Ave Atque Vale

I am not a consensus politician.  I am a conviction politician.
            Margaret Thatcher

This past week, the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died at the age of 87.  From an international perspective, she is most known as Ronald Reagan’s conservative doppelganger but the shopkeeper’s daughter was much more.  Over the course of her career, she defied traditions, conventions and perceptions about politics, women and the role of the latter within the former.  Her time in office, like Ronald Reagan, coincided with economic difficulties and international skirmishes.  She is, therefore, despised in some corners of the kingdom and the world and beloved in others.  However, despite the differences in how people view her achievements, one cannot question her guts and conviction, nor should one question her impact on the 20^th century.   

In parts of Great Britain this past week, there were cheers and chants, parties and pontifications on the death of Mrs. Thatcher but very little understanding of where the country was in the 1970s.  The British government owned a great deal of the industries that employed Britons, from transportation to manufacturing and it faced economic ruin.  Coming from the same class that would later deplore her and celebrate her death, the prime minister challenged the role of government in the economy.  She sought, in her short time in office, to reverse decades of socialist maneuverings and nationalization, understanding that people had the ability to control their own fate and run their own shops.  Private ownership of industry and businesses were needed to reverse Britain’s economic fortune and she withstood the attacks, the vile insults and self-interested posturing.   She said, “I can’t bear Britain in decline.  I just can’t.”  She remembered a different Britain and she battled first the Heath government in opposition and then both Labour and the Tories to drag the island nation from the precipice.  

Internationally, she was just as fierce and her actions based on a pride of what England was and could be again.  Her most controversial move, one that many observers at the time felt would never happen, was her defense of the Falkland Islands.  While she is often criticized for the defense of British sovereignty and its citizens, it was the action of a military Argentinian junta that made this an issue and she, in classic form, finished it.  Her government was a constant target by the Irish Republican Army and though it managed to kill many close friends and colleagues during the Brighton bombing in 1984, she refused to back down.  She reminded her fellow citizens that the Russians were people to observe and combat.  So strident were her attacks on the Soviet government, as part of a larger Cold War democratic sortie, it was an article in a Russian paper that first gave her the sobriquet most associated with her – “the iron lady.”  During Europe’s discussions on the budget for the European Economic Community’s financial affairs, Mrs. Thatcher’s obdurate and fierce nature led French President Francois Mitterrand to declare her has having the lips of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of Caligula. 

Economically, she challenged her people to see the long view and tried to teach them the importance of their participation in the economy rather than allowing for government control.  She turned around rampant inflation and labor unrest.  She was an unabashed champion of Victorian values like hard work, self-reliance, patriotism and frugality.  She was a fierce international figure that world leaders ignored or dismissed at their own peril.  However, the most shocking thing about Mrs. Thatcher’s legacy is the fact that American conservatives have not chosen to follow her lead. 

Conservative thinker Bill Kristol mentioned that her greatest achievement was her role in opposition prior to ascending to 10 Downing Street.  She gave a rudderless Tory party direction and cleared a path towards stability and prosperity by first shining a light on the depravity and ultimate failure of statism.  The departure from such governance by former communist eastern European countries validates Mrs. Thatcher’s actions.  Only the United States moves toward it with our new nationalized health care system.  As we distance from the vitriolic and ad hominem attacks of modern European liberals, old unionists and Argentinians, perhaps we can learn the true greatness of Margaret Thatcher.