Hello, Auberon Quin? Have we got a job for you!

You will all be greatly relieved to know that Jonah Goldberg’s interns have a solution to The People’s dangerous reliance on Big Government, which is destroying everything even as you read these words.

Given the hollowing out of civil society — caused by family breakdown, economic dislocation, declining volunteerism and church attendance,

Not mentioned: Sinecures that deprive qualified individuals of jobs in favor intellectually flaccid piles of toe cheese like Jonah Goldberg, who then foist anything resembling work off on unpaid interns, who in turn sure as hell don’t have time to volunteer or go a-Godbotherin’.

and the growth of the welfare state — documented by social scientists like my American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray

And if a man who co-authored the Bell Curve and has his very own page at the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented a thing, you know it must be true!

and Harvard’s Robert Putnam, it shouldn’t be surprising that millions of Americans are looking to Washington for the sense of community traditionally found closer to home.

Hmm. Could it be that some people find their community lacking when it comes to providing things like the ability to go about their lives without being harassed, assaulted or killed, and finding themselves in states run by people who think this is the proper way of things, seek a redress of grievances at the national level?

Nah, they just need to go to church.

Still, these visions leave millions of traditional conservatives and committed libertarians without a natural home in either major political party.

So off you fuck then?

We should be so lucky.

Yuval Levin points to a solution: denationalize our politics.

The institutions that work best in 21st-century America are those that give us choices. No one simply lives in the United States of America. We live in Peoria, Harlem, and Seattle.

Whoa there. The Right Wing has made it abundantly clear that people live in East Coast Ivy Tower Infested Enclaves, West Coast Hollyweirdo Infested Enclaves, New Jack Inner Cities or Real America. But wherever people live, the solution to their problems is … More oppression. Duh!

The virtues built close to home, Levin argues, are those that make us good citizens and ultimately draw us together. What would be so terrible about letting diverse communities decide how they want to live and spend their tax dollars?

Gosh that sounds great. In fact, I sorta kinda think that happens already. What’s harder to do these days is to decide to live in a way – i.e. pass laws – that harm members of that community without facing negative press, pushback and possibly, horror of horrors, a judge telling the law makers to cut it out.

Normal people don’t have a problem with this. They understand that real injustice is bad and actually damages communities and the country. But this is an article for National Review readers.

No matter. J.G.’s interns have an answer to the problem of people being cut off from help at higher levels of government.

The culture wars would still rage, but at least the winners would have to look the losers in the eye.

At least until the winners criminalize eye contact by the losers.