How to Reconcile Liberty, Morality, Conservatism, and Libertarianism with Carney’s Fusionist Theorem

As a libertarian who became interested in public policy because of Ronald Reagan, it won’t surprise you to know that I’m more of a “right libertarian” than “left libertarian.”

I fully agree with positions that motivate left libertarians, such as the war on drugs doing more harm than good, foreign entanglements such as NATO no longer serving America’s national security purpose, and the importance of preserving constitutional protections of civil liberties. But since I’m a fiscal policy economist, I normally consort with conservatives.

And my frequent interactions with conservatives sometimes lead me to wonder why we aren’t closer allies. Well, maybe we can be if both sides read what Tim Carney wrote for today’s Washington Examiner.

His column is about Rick Santorum’s inability to unite proponents of limited government, but that’s secondary to the insightful analysis on how conservatives and libertarians can be natural allies. Here are key passages.

For many of today’s liberals, if something is bad — like the traditional light bulb, a very high health-insurance deductible, a gas-guzzling car, or a lack of racial diversity — the government ought to outlaw it. Maybe they can’t comprehend the mind-set of many of today’s conservatives, who revere both individual liberty and traditional morality as the necessary conditions for human happiness and thus say that certain behaviors are immoral but shouldn’t be illegal. Not only are traditional morality and limited government totally compatible, today they are intimately linked, as the Left uses big government to subsidize abortion providers and force all employers to pay for their employees’ contraceptives. …the moral law should guide our personal actions, and individual liberty should guide our political decisions. …When liberals cry that conservatives are trying to legislate morality, that’s typically projection and misdirection from liberal attempts to legislate morality — they say we’re trying to outlaw buying contraception because we oppose their efforts to mandate buying contraception. …More often than not, in the United States these days, it’s the secular Left imposing its morality on the religious Right. Don’t want to photograph a gay wedding? You’re fined. Don’t want to sell the morning-after pill at your pharmacy? You’re driven out of your job. Don’t want to pay for your employees’ sterilization? You’re a criminal. Don’t want to subsidize Planned Parenthood with your tax dollars? Tough, pay up. An alliance between libertarians and conservatives is natural and right today. …The proper conservative response is to fight for the liberty of all Americans, including religious conservatives, to manage their own affairs according to what they believe is correct. Increasing the size of government, even in the name of a more moral society, simply gives the Left more weapons to turn on the Right in the culture war — Obamacare is the perfect example.

Maybe Tim’s column makes sense to me because I’m somewhat of a social conservative in my personal life. I’ve never smoked, never done drugs, don’t like gambling, rarely drink, don’t deal with prostitutes (other than the non-sexual ones serving in government), and have a traditional view on the importance of family. But I’ve never thought my boring personal preferences should be part of the law.

But as Tim explains, leftists believe in imposing their views on everyone else. And the last sentence in the excerpt shows why conservatives and libertarians should be united in opposition to statism. Big government gives the left the tools to advance an agenda that undermines both morality and liberty.

So with that in mind, I’m going to do something similar to Mitchell’s Law and Mitchell’s Golden Rule. But in this case, I’ll actually give credit to someone else. As shown in the picture, libertarians and conservatives should unite behind Carney’s Fusionist Theorem.