OPINION: What would the Tea Party say about the Corn Laws?

On the eve of her primary victory, the princes of the right wing media — Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin and company — were quick to loudly denounce Dr. Charles Krauthammer, and others, for voicing reasonable concern over the capriciousness of O’Donnell’s candidacy. Krauthammer, for his efforts, should have — and probably did — see this outrage coming. Even the erudite minds who write and edit the most revered conservative fortnightly, the National Review, refuse to denounce O’Donnell, as they seem to refuse to denounce Palin and the Tea Partiers generally. In the weeks since, they have printed multiple pieces praising O’Donnell and putting into context the so-called “Buckley rule,” which says to vote for the most conservative candidate electable. But Krauthammer was right, even if he is proven wrong:

In her few post primary interviews, O’Donnell has been dodging irrelevant and silly questions about her past. She’s also been channeling what the voter market presently demands — an angry, right-wing, post-feminist, who, like Peter Finch before her, just isn’t gonna’ take it any more. Not from liberals though they might be giants, and not from liberalism itself, thought it might be insurmountable, and certainly not from those infamous RINO’s, even though they might constitute the so-called conservative establishment. It’s time, she says, to get serious about policy and ideas. Well, now. That’s big-girl talk. What kind of ideas might she have in mind? “Free market ideas,” of course. As to what this means, exactly, I have no clue; something tells me that Ms. O’Donnell doesn’t know either, but that obviously doesn’t matter much to the electorate, nor to Limbaugh, Levin, Hannity and whomever else rallied to her cause, jeopardizing any serious and calculated attempt to repeal Obamacare and thwart the revisionist goals of the current administration.

The fusing of conservative social policy with libertarian economic policy is not that old of an idea. The aforementioned NR, and the works of James Burnham and Buckley himself, are often credited with the fusion. It has been a (fairly) successful marriage for a little more than half a century. Libertarian economic policy, though, is not some sort of gospel. And “free market” is not a political philosophy. Markets are not solutions; they are only gauges. Sometimes they foretell how problems should be solved; sometimes Smith’s invisible hand swoops in and properly sets the equilibrium between supply and demand, between x and y. But sometimes government is needed to set the parameters of that market – not in the overly intrusive and paternal manner, which contemporary liberals tend to do it, of course, but the state is ordained for a reason.

Put another way, just because a policy is market driven, doesn’t make it right, depending on the market. For instance, I am not convinced that Disraeli wasn’t right about the Corn Laws and I know the Whigs’ American System was a prosperous endeavor, at least in part. I doubt O’Donnell, or the Tea Partiers, agree with either of these points.

Presently the market demands popular outrage. Appetites, however, change – that’s why we call them appetites. And one day, the market will gauge the need for a different kind of radical government, and with no real conservatives in power, who will maintain order? Certainly not the Tea Party.

Stephen B. Tippins Jr. is a Madison County resident and a staff attorney in Jefferson for the Superior Court of the Piedmont Circuit.