Guardrails and Guard Towers
Yesterday while Bloghopping through some unfamiliar territory, I came upon an interesting debate happening on the Right, spurred by the anti-privacy comments of Senator Rick Santorum and the recent revelations about self-styled morality scold William Bennett. The question of individual liberties vs. socially-dictated morality is perhaps more serious for conservatives than for others because the Right so completely rejects any concept of communitarianism in its economic policies and is selectively but radically libertarian on other key issues such as gun ownership, freedom to observe strict religious practices in the home, and unrestricted use of personal property. These positions make it difficult to reconcile the views of some religious conservatives who insist on the obligation of the State to restrict personal liberties in areas such as drug use, sexual practice, abortion, consumption of pornography and certain types of free expression.
The compromise position that kept the two factions of the Right united on social policy was articulated ten years ago in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Daniel Henninger entitled “No Guardrails.” After a fruitless search, I could not find the original text of this reputedly influential essay anywhere online, so will have to make due with this summary provided in a pertinent opinion piece on the subject by Radley Balko which ran on the Fox News site on Wednesday. Pardon the long quote, but many outside of the conservative community are unfamiliar with this argument (I know I was), and it’s necessary to provide context and insight:
“No Guardrails" basically blamed society's elite — and the leftist elite in particular — for adopting the ever-sliding mores, values and morals that cultural conservatives blame for most of modern society's maladies.
Elitists can afford to lack values, "No Guardrails" thinking says, but the underclass can't. So single motherhood may be fine for Murphy Brown, who is wealthy, well-connected, and educated (not to mention fictional), but fatherless child rearing is a devastating example to set for low-income communities.
Perhaps elites can afford to flirt with drugs, with indiscriminate sex, and with excess personal liberty, the editorial explained, "but for a lot of other people it hasn't been such an easy life to sustain. Not exceedingly sophisticated, neither thinkers nor leaders, never interviewed for their views, they're held together by faith, friends, fun and, at the margins, by fanaticism."
"These weaker or more vulnerable people, who in different ways must try to live along life's margins, are among the reasons that a society erects rules. They're guardrails."
Let’s begin an analysis of this piece by recognizing its fundamental truth: unconventional lifestyle choices are not for everyone. Jails, AA meetings, Bowery bars and churches are full of people who “thought they could handle it” (whatever “it” happened to be their vice). Freedom without responsibility is a dangerous thing. Even well-grounded individuals make bad decisions from time to time, and there’s a point in practically everyone’s life where restraint is the wisest or healthiest option. More significantly, for many people, bad personal decisions have negative implications beyond their own lives, hurting those around them, random strangers and society at large. Guardrails theory is, in that sense, an honest attempt to address the underlying causes of some social problems, and is probably sincerely held by many conservatives on that basis.
That said, let’s turn to the numerous problems with this point of view, in no particular order:
First, The Guardrails theory limits the freedom of everyone to the level tolerable by the least responsible people in society. That seems profoundly and unnecessarily oppressive as the basis of social policy in a democracy. It’s also fundamentally inconsistent with conservative positions on other key issues. Take gun ownership, for example, where, using a Guardrails approach, the deadly irresponsibility of a minority should be sufficient cause to limit the freedoms of everyone. When guns are misused by criminals, irrational or desperate people, or just by accident, the results are almost always worse for other people (e.g., the victim) and society as a whole than in the case of, say, drug abuse or problem gambling by individuals. And yet, conservative philosophy is not just silent on the matter of gun restriction, it is usually supportive of the most radically libertarian viewpoint (as am I, by the way).
On the flip side, if conservatives are so concerned with the welfare of marginal people in society, why advocate “guardrails” to protect people from slipping into social transgressions but not economic penury? How is it logical to argue for restrictions on innocuous personal freedoms (because they may be abused) on one hand, and on the other for, say, the privatization of Social Security, when it is manifestly apparent that many, if not most, Americans are incompetent at long-term financial planning? Yes, a few people can “handle it” and will make out fine, but the vast majority need the “guardrail” (or, more conventionally, “safety net”) of a structured, mandatory pension system. Free market economics rests on the assumption that individuals will make rational decisions regarding their own financial welfare. Of course, that’s a fiction, but it’s a necessary fiction in a capitalist society and most conservatives are happy to look the other way when people make poor economic choices and are faced with the consequences. Why not extend the same faith that people will make the right choices about their personal happiness, and that an open society will “self correct” in the same manner as an open market if the balance swings too far out of kilter?
Another problem with Guardrails theory – and much recent conservative social criticism – is the misuse of the concept of “elite.” As a descriptive term, elite simply identifies the highest levels of a particular scale: social, economic, intellectual, political, etc. Every society of any description has elites of one kind or another, and I think most conservatives acknowledge this as a good thing (the alternative being some kind of forced leveling, which liberals, as a historical matter, should fear at least as much as everyone else). Elitism becomes offensive to democracy when the selection of elites is arbitrary – for example, hereditary without regard to the quality of the individual, or based on racial, gender or ethnic characteristics.
The elites singled out for criticism in Guardrails theory do not come by their elite status by any kind of arbitrary social pre-selection, but as a result of their political views, their educational attainment, celebration of their accomplishments in arts or entertainment, or their “sophistication.” But even by that criterion, there are plenty of high status people whose extravagant lifestyle choices have left them, and those around them, notoriously in ruins.
Properly understood, the term “elites” here has no other meaning except to exclude anyone to whom the theory of Guardrails does not apply. Everyone who ever smoked a joint and didn’t go on to become a heroin addict, everyone who buys a Lotto ticket from time to time or goes for a weekend jaunt to Vegas without “betting the milk money,” anyone who has sex outside of marriage that doesn’t result in disease or pregnancy, are “elites” under this formulation. Excuse me – I think that would include a vast majority. In which case, what’s the problem?
The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, making the opposite case from Balko, expresses it in the following, highly illuminating terms:
… I believe we should hold to higher standards in public than we do in private. Hollywood elites would bother me much, much less if they didn't try to rationalize their personal behavior as good for everybody. Queer theorists wouldn't bother me very much if they applied their theory out of sight. Libertarians have a problem understanding or accepting that the public commons requires public self-restraint. We have a tragedy of the commons in moral terms when each person selfishly and egotistically insists that his or her own morals and lifestyle would be good for everybody. As I've quoted Burke saying a million times, mankind learns at the school of examples and will learn from no other. Well, examples must be public, not private, for people to learn from them. [emphasis added].
So, moral in public, anything-goes in private, just like in Saudi Arabia. This is an interesting vision for our democracy. What Goldberg ignores is the reason that advocates for non-traditional life choices are so vocal: it is because they face persecution (and in many cases, prosecution) for doing what are to them natural and harmless activities. So-called “elites” who don’t have any personal problems using drugs responsibly or enjoying unusual sexual activities in the privacy of their homes, face the same draconian penalties as everyone else if they're caught by our increasingly intrusive and unrestrained police apparatus. Can you blame them for speaking out about what they clearly perceive as injustice, stupidity and waste of public resources on a mass scale?
The “abuse of the moral commons” in Goldberg’s formulation comes not from those seeking to be left alone, but from those who presume to decide what’s right for everyone on the basis of their own prejudices and assumptions. If advocacy bothers you, here’s a clue: stop attacking people’s lifestyle choices and they will stop feeling the need to defend themselves.
Conservatives hate the notion that traditional ideas – especially those that are restrictive of personal freedoms –are forced to contend on intellectual parity with arguments advocating harmless hedonism. At base, they have no faith that people will make wise choices about their own lives when presented with options that offer short-term gratification. And it’s true: some won’t. Opportunities will pass, happiness will be lost, lives will be ruined.
As Balko writes, quoting the National Review’s Stanley Kurtz:
…tolerance for bad behavior at the elite levels will inevitably trickle down to the Joe Lunchbucket crowd, with calamitous results. “The married commune next door might invite the two of you over for some fun,” Kurtz writes, “with potentially problematic results for your marriage.”
Well, perhaps. But whose decision is that to make? Working through the consequences of poor decisions is part of being human, and it’s not the role of a free society to dictate to people how to live their own lives. Things would be simpler if everything were regimented, if all bad decisions were illegal, if everyone were happy expressing themselves within the definition of “normal behavior.” Simple, yes. But not true, and not right. Freedom has a price, but it’s worth paying. I find it strange having to lecture conservatives about this subject, considering everything else they are putting the country through in the name of freedom.
10:20:55 AM 
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