Op-Ed by Scott Lazarowitz

A few years ago, Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote about the intellectual incoherence of conservatism, but he was only touching the surface, as far as I’m concerned. Now, I’m conservative in the social and cultural area, but I do have a sense of consistency when it comes to morality and recognizing the immorality and evil of government. Most conservatives do not seem to have that consistency, it seems to me.

Conservatives are constantly railing against the “left,” the irrationality and nonsense on college campuses, and some government programs. And usually when Democrats like Obama are in charge, conservatives criticize the government. But when Republicans like Donald Trump or George W. Bush are in charge, conservatives love government.

Oh, the conservatives on talk radio are so excited about Karen Handel winning her election to Congress from Georgia. Well, the truth is that nothing she does or says will change anything in any significant way. That is because she supports the system of central planning and government confiscation of private wealth, just like most conservatives.

For example, Wikipedia notes that Handel supported Tom Price’s bill to replicate ObamaCare with some nips and tucks, and she supports the “American Health Care Act,” i.e. RepubliCare. She does not support free markets in health care. She doesn’t recognize that central planning in medical care is what has doomed medical care in America, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Conservatives have to stop it with their continued limp-wristedness when it comes to saying they support “free markets,” private property rights and free association, but then promote taxation (involuntary transactions, which are immoral, equal to a robber ordering you to fork over your money), and centrally-planned governmental intrusions into people’s private lives.

As long as we continue to have a system that relies on involuntary payments or confiscations of private wealth or income of the workers and producers of society, we will continue to have bureaucrats and their minions and corporate cronies living high off the hog at the expense of the people’s labor, all based on theft and plunder.