The American Conservative: Tom Switzer: 'Dean of the Realists'

Source:The American Conservative- "Owen Harries/ photo courtesy of the Lowery Institute."

Source:The New Democrat 

"When the first issue of The National Interest was published in 1985, its editor, Owen Harries, proclaimed an affinity between realpolitik and conservatism. By this he meant that realism—a foreign policy that respected the primacy of self-interest as a motive and of power as a means in an anarchic international system—reflected a conservative temperament. After all, both realism and conservatism put “their stress on what is, rather than what should or might be.” Both “emphasize the importance of circumstance and are suspicious of abstract theory and general principles as bases for action.” And both are “aware of the intractability of things and the difficulties and dangers involved in attempting sweeping changes.”

For Harries, realism was not incompatible with the pull to incorporate moral principles into foreign policy; democratic values simply had to be treated as one among many interests. Looking back to George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1797, Harries pointed to the first president’s clear-eyed assertion that U.S. interests must not be compromised by “permanent alliances,” which in turn might undermine America’s diplomatic flexibility. Harries also reminded his readers that John Quincy Adams warned that freedoms at home would only be tarnished by wars abroad. In Adams’s words, America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Were she to “become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.” Not for Harries any ideological crusades or grandiose plans for global social engineering.

Yet when the foreign-policy journal he edited was officially launched at the Sheraton Carlton (now St. Regis) in Washington on October 9, 1985, guests were a Who’s Who of leading neoconservatives, including Irving Kristol, editor of The Public Interest; former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick; former chairman of Council of Economic Advisers Martin Feldstein; Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams; Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz; writers Gertrude Himmelfarb and Midge Decter; and the rising 35-year-old star columnist Charles Krauthammer. Writing in the Washington Post to mark the event, future Hillary Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal adjudged: “In an effort to influence the foreign-policy agenda, a group of neo-conservatives is rolling out what its members consider their ultimate weapon.”

From The American Conservative 

The American Conservative: Senator Mike Lee: 'The Conservative Case for Criminal Justice Reform'

Source:The American Conservative- U.S. Senator Mike Lee, R, Utah.

Source:The New Democrat

"I’ll never forget when I first began to appreciate the magnitude of this problem. It was 2004; I was working in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah. In some cases I witnessed judges forced by federal law to impose punishments that did not fit the crime—first-time offenders sometimes being locked up for longer than murderers and rapists."

From The American Conservative

"I think a great demonstration of the old rules not applying anymore is look at the co-sponsors of The Smarter Sentencing Act," says Matt Kibbe, president of the libertarian activist group FreedomWorks. "It's guys like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and of course Rand Paul and Jeff Flake, also with Patrick Leahy and Sheldon Whitehouse.... They all agree there is an over-criminalization of American life and they all agree the government has overstepped its bounds."

Source:Reason Magazine- U.S. Senator's Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Jeff Flake: all in favor of criminal justice reform in Congress.

From Reason Magazine

I think the conservative case of criminal justice reform is very clear and comes from a couple of angles. One, the conservative principle of the punishment meeting the crime and personal responsibility and so-forth. Someone should explain to me why 3-5 years in prison is a just sentence for being in possession of pot, or even cocaine, when all they’re being charged with is illegal possession of an illegal narcotic. Then the other reason being from a fiscally conservative standpoint. Locking away millions of people in prison is very expensive. Especially when we don’t get much for that investment when you look at how violent our prisons are. The fact that we have so many people returning to prison after they get released. The poor health care, lack of opportunity for self-improvement, all the inmates that have serious mental health issues that don’t get treated and I could go on.

This is not about going soft, or hard on crime. We know the dangerous consequences when serious crimes are not taken seriously and when lighter crimes are treated harshly. You get a country where people don’t feel safe to leave their homes when you go too soft. And an overly expensive and wasteful criminal justice system when you go too hard on crimes where the offender could just have been in rehab, a halfway house, done their time in county jail, given probation, or a combination of all of these factors. This should not be about being tough or, soft, or even liberal, or conservative. Even though as a Liberal I believe we have the right approach here. This should be about being smart on crime and being just with our criminal justice system. The sanctions meeting the crimes and the sanctions coming with opportunity for self-improvement so the offender doesn’t end up back in the criminal justice system.

The reasons why you have Conservatives like Senator Mike Lee, coming together with Progressives like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and why Conservatives like Newt Gingrich are coming together with Progressives and Liberals outside of Congress, is because the Center-Right and Center-Left both see the waste an injustice in the criminal justice system. And in an era with low economic and job growth and high debt and deficits, you have the two sides looking at ways to cut waste in government and get more bang from our taxpayer bucks. The criminal justice system is a great place to start. When you consider that we have two-million people in prison in America with so many non-violent offenders being sent away for long prison sentences. When everyone involved especially the public would have been better off with a lighter approach. And reserve our harsh sentences for our violent offenders

The American Conservative: Timothy S. Goglein: The Moynihan Report at 50

Source: The American Conservative- Daniel P. Moynihan.

Source:The New Democrat

I believe the failure of the Great Society and where it comes up really short, is that it has essentially subsidized poverty in America. Not help people get out of poverty, but subsidize them while they’re in poverty. It seems to me anyway if your goal is to eliminate poverty and you’re going to call that strategy that has something to do with war, like the War on Poverty, the goal would be to actually defeat and eliminate poverty itself. When you subsidize something, you essentially leave as is. And you’re also encouraging it to stay there. Thats what government subsidies are about. But if your goal is to eliminate poverty, then the idea should be to actually move people out of poverty all together.

That instead of just giving people money so they can live more comfortably while in poverty, you’re instead helping them financially in the short-term, while at the same time giving them tools like childcare assistance and education, so the mother and these families tend to have single-parents, that tend to be uneducated mothers, can finish her education, get a good job and move into with her kids into a good home and neighborhood. And getting off public assistance all together. While you’re also cracking down on parents, generally fathers, who walk out on their kids. And forcing them to pay all the child support that they owe out of their paychecks.

What is what the so-called Moynihan Report found out about the African-American Family in 1965. That many families that were in poverty, only had a single-parent. Who tended to be the mother, who wasn’t educated and a lot of times didn’t even finish high school. Who simply didn’t have the skills to get herself a good job and be able to support her kids. With the father of her kids being completely out of the picture and not even knowing where he is. And as a result she goes on Welfare to try to support her kids. But all Welfare did was give her money while she was in poverty. And gave her more money if she didn’t have help raising her kids, or had more kids while on Welfare.

So-called Progressives back then and fifty years later, say that the reasons for high poverty in the African-American community, have to do with racism. And that there are no other reasons for their high level of poverty. And sure, racism has kept African-Americans down compared with Caucasians in America. But if racism and ethnic bigotry were the only reasons for poverty in America, Asian and Jewish-Americans, wouldn’t be doing as well in America. And doing as well, or better than Anglo-Saxons and other Caucasian-Americans. A lot of the reasons for poverty gets to personal behavior and responsibility and government policy. That subsidizes people for not being able to take care of their kids. And not making better decisions early on so they wouldn’t be in poverty at all.

The American Conservative: Leon Hadar: The Right's Putin Problem

Source:The New Democrat

I'm not trying to sound overly partisan or harsh and when my dad reads this he might say, "Why not?". But when I think of Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, I think of Neoconservatives in America, especially when they praise the man for his clamp down on homosexuality in Russia.  He is not democratic or authoritarian. He's somewhere in between, a fascist politician who believe he knows what's best for his country and therefore shouldn't have to contend with any real opposition or dissent.

Sound familiar in America, especially when you look at the Neoconservative flank of the Tea Party that see themselves, a lot of them from the least populated parts of America, as the true American Patriots?  The believe that they know what is best for America and anyone who disagrees with them should just shut up or move to Canada or some socialist country. Well, again, that is Vladimir Putin who believes that it's his way or no way and you if you don't like it you may end up in jail labeled as a traitor to the Russian Republic.

Imagine what it would be like if we really had a Tea Party President of the United States.  This will never happen as free speech, privacy and personal freedom becomes more popular everyday. But how different would someone like a Michelle Bachmann or a Rick Santorum or Steve King, U.S. Representative from Iowa, be from Vlad Putin. They wouldn't be able to lock up the entire opposition in the country but they may try to. I would doubt we would see much difference in governing style  between a Tea Partier and Vlad Putin.