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.       

Why I’m a Conservative

Government can’t do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.
            William F. Buckley, Jr.

As a teacher and one who comes from a predominantly Democratically-controlled state, the descendent of Jewish immigrants and union workers, it might seem odd that I call myself a conservative.  Some might go so far as to say it is down-right miraculous.  However, as I grew up, perhaps as a condition of my contrarianism, I saw the things around me and grew suspect of their validity and effectiveness.  I heard the rhetoric but did not see the results.  I heard the passion but missed the certainty and self-assuredness.  It was once said that religious faith does not come from wisdom but from personal experience.  For me, political awareness and conviction materialized in much the same way. 

For me, conservatism is a belief that does not belittle others but believes in the inherent worth and ability of the individual.  For example, fiscal conservatism suggests that every person has the chance to rise as high, economically, as they want and the U.S. created a system that allows people to do just that.  For nearly 300 years, people have flocked to what was to be and what is the United States in search for a better life.  It does not matter a man’s race, country of origin or previous experiences, in the U.S. a man has the chance to stand on his own merit.  Liberals, in order to maintain their own power structure, assumes a perpetual disadvantage of racial, economic or religious proportions.  The policies with which liberals do not agree are framed as a slight or as particularly injurious to minorities (the recent voter identification requirements an example).   

The belief in the individual also discounts the notion of the conservative as a racist, as often suggested by liberals – usually mentioned in arguments over entitlements.  A true conservative feels that it is better to teach a person to take of themselves than to use the government as a means of filling that role.  Many liberals see the extent of their concern as directly proportional to how much they are willing to take care of others.  Within their arguments, they use terms like “the disadvantaged” or “the unfortunate” and in the process, they adopt a paternalistic attitude that, to a conservative, is demeaning and strips them of their humanity.  Over the last eighty years, liberals have suggested that their policies and attitudes are designed to help but poverty has not receded.  In fact, in the last forty or fifty years, it seems to have worsened.  However, there is no reflection upon these policies and liberal calls for endless government spending that has nothing to show for the expense.  If one assumes that a person is in need of government help because of a minority status, is that not the real racist?   

Therefore, my belief in the individual also negates the need for an overpowering and all-encompassing government.  Our Founding Fathers had an inherent distrust of government and the ability of someone to rule from afar.  President Ronald Reagan said, “The ten most dangerous words in the English language are “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”  As a conservative (and a historian), I realize that the government has never managed or operated anything that private hands could not do better and more efficiently.  When the government makes the assumption of its own legitimacy and superiority over its own people, where does that leave the average American?  The overwhelming trust that some have in the government has an inverse relationship with the lack of trust they have in people.   

In “cool” circles, there are no advantages to being a conservative.  Conservatives are roundly described as racists, hayseeds, uneducated and cruel.  Democrats declare that our policies are out to kill grandmothers and that we hate or cannot stand minorities, little children, down-on-their-luck single mothers and we probably kick puppies too.  Yet, in the condemnation, they show the madness of their declarations of tolerance and caring.  William F. Buckley, noted conservative thinker, once said, “Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.”  As a conservative, I see the individual capable of more and I have greater belief in the individual.  At its core, that is why I’m a conservative.