In the late 50’s and early 60’s Robert Welch, head of the John Birch Society, posed a threat to the advance of the nascent conservative movement by his malevolent speculation about the motives of those whom he considered enemies of the state, including the Eisenhower administration.  Left unchecked, Welch’s eruptions might have aborted Barry Goldwater’s nomination for the Presidency.  Welch claimed Eisenhower was a “conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist conspiracy”[1].  Welch’s censure had to come from conservatives themselves if conservatism were to have grown by attracting thinking men and women.  With Goldwater’s blessing, William F. Buckley, Jr., in the National Review, exposed what he called the Birch fallacy:

“The fallacy,” [Buckley said], “is the assumption that you can infer subjective intention from objective consequence: we lost China to the Communists, therefore the President of the United States and the Secretary of State wished China to go to the Communists.”

Buckley called Welch’s views “far removed from common sense”, and Goldwater called for his resignation in characteristically deadly accurate words: “We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner.”

Today, we have votaries on both the left and right displaying that same kind of divergence from common sense.

On the right, if Party leaders leave unanswered the reprehensible parallels drawn between the President and 20^th century dictators, their political stature and moral authority to advance constructive proposals that should be rooted only in impeccable conservative logic will erode.  This principle should have motivated Republican leaders to distance the Party from Rep. Wilson’s disrespect of the President and his Office in a joint session of Congress, before the opposition could seize an opportunistic and transparently political moment to reprimand the Congressman.  To his credit, Sen. McCain took that hill, but when he turned around the troops were hiding in the trenches.  On these grounds of principled leadership, the Party should be all too eager to renounce those who express their passions without civility or in exaggerated tones.  Character in politics is doing the right thing when you are almost assured it will bring the scorn of your allies.

On the left, Jimmy Carter made the case this week that there should be a law protecting the people from gross negligence by a former President.  Carter, who in lieu of leadership in the 70’s answered the misery index—the aggregate of high inflation and interest rates—with a somber and depressing lecture on American “malaise”, was never known for his ability to lift the country to the high ground.  But to be out front accosting sincere critics of the President and those who genuinely dissent  from his policies with racism is to display an ignominy akin to those on the right who liken Obama to evil statists.  Equally unfathomable is the pied-piper response from those in Carter’s Party who, in their hypnotic trance at the thought that he may have discovered the magic key that gives them license to ram any bill past the will of the people, expose their supine aversion to moral leadership.  Will the Party of Kennedy, Johnson, and King quench or fan the flames of bigotry?

In a strange twist of history, Carter and his adherents are guilty of the Birch fallacy: the right opposes big government led by a black man; therefore the right must be racist.  The loud, but numerically insignificant, neo-Welchs claiming to be conservative are also committing that fallacy: Obama is centralizing economic power, therefore Obama is a closet dictator.

Both are, in the words of Goldwater, irresponsible.  The corollary is that those who would first call for civil, respectful discourse will lead their party and the country to what President Reagan, who vanquished malaise, called “morning in America”.

http://americancivility.us

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[1]  Buckley, Jr, William F. (March 2008). “Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and Me”. Commentary. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/goldwater%E2%80%94the-john-birch-society%E2%80%94and-me-11248