Now if anybody is an expert on what it meant to be a Reagan Republican, it's Reagan. And he set Specter down as faithless after he sided with Democrats in judicial nominee battles, including his vote against Judge Bork. So much for point number one--Specter is still an opportunist who will do anything to win his next election.
Peggy Noonan says that Specter shows us something important nonetheless: which side is winning. Well, yes, I suppose. That's no earth-shattering profundity--clearly the Democratic Party is worthy of description as 'ascendant'. But I doubt he has much to offer in the way of lessons for the Republicans. Jonah Goldberg says as much today: Specter's switch means almost nothing important when compared to the things Jack Kemp (may he rest in peace) believed and said during his political career.
Then there's that specious claim about the Republican Party moving to the right. It's made often enough alright, but it just isn't true. If the Republican Party has done any moving at all, it has been to the left. It hasn't gone far to the left, thankfully, but even its slow motion is apparent to those of us who are not moving leftward. It has to do with vantage point, really: if you're running as hard as you can leftwards and you look over your shoulder and see the Republican Party diminishing into the horizon, it's understandable that you might think it was running toward the right--but only if you're also denying your own leftward movement. Jay Nordlinger has a few thoughts on the subject today too--I'm especially grateful for his concise list of particulars since they reflect my own:
Just so. I find myself saying that a lot with respect to what Nordlinger writes.Bush and the Republicans spent massively, especially in Bush’s first term. We opposed that, mightily. The president’s most cherished initiative, probably, was the Faith-Based Initiative. We opposed that. Then there was his education policy: No Child Left Behind. We opposed that (mainly on grounds that it wrongly expanded the federal role). He had his new federal entitlement: a prescription-drug benefit. We of course opposed that. He imposed steel tariffs—for a season—which we opposed. He signed the McCain-Feingold law on campaign finance—which we opposed. He established a new cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. We opposed that. He defended race preferences in the University of Michigan Law School case; we were staunchly on the other side. He of course proposed a sweeping new immigration law, which included what amounted to amnesty. We were four-square against that.
I am talking about some things that were very dear to Bush’s heart, and central to his efforts—and self-image, as a leader. NR, the conservative arbiter, opposed those things. The Republican party, by and large, supported them—with one glaring exception: the immigration push.
I'd like to flesh out this business of running left while insisting vociferously that you're standing still. I'm not trying to say that Democrats or lefties are delusional or even lying with malice aforethought, it's just that I object to their redefinition of things to suit themselves.
Let me start by mentioning "inertial frames." You can calculate the parabolic arc of a tossed baseball inside a moving train car as if the car were standing still (provided, of course, that the car's vector is constant). By defining the movement of the car as an inertial frame, we can simply ignore it while we calculate the baseball's motion. But to complete the mathematical description of the baseball's motion we ultimately have to account for the train's progress toward Union Station in Washington, DC. So an inertial frame is just a way of breaking down a complex problem into manageable pieces, not a denial of reality.
Politically, however, there is an inertial frame encapsulated by the word "progress". Lefties generally treat progress as if it were the natural state of things and that its movement is to be treated as constant. And when the Republican party (which, as I said, has been moving left--i.e. in a "progressive" direction) doesn't move fast enough, it's "moving right." Well, yes, I suppose. But that's in a relative (rather than objective) sense. But once we account for the inertial frame in the equation, we see the Democratic Party racing left and the Republican Party jogging left.
I'd like to see a little saunter to the right, by which I mean a shift of personal responsibility back toward the individual, the beginnings of an objective reduction in the number and scope of government responsibilities, and a decreased willingness to attempt social engineering.
A couple nights ago, I watched the movie, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex. It's a film about the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany and its rather lengthy campaign of terrorism--bombings, arsons, assassinations, kidnappings, etc. during the late 1960s and through the 1970s. In it the chief of the Federal Police, Horst Herold, argues that any response to the RAF terrorists must account for their motivations, not just their actions. His explanation of their motive? A myth.
For those of us conservatives who marvel at the unflagging insistence that our friends and neighbors on the left bring to their goals of changing the world, it is instructive to remember the power of myth: it can motivate people to political action, and it can motivate them to commit monstrous crimes (fortunately this latter effect has been relatively rare and is certainly not a necessary characteristic of those who believe the myths). It is worth pointing out, I think, that a myth is not necessarily something that is not or cannot be true, though it is certainly an expression of yearning, as C.S. Lewis observed in his essay "Myth Became Fact." To yearn is to be human, so concluding (as Eric Hoffer did in his deep little book, The True Believer) that we must cease to have expectations for the future is to deprive ourselves of a part of our humanity. The point I'm trying to make is simply that we need to be honest and humble about our expectations and yearnings.
We can begin by understanding that while change is inevitable, real progress is not the necessary result of much-sought-after change. This is where conservatives come in: we understand instinctively that making genuine improvements and achieving real progress is not easy, that there are more ways to go wrong than there are to go right, and that the best intentions can result in disastrous outcomes. We think that civilizations are inherently fragile. Moreover, they are the product of small, carefully chosen changes that accumulate over time. These little things, complete with mistakes, false starts, and clear successes, comprise something larger, and more comprehensive than any myth or ideology: all these little things taken together are tradition.
And I daresay the action of tradition is progressive--really progressive. As Margaret Thatcher said, "the facts of life are conservative."
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