Thursday, November 17, 2005
DR. WILL ON WHAT AILS CONSERVATISM
George Will, always a worthy read, asks "What Next For Conservatives" in a piece today available at Townhall:
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/georgewill/2005/11/17/175897.html
His analysis begins with observations on education and the Intelligent Design controversy as a highlight of the growing rift between limited-government conservatives and social conservatives.
He notes Thomas Jefferson said, "It does me no injury, for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.'' Mr Will then adds "But it is injurious, and unneighborly, when zealots try to compel public education to infuse theism into scientific education."
He ends with observations on the expansion of government spending under "conservative" leadership...
Depressing the good doctor often is...
Readers of Mr. Will will already be familiar with his belief that the conservative impulse is dead at the hands of "conservatives" who don't walk the walk. I would ask all to ponder what else has died with it. Not died all at once or just now, but by imperceptable increments over a very long time. Submitted as an axiom:
The more "our" government does for "us," the more my business is yours and yours mine, and the less freedom "we" all have.
In Jefferson's day, it wouldn't have mattered if one group taught Darwin and another taught Genesis because there were no public schools supported via taxation.
Today, the institution of public education is so entrenched that the desire to opt out of those schools is met with suspicion and resistence. Suggest that people should have the right to spend "their" share of school monies in an alternate environment and the fight is on.
Jefferson's standard, "It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg," today is at best quaint and at worst downright unAmerican. How many government edicts on any level would last by that standard? What if government was only involved with that which picks pockets or breaks legs?
Picks pockets? Who picks those pockets more than government on all levels?
And that is where we find the real problem. The long slow growth of our government has been pushed by groups of all persuasions for myriad reasons and none of those pushing took into account human nature and the nature of the bureaucracies man creates. Those bureaucracies take on a life of their own, engaging in what economists call rent-seeking. A program or law has outlived its usefulness? Those whose job it is to promote the program will find a new use.
The Presidents come and go, the party control changes variously, but those bureaucracies persist and grow. When was the last time government eliminated anything? The most we ever see are reforms, never abolitions.
The great Texas liberal Lyndon B Johnson championed the greatest expansion of the "welfare state" up to his time. Now the great Texas conservative George W Bush has expanded much of it even further. His championing of medicare expansion is just one more pressure moving the entire Nation to socialized medicine.
Where it goes I can't say but wherever it goes we're all going there lock-step. When we get there, we may be safe and affluent, but we won't be free anymore.
Will "we" be happy? Somehow I doubt it.
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/georgewill/2005/11/17/175897.html
His analysis begins with observations on education and the Intelligent Design controversy as a highlight of the growing rift between limited-government conservatives and social conservatives.
He notes Thomas Jefferson said, "It does me no injury, for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.'' Mr Will then adds "But it is injurious, and unneighborly, when zealots try to compel public education to infuse theism into scientific education."
He ends with observations on the expansion of government spending under "conservative" leadership...
Depressing the good doctor often is...
Readers of Mr. Will will already be familiar with his belief that the conservative impulse is dead at the hands of "conservatives" who don't walk the walk. I would ask all to ponder what else has died with it. Not died all at once or just now, but by imperceptable increments over a very long time. Submitted as an axiom:
The more "our" government does for "us," the more my business is yours and yours mine, and the less freedom "we" all have.
In Jefferson's day, it wouldn't have mattered if one group taught Darwin and another taught Genesis because there were no public schools supported via taxation.
Today, the institution of public education is so entrenched that the desire to opt out of those schools is met with suspicion and resistence. Suggest that people should have the right to spend "their" share of school monies in an alternate environment and the fight is on.
Jefferson's standard, "It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg," today is at best quaint and at worst downright unAmerican. How many government edicts on any level would last by that standard? What if government was only involved with that which picks pockets or breaks legs?
Picks pockets? Who picks those pockets more than government on all levels?
And that is where we find the real problem. The long slow growth of our government has been pushed by groups of all persuasions for myriad reasons and none of those pushing took into account human nature and the nature of the bureaucracies man creates. Those bureaucracies take on a life of their own, engaging in what economists call rent-seeking. A program or law has outlived its usefulness? Those whose job it is to promote the program will find a new use.
How many of our powerful bureaucracies would exist in a Jeffersonian democracy?
The Presidents come and go, the party control changes variously, but those bureaucracies persist and grow. When was the last time government eliminated anything? The most we ever see are reforms, never abolitions.
The great Texas liberal Lyndon B Johnson championed the greatest expansion of the "welfare state" up to his time. Now the great Texas conservative George W Bush has expanded much of it even further. His championing of medicare expansion is just one more pressure moving the entire Nation to socialized medicine.
Where it goes I can't say but wherever it goes we're all going there lock-step. When we get there, we may be safe and affluent, but we won't be free anymore.
Will "we" be happy? Somehow I doubt it.
