My Berean colleague Mark Smith wrote a very astute piece for this blog on the recent announcement by Ohio Governor Jon Kasich as a candidate for the presidency in 2016.  He received an interesting and stimulating comment, to which I wish to reply as a separate blog.  If you want the entire comment, go to Dr. Smith’s blog on  Kasich of July 23, 2015.

The commenter begins by posing an inconsistency among conservatives (meaning modern American Conservative ideological beliefs).  He says that on the one hand are critical of “large government” (his words) in certain areas and issues, but then seem to desire what he calls “government interference” in other areas.  He provides examples of each category.  Though the commenter sees this as an inconsistency, it is actually very easy to explain–and it is not (usually) an inconsistency, except when conservatives sometimes get muddled in their thinking, as all ideologies do at times.  The key is to understand that when conservatives think about government they are first and foremost thinking about the role of government, not first it size.  Should government be involved at all in “this or that”?  It is only after that question is answered (in the affirmative) that size becomes an issue.  So it is first a qualitative issues, than a matter of quantity.

Let’s take an example.  Conservatives generally want no or less government interference in “welfare” or “education.”  Why? Because, consistent with their ideology, they see that the state is not a good provider of these services, that there are pathologies associated with anything more than localized provision (at best), and that large government bureaucracies may well “make a mess” of what could be done much better (efficiently AND responsively) by either very local governments who have better “local knowledge” or not at all by government.  Education, for example, is much better provided (people get educated–its obvious goal) by local schools, controlled by local citizens who elect local board members and who can monitor progress of lack thereof better at that level, without large-state interference and “cookie cutter” impositions.

Conservatives on the other hand do tend to want government interference in issues such as “sexuality and “drug use” (though this is by no means universal among modern conservatives)  Conservatives have a long history, going back to Edmund Burke, of seeing the “big picture,” the whole community, of valuing traditional morality, of seeing an important place for religion, and (interestingly) of being generally more personally religious than other ideologies (in the US that is).  Their convictions then lead them to advocate a legitimate place for the state in the example issues I mentioned, because without interference, society itself, civilization, might crumble.  This is not to say they like “big government.”  Even here they would mostly favor localized self-government.  Nevertheless, these kinds of issues are for them consistently legitimate and historically traditional.  Some will even (like Christian conservatives) argue that Scripture itself requires some type of interference.  Is that paternalism?  In a certain sense, yes.  But say you believe abortion is not only a minor sin, but the illegitimate killing of a human being.  Can you in good conscience simply say “live and let live” if you are a religious conservative?  That seems too big a price to pay for many and still maintain ones integrity.  I confess myself to be one of those.  Now if push comes to shove, many conservatives will tolerate regulation of abortion at the state level rather than the Federal, hoping that in the future they can go further.  But they are “holding their noses” here and taking an improvement over nothing at all.

The commenter also uses an example of “predatory lending” to illustrate his argument that conservatives don’t take much interest in that kind of issue while interfering in “private affairs.”  But former example is a straw man because he has not defined his term, and if he tried, he would have an exceedingly difficult time doing so, much less writing laws and regulations that would solve the problem without “throwing the baby out with the bath water.”  Who gets to define the practice?  If the state does it, it then becomes almost a guarantee that rules will be issued that catch an immense number of perfectly legitimate and necessary practices up in the dragnet.  A so-called predatory loan may be nothing more than two informed parties agreeing to a loan “with their eyes wide open” because both want it equally and perceive a mutual benefit.  This isn’t to say the debtor to the loan will actually end up being satisfied, but are we to be paternalistic here because of the possibility he might have second thoughts later and at present wants that loan?  And if we deny loans the unintended consequences are that many, many otherwise perfectly good loans will not be made because they cannot be legally made–against the wishes of consumers.

Conversely, “social morality” is just that, morality, and morality has always and consistently been a part of the conservative vision (though less so now), as I pointed out above.  Moreover some moral issues carry with them such grave consequences that it seems imperative to interfere at some level.  Abortion comes to mind once again.  I have been told that if we simply allowed unfettered abortions, the overall numbers would decline.  Maybe, but in the meantime (while I am waiting and hoping) a given number of innocent unborn children have been aborted.  I cannot in good conscience desire that approach.

So conservatives are generally not pragmatic (though some certainly are), but they do weigh costs and benefits of proposed policies, and costs include not just economic but “psychical” and moral and spiritual costs.  Call that utilitarianism, but it also includes an element of Divine Command Theory ethics, or, if you prefer, natural law ethics.  In the end, as the commenter points out, we as Christians can agree on the moral problems while disagreeing about proposed solutions.  BUT, we cannot carry our disagreement so far as to obliterate the very core principles conservative stand for.  When we move that far we have divided not just among ourselves, but into conservative versus some other ideology–modern liberalism, libertarianism, etc.  Moreover, there is also a danger that we may have moved too far away from Christian principles themselves in  our zeal to find “nuanced” solutions.

In summary, the comment was well-taken, but seems to be flawed in the respect I have discussed above.  I may have missed something, but hopefully, this will be helpful at the least.