Conservative magazines and the presumption of liberty: a content analysis on sex, gambling, and drugs.

• Author: Klein, Daniel B.
• Position: Report

When the first issue of the National Review was published in 1955, William F. Buckley Jr. declared, "It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens' life, liberty, and property. All other activities of the government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress" (5). Yet the leading magazines and newspapers of the conservative movement--the National Review, the Weekly Standard, the American Spectator, and the now-defunct American Enterprise--more often than not fail to oppose government intrusion into America's bedrooms, gambling places, and drug activities. Real champions of liberty uphold a presumption of liberty: current restrictions on such activities would not be accepted docilely, but rather would be challenged with the burden of proof. Yet most of the conservative magazines either support the restrictions or omit any active criticism of them. Of the magazines examined, the National Review has had the strongest liberty record on the issues treated, whereas the others have, on the whole, preponderantly failed to be pro-liberty or have even been antiliberty.

Our investigation was conducted with the firm understanding that the liberty principle does not speak to issues concerning government rules for the use of government property. Liberty does not hold that drugs, prostitution, and gambling be tolerated in public schools, public parks, and so on. Liberty holds, rather, that such rules are for owners to decide. We scored the magazine content with such understanding. Moreover, we do not mean to suggest that classical liberalism or libertarianism insists on axiomatic adherence to the liberty principle. But classical liberalism or libertarianism does uphold a presumption of liberty. It holds that the burden of proof should be on coercion or intervention, even when such is the status quo.

Method

The research covers material published in the print editions of the four magazines through 2007. We conducted systematic searches using several electronic databases in order to maximize coverage. Tables in this document give the article counts generated by our searches, breaking the numbers into relevant articles (that is, articles that discuss the issue in at least some detail) and articles that should be ignored (for example, passing references, duplicates, and so forth). The relevant articles are further broken down into those that take no position on the issue versus those that stake out a clear position. Those taking a position are further classified as advocating a move either toward a more libertarian position or toward a more interventionist position, or as supporting the status quo. (1)

Conservative Magazines on Sex

Many articles and editorials in the National Review have supported at least a limited right to pornography (table 1). In a 1961 article about pornography, Francis Russell wrote: "I think there might even be a high and inaccessible place in the library for the works of Henry Miller" (157). "Even if it were trash," columnist D. Keith Mano added in 1975, "pornography has a crucial role in the growth of film as art" (1481).

National Review writers have also often supported political efforts to restrict pornography, particularly at the local level of government. "We have had enough experience of court-revised ideals to see the other side of the coin of legalized permissiveness," author Malachi B. Martin wrote in 1977 as he lamented the "purging of our ideals from the laws that mark out the public ground-rules of our lives" (998).

In a 1986 editorial about the Meese Commission on Pornography, Buckley asked why, given a market for porn, "should not the willing buyer and the willing seller enter into conventional arrangements?" His answer was that "lust is an appetite that needs to be regulated," and that "a sophisticated society acknowledges that sex is often an unruly passion" (55).

In 2001, National Review editor Jay Nordlinger called for states to establish "porn czars" and for the prosecution of Internet companies and cable companies that hosted porn sites and porn channels. He also urged citizens to write to companies that produce salacious ads and denounce them.

Although there is little evidence...