Don't you just HATE it when a pundit hits it like this?
What Reagan Got Wrong
Liberty is not the absence of government.
By William Saletan
Posted Sunday, June 6, 2004, at 7:16 AM PT
"There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."
That was the money quote in Ronald Reagan's farewell address nine days before he left the White House in January 1989. It crystallized his philosophy. I call it Reagan's Law.
This is what Reagan did best: He clarified the clash of ideas. He forced people to take sides. If you agreed with him, you were conservative. If you didn't, you weren't.
Do you buy Reagan's Law? That depends on two related questions. First, do you define liberty as the right to do things, or the ability to take advantage of that right? If liberty is the right to make a decent living or attend a good school, then getting government out of the way will suffice. But if liberty is the ability to make a decent living or attend a good school, then getting government out of the way isn't enough. In fact, government expansion, in the form of student loans or job training, may be necessary.
Second, do you view private institutions—businesses, churches, communities, families—more as guardians of liberty or as threats to it? To the extent these institutions serve the individual, getting government out of the workplace (through deregulation) and out of the community (say, by permitting collective school prayer) serves liberty. But to the extent these institutions threaten the individual, liberty may be better served by government expansion, in the form of workplace regulation or injunctions against school prayer.
Posted by P6 at June 7, 2004 08:00 AM
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