Posted on 02/11/2007 8:50:21 PM PST by RKV
In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis -- gratitude decaying into idolatry -- is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.
That is one lesson of John Patrick Diggins's new book, " Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History." Diggins, a historian at the City University of New York, treats Reagan respectfully as an important subject in American intellectual history. The 1980s, he says, thoroughly joined politics to political theory. But he notes that Reagan's theory was radically unlike that of Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism, and very like that of Burke's nemesis, Thomas Paine. Burke believed that the past is prescriptive because tradition is a repository of moral wisdom. Reagan frequently quoted Paine's preposterous cry that "we have it in our power to begin the world over again."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
MONEY QUOTE:
"As Diggins says, Reagan's "theory of government has little reference to the principles of the American founding." To the Founders, and especially to the wisest of them, James Madison, government's principal function is to resist, modulate and even frustrate the public's unruly passions, which arise from desires."
Diggins by the way, is full of it. The founders laid out the principal functions of government as the protection of the lives, rights and property of the citizens - not as the moderation of the public's desires.
And here's my letter to Will:
Mr. Will,
It’s clear you misrepresent Madison and Reagan (and Paine for that matter). Do remember that the great work of James Madison (and Thomas Paine) preceded Edmund Burke’s magnum opus – Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Not the other way around.
Irrespective of the origins of conservatism, “big government” conservatism is certainly NOT an outcome of Reagan policy or Reagan’s theory of government. The US government got big under FDR, not under Reagan. That is the fact. It stayed that way under Reagan, because of entrenched Democratic opposition. You were there and should remember the facts and the parties which controlled the Congress, and when.
Madison would be weeping if he saw the size, scope and intrusiveness of the current Federal government. Madison was the one who gave us a limited government of enumerated powers, yes, certainly. But to say that by the founder’s principals (including Madison) that “government's principal function is to resist, modulate and even frustrate the public's unruly passions, which arise from desires” is bunk. Government’s primary function as designed by the founders is to protect the lives, rights and property of the citizens – and you should know where that line came from.
You say that the “Balkans reached a bloody boil because of the absence of effective government” – nonsense. Local government was complicit in the racial cleansing which took place there. And so on.
The American founding was in fact a classical liberal act, and not a conservative one. If it was conservative, then we would have maintained our traditional ties with England, and we of course, did not. I can only speculate why you would want to confuse your readers on this subject, at this time. Given the general state of historical knowledge, and the degradation of our language, I would not be surprised to find many of them would not know the difference.
You should know it, and would do better to articulate it, rather than muddy the waters, as you have done with your February 11th editorial.
RKV
save
An excellent letter, sir.
It is this momentum which was circumvented by the gang of 14, and in fact the elected senate Republican majority were not allowed to pursue that very effective strategy by the Gang of 14, the democrats won then by also preventing the various House of Representative Bills, such as the illegal alien legislation from getting to the floor of the Senate. That bill was tabled in pre- conference , and the elected will of the majority of our nation allowed to die an ignoble death on the conference tables.
Meanwhile the RINOs involved ran around in circles touting a non -existent new age of bi-partisanship ( sic). These very same type of men, such as McPain and Giuliani now presume to lead the Republican party, whose "moderate" views were foisted by their personal tyranny upon the elected will of the people.
That is what conservative Republicans do not forget, and do you think we will vote for the likes of these men?
Hardly.
Its a the socialist democrat press that calls them "frontrunners. To Republican conservatives , they are "a$$runners" who conveniently redefine their records through " creating a new image." Their arrogance offends us, and they will not receive any support from Republican conservatives.
George Will calls this a sort of Reganite miasma, of retrograde nostalgia, when all Republican conservatives desire is untraduced representation of their principles by principled men and women who will stand up to their political opponents and prevail. The Republican Senate could have prevailed but were cowed by their opponents and their jingoistic media supporters.
There was no biparticanship, as witnessed by the Democrat initiated house page sex scandel as the "thankyou" people like Hastert got for preserving the seat of that felon Jefferson from Louisiana, who should now be under indictment for being the democrat party's bag man for a third world loan program kick back scheme.
What were senate Republicans thinking, that the Dems would play touchy feely and be all fuzzy wuzzy? Men like Giuliani, Romney and McPain are hardly the type of Republican politicians we need in the Senate or in the Presidential office. They do not have the ability to forward the Republican agenda, nor the demonstrated fortitude, or its associated principles.If Will wants to call this retro Reaganism, he has gone all woggly and slack jawed, and should restrict his observations to major league basball.
The future of the Republican party lies with men such as Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and the soon to be exonerated Tom DeLay.These men are political fighters for the Republican cause, and are the inheritors of the Reagan tradition. The rest are mere pussies and the Reaganites are those that the Democrat media fear and detest. Republican conservatives love them. George Will is full of it.
I don't read George anymore, especially if it is in the "Compost".
Excellent letter!
George Will sold out to the libs before most of the Freepers were born.
If you just think about where he writes....Newsweek and The Post, that tells a lot.
Know any more?
Well said.
I liked your letter.So good to read someone who has the concepts and attributes in the correct order. I teach American history. The Burke -Paine debate is one of my favorite teaching methods in US History. I teach at a private High School.
Your students are lucky - they are getting more than many, many students are. It's going to be interesting when my son has American history in high school. I have a feeling that I am going to have to supplement the material;>)
Yo! George! Stick to baseball. And fellow Freepers - what do you expect from a Cubs fan?
As to whether the conservative position would have been to stick with England in the 1770s... Reactionism and Conservatism may have been synonyms in the past, but I don't think they are married today. Modern conservatism, I think, is more about wanting to retain the parts of the culture that are good rather than hang doggedly to every aspect of the past, or throw it all over for marxism.
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