Regards, Ivan
In memoriam
Posted on 06/08/2004 12:42:59 PM PDT by MadIvan
The Left may belittle him, but his gift to the Right was the spirit of optimism
AND THEN there were two. The death of Ronald Reagan means that of the three great heroes who brought an end to the Cold War only Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II remain. Let us cherish them both while we can. But let us also pay tribute to President Reagan’s achievements before revisonists and cynics start their inevitable work of deconstruction and belittling. On this page yesterday William Rees-Mogg wrote of the President he knew personally. I can only record the impressions of a young man growing up in his long shadow, grateful to be raising children in the world he helped to make.
It will be hard for the Left to diminish President Reagan because he achieved so much, for his country and the free world, a larger body of mankind now than ever before thanks to his efforts. But already one can hear them try.
On Channel 4 News he was treated as a warmonger and economic simpleton, saved from himself by the Soviet Union’s inevitable collapse and factors beyond his control. For the BBC, the ending of the Cold War was something which happened “on his watch”, a happy accident which should not be attributed to his own actions. For Gore Vidal, The Guardian and others he was “the acting President” or, at best, “the Great Communicator”, a celluloid statesman as charming but as insubstantial as any Hollywood creation.
Reagan himself disliked the description, “the Great Communicator”, not least because, as a man more intelligent than most of his detractors, he saw through that compliment’s thin veil and detected the implied criticism beneath. As he put it, “I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of our great nation — from our experience and wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries”.
Such straightforward belief in America’s virtues grates on many ears now. But it was because Ronald Reagan kept the faith that he achieved so much. What was that faith? In a word, neoconservatism.
There are few words which now enjoy such a bogey status in European political conversations as neoconservative. But the passing of Ronald Reagan allows us to reconsider neoconservatism and understand why it succeeded under him, and why as a philosophy it offers us hope still.
In plain historical terms the neocons were those Americans who started out on the Left in the 1940s, who supported FDR, the New Deal and HarryS. Truman but who found themselves drifting away from the Democrats for three crucial reasons. Neocons were visceral opponents of tyranny, and their support for FDR in his fight against Nazism led them to embrace a tough anti-communism increasingly at odds with the leftward drift of the Democrats.
Neocons were instinctive supporters of an inclusive vision of America, and saw in the New Deal and the GI Bill a noble attempt to spread opportunity as widely as possible. But the growth in collectivism which occurred in the Sixties alarmed the neocons. They saw that welfare was eroding those virtues which were the best route out of poverty, and government, in Reagan’s words, was now “subsidising problems not solving them”.
The third natural neocon instinct was an affection for the hard-working, law-abiding majority of their fellow citizens. In that generous respect the neocon vision of America is very close to the cinema of Frank Capra or the literature of John Updike. But when the party of FDR and Truman abandoned bourgeois virtues to embrace the Sixties counterculture of flag-burning, draft-dodging and cop-baiting, then the neocons moved on.
Reagan never abandoned his affection for Roosevelt and Truman. But his belief that communism was fundamentally oppressive to the human spirit, his recognition that Big Government strangled the virtues which made a nation and its citizens strong, as well as his faith in the basic good nature and common sense of his fellow Americans, led him rightwards.
That journey was the neocon voyage. It led the West to a moral victory over communism and established the free market as the best means of spreading opportunity. As the writings of Soviet leaders attest, it was America’s willingness to match their expansionism with military preparedness, deploying cruise and Pershing missiles on European soil in the teeth of the European Left’s opposition, that broke communism’s back. And now in those countries which were communist even when Reagan left office, leaders are delivering the pro-growth policies which he pioneered. But successful as the neoconservative journey has been, it is not yet completed.
The world is still blighted by ideologies which oppress the human spirit, most notably the cult of death which is Islamist radicalism. There are nations which still cannot feed their people, let alone deliver the growth their populations demand. The pessimistic response of conservative “realists” is that little can be done except manage misery. The neoconservative impulse, as Reagan showed, is to believe that change can come, as it did in Eastern Europe, through resolution and sticking to principle.
Reagan’s lasting lesson to Western politicians, especially those on the Right, is the importance of optimism. Conservative ideas work. That is why they are easy to communicate. And that is why their advocates should be upbeat. Because as soon as we start talking about what we can do right rather than bemoaning what has gone wrong, we win.
Regards, Ivan
In memoriam
Ping
Oh my. This will get some paleocon panties in a twist.
You're confusing me with someone who cares. :)
Regards, Ivan
Not to nitpick, but Reagan was closer to a fusionist conservative than a neoconservative.
Pong
I intend to memorialize Reagan by teaching my daughter everything Reagan believed in.
At least Reagan was not a Neoconfusionist.
You have been missed here. Good to see you, mate. :)
God bless Margaret Thatcher..She was a great ally in the fight against communism.
AWESOME picture of the Gipper btw. What a giant he was...
Yeah, the Loserdopians dont like it either.
He is sorely missed.
Okay, then.
Popcorn (with LOTS of butter), check.
Mountain Dew, check.
Honey-roasted peanuts, check.
Nachos, check.
Pizza, check.
Stacker 2 to make sure I don't put on an extra 20 pounds, check.
I'm all set for the show, folks. :)
It's a little sad watching many attempting to compare President Reagan to what ever fits their political agendas.
Bump.
Note to Contrarians: Amen.
Case in point.
President Reagan was a neo conservative(new conservative)...Once he was a dem and he saw the light of what had happened to the party. He saw the influence of the communists inside the Hollywood unions.
He was called a monster for saying government was not the answer but the problem. His philosophy evolved and he became the leader of a new conservative renewal.
Without his inspiration years before, welfare reform would not have come to be.
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
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