I’m still trying to figure out if the fact that CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists from which I’ll be blogging the next few days, is being held in the “Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center” is ironic or appropriate.

I suppose in the end, the fact that the activists are gathering here carries a similar irony and appropriateness that surrounded the opening of the building itself. For those of you who don’t know, the Ronald Reagan building is not only the largest federal building in Washington, D.C., it’s the largest building, period.

On the face of it, it’s odd that conservatives would have pushed to name such a vast, overbearing federal building after Reagan, a man they consider the face of limited government. The building houses offices federal agencies like US AID, US Customs, and — believe it or not — the Environmental Protection Agency (presumably in the “James Watt Wing” of the building).

Or at least it seemed odd that time. Also odd has been many conservatives’ ensuing creepy mission to slap Reagan’s likeness and image on elementary schools, airports, highways, fountains, and post offices across the country, a practice reminiscent of many of the communist despots Reagan so vigilantly opposed and conservatives credit him for bringing down. There’s actually an ongoing project directed by a prominent conservative activist to name at least one piece of public property after Reagan in every county in the country.

The kicker came when Congress imposed its will on National Airport — which is governed locally, not federally — to take Reagan’s name, as well. Congressional Republicans then grew impatient with the D.C. Metro system’s tardiness in changing the signs directing Metro passengers to the airport, and threatened to withhold funding until Metro officials spent tens of thousands of dollars to print and hang new signs.

But while Reagan was a wonderful ambassador and rhetorical warrior for limited government, he was a rather disappointing executor of the principle. He promised to elimante two federal agencies, but ended up adding a new cabinet position. We have Reagan to thank for the most draconian and invasive practices in the drug war. He ran up massive deficits, and engaged in extra-constutional foreign policy vigilantism without the consent of Congress.

So perhaps we limited-government types are mistaken when we criticize today’s big government conservatism’s claims to be the heir to Reagan’s legacy. In the sense that they support limited government in theory but not in practice, perhaps they really are the ideological descendants of Reagan. Social conservatives want to free themselves from the public schools, NPR, and high taxes, but when it comes to dictating who can marry whom, who can put what substances into their own parties, who can gamble, engage in consensual sex, or market pornography, they’re perfectly comfortable dropping down the yoke of the state.

Like Reagan, President Bush promised limited, transparent, accountable government, and through both of his campaigns mouthed the rhetoric of trusting the people more than he trusts the government. And, like Raegan (only much, much worse), upon taking office he promptly grew government, grew the regulatory state, grew entitlements, added a new cabinet department, and reinvigorated state campaigns against illicit drugs, pornography, and gambling.

So in the sense that today’s conservativsm is big government hiding behind the veneer of small government rhetoric, I suppose holding the annual gathering of today’s conservative activists in the “Ronald Reagan Building” is perfectly appropriate. About as appropriate, in fact, as a Republican Congress okaying the construction of the largest building in the nation’s capital, paying for it with taxpayer dollars, housing the offices of federal agencies inside, and naming it after Ronald Reagan.

One of the things I’m going to be looking for over the next few days is whether or not there’s any room left on the “right” for libertarians and “leave us alone” conservatives. My sense is that there isn’t. My sense is that conservatives have swallowed everything this administration has given them on the domesti big government front because (a) they adore his foreign policy, and (b) the White House makes its expansive programs pallatable to conservatives by cloaking them in conservative values. Limited government conservatives can be persuaded to back big government if said big government is instilling conservative policy. So we can expand the federal role in education so long as we do it with buzz words like “accountability” and “national testing,” and assure GOP voters that ever proposal is opposed by the teachers unions, so it must be okay. Federal dollars for welfare are just fine, so long as they’re first filtered through a “faith-based” organization.

I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time before the White House announces new “abstinence-based” environmental regulations. I can see the moral right already scratching its collective head: “Well, I don’t like environmental regulation so much…but it is abstinence-based!”

I feel more camraderie with the left these days than I do with the right, though I’d guess that’s mostly because the right happens to be in power at the moment. I certainly no longer feel, as I once did, that libertarians should cast their lot with the GOP and hope for the best. That hasn’t worked out so well.

It’ll be interesting to see if the folks at CPAC still have any room for the Leave Us Alone Coalition among their ranks, or if they’re still drunk (metaphorically, of course!) on the last election, and ready to press ahead with big, invasive, increasingly powerful, increasingly secretive, increasingly litigious, but of course compassionate government.

Addendum: I’ll be posting frequently and hurredly the next few days, so my posts are bound to be more error-prone than usual when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and typos. Sorry.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 17th, 2005 at 9:18 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.