how he is going to refrain from using it.

Of course, we make excuses for our addiction to big government. Maybe the public won't accept that it isn't the government's job. Or this is a crisis. Or oil is a "special case", and the market just doesn't work. That is actually a favorite. We believe in the market, except in this single special case, because somehow market rules just don't apply. Amazing how many exceptions exist to the laws of economics. Judging by the exceptions supposed conservatives have found, I wonder why we bother with economic laws at all, as the exceptions outnumber the cases which follow the rules.

Of course none of it is true. The laws of economics apply because they are nothing more than the laws of human nature. Taken to their most basic level, economic laws are simply codifications of traits common to all humans. (Rather than write 600+ pages justifying this, I will refer those interested to von Mises' Human Action, which starts with basic human desires and builds to the entire structure of Austrian economics.)  There is no reason to think that even in the most peculiar situations that government intervention will produce results better than would the free exchange of goods. Nor is there any reason to think the public would reject a politician who honestly promoted freedom rather than government dictate. We have never tried.

All these claims show us is, for a huge number of conservatives, the arguments of the left have won. The right has come to believe that the state really is a good tool for managing the economy, and the economy needs government intervention. When they say the public won't vote for someone who says it isn't the job of the state, what they really mean is that they wouldn't.

Which leaves us with a bit of a problem. If the liberals are fighting for a big state and conservatives are fighting for a big state, where do the rest of us go? I am not talking about third parties or protest votes, I mean, quite simply, how do we describe ourselves? Libertarian is no good, as it also entails fighting for NAMBLA and cop killers and a number of other sickening groups, and while I describe myself as a federalist, that is because of related but separate beliefs. But with conservatives having gone over to the big government side, what's left?

Do we take a page from Prince's name change and call ourselves "The System of Beliefs Formerly Known As Conservative"?