On Saturday night, when our blog reaches its lowest volume of traffic, it is perhaps safe to admit that the immigration issue is indeed splitting the conservative movement. Kausfiles actually has a list dividing conservatives into an Enforcement First Group (kick out the illegals, close the borders, and then decide what to do next), and the Comprehensive Group (clamp down on illegal immigration, but offer some kind deal for illegals already in the country). Here is Kaus's list.
Enforcement First: William Bennett, Robert Bork, William F. Buckley, Ward Connerly, John Fonte, David Frum, Frank Gaffney, Newt Gingrich, Jonah Goldberg, Victor Davis Hanson, David Horowitz, David Keene, Roger Kimball, Mark Krikorian, Michael Ledeen, John Leo, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Rich Lowry, Heather Mac Donald, John O'Sullivan, Daniel Pipes, Phyllis Schlafly, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele.
Comprehensive: Jack Kemp, George Shultz, Jean Kirkpatrick, Tamar Jacoby, Grover Norquist, Jeff Bell, Bill Kristol Arthur Laffer, Linda Chavez, Lawrence Kudlow, John Podhoretz, John McWhorter, Max Boot, Vin Weber, Richard Gilder, Ed Goeas, Martin Anderson, J.C. Watts, Ed Gillespie, Clint Bolick, Steve Forbes.
Kaus pronounces himself surprised at the location of many conservatives on that list. I am less surprised, because I think this is in fact a new shift but along an old fault line.
Many years ago I attended a meeting of the Federalist Society in San Francisco. This is another thing I risk mentioning on a Saturday night, as it may cause me a world of trouble if ever I am nominated to the United States Supreme Court. One thing I noticed there was that the "conservative movement" consisted of two very different sensibilities. One was straight conservatism: a strong preference for economic liberty combined with a traditionalist approach to most social questions and, at the time, a vehement anti-communism. The other was libertarian: a very strong emphasis on individual liberty not only in economic questions but in all questions, and more or less isolationist inclinations on foreign policy. Now here was the thing: so long as you could keep everyone's attention on economic questions, you'd never know there was a difference. But when someone mentioned abortion, it was like Moses parting the waters.
I suspect that most movement conservatives fall mostly but not perfectly into one group or the other. A die hard conservative may suddenly surprise us by taking a libertarian position in favor of legalizing drugs. Someone who is a strong supporter of free trade may decide that the free exchange of labor across borders is something the U.S. can no longer afford.
Far from being a harbinger of disaster, such divides are a sign of the strength of the conservative movement. Conservatives can't stop arguing among themselves, and in doing so can't help genuine thinking about the problems they encounter.
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