Conservatarians rising?

• Author: Gillespi, Nick
• Position: Charles C.W. Cooke, author of 'The Conservatarian Manifesto' - Soundbite - Interview

Charles C. W. Cooke is a writer at National Review and author of The Conservatarian Manifesto (Crown Forum), a book about a "certain coterie on the right" that combines elements of the conservative and libertarian philosophies. Reason TV's Nick Gillespie sat down with Cooke in March to talk about how the two groups can learn to get along. To see more, go to reason.com.

Q: What is a conservatarian?

A: These are the people who say when they're around libertarians, they feel conservative; when they're around conservatives, they feel libertarian. The fault lines are that they disagree with libertarians on immigration, foreign policy, and sometimes abortion. They disagree with traditional conservatives on federalism, gay marriage, and drugs. And they tend to be disappointed with the Bush years. Sometimes not because of Iraq, but because of No Child Left Behind, Medicare expansion, the spending, and a general feeling that Republicans don't live up to their rhetoric.

Q: Let's talk about immigration. Somehow the government that conservatives are constantly harping on as being inefficient and stupid is going to be able to both secure the borders in a way that doesn't infringe on people's civil liberties and adjust the demographic population of 300 million-plus people to meet all of our needs--in terms of ethnic diversity as well as what jobs people can do. How can anyone think government would be good at that?

A: I'm not sure I would say government is going to be good at it. What I would say is that we already have a government that is so deeply woven into the economy and into our lives that to just allow people to come in--and if you look at the polling, tens if not hundreds of millions of people would want to--would be to put some pressure on our existing welfare system. People say, "Let's go back to how we were 100 years ago, sink or swim." I don't have so much of a problem with that. But I don't think the modern American public is willing to watch people sink or...