Practical Libertarianism (Part 2)

In the ensuing years I became a big fan of William F. Buckley and Jack Kemp. I cheered on the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, though it was no revolution. I liked Gingrich. The whole bit.

I argued that any party that was for smaller government was a friend of the American people. I could see that higher taxes stifled individual creativity in the economy. I came to see that it was a great privilege to live in a country where ones paycheck could be defined by individual initiative. I saw the Republicans as the ones who sought to unleash this huge human potential. The GOP, though stodgy, was the grown up party, whereas the Dems seemed perpetually locked in an adolescent world view.

But as the 1990s moved along, the “revolutionaries” of 1994 became fat and happy. Gone was the idea that the federal government needed to be curtailed. It was replaced instead by a party of social conservatism, with a real evangelical bent, that appealed in no way to me. It seemed that the Republican Party was very quick to embrace the state and quickly forgot why they were there, which was to increase freedom and to reduce the scope of the state.

It turned out the GOP was no better at denying the temptations of centralized power than the Dems. This was very disheartening to those conservatives who had dreamed of a GOP Congress and the possibility of finally cutting the size of government. The Republican Revolution was betrayed.

Then Darkness At Noon, the election of George Bush II.

The man draped himself in the language of conservatism but as we were soon to find out had no problem with the massive expansion of the state.

September 11th changed everything and ushered in the era of GWB as a “war president.”

More to come…