President Ronald Reagan

From the archived pages of Imprimis, the monthly speech digest of Hillsdale College, President Ronald Reagan reminds us that economic freedom is an absolute necessity not only for political freedom, but for all freedom. That freedom must be fought for and protected in every generation. That the business community must join this fight and not remain passive.

“It all comes down to this basic premise: if you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom and in fact all freedom. Freedom is something that cannot be passed on genetically. It is never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it. Once freedom is gone, it’s gone for a long, long time. Already, too many of us, particularly those in business and industry, have chosen to switch rather than fight.”

President Reagan clearly understood that government action is the biggest threat to our economic freedom and personal freedom. He correctly identified the government as the problem, not the solution:

“During the presidential campaign last year, there was a great deal of talk about the seeming inability of our economic system to solve the problems of unemployment and inflation. Issues such as taxes and government power and costs were discussed, but always these things were discussed in the context of what government intended to do about it. May I suggest for your consideration that government has already done too much about it? That indeed, government, by going outside its proper province, has caused many if not most of the problems that vex us. How much are we to blame for what has happened?

Beginning with the traumatic experience of the Great Depression, we the people have turned more and more to government for answers that government has neither the right nor the capacity to provide. Unfortunately, government as an institution always tends to increase in size and power, and so government attempted to provide the answers.”

Ronald Reagan’s timeless wisdom can be for us a beacon of hope and inspiration in the troubled economic and political times we now face. The Great Communicator took on the establishment and persevered in the face of massive opposition from the liberals and the mainstream media. Despite being belittled, insulted, and demonized, President Reagan stood his ground, acted on his conservative principles, and made good on his promises to restore America’s greatness. His vision and leadership rescued the country from disaster and history proved him right.

More than three decades ago President Reagan concluded his speech with an ominous warning and call to action. It is as appropriate and relevant today as it was in 1978:

Will we, before it is too late, use the vitality and the magic of the marketplace to save this way of life, or will we one day face our children, and our children’s children when they ask us where we were and what we were doing on the day that freedom was lost?

Will enough Americans still heed President Reagan’s call? Will more of today’s business leaders join this fight? Will we preserve our economic, political, and personal freedoms for the sake of this and future generations?

Originally posted at American Thinker Blog and Chris Banescu.com

The mainstream media laments the Crist defection as only the most recent sign that the conservative movement – smelling blood in the wake of the declining popularity of liberal government – is in the midst of an ideological purge. From The New York Times to MSNBC, the narrative is unvarying: the right wing, having lost itself in the fever swamps of the Tea Party movement, is dragging the GOP away from the sensible center, ensuring a self-marginalization that will keep Republicans wandering in the political wilderness for the foreseeable future.

Crist and the Tea Parties are only the most recent invocation of this trend. The defection of erstwhile Republican Senator Arlen Specter to Democratic ranks, the supposed overreach of Arizona’s new immigration law, and the unanimous Republican opposition to health care reform have all been cited as proof that a revanchist conservative movement is willing to follow its first principles off a cliff.

Hogwash. Crist’s decision to run as an independent stemmed from one simple fact: he is demonstrably unable to win a Republican primary. In the course of a year, Crist’s poll numbers against conservative former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio dropped by around 50 points. Apart from the pundits who lament his extirpation, there’s no market for what Crist is selling.

Nor are the other signs of the rightward death march particularly compelling. If Senator Specter is the hallmark of moderate pragmatism, why aren’t Democrats being held to account for the fact that liberal Representative Joe Sestak is now within just a few points of Specter in the Pennsylvania primary? If Arizona’s immigration law is a form of voluntary political suicide, why does it enjoy majority support nationwide (as well as in the Grand Canyon State)? And if opposition to ObamaCare was gratuitous obstructionism, why did that opposition see consistent increases in public support as voters learned more about the reform plan?

If the Republican Party is turning to the right, it’s because it found out what life in the center was like. Per the axiom of southern politics, “there ain’t nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.” When the GOP lost its commitment to limited government and individual freedom, it became a pale-faced confederation of appropriators, unable to articulate a principled standard for the limits of government or offer a vision of sufficient contrast from the Democrats.

That the governing style of the Obama Administration has catalyzed public sentiment back toward the founding principles of limited government has made the GOP’s return to its roots something of a glide path – but it will have to be fought for in order to be preserved. The emergence of candidates like Marco Rubio shows that certain quarters of the Republican Party have immunized themselves against the temptation to become what used to be referred to as “Me Too Republicans” – nominal members of the GOP who genuflect to every statist idea from the left. This new generation of leaders are standing strong, they’re planting their flag, and if that leaves the media floored … well, then, all the better.

HT: CFIF

Conservatives, who constitute the overwhelming majority of Americans, are angry with the Republican Party leadership and how politics has been played since Ronald Reagan left office. Often Republican nominees have seemed to copy Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” — strategically placing themselves as the arbitrators between conservatives and leftists. Sen. John McCain luxuriated for years in fawning media coverage of his “independence” from conservatives. George H. Bush, as soon as the Gipper was gone, promised to move us to a “kinder, gentler” — more moderate — America. Specter and Jeffords switched parties at critical times. Who trusts Republican leaders? Not serious conservatives, who have been burned so many times.

The question, though, is what to do? Many conservatives have long seemed to harbor the attitude that without a revolution now, we are doomed. That assumes that we must transform America in the next couple of years, and that we will have the opportunity to do so.

The present sorry state of our country did not begin with Obama or Clinton or even LBJ. The cure for the plague of Leftism will come in steps. Conservatives who want every good reform implemented now will become sad, demoralized, and bitter. There is no need for that. We must instead become “Fabian Conservatives.”

The left moved the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave into the Land of the Taxed and the Home of the Slave by adopting Fabian Socialism. There is a reason today why Obama is not pushing for an absolute revolution like Lenin or Hitler sought: Obama practices Fabian Socialism. He works to erode our liberties step by step. He tries to create constituencies who may not be socialist themselves, but who will become addicted to some program in the socialist agenda. This is what conservatives should do. We should give clusters of Americans a new vested interest in those three pillars of conservatism: federalism with robust states’ rights, small and limited government at all levels, and the influence of Judeo-Christian moral values in all our institutions.

Fabian Conservatism means always moving to the right when we can and never supporting the left, but it also means that the transformation of America will come in increments. Fabian Conservatism means sometimes finding strange bedfellows (making common cause with leftists who have a particular ax to grind).

Here is an example of that: Vermonters have formed a secessionist ticket of state government candidates. These folks want to withdraw from America because our nation is not Marxist enough. Conservatives ought to believe strongly in states’ rights, so we should agree with these radical Vermonters on this principle: The citizens of states, rather than the majority of Americans, ought to have the right to decide how the state is governed. States’ Rights, in fact, is an ideal agenda for conservatives selectively pulling leftists into ad hoc support for our goals. Socialist Vermonters and conservative Utahans both have an interest in having their own citizens exercise primary policy power in their states.

Conservatives should also push hard for federal legislation that outlaws gerrymandering in congressional and in state legislative districts. We should do this even though redistricting after the 2010 elections may slightly favor Republicans. Why? Historically, gerrymandered districts have not only been used to keep artificial Democrat majorities in the House, but also to protect nearly all congressmen — Democrat or Republican — from losing reelection. Gerrymandered districts are part of the Incumbency Protection Plan of Washington. States can stop gerrymandering, but most have not. Why not push for an end to it at the federal level?

Why not push now for a restoration of the federal income tax deduction for medical expenses? This was effectively removed for millions of Americans when the threshold of expenses before deductions was raised to amounts above 7.5% of Adjusted Gross Income in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Allowing all medical expenses, including insurance, to be tax-deductible would allow ordinary Americans to be able to select and buy their own medical services with no government involvement. Many millions of Americans would immediately and significantly benefit from this change, which would have the federal government subsidize through tax deductions privately chosen medical expenses. Hospitals, drug companies, doctors, and many other providers would like this — there is no deduction unless medical costs are paid — and once put back in the tax code, it would be hard to take out.

These and other proposals need to create an automatic constituency who will continue to support the reform in the future. If we had now strong federal safeguards of states’ rights, fair legislative district boundaries, a flowering of faith-based solutions to social problems, and a restoration of the medical tax deduction, each reform would begin an institutional reformation of America in the direction of limited and local government and private choice in medical care — not revolutionary changes, but rather, evolutionary changes.

We, the overwhelming majority, can reclaim America, but not in one great battle or bloody revolution. What we want instead is to be a powerful current of water, always moving America to the right, making some changes regularly and never permitting them to be lost. We must become Fabian Conservatives.

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