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

The High Tide of American Conservatism

Since the dawn of the 20th century, the United States has experienced four presidential elections in which a true liberal squared off against a true conservative. These elections took place in 1900 (McKinley-Bryan), 1920 (Harding-Cox), 1980 (Reagan-Carter) and 1984 (Reagan-Mondale). With one exception, every other presidential election between 1904 and 2008 pitted a liberal Democrat[1] against a Republican who could at best be described as centrist, but more often than not would be more accurately characterized as a big-government, moderate progressive with few real conservative or libertarian inclinations. Of the Republican bunch, T. Roosevelt, Hoover, Nixon and the Bushes were (as I have labeled them elsewhere[2]) faux conservatives who expanded the size and scope of the Federal Government in ways that surely would have appalled Thomas Jefferson.[3] Such an appellation, that is, faux conservative, also suits all of the past century’s unsuccessful Republican candidates – from McCain and Dole back to Dewey and Wilkie. The only legitimately conservative Republican presidential candidates in the last 110 years, beside the successful ones named above, were Coolidge and Goldwater.

The sole exception to all of the above, that is, the only time that two conservative candidates faced off, occurred in 1924 when the incumbent Republican president, Calvin Coolidge, took on the last conservative nominated by the Democratic Party, John W. Davis. The story of that election and the men who contested it is told in a fascinating new book, The High Tide of American Conservatism by Garland S. Tucker, III. As Tucker details conclusively, both men were bedrock conservatives, with deeply held convictions. Tucker briefly describes the post-bellum United States (1865-1900) as one of unbridled conservative philosophy. It heralded the unparalleled blooming of the most prosperous, powerful, dynamic and self-confident nation in modern world history as the US adhered faithfully to the laissez-faire, individual freedom, limited government model laid down by the Founders. Tucker explains how it was the young Republican Party that motivated and steered this development; he points out that in that era, the Democrats elected only one president, Grover Cleveland, and he was as conservative as any Republican of the time.

Matters began to change as the progressive movement – whose basic philosophy has deep European roots in Marxian socialism[4] – began to take hold in the American electorate, and especially in the Democratic Party. Their nomination of William Jennings Bryan three times was rather dramatic testimony to that fact, but the movement gained presidential power for the first time only with the ascension of Teddy Roosevelt to the office upon McKinley’s assassination. It erupted in full bloom with the election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912, an election in which more than 95% of the total vote went to progressive candidates (Wilson, Taft, Roosevelt). However, in a reaction that would be duplicated several times over the coming century, the people were horrified by the excesses of the progressives, and they through them out of power in 1920. Harding and the Republicans returned the nation to its conservative roots. But Harding died in office and Calvin Coolidge ascended to the presidency. Not surprisingly, he secured the Republican nomination in 1924. And then, through a confluence of coincidences, which – as Tucker describes – revolved around Prohibition, the KKK and the League of Nations, the Democrats, at the conclusion of a hopelessly deadlocked convention – nominated a true conservative to oppose Coolidge, John W. Davis. They would never do that again.

Tucker devotes most of his book to the two men – Coolidge and Davis – and the decade (the Roaring Twenties) in which their contest occurred. Eighty seven years later, it makes for fascinating reading. Tucker has a fluid and engaging style. His prose is crisp and enlightening. His research is thorough and as one pours through the pages, one cannot help but be transported back to the Coolidge family farm in Vermont or the Clarksburg, W.VA home of Davis. Both men’s origins were in small town America and their progress through the American landscape to the pinnacles of political power trace somewhat similar paths: Coolidge’s puritanical, agrarian youth, then a stint at Amherst College, followed by a Massachusetts law practice and eventually local and national politics; Davis’ large and loving family, his formative years at Washington and Lee College, followed by a varied law practice in Clarksburg and then also into politics. Furthermore, the men’s personas were also remarkably similar in many ways: humble, gracious, unfailingly polite, solicitous of others, men of great integrity and above all, of a Jeffersonian liberal persuasion – meant in the classic 18-19th century sense of the term. Tucker writes of them with affection and the reader is hard pressed not to admire both men. The book provides an unusual glimpse into the America of four score and seven years ago and is well worth the read.

But I have one major quibble with Tucker. He highlights the fact that the 1924 election did not at all spell the death knell of American progressivism. In particular, he describes at some length the third party candidacy of Robert La Follette who ran on the Progressive Party ticket. Tucker acknowledges that, although La Follette did poorly in the vote total, he commanded a passionate following. Tucker goes further and asserts that one of the prime consequences of the campaign was the acceptance by the Democrats of the progressive program and its ultimate rejection by the Republicans. He claims that in the years following the 1924 election, the Democrats became the party of liberals (or progressives) and the Republicans became the party of conservatives.

While La Follette’s 1924 run for the presidency fell short, it was a transformational event in American political history. The major party realignment marked by the 1924 election was significantly influenced by the La Follette candidacy. Progressive Republicans were shaken loose from their historical party moorings of more than a generation and ultimately found a home in the Democratic Party, which turned away from its Jeffersonian roots in the years following 1924. As the victorious Republicans held steady on a conservative course, the Bryan Democrats determined to guide their party leftward to claim the progressive banner.

That quote is as close as Tucker comes to explicitly claiming it, but it is clear from many other portions of the book that he believes that the election of 1924 solidified the role of the two parties in the American political future:

Since 1924, the Republican Party has generally been the conservative party while the Democratic Party has not even seriously considered nominating a conservative candidate…By 1924, progressivism was still a nonpartisan issue, with both of the major parties having sizeable progressive wings…After 1924, the Republicans remained on a rightward course, while the Democrats steered leftward; and there has been no major realignment since. The philosophy of La Follette and the Progressives was essentially that of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and now Obama, and the twenty-first century Democratic Party, while the philosophy of Davis and Coolidge was essentially that of Reagan and the twenty first century Republican Party. [And finally, as Fred Barnes sums up in the Introduction:] The 1924 race also foreshadowed the political struggle between an increasingly conservative Republican Party and an unflinchingly liberal Democratic party that has endured ever since

In short, it is Tucker’s thesis that after 1924 – and as a consequence of what transpired in that election, the Democratic Party became and remains the party exclusively of the left or liberal philosophy and the Republican Party became and remains the party exclusively of the right and conservative philosophy. In this he is, alas, only half right. While the Democratic Party certainly, increasingly became – and today almost exclusively remains – the party of the Left, the Republican Party has hardly followed the contrapositive path. The litany of Republican presidential candidates that I recited in the opening paragraph should serve as proof of that observation.

In some sense, American politics in the eighty years from 1928 until 2008 has not been a fair fight. Not only did the progressive movement come to completely dominate the Democratic Party, but as has been amply documented, it also dominates the media, the educational establishment, the legal profession, government bureaucracy, unions and the major foundations. Conservatism in America was, if not dead, then totally dormant for a generation following Coolidge until it was revived by Bill Buckley (and a few others) in the 1950s. Since then it has made agonizingly slow and fitful progress in trying to achieve equal status with the liberal, progressive movement. True, it has won a few presidential (1980, 1984) and congressional (1994, 2010) elections. But it is absolutely false to assert that the conservative movement took control of the Republican Party in any way similar to how the progressive movement captured the Democratic Party. There are some recent signs that this might be happening at last. Time will tell. But Tucker’s assertion that the election of 1924 cemented the Republican Party as the party of conservatism in America is unfortunately and patently untrue.

That quibble aside, the book could serve as an excellent introduction to the vast majority of Americans who, if they were taught anything about the era, have learned that Harding was a crook, Coolidge was an obscure, insignificant lightweight and the conservative policies of the Harding-Coolidge administration caused the Great Depression – from which the progressive movement in the person of FDR rescued the country. Three quarters of a century later we are slowly uncovering the truth – all of this narrative is a pack of lies that has abetted the hijacking of the Founders’ country by the progressive movement. Tucker’s book is one of many (e.g., that of Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man) that is helping to set the record straight.

This review also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at

[1] Except that some considered the Democratic nominee in 1904, Alton B. Parker, to be conservative.

[2] See e.g., my book Liberal Hearts and Conservative Brains, http://home.comcast.net/~ronlipsman/index.html

[3] Eisenhower was a centrist who made absolutely no effort to roll back FDR’s New Deal.

[4] It also borrowed heavily from Italian Fascism, as is explained in Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism.

Three Cheers for Barak

Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister, current Defense Minister and head of the Israeli Labor Party quit his own party on Monday (1/17/11). He formed a new “centrist” party (called Independence) and left the already decaying Labor Party in complete disarray. In a sentiment that is reverberating throughout Israel, the Wall Street Journal reported:

Labor dominated Israeli politics for the country’s first three decades, producing a string of prime ministers that included Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, and the slain prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Mr. Barak briefly served as prime minister in 1999 and 2000.

But in recent years, Labor has been reduced to a midsize party, with just 13 seats in the current parliament. Many party members hold Mr. Barak responsible for the party’s demise, and accuse him of abandoning its socialist and dovish ideals to remain in power.

Yohanan Plesner, an [Israeli] lawmaker, said it was a sad day for Israel. ‘This is the day the Labor Party was buried for good,’ he said.

Not at all! It is a great day for Israel and for the West. It represents another nail in the coffin of the statist, leftist, progressive movement that brought so much damage to Western Civilization in the 20th century.

For several generations, the socialists who founded and ran the Labor Party completely dominated Israeli politics. They managed to take a country with arguably the greatest concentration of brain power, creativity and potential entrepreneurship and mire it in a collectivist funk. It is only in the last generation, during which the Israeli economy, having at last been freed from the shackles imposed largely by the Labor Party, has soared in a frenzy of free market activity.

Ehud Barak is the author of several efforts at blatant appeasement of Israel’s Arab enemies, and for that he is no hero in my book. But if the action he just took results in the further marginalization, demoralization and delegitimization of the Left in Israel, then he may yet be recorded as a hero of the Jewish people.
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This post also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at

A Warning to America from a British Lover of Freedom

Imagine that your grandfather was one of the greatest tycoons of his day. Through a combination of ingenuity, courage, competitiveness and devotion to principle, he created a new product, which revolutionized an entire industry. Then he proceeded to lead that industry to world-wide prominence. The wealth, prosperity and employment that he created were the envy of the world. His example was emulated and others were able to approximate his success – although never to the degree that characterized your grandfather’s achievements.

But your grandfather’s magnificent success was also the source of bitterness, resentment and contempt among those who believed that the fruits of his endeavors were unevenly distributed among the people in his industry. These malcontents hatched plans to bring down your grandfather’s empire – either overtly by a frontal assault or, if that failed, then covertly by undermining the people’s faith in the soundness of your grandfather’s ideas and methods.

Eventually, your father inherited a thriving business; but he did not inherit the wisdom, tenacity, fidelity and courage of his father. Slowly but surely, the plotters undercut the beliefs – not so much of the rank and file – but rather of the leadership who ran the business, so that by the time your father passed the company to you, it was a mere shadow of what your grandfather had created.

However, your grandfather had another son who left the company to start one of his own. And that son was blessed with all of your grandfather’s salutary traits – perhaps even more so. He founded a company whose success eclipsed even that of your grandfather’s. But alas, eventually, he and his company began to fall prey to the same forces that afflicted your company. Now, as your uncle hands his business off to his son, it is your task to educate your cousin as to what happened to your company, and what is in store for his. It might be too late to rescue your business, but you suspect that there is still time for your cousin – if he will recognize the forces arrayed against him and change course appropriately.

In this allegorical story, you, gentle reader, are Daniel Hannan, a British journalist and writer who achieved notoriety by excoriating his own Prime Minister on the floor of the European Parliament. Your grandfather is 19th century England and your father is 20th century England. The talented son (your uncle) is 20th century America and your cousin is the America of today. Hannan took up the cause of warning his cousin in his recent book The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America. In it he explains the nature of the virus that felled Great Britain, and more generally, Western Europe. He wistfully points out the manifestations of the same virus that are present now in the United States and explains carefully how the virus, if left unchecked, will kill us exactly as it has killed the host across the Atlantic Ocean.

The last chapter of Hannan’s book is entitled Where British Liberties Thrive. By that Hannan is of course referring to America. It is barely taught in school any longer, but there is no question that the American Republic derives virtually all of its founding ideas from the concepts of liberty developed by British and Scottish lovers of freedom in the eighteenth century (and earlier). The idea of a society structured to maximize individual liberty and the rule of law, ensured by a limited government that derives its powers from the consent of the governed was born and nurtured in the British Isles and transported to America with the colonists in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are the fullest expression of the seminal idea of British liberty. The implementation in Britain of those original concepts made that country the freest, most prosperous and civilized nation in the world for 300 years. But about a century ago, the Brits began to lose faith in their own ideals. In many ways they held on for another 40-50 years, but the blatantly socialist experiment upon which they embarked following World War II heralded the death of British liberty and glory. America picked up the torch 235 years ago and has been the leading exponent of British liberty for at least a century. But now, alas, we are threatened with the same malady that brought low our British cousins. Hannan sees this clearly and takes up his pen in order to alert us to what has happened to his beloved country and what is in store for us if we follow the same path.

Hannan follows in a line of eminent British historians and politicians who have sung the praises of British liberty, applauded America’s achievement in bringing said liberty to an even higher level and who have encouraged us to stay the course. I am thinking of Andrew Roberts, Paul Johnson, Margaret Thatcher and of course Winston Churchill. Hannan’s book, whose title channels that of the Austrian philosopher/economist, Friedrich Hayek, is short, powerfully argued and specific in its predictions. The analysis is sharp, incisive and to my thinking absolutely on target. We ignore him at our peril. To illustrate, here are a few quotes from his Introduction:

American self-belief is like a force of nature, awesome and inexorable. It turned a dream of liberty into a functioning nation, and placed that nation’s flag on the moon. It drew settlers across the seas in the tens of millions, and liberated hundreds of millions more from the evils of fascism and communism. If it has occasionally led the United States into errors, they have tended to be errors of exuberance. On the whole, the world has reason to be thankful for it.

      Every visitor is struck, sooner or later, by the confidence that infuses America. It is written in people’s faces. Even the poorest immigrants rarely have the pinched look that dispossessed people wear on other continents. Instead they seem buoyant, energetic, convinced that, when they finish their night classes, they will be sitting where you sit in your suit.

…

The air of the new world can work even on the casual visitor. When I write about my own country’s politics, I am as cynical as the next world-weary Brit. But, whenever I go to Washington, I give in to the guileless enthusiasm that foreigners so often dismiss as naïveté. Like James Stewart’s character in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, I goggle reverently at the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” swelling in my mind.

At least I used to. On my most recent visit, as I stood before the statue of your third president, I fancied I heard a clanking noise. Doubtless, it was Jefferson’s shade rattling his chains in protest at what is being done to his country. The ideals for which he had fought, and which he had incorporated into the founding texts of the republic – freedom, self-reliance, limited government, the dispersal of power – are being forgotten. The characteristics that once set America apart are being eliminated. The United States is becoming just another country.

      To put it another way, the self-belief is waning. Americans, or at least their leaders, no longer seem especially proud of their national particularisms. The qualities that make America unique – from federalism to unrestricted capitalism, from jealousy about sovereignty to willingness to maintain a global military presence – now appear to make America’s spokesmen embarrassed.

      One by one, the differences are being ironed out. The United States is Europeanizing its health system its tax take, its day care, its welfare rules, its approach to global warming, its foreign policy, its federal structure, its employment rate.

…

      A hundred years ago, my country was where yours is now: a superpower, admired and resented – sometimes, in a complex way, by the same people. We understand better than most that popularity is not bought through mimicry, but through confidence. You are respected, not when you copy your detractors, but when you outperform them

      Until very recently, the United States did this very well. While it may have drawn sneers from European intellectuals, denunciation from Latin American demagogues, violence from Middle Eastern radicals, the population of all these parts of the world continued to try to migrate to the United States, and to import aspects of American culture to their own villages.

      Now, though, American self-belief is on the wane. No longer are the political structures designed by the heroes of Philadelphia automatically regarded as guarantors of liberty. America is becoming less American, by which I mean less independent, less prosperous, and less free.

      The character of the United States, more than of any country on earth, is bound up with its institutions. The U.S. Constitution was both a product and a protector of American optimism. When one is disregarded, the other dwindles.

      This book is addressed to the people of the United States on behalf of all those in other lands who, convinced patriots as they may be, nonetheless recognize that America stands for something. Your country actualizes an ideal. If you give up on that ideal, all of us will be left poorer.

The logo on the cover of Hannan’s book depicts the Statue of Liberty encased in chains. This is a metaphor for the future that he predicts for us if we are foolhardy enough to continue down the road to Euro-statism. Hannan makes a persuasive case that the Euro model of a social welfare state grounded in egalitarian utopianism, characterized by the appeasement of aggressors, massive central government, multiculturalism and anti-religious, anti-family fervor is leading Europe to ruin; and that if we continue to emulate them, our destination will be the same. This is a cousin whose advice America would be wise to take very seriously.
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This post also appeared in The Land of the Free at

http://www.thelandofthefree.net/conservativeopinion/2011/01/19/a-warning-to-america-from-a-british-lover-of-freedom/