Author Archives: Ron Lipsman

Danger in the Census Numbers

The Census Bureau just issued population data compiled from last year’s national decadal census. The data reveals that the Hispanic population has grown much faster than anticipated. The reasons attributed are birthrate and immigration – both legal and illegal.

I can already see some readers frothing at the mouth: the word ‘danger’ appears in the title of an article citing a drastically increased percentage of Hispanic residents in the US – ergo, the author is a racist. I hope that a careful reading of what follows will allay that fear.

In one decade, the Hispanic population of the US has surged by 43% and now numbers over 50 million. Projections are that by midcentury the white population will decrease to less than 50% and the Hispanic population might top one-third. So what! As long as the new and recent Hispanic immigrants buy into the American philosophy of freedom, rule of law and limited government, they will melt into American society and the grand American experiment in individual liberty can continue. After all, that is exactly what happened with previous waves of immigrants over the last 125 years.

Not exactly! In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the large Protestant white majority of US citizens worried that the incoming flood of southern and eastern Europeans – Italians, Greeks and Slavs; Catholics and Jews – would alter the character of the United States. Then, as now, the argument embodied in the italicized words above was made. And to many, it appears that that argument has been borne out. I would argue not. Those immigrants and their children and grandchildren have been in the vanguard of the progressive movement that has drastically altered the classical character of American society. It may be that progressive/socialist ideas originated in central and western Europe, but the virus was caught and brought by the eastern and southern European immigrants to our land; and it has infected a large percentage of the population.

Much of the progressive program is subscribed to by the Latinos who are cascading down upon our shores. Moreover, while it is also true that the more virulent strains of leftism such as multiculturalism, one world government, denial of American exceptionalism, denigration of Western Civilization and rabid environmentalism did not originate in Latin America; like their eastern and southern European precursors, the Latinos are infected by these philosophies, and by the sheer weight of their numbers, they will help to steer America further away from the historical path established by our Founders.

Most of my grandparents and their friends and relatives who came to America a century ago were good people seeking to escape European Jew hatred and to build a better life in America. But they and most of their descendants were susceptible to the progressive/socialist ideas of Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John Dewey, FDR and LBJ. Unwittingly, they have helped to loosen the moorings of our great American heritage. The current Hispanic immigrant population is also filled with good people looking to escape poverty and, by dint of hard work and dedication, build a better life for themselves and their children. But they are steeped in the ways of Western Civilization and the American creed even less then were my grandparents. It does not augur well for the continued success of the American experiment.
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This post also appeared in The American Thinker at
 

Obama’s Top Ten

The use of a “top ten list” has become a popular method for expressing disapproval of the actions or beliefs of a famous individual. In this article I present such a list comprised of the top ten ways that Barack Obama is attempting to destroy the United States of America. By that I mean of course not that the President desires the physical destruction of the American homeland or the annihilation of its people, but rather I speak of his intention to replace the Constitutional Republic devised by our Founders – which, it is completely evident, Mr. Obama holds in contempt – by a statist, collectivist, egalitarian and universalistic nation as envisioned by Alinsky, Cloward-Piven or Soros. I have no doubt that this President, to whom the American public so foolishly entrusted the ship of state, believes that Madison’s Republic – based on limited government, individual freedom, free market capitalism, the morals of Western Civilization, national sovereignty and the rule of law – is deeply flawed and should be replaced by a more enlightened model according to his radical concept of liberty, equality and universal brotherhood. Based on his actions during the last two years, I present here Barack’s top ten ways of achieving his goal:

#10. Replace classic American policies – both foreign and domestic – that are focused on what’s best for America and its allies in the world by policies designed to promote a homogenized world of “one” people, global government and open borders. Obama’s pursuit of Cap and Trade, support for amnesty for illegal aliens, slavish belief in the perils of global warming and his courting of Islamic countries all bear witness to his devotion to this cause.

#9. Convert (what’s left of) America’s laissez-faire, capitalistic economy into a centrally managed, pseudo-socialistic, crony capitalist system. From his demonization of American business and its corporate executives to his ‘redistribute the wealth’ comment to Joe the Plumber, the evidence of Obama’s socialist world view abounds.

#8. Delegitimize the concept of American exceptionalism. Obama began his Presidency with a world apology tour and he has continued to never miss an opportunity to denigrate US history, emphasize our historical faults and current flaws, bow to foreign leaders (even despots) and to deny that the country he leads has any special role to play in defending freedom at home or around the world.

#7. Nationalize. Obama has nationalized banks and financial institutions, educational establishments, car companies, parts of the housing and insurance industries and of course the health care system. Barack has gone as far as he can go, in his limited time in office, to bring the US economy under the control of the Federal Government.

#6. Defang the military. He has cut defense spending, reduced the size of the navy and air force, gutted missile defense, signed a harmful agreement (the new START treaty) with belligerent Russians and in the most diabolical action of all, attempted to demoralize the armed services by deploying its forces against an enemy that he refuses to name, without adequate resources and intelligence and with one foot constantly out the door. In addition he does nothing to keep pace with the aggressive military build-up by the Chinese.

#5. Subvert the rule of law. Obama blithely ignores the Constitution when it suits him – or, he invokes it to justify clearly unconstitutional activities (e.g., Obamacare). He ignores court orders (e.g., Judge Vinson in Florida) and refuses to enforce the law of the land (DOMA) when it conflicts with his views. He appoints czars without subjecting them to Congressional approval, interprets thought (i.e., hate) crimes as only applicable to crimes committed by whites against minorities, encourages his allies in Congress to violate Congressional rules and he runs arguably the least transparent administration in US history.

#4. Renounce American leadership. The list is long and includes: celebrating thugs like Chavez, Ahmadinejad and Putin; betraying loyal friends (Israel, Britain, Taiwan, the Czech Republic and Poland); curtseying to Islamic princes; refusing to commit the US to action unless part of a broad coalition of “equals”; abrogating agreements negotiated by previous administrations and apologizing for America’s role as the unique world superpower. He wishes to reduce the stature of our country to at best one among a series of world leaders.

#3. Trash American culture. Obama and his minions have worked tirelessly to: disparage historical American culture – especially its Christian components; promote multiculturalism; rescind DADT; and encourage abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia and all manner of perversions to undercut the American family. They sweeten their multicultural stew with race baiting (the Cambridge cop incident), a failure to recognize the poison that is seeping into American society from Islamic radicals and an unwillingness to advance the assimilation of new immigrants (legal or otherwise) into American culture.

#2. Expand the government. The left seeks to increase the role of the Federal Government in every conceivable aspect of American society. Obamacare and Dodd-Frank are of course the most egregious examples; but Obama is pushing hard to have the Feds take command of American education, energy, transportation and finance. When legislation is out of reach, expanded regulation plays an equally important role in the effort (the EPA declaring carbon dioxide a harmful pollutant being a prime example). Then there is card check, the revocation of the spectacularly successful 1990s welfare reform and unholy alliances with subversive organizations like ACORN. Eventually no American will be able to make any move that escapes the watchful eye of Uncle Sam.

And (drum roll), number one is…

#1. Spend, borrow and tax until the dollar is worthless, the economy is in shambles and the economic future of our children and grandchildren is totally compromised. Barack has run up the deficit and exploded the national debt. He is debasing the currency, courting severe inflation, causing high unemployment, and willfully ignoring the oncoming economic chaos that his policies are guaranteed to produce. He apparently expects that eventually the people will have no choice but to surrender their freedom to an all encompassing Federal Government that will “rescue the nation.”

Barack has been diligently working his way up and down the list. In a few places, he has succeeded quite well; in many others, his success has been much less pronounced; and here and there, he has experienced serious blowback from the American people. In fact, given the resentment his agenda has aroused in much of the electorate – as expressed in last fall’s Congressional and State elections – it is likely that he is already past the high point of what he might hope to accomplish in a first term. Presidents are typically far less successful in moving their agendas in a second term than in a first; so even if he wins reelection, the high point of his radical remake of America might already be in the past.

Alas, that might bring scant comfort to freedom-loving Americans. Our country has been morphing slowly over the last century from the Constitutional Republic bequeathed to us by Washington, Jefferson and Madison into the neo-Marxian nirvana envisioned by Obama. During that gruesome slide, the US has experienced periodic, severe jumps to the left – under Wilson, FDR, LBJ and perhaps now BHO. Thus, I fear that we are perilously close to Sowell’s “tipping point”; the place at which the transformation of our society will have progressed so far, that it will be impossible to return it to its Constitutional moorings. If so, even the relatively few successes that Obama has enjoyed could be enough to spell our doom. I hope not. But, either way, I suspect that we shall know rather soon.
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This article also appeared in The Land of the Free at
 

After a Second Look, Romney Still Gets Thumbs Down

In a previous post (Dec 10, 2010) in this blog (and in The Intellectual Conservative, Will I Have to Hold My Nose Yet Again?), I confessed that the not unlikely prospect of Mitt Romney securing the Republican presidential nomination filled me with dismay. I pointed out that every Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was a faux conservative and that I voted for all of them – with my fingers firmly clamped on my nose. In contemplating a vote for Romney, I rued the fact that my fingers would be similarly deployed.

Nothing has happened in the last few months to change the probabilities. Romney continues to build his organization and position himself for a successful run; none of his so-called major competitors (Gingrich, Huckabee, Palin – each of whom, I pointed out in the article, is damaged goods) has done anything to elevate his or her stature; and none of the minor contenders has been able to break out of that forlorn status of “little dwarf.”

So I decided that a closer look at Romney was in order. I read his book No Apology. Here’s the good news. Romney makes a convincing effort toward burnishing his conservative credentials. He hits all the conservative touchstone issues in the book and professes his allegiance to virtually all the principles that identify one as a true conservative: limited government, low taxes, deregulation, strong national defense, family values, free market capitalism and traditional culture. He comes across as sincerely patriotic, reverent of the men who founded our country and the ideals they espoused, inspired by and loyal to the Constitution. He apparently understands that prosperity is created by individuals who develop products and services, and form the businesses that deliver them – not by government programs, spending or regulation. He has a track record of successful executive and managerial experience. And best of all, he clearly loves the United States of America and would strive mightily to protect it – unlike the current occupant of the White House.

On the other hand, there are some disquieting revelations in the book – the most prominent of which include: an enthusiastic reaffirmation of Massachusetts Health Care; the fact that he has drunk from the environmental Kool-Aid and is on the global warming bandwagon; an admission that he basically endorses TARP and the resulting bailouts; and his advocacy of a major role for the Federal Government in education.

These positions are disturbing indeed and worthy of concern. They suggest strongly that at the core Romney is a big government Republican in the mold of Nixon, Ford, Dole, McCain and the Bushes. The pejorative RINO does not seem to be inappropriate.

The matter is of course not yet settled. Is it foolhardy to hold out any hope that the eventual nominee could be a true conservative like Pence, DeMint or Santorum? The history of the Republican presidential nomination process is not encouraging. Thus there might be some solace in the observation that Romney could be the best of the rest of the sorry lot that are chasing the GOP 2012 nomination. Perhaps he’ll take his own book to heart and govern like Reagan if he does achieve the presidency. One can only hope.

Such was my thinking after finishing Romney’s book. And then the March issue of the American Spectator arrived with an article by W. James Atlee entitled “Front-runner Failure.” In it, Atlee points out that Romney would be the latest installment in a long line of candidates to whom the Republicans awarded their nomination as a reward “for long years of service, finishing second the last time around, and politely waiting their turn.” That description most aptly describes Dole and McCain, but it also applies to Nixon, Ford, both Bushes and even Reagan. With the exception of Reagan, these nominations resulted in either an ignominious defeat or a victory by men that “left the Republican Party weaker than they found it.” Atlee’s assessment also accounts for the decades of nose-holding on my part. For heaven’s sake, why would the Republican Party do it yet again?

A Romney presidency would not signal the end of the century-long slide toward progressivism, socialism and the loss of freedom that our country has endured. A Romney presidency is unlikely to exploit the fact that a substantial part (perhaps even a majority) of the American people has awakened to the horror that we have inflicted upon ourselves. America’s star is dimming today; and in order to rekindle it, we must: reverse the cancerous growth of government by reigning in spending, taxation and regulation; reaffirm our commitment to free market capitalism by deemphasizing unionism, statism and crony capitalism, and re-empowering individual entrepreneurs who create prosperity; call a halt to multiculturalism and reassert the primacy of American exceptionalism; and rededicate ourselves to the ideals expressed by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Mitt Romney is not the general we need to lead that crusade. Whom it might be and how he or she is to be catapulted to the head of the Republican Party can only be read in the Tea leaves.
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This article also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at

Thoughts on Immigration – Illegal and Otherwise

My four grandparents immigrated to the United States from Poland at different times, but all approximately a century ago. They and most of their siblings – a few stayed behind and were eventually consumed in the Holocaust – were part of a massive 40-year wave of immigration from Eastern Europe to our shores. Over the past century, my immigrant ancestors spawned four generations of American Jews who now reside all over our great country. By absolutely any measure, the immigration tale of my family is an American success story. My cousins and second cousins and their progeny are doctors, lawyers, businessmen, scientists, artists, educators, students, soldiers, athletes, journalists and IT specialists. (However, I have no knowledge of any politicians.) Of course, no family history is perfect – there are a few miscreants and at least one jailbird. But there can be no doubt that the United States of America made an excellent investment when it opened its doors to my ancestors. The deal was outstanding for us as well – after nearly two millennia of persecution and pain, these Jews found a land where they could be free, prosperous, worship without fear, and rise to any heights that their abilities afforded them.

I have friends and colleagues of Italian, Irish, Greek and Chinese ancestry whose family history traces a similar trajectory. Aside from a tiny percentage of the population that is descendants of indigenous people, everyone else in America is an immigrant or the descendant of one. And yet the vast majority of us see ourselves as thoroughly American – whether our ancestors arrived on the Mayflower, in steerage on a turn-of-the-century boat from a Baltic port, or via an unseaworthy vessel off the coast of Vietnam. How can that be?

The answer is simple. Unlike in France or Sweden or Cambodia, the citizens of our nation do not derive their national identity from a specific piece of land or a religion or an ethnic heritage, a race or even a language – although it is possible to argue about the last one. To be an American is instead to subscribe to an idea, which comprises a philosophy of government, a means of organizing society and an economic system. The United States of America did not come into existence slowly over eons through the gradual, natural congealing of a people via one or more of the above categories. No, it was created essentially ex nihilo at the end of the eighteenth century by means of two founding documents – the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution – as well as through the writings and speeches of the men, and their associates, who penned those documents. To be an American is to accept, practice and promote the ideas in those documents. It is to acknowledge the uniqueness of this nation in world history as one in which: individual liberty is the highest ideal; those who govern do so only with the consent of the governed; and our rights to – as Mr. Jefferson so eloquently put it – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are bestowed upon us by our Creator, not by any government. Those who come to our shores with these beliefs are welcome to join us in the magnificent journey upon which our Founders propelled us. It is our great fortune that most of those who have immigrated to this land came with those ideals or adopted them soon after their arrival.

That being said, our nation’s formal immigration policies have varied over the last two centuries. Immediately after Independence, we were not particularly encouraging of it – feeling as we did that most of the European population did not share our uniquely, freedom-worshipping ideals. But as the nineteenth century unfolded – needing more people to conquer a vast continent and to participate in a great Industrial Revolution – we encouraged it more and more. Then, as those two great adventures came to a close in the early twentieth century, we returned to more restrictive policies. We threw open the gates again after WWII and they have remained so ever since.

Our specific immigration schemes have also varied. Which countries we favored; what criteria we sought (relatives, specific work skills, educational level, age) – these too have not remained constant. Nevertheless, I don’t think that any of those critically affected the end result. Most of the people arriving at our borders were “yearning to breathe free.” It would not be unreasonable to expect that a hundred years hence the descendants of today’s immigrants will recite the same story as I did in the opening paragraph. And yet there is a great unease in the country about immigration today. Too much of it is illegal. But I suspect that that is not the main cause of the unease. It is because we fear that too many of today’s immigrants do not share our ideals, as did our ancestor immigrants. We worry that too many new immigrants are not here because they believe in the principles of 1776 and 1787, but because they heard from a relative living here that there’s some free booty lying around and they’d like to get some. Moreover, unlike in previous generations, we seem to be making no effort to inculcate the Founders’ ideals into our new immigrants.

Indeed, the latter is the key point. It is not that the new immigrant is from Latin America or Asia instead of Europe; it is not that he speaks Spanish instead of German or French; it is not that his work ethic is weaker than those of previous immigrants – it’s not; and it is not that she is not steeped in American history – my grandmothers couldn’t distinguish John Adams from Samuel Adams. It is that we the people – or at least a sizeable segment of us – have lost faith in our own ideals. You cannot inculcate newcomers into your way of life if you no longer subscribe to its tenets. So we make no effort to ensure that new immigrants possess or are given the ideas that quickly grant them access to an American identity.

The success of the progressive movement in America over the last century has eroded the people’s belief in the fundamental principles that formerly defined our national identity. The government has grown beyond acceptable boundaries and no longer seeks the consent of the governed; individual liberty as our highest ideal has given way to the pursuit of an artificial equality; property is no longer sacrosanct; and our nation is no longer viewed by many of its citizens – especially the “elite” – as unique. Those immigrating to a nation founded on ideas, which no longer believes in those ideas, are rightly confused and unassimilated. They serve only to hasten the nation’s downfall. It is therefore not surprising that some blame the nation’s ills on immigrants – illegal or otherwise.

Immigrants once understood that they had embarked on a tough road, but that there was a pot of gold at the end – if not for them, then for their children. Today’s immigrants are taught to demand the gold immediately without earning it. But immigrants – illegal and legal – are not the main source of America’s ills. Like most of our ailments, the immigration problem will be cured if we return the country to the principles upon which it was founded.
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This post also appeared in The American Thinker on 2/19/11 under the title ‘The American Immigration Problem’; see

The Fickle American Voter: Which is Dead – Liberalism or Conservatism?

There are three articles in the February issue of The American Spectator devoted to the question: Is Liberalism Dead? One article is by R.E. Tyrrell, editor-in-chief of the magazine and another is by Conrad Black, notorious publisher and author of a best-selling biography of Richard Nixon. But the article of greatest interest is by James Piereson, who exactly a year ago in the same magazine, took up the question: Is Conservatism Dead? Piereson’s articles were occasioned first by the landslide enjoyed by liberals in the national elections of 2008, followed by the equally stunning “shellacking” administered by conservatives in the congressional and state elections of 2010. What is going on here? Can’t American voters make up their minds – do they wish to be governed according to a liberal philosophy or a conservative philosophy? As time goes on, the differences between the liberal and conservative visions for our nation grow increasingly wide; how is it possible for the electorate’s preference between them to oscillate so wildly?

In fact, the whiplash between liberal/progressive and conservative/libertarian election outcomes has been going on for a lot longer than a few years. Consider: in 1964, liberals crushed conservatives; but in 1972, the “conservative” Nixon obliterated the uber liberal McGovern; then in the mid-70s, more so in the media than at the ballot box, the liberals roared again; only to be quieted by two Reagan/conservative stomps in the 1980s; whereupon, the liberals easily regained the White House in 1992; only to be rudely ousted from Congress in 1994; and yet, the liberals returned surreptitiously in 2000 – when they wore a Bush as a disguise; and finally, as we have observed, the country experienced liberal romps in 2006 and 2008, followed by the conservative counterpunch in 2010.

This 45-year whipsaw pattern is actually part of a longer 60-year trend, although that trend is neatly hidden behind the behavior of the seemingly fickle American voter. To explain, let us in fact go back 145 years. It took the United States, as Lincoln counted, fourscore and seven years to lay the crippling matters of slavery and secession to rest. The nation then began to live a relatively unimpeded version of the limited government, laissez-faire, individual liberty model envisioned by the Founders. That post-bellum state of affairs lasted roughly 35 years, during which time America became the freest, most prosperous, entrepreneurial, self-confident and powerful country that the world had perhaps ever seen. Every president during that period, Republican and Democratic (although Cleveland was the sole representative of the latter) subscribed to that philosophy. But the progressive movement, whose roots trace to European, Marxian socialism, invaded our shores at the end of the 19th century. For a 20-year period (1900-1920), the American people gave themselves over to its subversive charms. Every president during that period was counted among their numbers. Their legacy was the 16th, 17th and 18th Amendments to the Constitution (but to be fair, also the 19th), Wilson’s futile effort to “make the world safe for democracy,” a resurgent KKK, and the first test run for the collectivist, redistributionist, big government philosophy that has flowered so damagingly in the United States. Conservatives mounted a successful counterattack in the Roaring Twenties, but beginning in 1928 and not ending until at least 1952, liberalism reigned absolutely supreme in the US. Americans seemed to abandon their fealty to the Constitution and the Founders’ philosophy – followed so beneficially in 1865-1900 and 1920-1928 – and set off to remake the US into a social welfare state characterized by: big government, government-bestowed group rights, redistribution of wealth, anti-business policies and diminution of individual freedom.

However, thanks to Bill Buckley (and a few others), conservatives rediscovered their vision and their voice in the 1950s. Since that time the American public has grown slowly – alas, ever so slowly, and in some ways very fitfully – more conservative-minded. As more and more liberal programs came on line – and as each proved invariably a failure, damaging to society – the people slowly, painfully, reluctantly awakened to the danger that liberalism poses to the Republic. Occasionally, the electorate has thrown the liberals out on their derrieres (as in 1980, 1994 and 2010). But more often than is consistent with a conservative ascendancy theory, the liberals have been able to defend their electoral turf, retain Congress and/or the Presidency with regularity and consequently push – and periodically implement – their socialist programs. We have even experienced two extreme lurches to the left (comparable to those under Wilson and FDR) compliments of LBJ and the Barackster. Thus it is legitimate to ask: What is the evidence for the country’s gradual move to the right in the last half century; and why has it not been reflected in gradually improving electoral results for conservatives rather than the spasmodic episodes detailed above?

In answer to the first question, the evidence is two-fold. First there is the obvious change in voter self-identification. All recent polls reveal that twice as many people self-identify as conservative as the number who claim the liberal label. This has persisted, actually intensified in the last thirty years. While I have no hard data from the prior 30-year period, I lived it. I have no doubt that, while our affection for Ike and JFK was strong, our faith in Walter Cronkite was even stronger. We might not have articulated it well and we might have fooled ourselves that our political values were conservative, but in fact the vast majority of Americans were quite comfortable with the sweeping big government programs initiated in the 30s and 40s and institutionalized in the 50s and 60s. The second piece of evidence is more subtle. During their heyday – and culminating in a period (1960s and 1970s) when their peak had already passed – the liberals pulled off what can only be called a cultural coup. They took control not only of the Democratic Party, but also of the media, legal profession, government bureaucracy, educational system, public sector unions and the major foundations; in short, all the opinion-forming organs of American society. Despite their reputational collapse, liberals have been able to maintain that control. It is only in the last decade that the control has slipped a bit as the right finally began to confront the left’s domination of these segments of society. Given that control and for how long it has persevered, the fact that the right has survived – and even prospered on occasion – is dramatic testimony to a vibrant and growing conservative resurgence in America.

Now for the second question, whose answer is more complicated. What accounts for the oscillating voting pattern? If the story is one of steady, albeit exceedingly slow growth in the popularity of conservatism, why the see saw results in elections? This time the reasons are four-fold.

  • During the period 1928-1960 or perhaps even until 1980, the liberals steered the political center of gravity so far to the left, that the people lost sight of exactly where that center was. Voters thought they were dancing around the middle when in fact they were choosing between far left and moderately left alternatives.
  • One can argue that the right has drawn even in the last 30 years. But the advance has only been in the realm of ideas, philosophy and enthusiasm. In more concrete matters such as populating the bureaucracy, Election Day ground game or training the next generation of “soldiers and leaders,” the right is still woefully behind.
  • The RINO thing. The left has completely captured the Democratic Party. Sadly, the Republican Party is not guided exclusively by conservative ideas or individuals. People like McCain, the Bushes, Dole or Nixon are viewed as rock ribbed Republicans, but they are faux conservatives. The Tea Party might bring about a conservative conquest of the Republican Party, but until it does and all faux conservatives gravitate toward their natural home in the other party, the people will continue to be confused by the choices the Republican Party offers.
  • Finally, there is the point made strongly by Piereson. Namely, the liberal weltanschauung has been so deeply ingrained in government – e.g., people absolutely cannot conceive of a country without a government retirement plan (Social Security) or government health care (Medicare) – that to even contemplate a return to a conservative nature of government is unconsciously viewed as dangerous, even apocalyptic by substantial segments of the public.

It is due to the above causes that, despite a steadily growing conservative orientation in America, our elections have resulted in oscillatory outcomes. Unfortunately, a huge number of voters do not cast their ballots based exclusively on political philosophy. Subverted by the media (and the other liberal opinion-molding organs to which they are incessantly exposed), voters cannot escape the brainwashing, nor can they ignore their perceived self-interests and above all their emotions. Their elevation to the Presidency of a “hope and change” artist – one completely bereft of experience who only partially hid his radical background and inclinations – is proof of how people can succumb to such blandishments.

Yet, perhaps the accidental election of an, ultimately, anti-American president has been a blessing in disguise. The reaction to his blatantly socialist policies has certainly accelerated the move to the right in the United States. Whether this heralds a deeper, more permanent move or is just another oscillation will depend on the answer to the question posed in the title. Which brings me back to the three Spectator authors. First, I must dismiss the article by Conrad Black as unworthy of serious consideration. Black seems to believe that liberalism began in earnest under FDR and not with T. Roosevelt and Wilson, that FDR’s New Deal saved the nation from the Great Depression (hasn’t he read Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man?), and that Nixon was a great conservative president. Ridiculous! More serious are the works by Tyrrell and Piereson. Tyrrell believes liberalism is indeed dead. He asserts: “Liberals are going the way of the American Prohibition Party. It is time for someone to tell them: ‘Rigor Mortis has set in comrades.’ ” But the publisher of the magazine, Alfred Regnery, injects a humorous note of caution in his introduction to the articles: “As for Tyrrell, it would be sweet if he were more accurate in his predictions than the New York Times, but I’m not sure I’d bet the ranch on it. (Besides, liberals have been the butt of so many Spectator jokes over the years it would be a shame if they just disappeared.” In fact I think the most trenchant of the contributors is Piereson:

If there is a single lesson liberals have learned through the decades, it is that the power and resources of the state can be used to build winning political coalitions. After nearly a century of this, liberalism and the groups associated with it have intertwined themselves with the day-to-day operations of government, implementing the programs they have managed to pass into law and organizing new voting groups around them. Liberalism is no longer merely a philosophy of government, as it was in the Progressive era, but rather an integral part of modern government itself, which is why it cannot be killed off despite failures in policy, lost arguments, or even by lost elections.

As the “party of government,” liberalism by degrees has attached itself to the state such that in many areas (education, welfare, the arts) and place (Sacramento, Albany, Washington, D.C), it can be difficult to distinguish between them. …Over the course of the 20th century it [Liberalism] succeeded in rewriting the Constitution, building political coalitions around public spending, insinuating itself within the interstices of government, and gaining control of key institutions that manufacture and legitimize political opinion. Today it has retreated into impregnable redoubts encircling the state from which positions it fights a defensive struggle against voter sentiment increasingly skeptical of its program of high taxes and public spending.

It is obvious, however, that liberalism can only prosper if it can continue to build coalitions through public spending, public borrowing, and publicly guaranteed credit. These are the resources that underwrite their institutional advantages. Should these resources dry up, as they are doing as a consequence of the long recession, liberalism will unwind as a political force as public programs are cut, public employees are let go, and retirement arrangements with public sector unions are renegotiated. In some public sector states, such outcomes now appear inevitable. Conservatives are in a position to hasten this process along by refusing to approve the spending, borrowing and federal bailouts that will be required to keep public sector liberalism afloat, though at the price of being blamed for the pain and suffering associated with its collapse. But this is undoubtedly a price worth paying to guide the nation through an adjustment that will otherwise take place later and under circumstances far less to anyone’s liking.

           

The unchallenged hegemony that the left enjoyed for so many years has allowed them to change the frame of reference and make the unholy trio of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid inviolable. They have bankrupted the country with their unsustainable entitlement house of cards, embedded so intricately into the very guts of government, that the death of liberalism – as welcome as it might be—could very well bring great pain to the American people. If it doesn’t die, the ultimate pain might be even greater.

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This article also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at