Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond are charting a new vision of social justice. It recognizes that the problems caused or aggravated by the growth in government cannot be corrected by a crude reduction in its size. Policy must also deliberately foster the growth of what Edmund Burke called "the little platoons" of civil society: families, neighborhood associations, private enterprises, charities and churches. These are the real source of economic growth and social vitality.

 

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Addressing these social problems that have worsened over many decades will take years. "The most important of all revolutions," Burke wrote, is "a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions." Yet we believe that social-justice conservatism can produce societies that are more humane than anything liberalism could accomplish. As we build a conservative alternative--a vision informed both by idealism and realism--we have evidence, experience and common sense on our side.

"People have died. Lives have been changed. Property has been destroyed. Yet, a group of trial lawyers are using this disaster, not as a reason to help the people of this state, but instead to further their own personal agenda." 

Watching Senators interrogate John Roberts this week, we kept wondering: Could all eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee really vote against someone with so much experience and legal acumen? Apparently they might, and if that happens it'll say far more about the state of our judicial politics than about Judge Roberts. Nowadays, Oliver Wendell Holmes would struggle to get Democratic votes.

Senate Democrats came at him fast and angry the first day, with the usual litany of charges that he was opposed to the rights of women, minorities, the poor, the environment, seniors, the disabled, et cetera. But Mr. Roberts so clearly rebutted the charges that by day two the Senators were barely hanging around to listen to anyone's questions but their own. On IQ points alone, it wasn't a fair fight.

On the coming vote, Democrats are conflicted. They know they can't beat Judge Roberts, but their interest groups are shouting at them to vote "no" anyway. They want a strong opposition vote to intimidate President Bush into believing that his next nominee will be defeated if he or she is a genuine conservative. On the other hand, some Democrats feel they'll be in a stronger position to oppose the next nominee if they can show they voted for this one.

Yesterday, on the last day of the John Roberts hearings, Americans--or those few who tuned in--had the opportunity to see the corruption of the Senate confirmation process put on its very best face. We saw well-spoken, even well-meaning, advocates of this or that in their best clothes. Their aim was no different from that of all those petitioners who historically have chased high officeholders down streets or crowded the doorways of monumental buildings to press complaints and prayers for relief into the hands or pockets of the powerful. In our Congress they used to call it "to press claims" or "to importune the Members." In a word, lobbying.

 

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Reporters covering the Roberts hearing tell me that loitering liberal leaders appeared crazed in spinning their stories. And more and more Americans know that what they have wrought has corrupted the Senate and made Democratic senators into mere shills

It shall be an unlawful, unfair, and deceptive trade practice for any person, firm, or corporation doing business in any area in which a state of emergency, as such term is defined in Code Section 38-3-3, has been declared, for as long as such state of emergency exists, to sell or offer for sale at retail any goods or services necessary to preserve, protect, or sustain the life, health, or safety of persons or their property at a price higher than the price at which such goods were sold or offered for sale immediately prior to the declaration of a state of emergency; provided, however, that such price may be increased only in an amount which accurately reflects an increase in cost of the goods or services to the person selling the goods or services or an increase in the cost of transporting the goods or services into the area.

(Tip: Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP)

America is a huge fraud, clad in a narcissistic conceit and satisfied with itself, feeling unneedful of any self-examination nor responsibility to right past wrongs, of which it notices none. It's the kind of fraud that simply wears you out.

"Mr. Brar has a well-documented history of filing such lawsuits in the State of California and is again abusing the judicial system under the guise of doing 'public good' while collecting settlements from these hard-working business owners. The suits target minority owners, typically of Hispanic and Asian descent. In many instances, store owners have opted to 'settle' with Mr. Brar."

 

 "It's basically a shakedown of small business owners who in most cases are unwilling to engage in an expensive legal fight and thus typically capitulate to Mr. Brar by settling with him in exchange for a dismissal."

We fail to use well what we know because we rely too much on large public bureaucracies. This was the primary lesson of the 9/11 Commission Report. Large public bureaucracies, whether the FBI and the CIA or FEMA and the Corps of Engineers, don't talk to each other much. They are poorly incentivized, if at all. Budgets, the oxygen of the acronymic planets, make bureaucracy's managers first responders to constant political whim. Real-world problems, as the 9/11 report noted, inevitably seem distant and minor: "Once the danger has fully materialized, evident to all, mobilizing action is easier--but it then may be too late."

 

Homeland Security, a new big bureaucracy, has struggled since 2001 to assemble a feasible plan to respond to another major terror event inside the U.S. The possibility, or likelihood, of a bird-borne flu pandemic is beginning to reach public awareness, but the government is at pains to create a sufficient supply of vaccine or a distribution system for anti-viral medicines. Any bets on which will come first--the flu or the distribution system?

 

Big public bureaucracies are going to get us killed. They already have. One may argue that this is an inevitable result of living in an advanced and complex democracy. Yes, up to a point. An open political system indeed breeds inefficiencies (though possibly the Jeb Bush administration that dealt with the 2004 hurricanes is more competent than Gov. Blanco's team in Louisiana). And perhaps low-lying, self-indulgent New Orleans understood its losing bargain with a devil's fate.

 

But we ought to at least recognize that our increasingly tough First World problems--terrorism, viruses, the rising incidence of powerful natural disasters--are being addressed by a public sector that too often is coming to resemble a Third World that can't execute.

The tragedy has been visited disproportionately, indeed almost exclusively, on the city’s African-Americans. The images from the city have been compared with natural disasters in sub-Saharan Africa; it is the faces of the victims as much as the scale of the destruction that underscores the comparison.

 

This massive disparity of suffering is bound to provoke a fresh controversy about race and class inequality, the great open sore of American society that bleeds profusely from time to time. The spectacle of tens of thousands of indigent blacks, apparently alone in being unable to save themselves from this horror, will surely make it weep anew.

Nobody wants to kick New Orleans and Louisiana when they are so devastated. But we will be deluding ourselves and laying the foundations for future suffering, if we don’t examine the human failures which have turned a natural disaster into a tragedy.

 

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[T]he many virtues of New Orleans are offset in part by serious flaws. The flowering of the human spirit in the realm of cultural creativity is counterbalanced by a tradition of corruption, public incompetence, and moral decay. It is no secret that New Orleans and the Great State of Louisiana have a sorry track record when it comes to political corruption. And corruption tolerated in one sphere tends to metastasize and infect other aspects of life. They don’t call it “The Big Easy” because it is simple to start a business, and easy to run one there.

 

Many years ago, an oilman in Houston pointed out to me that there was no inherent reason Houston should have emerged as the world capital of the petroleum business. New Orleans was already a major city with centuries of history, proximity to oil deposits, and huge transportation advantages when the Houston Ship Channel was dredged, making the then-small city of Houston into a major port. The discovery of the Humble oil field certainly helped Houston rise as an oil center, but the industry could just as easily have centered itself in New Orleans.

 

When I pressed my oilman informant for the reason Houston prevailed, he gave me a look of pity for my naiveté, and said, “Corruption.” Anyone making a fortune in New Orleans based on access to any kind of public resources would find himself coping with all sorts of hands extended for palm-greasing. Permits, taxes, fees, and outright bribes would be a never-ending nightmare. Houston, in contrast, was interested in growth, jobs, prosperity, and extending a welcoming hand to newcomers. New Orleans might be a great place to spend a pleasant weekend, but Houston is the place to build a business.

 

Today, metropolitan Houston houses roughly 4 times the population of pre-Katrina metropolitan New Orleans, despite the considerable advantage New Orleans has of capturing the shipping traffic of the Mississippi basin.

 

It is far from a coincidence that Houston is now absorbing refugees from New Orleans, and preparing to enroll the children of New Orleans in its own school system. Houston is a city built on the can-do spirit (space exploration, oil, medicine are shining examples of the human will to knowledge and improvement, and all have been immeasurably advanced by Houstonians). Houston officials have capably planned for their own possible severe hurricanes, and that disaster planning is now selflessly put at the disposal of their neighbors to the east.

 

Let us all do everything we can to ameliorate the horrendous suffering of people all over the Gulf Coast, not just in New Orleans. But we must not fail to learn necessary lessons. Hurricanes are predictable and inevitable. Their consequences can be minimized by honest and capable political leadership. It appears that New Orleans could have done much better. We would honor the suffering and deaths by insisting that any rebuilding be premised on a solid moral and political foundation.