They should recognize its risks for two reasons. First, because American conservatives have spent the last half-century warning that virtuous rhetoric, and even virtuous intentions, do not necessarily produce virtuous results. Think about the right’s critique of government intervention to alleviate poverty. It’s built on the contention that while liberals may denounce poverty more passionately than do conservatives, their policies, even when well-intentioned, actually hurt the poor. Why? Because human behavior is too complex for government planners to understand, so when they try to make people zig, people often zag instead. Irving Kristol, among the most influential conservative intellectuals of the 20th century, declared in 1972 that, “I have observed over the years that the unanticipated consequences of social action are always more important, and usually less agreeable, than the intended consequences.”
