In today's Washington Post:
In his July 5 op-ed, “Why American conservatism failed,” Fareed Zakaria was much too kind to conservatives when he summarized the “classical liberalism” they espouse as “promot[ing] limited government and the veneration of individual liberty.” Heck, I’m no “conservative,” but I believe strongly in limited government and individual liberty. That’s why I am not a Stalinist, among other things.
While American conservatives have been complaining throughout my adult life about a perceived loss of our liberty to an allegedly self-aggrandizing federal government, the fact is that the federal government has compelled me to do only two things in almost eight decades: pay my taxes and enlist in the Navy. What American conservatives have actually “promoted” during those decades can be boiled down to opposition to three things: equal rights (e.g., voting rights for minorities), federal regulation of commerce (e.g., environmental and workplace safety standards) and government benefits (e.g., Medicare and food stamps). Mr. Zakaria may characterize all this naysaying as a “venerable creed” championed by Ronald Reagan, but he would do well to recall Reagan’s inaugural pronouncement that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” No, it isn’t. American conservatism is.
As you follow, for example, the Obamacare- killing suit brought by Republican State attorneys general making its way through the Republican- stuffed Federal courts, keep in mind what Republicans have always been in favor of: afflicting the afflicted and comforting the comfortable.Robert J. McManus, Bethesda
