Posted by
Andrews on Saturday, May 09, 2009 1:12:57 PM
In the first "
Inescapable Logic" I wrote how any policy will inevitably be taken to its logical conclusion. However, while in the past I have written about the way one intervention leads to
ever more intervention, or how a single "
exception" leads to complete regimentation, I have actually stumbled upon an example of inexorable logic leading to freedom.
Hopefully by now everyone is aware that
glasnost was not an honest movement. Facing economic collapse due to both the internal problems of communism and the strains imposed by Reagan's escalation of the armaments race, disgraced by defeat and Afghanistan, and cut off from much international aid, Gorbachev engaged in the ultimate
pragmatic move, pretending to liberalize his government in order to start once more the flow of aid from the west. We will never know precisely what Gorbachev had in mind, but to all but the most naive, it seems clear that his plans were to allow only as much freedom as he had to, and then only so long as he needed to attract aid and, perhaps, investment, to prop up his failing regime. As with most
pragmatists, he thought he would do "what works", creating a small change, which he could limit or revoke as he saw fit.
Of course we all know how well this worked.
In various client states, the citizens, knowing that a crack down by the Soviets would ruin the deception, started pushing against the old Soviet supported regimes. Even within Soviet republics, such as
the occupied Baltic states, there was pressure for freedom. And finally, as the client states gradually began to assert their freedom, the citizens of the Soviet Union itself began to agitate for real reform.
All of which is a perfect example of the other side of my argument. Just as when those in a free state make concessions to authoritarianism it leads to ever greater authoritarianism, when those who lead an authoritarian state make concessions to freedom, it leads eventually to more freedom.
It also points out our problem. At the moment we have a free government, but we also have pressures pushing us for greater government control, and so whenever the right, the real and nominal conservatives, make a concession and grant more governmental power, the left immediately seizes on it and pushes to the logical conclusion, ever greater control. Partly this is because the left is just much more efficient at exploiting weaknesses than the right, but it is also because many nominally on the right really do believe in bigger state solutions, and so are themselves open to such conclusions.
What we need to do is reverse this trend. We need a right firmly dedicated to freedom, opposing big government, pushing for less government, and, most of all, willing to exploit the logic of the arguments made by the left, willing to latch on to their every concession to freedom and exploit
THOSE to their logical conclusions. In other words, play their game in reverse, pushing toward less government whenever we can.
Oh, the left will call us "negative" and "
the party of 'no'", or perhaps of
selling out to "big business", and the
"moderates" on the right will tell us we "
have to be FOR something", but we can tell them we are. We are for the individual and freedom, we are for self-sufficiency and the right of every individual to realize his potential without government getting in his way. And after four years of Obama, I bet the old mantra of "getting government off your back" will have quite a bit of popularity once more.
Only time will tell if Obama does enough harm to make small government a mass movement, but I can say this, if the right persists in being nothing but
an echo of the left, a
"smaller big government" party, or revert to our
protectionist, nativist
19th century roots*, or even try
to smuggle in freedom while paying lip service to the left's values to appease the press,
it will lose, and lose continually, as the more consistent party always wins. Just ask Gorbachev.
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* I am not suggesting we push for amnesty either. What I do fear is that backlash against the lack of immigration enforcement may push us in the wrong direction. Some of our "war of culture" rhetoric, and some more extreme examples, such as Buchanan's more warm writings about the Nazis, seem to suggest there is a small risk there. Which is sad, as there is nothing inherently racist/nativist/chauvinist about conservatism, but some seem bent of proving that
the Nazis were somehow a right wing movement, despite the "socialist" in their name.