Thatcher and “saving” the West
Bill Kristol has a piece in the Weekly Standard in which he writes:
And now the last of them is gone. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II””three who won the Cold War and, it isn’t too much to say, saved the West (at least for a while!)””are no longer with us. Their examples remain.
Note that parenthetical “at least for a while.” Will their examples be followed in kind, or was the “save” just the equivalent of fingers in the dyke against an unstoppable wave of leftism that will once again swamp us?
Their opponents would gleefully say it’s the latter; that’s why they are so triumphantly stomping on Thatcher’s grave before she’s even been placed in it.
I can’t see the future. But I do see the conflict between the same forces that have long been fighting a war for people’s minds.
Sometimes one side seems to be winning, sometimes the other. Right now leftism believes itself to be in the ascendance, and there’s no doubt it has some natural advantages in term of appealing to human emotions both positive and negative, such as starry-eyed and somewhat naive idealism, as well as covetousness and lust for power.
But conservatism has some advantages too, which might best be summed up in the words of Lady Thatcher herself:
The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
Or perhaps this:
Popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation. We Conservatives are returning power to the people.
My comment on another site works well here:
No-one whose politics is less than religion could help but admire Margaret Thatcher. What she did was of her own making, will, and perseverance. What she did was done without government or law, ramp or hoist – no set asides set aside for her. If it was difficult for a woman in a man’s world, it accrues to her an even greater admiration that she made the ascent so spectacularly and made every political man lesser by contrast.
Now compare Ms. Thatcher with our own fair damsel, who, in effect, had made his way to the summit by having been carried to it in a sedan chair.
On the other hand:
“We had to learn the hard way that by agreement to what were apparently empty generalizations or vague aspirations we were later held to have committed ourselves to political structures which were contrary to our interests.”
— Lady Margaret Thatcher, “The Downing Street Years”
There is the lesson of it all, in one sentence. Though politics is compromise, everything is not political; some things may not be compromised — even in the vaguest sense; even for comity’s sake.
I happened to tune in to Dennis Prager’s radio show today– unfortunately it was only a few minutes– and he was interviewing Claire Berlinski about Margaret Thatcher.
From what little I was able to hear, it sounded like a great interview (maybe it can be accessed online?). She’s written a book on Margaret Thatcher– There Is No Alternative — that I’ve never read ( though I had heard of Ms. Berlinski).
As I tuned out they were discussing how Mrs. Thatcher had single-handedly held back the tide of socialism (in the UK at least) and about how hard it is for a country to “go back” to freedom. individualism and capitalism after socialism begins to take root. She was making the same point you make Neo, about the appeal of socialism to” human emotions both positive and negative, such as starry-eyed and somewhat naive idealism, as well as covetousness and lust for power”.
How do you compete with that kind of appeal? Churchill was able to sell himself with an offer of “nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat”, but consider the circumstances where quite different (and thank God we’re not there yet).
“Dennis Prager…maybe it can be accessed online?”
Very probably. He has a website, and many of his interviews are on iTunes in a podcast called American Conservative University.
ziontruth, carl in atlanta, and others:
You might want to take a look at this excerpt from a 1961 speech by Reagan in which he says, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
Neo:
Touché!
Maybe someone will come along before too long. They have in the past…..
It is sad, but seemingly true, that you can measure the stature of a Conservative by how quickly and vehemently the small personalities of the Left rush to attack their memories. People who would never dare to face the Duchess in her prime, can now come out from under their rocks.
To my mind she embodied the best of Britain. I doubt that they will ever see another like her. Unfortunately, I doubt that we will either.
Just this weekend I put aside a library book, a mystery written by a fairly well known Brit, because couldn’t resist throwing egregious attacks on Mrs Thatcher’s legacy into his story line. He proved himself not worth the time to read further.
The trouble with socialism is that it denies individual dignity and the circumstances of reality. It is a system designed to consolidate capital and control for a minority interest through redistributive change and institutional discrimination. As it marginalizes or eviscerates competing interests, it also engenders progressive corruption. There are better, more sustainable compromises to be made among men and women of equal Rights.
Thatcher was a woman, a wife, a mother, and a leader of the free world. Her tribe will not soon forget her contributions. RIP
While leaders like Reagan and Thatcher are rare, I do not believe we are permanently stuck on the left side of the political spectrum. BHO, as many (neo for example) have noted, has proven to be a unique character on the American political landscape. But he will be dead weight for democrats running in moderate districts and states. The economy will continue to flounder and Obamacare is just beginning to pick everyone’s pocket (except the left’s base) and it will hit the economy like one of BHO’s brick shots come 2014.
Its always darkest just before the dawn. RIP Ronnie and Maggie.
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=1995&month=03
The Iron Lady always stressed the importance of moral roots grounded in natural law.
An excerpt:
Christianity is based on the belief in a single God as evolved from Judaism. Most important of all, the faith of America’s founders affirmed the sanctity of each individual. Every human life–man or woman, child or adult, commoner or aristocrat, rich or poor–was equal in the eyes of the Lord. It also affirmed the responsibility of each individual.
This was not a faith that allowed people to do whatever they wished, regardless of the consequences. The Ten Commandments, the injunction of Moses (“Look after your neighbor as yourself”), the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule made Americans feel precious–and also accountable–for the way in which they used their God-given talents. Thus they shared a deep sense of obligation to one another. And, as the years passed, they not only formed strong communities but devised laws that would protect individual freedom–laws that would eventually be enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
Oldflyer: I had precisely the same annoying experience with an otherwise entertaining British murder mystery, and I was going to say we must have been reading the same book — but the author in my case was a “she,” not a “he.”
Thatcher was fabulous. She really pulled Old Blighty’s fat out of the fire — for a while.
But she warned us that the National Health Service was the one insuperable obstacle to restoring freedom in the United Kingdom. Once you have nationalized medicine, she told us, it’s Game Over.
Did anyone ever see the interview with John Cleese where he expresses a completely visceral hatred of Margaret Thatcher? (he was practically retching as he spoke, and he also trashed her “grocer’s daughter” origins and coached diction — much like the Leftoids rubbish Sarah Palin for her “declasse” ways).
It seems that the time when all social-democratic states are going to spend the last dime of other people’s money is now or fairly close to now. What would happen after that is everybody’s guess. I expect a major discontinuity or even social rupture.
Tammy Bruce put it best
“And the left has reacted as you would expect from scum, which also confirms her enduring legacy. Cancer hates the doctor, never forget that”.
I’ll start believing in that “returning power to the people” line when somebody frees a single city that is a Leftist fiefdom.
Atlanta? Detroit? Los Angeles? New York? San Francisco? Chicago? Denver? New Orleans?
There’s an easy mode, you know. Easy mode is too hard though.
The British people lost their freedom because their leaders thought the war was over and that now political expression would be the venue of mutual agreement and benefit. How wrong they were. The war… was never over.