I wish Hillary Clinton would debate George Will
The great conservative thinker George Will has spun a little piece of ideological gold in his most recent column under the title "The Case for Conservatism." Like almost all of his writings, this piece is filled with poignant insights. Will frames the major difference between liberals and conservatives as the natural tension between freedom and equality: conservatives being more concerned with freedom, while liberals spend their time worrying about equality.
It's a great piece of work that you should really take the time to read. However, if you don't want to, his basic point is that liberals infer unequal opportunities from the fact of unequal outcomes. That inference fuels their desire to drastically increase the scope of interventionist government programs in order to artificially level the playing field. The result is not equal opportunity, but equal dependence on a bloated federal bureaucracy. Conservatives, favoring freedom, tend to be optimistic about letting the chips fall where they may in a free and open society such as ours. Here's my favorite line:
"Conservatism is realism, about human nature and government's competence. Is conservatism politically realistic, meaning persuasive? That is the kind of question presidential campaigns answer."Amen and amen. No one proves Will's point better than current presidential campaigner Hillary Clinton, who is out on the trail peddling the political fantasy of softly-packaged socialism. Just look at these recent comments. I think what we see here is a campaign message starting to take shape. She doesn't like Bush's "ownership society," which she calls an "on your own society."
"I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."This goes along nicely with her grossly erroneous idea of it taking a village to raise a child. It also goes along nicely with a little form of government called socialism. Don't worry; big government will take care of you, because you obviously are incapable of taking care of yourselves. I can't wait for that to be exposed in the general election (assuming Hillary wins the nomination). Let's just hope we end up with the right candidate to expose it.
2 comments:
Will has been critical of the Bush presidency and the Republican party recently. At least he's consistent, because Republican politics in action have been anything but conservative, by Will's definition. Some examples:
What's more indicative of the entitlement mentality Will criticizes than Medicare Part B?
Here's a Will quote: On foreign policy, conservatism begins, and very nearly ends, by eschewing abroad the fatal conceit that has been liberalism's undoing domestically -- hubris about controlling what cannot, and should not, be controlled.
How does this square with our foray into Iraq, which exhibits some fairly non-Conservative desires to control another government?
And Will doesn't even touch on the traditional libertarian streak of the Conservative movement, which has been completely betrayed by the disregard for the Geneva convention and the gutting of the FISA court.
I can respect conservatism as an intellectual movement. I just don't see how Republicans can call themselves "conservatives" given their record.
It's hard to argue with much of what you've said. That's a big part of the reason that I'm no longer a member of the Republican party. However, I still think there's hope for a conservative candidate in the vein of George Will to get elected if he can communicate the message effectively.
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