There always seemed to me to be a contradiction to have small-government conservatives and libertarians in positions of power, because ideologically they supposedly dislike and distrust government power - especially Federal power.
Even Reagan was unable to get rid of the Dept of Education, which has no reason for existence as far as I can tell other than to announce, in FDR-style, "We care; we try," but of course at our expense, so we end up paying dearly for the BS that is fed to us. And I am a Dem, but not a Lib. I do not dislike George Bush - in fact, I sort of like his casual style. But he is neither a Repub nor a Dem - he's our Pres. - not an easy job, with the full force of the Lefty press against him and with plenty of big-mouths getting angry about every single decision the guy makes. He is only human.
The wacko Left, who damage us Dems badly, try to deify every Dem president, like the Romans did. False gods. Wrong approach for free-thinking Americans. Our pols, like most pols, are egomaniac smoothies with nothing better to do, or nothing else they can do. That's the deal. There is One God, and I hope He can find humor in some of our preoccupations.
Both Bush administrations disappointed conservatives deeply, not because they are tricksters, but because politics and governance seem to require at least the illusion of a "can do" Federal govt. And, since FDR, Americans have learned to look to Washington to "fix it," or at least to look as if they are trying. They (we) will never un-learn this, since it is built into human nature to lean on power for help and protection while, as Dr. Bliss has taught us, striving for personal goals and independence.
In democracies, where people can vote themselves free stuff - something the Founders never imagined in their wildest dreams because their culture of the time could not have imagined such weakness of spirit existing in a free new world of boundless, classless opportunity and freedom to own property - conservatives are at a disadvantage, whether "good govt" Dem conservatives like me, or conservative Repubs. Thus Buckley's conservatism "stands athwart history, yelling Stop..."
Boston College Political Science Prof. Alan Wolfe has written a piece, Why Conservatives Can't Govern. It is an over-heated, hyperbolic, and fact-twisting anti-Bush rant (for just one example, he makes it sound as if K Street were a Repub thing - it's not. K Street just follows the influence - they don't care who it is) rather than a calm, thoughtful essay, but he does have some good points. A quote:
If government is necessary, bad government, at least for conservatives, is inevitable, and conservatives have been exceptionally good at showing just how bad it can be. Hence the truth revealed by the Bush years: Bad government--indeed, bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and unfair government--is the only kind of conservative government there is. Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.
Despite the partisanship and erroneous rhetoric, there is a point or two in this piece. What he omits is that the Liberals do no better - or worse.
(Clinton, and his abandoned wife, are, in my opinion, left-tilting, amoral pragmatists for whom power, money, and self-importance is the goal, not ideolology. Both have more cojones than they have wisdom, and not only am I smarter than they are, but they couldn't run the businesses I run for five minutes. Truman, at least, ran a haberdashery.)
I do believe that if our Liberal Dems had full power, the US would be a train wreck like France. (I have yet to see the Liberal "world-class boeuf bourguignon." World-class things - like great restaurants - are produced in the private sector.) But I will not donate the time to refute every Lefty talking point in this piece - just see if you can find the good stuff in it.
Which is more foolish: Antagonism towards government, or faith in government?
Answer: Both.
