Matt Spalding is the vice president of American Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He is a Claremont Mckenna College alumnus and former classmate of Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn. Spalding wrote “We Still Hold These Truths,” the book that gave the 2012 Conservative Political Action conference its title. The Collegian sat down with Spalding to talk about what “These Truths” are, and the nature of different strains of conservatism.
What are the principles you mention in your book that you call the core of civic life and education?
I talk about equal rights, nature, consent — principles of the Declaration of Independence — to which I add property rights, religious liberty, the rule of law, Constitutionalism, independence, and it all culminates in self-government. They’re all interconnected. They really work as a whole. So rather than talking merely about property rights, which is an economic argument, [I talk about] self-government. They’re really intertwined in a deep and fundamental way, so you have to go through and explain that.
How do libertarians and conservatives manage to find common ground?
The problem with looking at conservatives as groups is they all kind of have their own little philosophies. So libertarianism is really based on a very different philosophy – it’s radical individualism in which the individual creates their own sense of meaning.
It’s very narrow, and different philosophically. Its roots are very different than the roots of the American Founders. We want to point that out to them, but do it in a way that teaches them something.
They believe in limited government Constitutionalism, so you approach them that way. You have a common ground, and you want to draw them back to the Declaration and the Founding as a whole to show them that their understanding of limited government — the protections of the individual — fundamentally depend upon having an idea of what that individual is.
Which brings up the question of human equality, and what is that equality? The narrower libertarian “rights” argument, which is actually good as far as it goes, is insufficient, at a certain point.
It really demands a certain understanding of the moral meaning of the individual and their purpose. It can’t be merely about your right to something, but also, “What is happiness?” You broaden it to the full discussion of the Founding, and you shift towards that. Their views of limited government ultimately depend upon the laws of nature and “nature’s God.” It’s as simple as that.
Now, does this solve every question about the role of religion in society and the debates we’re having? Of course not. That’s what politics is about. But, in a deeper fundamental way most people who are “libertarians” are not actually libertarians.
What is GOP candidate Ron Paul’s appeal to conservatives?
The fact, I think, that Ron Paul is drawing a lot of attention, is not because of his full philosophy – which, I think, most people don’t actually buy – but because he’s hitting certain themes which I think are perfectly reasonable: that government is out of control, that we should get back to the Constitution. Even the argument about sound money [is a] perfectly legitimate argument. We shouldn’t misread that to think that somehow conservatives have accepted the full argument of libertarianism. Limited government is perfectly consistent with our arguments about the Founding.
How do progressives and conservatives differ on civics?
The modern civics debate is really a debate between civics as knowledge — in which civics is understood to be a part of a broader question about liberal education, where the content is meaningful — and civic education in the modern sense, where it’s all about experience, experiential learning, getting out and doing things, becoming civically engaged, and becoming an activist and a community organizer.
