Reagan’s belief in restrained freedom

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal has a good article this week on a new book about Ronald Reagan’s experiences as General Electric spokesman in the 1950s and how they shaped his politics. I sent Fund an e-mail about it, which began:

A terrific article.

Who knew that this was the way that the GE television show ended, that GE wanted Reagan to drop the political message that he had been promoting for his eight years there, and he refused, so they not only terminated him as corporate spokesman but ended the tv show as well?

However, I also had some critical comments, which I sent both to Fund and as a lettter to Opinion Journal:

In quoting Ronald Reagan’s ideal of “individual freedom consistent with law and order,” Mr. Fund inadvertently reminds us of the very thing that is wrong with today’s “conservatism,” namely that it has lost the principle of restraint on freedom that Reagan articulated.

Our modern “conservatives” never say, “Freedom consistent with law and order,” they just promote unqualified “freedom, freedom, freedom”: “Everybody loves freedom,” “All people are the same and love their children and want freedom,” “Get rid of Hussein and the Iraqis will instantly form a democratic government,” “Family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande.” These thoughtless, cheerleader-type slogans make freedom sound as if it’s automatic, and as if the virtues that make freedom workable and non-destructive—such as the belief in other people’s rights and not just one’s own, and the actual will and ability to maintain a functioning society—are also automatic. In fact, such virtues are dependent on pre-political realities, such as the individual and social character that comes from people’s being part of an actual culture and moral tradition. Also, such virtues are not possessed equally by all people.

As a result of the loss—or rather the wholesale throwing away—of these older understandings of the restraints and conditions that freedom requires, our modern “conservatives” have become Rousseauian revolutionaries, as seen in their reckless “democratize-Iraq” policy and in their crusade for wide-open, indiscriminate immigration.

Reagan was starting to see the deeper requirements of freedom in his “farewell speech” in January 1989 in which he talked about the loss of our national culture and national memory. Had his active life lasted longer, he would have come to see that what we need to believe in is not just individual freedom consistent with law and order, but individual freedom consistent with the preservation of our constitutional system, our culture, and our nation.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 10, 2007 02:03 PM | Send