After South Africa freed Nelson Mandela from decades in prison, ended apartheid, and went to majority rule, an interesting divide happened. The all-white Afrikaans party, the National Party, had ruled South Africa since before most grandparents of today's South Africans were born. Their conservative policies were supported by conservatives here in the US. Dick Cheney, then a member of Congress, rose in opposition to allowing Mandela out of captivity. Africans chanted "one man one vote." US conservatives derisively referred to prospective majority rule as "one man, one vote, one time." Sub-Saharan black people could not be trusted to cast ballots.

But all evil things must come to an end, and the long arc of the moral universe did eventually bend toward justice. Nelson Mandela traded iron bars for a presidential mansion, as the head of the ANC, the African National Congress. And that is where a curious alliance came about.

The ANC was for a post-racial Africa. Economic development, not racial division, should command attention. Tribalism should phase out, becoming a faded memory. And so, the all black, Zulu based, Inkatha Freedom Party found itself joined by the all white National Party, the rabid Afrikaners. Both were prepared to struggle together for the right to impose rigid tribalism. They had a common vision quite different from the unity of the ANC.

The vision of unity, that of the African National Congress, prevailed. The National Party dissolved, then reformed as the New National Party, then, about 5 years ago, gave up the ghost, merging into the ANC.

I was thinking about South Africa, and its uncomfortable alliances, as I read about some of the 9/11 aftermath that is with us today. President Bush, in one of those grown up acts that earned the gratitude of Americans like me, made it clear early on who the enemy was. It was not Islam. It was not even a major division of Islam. We regarded ourselves as at peace with Shiites and Sunnis. Our enemies were the attackers, the terrorists. After his election, President Obama promoted the same vision.

al Qaeda, of course, has a different vision. They are frustrated at the international popularity of the American President. They wish to purify Islam, destroying all Shiites and all but the few Sunnis who share their goal of harsh religious dominion. They envision a global clash of civilizations.

Oddly enough, they are joined by those Americans who want to see just such a clash. Opposing Muslims who wish to build their own houses of worship, angrily defying efforts of those who plan to erect a living Muslim monument against terrorism, an Islamic center near the heart of the radical attack of 9/11. It will serve as a demonstration that all real Americans, regardless of faith, unite against an ideology of hate. Feisal Abdul Rauf leads the efforts and regards it his personal mission to defeat the terrorist vision.

I consider the arguments against those efforts, those promoting just the sort of global clash that is al Qaeda's goal, and I am reminded of unexpected alliances that can come from a shared vision.

I’d love to see Sarah Palin come ... for Friday prayers instead of just sending a tweet. She’d see that we’re just as American as she is.

 - - Sharif El-Gamal, developer, planned Islamic Center, July 22, 2010
     In the days after 9/11, Mr. El-Gamal was at ground zero as a volunteer,
     carrying water to emergency responders. Ms. Palin was in Wasilla, AK

The bottom line is: I'm not an expert, so don't give me the power in Washington to be making rules.

Well, as political moments go, Rand Paul's interview with Detail Magazine doesn't match the most horrible imaginable. "I was for it before I was against it." "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." "Let's give a welcome to macaca, here." But I could think of better ways to put the libertarian point of view.

At it's heart, his philosophy is not only not cynical, it's idealistic. The world would be a much better place if everyone would act in accord with their own enlightened self interest. Laissez faire means let well enough alone, as Washington Gladden acknowledged in the nineteenth century, "but also, 'Let ill enough alone.' Its contention was that ill enough, if let alone long enough, was sure to turn out well enough. About that there is question."

Well, Duh!

I would much rather see the USDA inspection label on the food we will prepare for our children than trust that everyone along the chain of production and distribution will be diligent about safeguarding the future effects of any tarnish on their reputation. Company inspectors at the Peanut Corporation of America found 12 instances of contamination during the final month of the Bush/Cheney administration. They shipped tainted peanut butter out anyway and 8 people died, a final testament to the efficacy of corporate self-interest.

Rand Paul is right, of course. A mining company should be sufficiently deterred by the prospect of bad publicity so that miners can work knowing that a company electrician would never deliberately disconnect the methane detector, or any other safety device, on a piece of heavy equipment. We have the right to be skeptical that families of the 29 workers who died as a result of the failure of that theory may take comfort in the fact that corporate carelessness will make it harder to recruit workers. "You'd try to make good rules to protect your people here," he said of employer self-interest. "If you don't, I'm thinking that no one will apply for those jobs."

There are people I trust. In most cases, they have earned it over a long relationship. I would trust my life to a few people. I would trust the lives of children to a very few.

In the end, that is why I have to reject the enlightened self-interest, no-one-wants-a-bad-reputation, let's-throw-out-all-regulations approach of conservatives like Rand Paul. His pixie dust will kill, but he is the likely next Senator from Kentucky. I have a fond hope that voters will take him at his word: "...don't give me the power in Washington to be making rules."

I don't mind trusting some folks with my life and the lives of those I care for.
I so don't want to trust everyone.

What he was talking about is upholding the freedom of association. It means that no one should be forced to interact with anyone against their will. If I have a grocery store, I should have the right to keep blacks out, Jews out, anyone I want out. If I only want to admit left-handed redheads into my grocery store, that's my right. Now, I think that's kind of silly, but it's a philosophical point.

 - - Walter Block, Ludwig von Mises Institute, quoted August 2010
     In Details Magazine, describing the position of associate Rand Paul, who
     also serves with the conservative group

Richard Stoughton was a drug store proprietor in Southwark, England. In 1712 he formulated an elixir that had wonderful effects on pretty much anyone who tried it. It had 22 ingredients that only Stoughton knew. It was a concentrate. If you put 50 or 60 drops into wine, or ale, or even tea or plain water, you had something that would ease your pain and perhaps affect a cure to whatever ailed you. When Richard Stoughton applied for, and got, a royal patent for his concentrate, nobody knew he was also coining a popular term that would later describe the economic theories of contemporary conservatism. Stoughton's brew became an early "patent medicine."

In the early 18th century, patent medicines multiplied and were marketed around the United States. Later, they came to be synonymous with fraudulent scheming that seriously endangered the health of those gullible enough to partake. The traveling fake doctor is a character in so many early westerns that snake oil is known as much by the ethics of its marketing as by the product itself. I don't care if it works, whispers the classic snake oil salesman to himself. I just care that it sells.

And so we come to this past Sunday's Fox News interview between Chris Wallace and GOP Leader of the House, John Boehner (R-OH). Wallace observed that top economists say we need more economic stimulus.

Boehner: Well, I don’t need to see GDP numbers or to listen to economists. All I need to do is listen to the American people, because they’ve been asking the question now for 18 months, “where are the jobs?”

Steve Benen holds that John Boehner, despite the I-only-care-what-sells context, really does believe what he is saying. It is possible, I suppose.

George W. Bush did not cause anti-intelligence to prevail in the Republican Party. He did bring it to its current zenith. It was not really a virtue in its own right. It represented folksiness, a plainspoken every man's common sense wisdom. It was Sarah Palin in short haired masculine splendor. Intellect was not only ethereal and out-of-touch, it was a bit unmanly. When David Gregory, then a White House Correspondent for NBC, surprised President Jacques Chirac of France by asking a question in French, President Bush was disdainful. “The guy memorizes four words and he plays like he's intercontinental!” Our President made ignorance fashionable.

Conservative Stephen M. Bainbridge, writing as ProfessorBainbridge.com laments his brethren, longing for the days of respectability past. "...the most prominent so-called conservatives are increasingly fit only to be cast for the next Dumb and Dumber sequel. They're dumb and crazy."

The thoroughly modern Boehner embraces this latest fashion. Like the most successful snake oil peddlers of darker ages, he makes the sale because he goes beyond cynicism. Having stilled the inner voices that once whispered caution, he has sold himself on his 22 secret ingredients. His reassuring smile is genuine. Just take another 60 drops. Don't you feel better already?