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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49oZDvTKXv0
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The Calamity of
Bush's Conservatism
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
delivered
at the Rally for the Republic in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on September 2,
2008.
Sometimes people say that
Americans are cynical about politics. Looking at the way the Bush administration
has used and abused its power for the last eight years, is it really surprising?
You would have to be
sedated not to be cynical.
It should be clear why the
Ron Paul movement took the country by storm. It represents something different,
something hopeful. Some commentators talk about how the Paulians have a dark
view of American society. Actually, the opposite is true. That people worked so
hard to save this country from the regular politicians speaks very highly of
their outlook.
On the other hand, it is
true that Paulians don't have a high regard for existing political structures.
Consider Bush. He has not
only broken election promises and trampled on American liberties, he hasn't done
a single decent thing for this country. And what he has done contradicts all of
the values he said he would uphold both times he tricked people into voting for
him.
I wish I could report that
this wasn't his intention. And yet even from his first day in office, he spoke
to aides about his priority of going to war on Iraq – a country hardly mentioned
during his first presidential campaign.
Here's another example.
Just after Bush took
office, David Frum, then a White House speechwriter, was part of a policy
meeting with the new president. They were discussing the energy policy of the
new administration. Recall that in those days, gasoline cost less than a dollar
a gallon. Frum had the idea that it would be a political victory to drive down
the price. He suggested the Bush use the phrase "cheap energy" to describe his
goal.
Frum writes in his memoirs
about what happened next. Bush "gave me a sharp, squinting look, as if he were
trying to decide whether I was the very stupidest person he had heard from all
day." He might have added that profits in the oil business – which is the
business that this government cares most about – were growing thinner.
Cheap energy, he answered,
was how we got into this mess.
What mess? Bush explained
to Frum that regular Americans were buying too many SUVs and using too much
gasoline and not paying enough for it. His answer was not to make energy
cheaper, but to make it more expensive.
Congratulations, Mr.
President. Your wars, your regulations, your disruption of the international
economy, and your failure to open up the industry to anyone other than your
friends has resulted in quadrupling the price of gasoline!
Of course, Bush's success
comes at our expense. All of his successes have come at our expense. In fact,
that last sentence might as well be the theme of his entire presidency.
Of course, he didn't
campaign on the promise of making our lives more miserable. Let's take a look
back and see what his slogans were.
Do you remember the phrase
"compassionate conservatism"?
He said in an early speech
that the phrase came from his insight that broken lives can only be rebuilt by
another caring, concerned human being. From this he developed what he called a
"bold new approach." He would use government to care for us and to love us and
to fix our broken lives. He alone would do this as head of state.
Few knew at the time that
this simple phrase "compassionate conservatism" masked a dangerous, Messianic
ambition. Some wires had gotten crossed in his brain. He began to see himself as
God's instrument on earth.
Here is another phrase from
early in his presidency. Bush was going to create "an ownership society." Some
commentators were stupid enough to believe that this meant that he would
privatize things and give back control to the people.
To those who bought this
line, I have only this to say: You Got Owned.
Remember the phrase,
"humble foreign policy"? Coming from Bush, that sounds about as ridiculous as
the phrase "peaceful war," except that he seems to believe in that too.
His delirium is like an
infection. It spreads. After all, Bush supporters are the people who continue,
even to this day, to talk about their amazing tactical successes in Afghanistan
and Iraq. Another former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, in his new book,
calls Iraq a "swift and humane success."
If such claims do not
qualify as Orwellian, I don't know what the word means.
Many people say that the
Bush administration has departed from conservative principles. There was a time
when I might have said that too, if by conservatism we mean the
constitutionalism of Robert Taft and Ron Paul.
But consider that Ron is
the only Republican in the whole Congress or anywhere inside the Beltway to
stand up to Bush's attempt to create a totalitarian state. Only he has
consistently opposed Bush's wars, regulations, spying, and shredding of the
Constitution. He alone warned against Bush’s monetary policies, his trade
policies, his diplomatic misadventures, and his crazed, megalomaniacal
arrogance.
You might say that many
have opposed this administration privately. You might say the same thing about
the Stalin, Hitler, and Mao administrations. Those who could speak out against
the wickedness, and did not do so, are morally culpable.
What does this tell us? It
tells us that conservatism as we once knew it is hopelessly corrupted. You can
detect it at cocktail parties, where self-identified conservatives sneer at the
very idea of liberty.
Clearly, in the age of
Bush, conservatism now constitutes as great or even greater threat to American
liberty than the left and left-liberalism. It is long past time for every
right-thinking American to reject the term conservative as a
self-description.
I for one no longer believe
that Bush has betrayed conservatives. In fact, he has fulfilled conservatism, by
completing the redefinition of the term that began many decades ago with Bill
Buckley and National Review. Think of it realistically. What does
conservatism today stand for? It stands for war. It stands for power. It stands
for spying, jailing without trial, torture, counterfeiting without limit, and
lying from morning to night.
There comes a time in the
life of every believer in freedom when he must declare, without any hesitation,
to have no attachment to the idea of conservatism.
After immigrating to the
U.S., Ludwig von Mises was aghast to find himself described as a conservative.
He denounced that term in 1956. F.A. Hayek in 1960 announced very clearly that
he was not a conservative. Murray Rothbard wrote thousands of words of protest
against the term. Frank Chodorov went further. He said that anyone who called
him a conservative would get a punch in the nose.
Now, the leaders of the
Republican party are telling us that the only real alternative to the socialism
of the Democrats is the fascism of the Republicans. They don't call it that, of
course, but that's the traditional name for the combination of nationalism,
militarism, and right-wing collectivism. They have a heritage, and it dates from
the interwar period when certain European politicians took power amidst economic
crisis. Having their confreres in power in our time represents the gravest
danger facing our country.
Yet Ron Paul has been
campaigning for liberty and against this danger since he first read Hayek and
Mises in medical school, since he first encountered an immoral war’s severed
limbs and crippled souls as a flight surgeon in the Air Force, since he first
decided, on August 15, 1971, to dedicate his life as a public intellectual and a
public official to free markets and sound money, against Nixonian economic
controls and the unlimited money creation that has brought us even more booms
and busts, and led us to the current crisis.
Indeed, since Ron Paul says
he was born a libertarian, we can say he has been fighting for freedom his
entire life.
To do all this, Ron Paul
had to buck Republican conservatism. Look at the peerless, shining example he
has set. And look what he has done, look at this historic event, and dream of
what he will do in the future.
To those who have lingering attachments to conservatism, I will close with the words that Murray Rothbard had for the Young Americans for
Freedom, spoken in 1960.
"Why don't you get out…
breathe the clean air of freedom, and then take your stand, proudly and
squarely, not with the despotism of the power elite and the government of the
United States, but with the rising movement in opposition to that government?
Then you will be libertarians indeed, in act as well as in theory. What
hangover, what remnant of devotion to the monster State, is holding you back?
Come join us, come realize that to break once and for all with statism is to
break once and for all with the [Buckleyite] right-wing. We stand ready to
welcome you."
Today, Ron Paul stands
ready to welcome you. Like the many thousands at this historic event, we say to
all who yearn to breathe free: Join us! Join Ron Paul!
September 3,
2008
Llewellyn H.
Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail] is
founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises
Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking
of Liberty.