Just watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hCTM2hzMvrY
“Just watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hCTM2hzMvrY";
That explained nothing. Newt tries to bundle discussion of social engineering with the issue of whether Congress should pass unpopular legislation. Which admittedly was the context for his putting his foot in his mouth. But the issues then as much as now shouldn’t be confused with eachother, and his point is as off-subject and wrong as ever. If you want to criticize Ryan’s plan as too radical, fine. Just don’t characterize it as social engineering when all Ryan’s plan would do is lessen the amount of government interference in society.
Behold the dark heart of Republican progressivism and Newtonian moderacy: less government is itself a form of social engineering because society has so grown used to cradle to grave state intrusion that it is now its normal condition. Any rightist deviation from that is just as bad as leftist deviation, and must be condemned. Yuck.
The nub, if I have it right, is that Newt incorrectly classifies anything relatively sudden and sweeping as “social engineering,” and therefore bad. Letting the welfare state grow at somewhat slower rate than Democrats, I take it, is not “social engineering,” and therefore good. What a load of bunk.
The Hayek thing is an empty name-drop, nothing more. Because the point of “The Road to Serfdom,” or part of it, was that Nazis and Commies, rather than on opposite poles of the political spectrum as lefties would have us believe, were both socialists. The only relevance this would have is if Ryan, or specifically the Ryan plan, is socialist, too. Which means Newt thinks standing in the way of socialism is socialist.
What a travesty, to pull Hayek into this sordid discussion. He was infinitely more libertarian than Newt or Ryan, and ff anyone’s proposals constitute dangerous rightwing social engineering, it would be his.