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                           Imprimis, On Line
                               March 1994
        
        IMPRIMIS (im-pri-mis), taking its name from the Latin
        term, "in the first place," is the publication of
        Hillsdale College. Executive Editor, Ronald L.
        Trowbridge; Managing Editor, Lissa Roche; Assistant,
        Patricia A. DuBois. Illustrations by Tom Curtis. The
        opinions expressed in IMPRIMIS may be, but are not
        necessarily, the views of Hillsdale College and its
        External Programs division. Copyright 1994. Permission
        to reprint in whole or part is hereby granted, provided
        a version of the following credit line is used:
        "Reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the monthly
        journal of Hillsdale College." Subscription free upon
        request. ISSN 0277-8432. Circulation 505,000 worldwide,
        established 1972. IMPRIMIS trademark registered in U.S.
        Patent and Trade Office #1563325.
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
                 "How to Fight Back Against Liberalism"
                           by William Kristol
              Chairman, Project for the Republican Future
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
                          Volume 23, Number 3
              Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
                               March 1994
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
        Preview: We live at a moment in time in which the
        potential for regaining control over our lives is
        greater than ever. Socialism and communism abroad, and
        liberalism at home, are dying. Though in its quest to
        nationalize health care the Clinton administration is
        pushing for the most sweeping regulation in our
        history, people everywhere are rebelling--they are,
        says William Kristol, fed up with the broken promises
        of liberalism. The question is, will conservatism
        provide them with a real alternative?
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
        The great paradox of the 1990s is that while liberalism
        is on its death bed in this country, it still controls
        almost all our major institutions. On the one hand, its
        claims have been so often disproved by history and by
        empirical evidence that it has exhausted its strength.
        On the other hand, liberalism dominates the presidency,
        Congress, education, the media, and even certain
        segments of the private sector.
        
             What is most striking is how thoroughly liberalism
        has lost popular support. Despite the Democratic
        presidential victory in 1992 (with, after all, only 43
        percent of the vote) polls indicated that most
        Americans believe the federal government creates more
        problems than it solves and that Americans tend to
        favor lower taxes and less government. They also
        believe that government should support traditional
        family values as opposed to promoting "alternative
        lifestyles." In short, the majority of Americans
        distrust contemporary liberalism.
        
        
                        Liberals' Loss of Faith
        
        Even many liberals have lost faith in liberalism. In
        the 1960s and 1970s, liberals wholeheartedly believed
        that (1) Keynesian economics would work to end the ups
        and downs of the business cycle, (2) government would
        manage the economy and increase economic growth, (3)
        liberal social programs would help end poverty and
        injustice, (4) "progressive" education would improve
        the performance of students, and (5) "liberation" from
        conventional morality would make people happier, better
        adjusted, and more fulfilled. Today, however, it is
        rare to find more than a handful of liberals who are
        willing to publicly and categorically defend these
        beliefs.
        
             Look at how the rhetoric of liberalism has
        changed. President John F. Kennedy and his disciples
        had faith in "Progress." They preached that liberalism
        was the way of "Progress" and the way of the future.
        They ridiculed conservatives as reactionaries yearning
        for the past.
        
             But today's liberals don't talk about "Progress."
        In his 1993 inaugural address, President Bill Clinton
        introduced a new liberal mantra: "Change." He declared,
        "We must make change our friend." (This reminds me of
        something my six-year-old might see on television. One
        can easily imagine Mr. Rogers telling his young
        viewers: "We must make change our friend.")
        
             The switch from "Progress" to "Change" is no minor
        matter. It betrays a growing lack of confidence.
        Liberals are no longer sure that they are on the right
        side of history or that history is moving in their
        direction. Since the collapse of socialism and
        communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
        Union, they have desperately struggled to cling to
        their old beliefs, but to no avail. New rhetoric can't
        breathe life into a dying philosophy.
        
        
              Liberal Attempts to Maintain the Status Quo
        
        Why, then, does liberalism still dominate? Part of the
        reason lies in the fact that it has become deeply
        entrenched in our society. It can linger on for a long
        time even after its main strength has been exhausted.
        And for all their talk about "Change," politicians,
        bureaucrats, and the many and sundry beneficiaries of
        big government have a huge stake in liberalism's
        continued survival, i.e., in maintaining the status
        quo.
        
             The recent vote on school choice in California is
        an example. Pro-school choice advocates were fighting
        to pass a voucher initiative that would give every
        student in California $2,600 to use at the public or
        private school of his choice. No one on either side of
        the debate pretended that the public schools were doing
        a good job, or that the current system was a model for
        education. But the teachers' unions and the state
        education bureaucracy saw school choice as threatening
        their positions. Therefore, they hotly denied that
        competition is better for education and that parents
        know best how to care for their children. With a month
        and a half to go before the election, they had spent a
        total of $8.9 million to defeat school choice. By
        contrast, the proponents of the initiative had spent
        only $740,000.
        
             Faced with such overwhelming and well-funded
        liberal opposition, it is no surprise that school
        choice was defeated in California in 1993. But the
        issue will crop up again and again in state elections
        across the nation. When school choice eventually
        succeeds, it will mark the beginning of the end of the
        public school monopoly, and it will hasten liberalism's
        demise.
        
        
                       Liberalism's Coming Crash
        
        Liberalism is like a huge, condemned building. It's big
        and impressive, but one well-placed charge could bring
        down the whole edifice. We saw this happen in Eastern
        Europe and the former Soviet Union in the 1980s. All
        the experts had been talking for years about how
        powerful the communist bloc had grown. The U.S.S.R. was
        a dangerous and aggressive "superpower."  And it seemed
        virtually unchallengeable at home, for all dissent was
        ruthlessly suppressed. Even the most wild-eyed
        optimistic reformers predicted that it would be decades
        before we could expect much more than token
        liberalization. Then, with amazing speed, socialism and
        communism came crashing down.
        
             Though in some respects modern American liberalism
        seems all-powerful, in truth, it is very weak. It could
        fall much faster than anyone now predicts. The Clinton
        administration, which is more left-wing than any
        administration in American history, may actually speed
        up the process of self-destruction. It has made a
        monumental mistake by proposing to enact a national
        health care plan. This plan is the most sweeping
        expansion of government power in the last half-century.
        It would extend regulation into every nook and cranny
        of our society. It would also take a manageable
        problem--difficulties in assuring affordable health
        care for some people--and transform it into a genuine
        nationwide crisis.
        
             The Clinton health care plan is bolder and more
        dramatic than the media or the Democratic-controlled
        Congress have let on. It is reminiscent of a particular
        strain of fascism/socialism called "state corporatism,"
        which allows the central government to dictate the
        rules to the supervisors and managers who will then be
        given authority over huge chunks of the private sector.
        
             The Clinton administration's proposed health care
        plan is a major threat to our nation, but it may also
        be a blessing in disguise. This is because we are
        living at a special historical moment. To paraphrase
        Dickens, one could say, politically, it is the best of
        times, it is the worst of times. Liberals intend to use
        the plan to go further than they have ever tried to go
        before in regulating private behavior, but because they
        are overreaching their grasp, they are losing
        legitimacy and popular support.
        
        
                        The Conservative Agenda
        
        It is important to remember that the fact that
        liberalism is dying is no guarantee that conservatism
        will triumph. Conservatives must promote their own
        agenda.
        
             First, conservatives must fight against liberalism
        on philosophic grounds. There is always the temptation,
        of course, to fight on the basis of expediency rather
        than principle, but this is a losing strategy. In the
        game of political compromise, liberalism controls most
        of our political and social institutions and thus holds
        all the cards.
        
             Conservatives can do the private sector an
        invaluable service by making this point unmistakably
        clear. Too often, members of the private sector--big
        business executives in particular--are willing to "cut
        deals" in order to protect their shareholders and
        employees. They don't realize that the protection they
        gain is only temporary and that it is purchased at too
        great a cost.
        
             What happened to the leaders of the pharmaceutical
        industry in 1993 is a good example. The Clinton
        administration denounced them as "profiteers" and sent
        the message that they would be penalized because they
        dared to oppose national health care. Pharmaceutical
        stocks plunged and the leaders of the industry
        panicked. Instead of sticking to their guns and
        fighting on principle, they bought full-page newspaper
        ads assuring that they were in favor of national health
        insurance as long as prescriptions were covered as part
        of the package. This kind of attempt to curry favor is
        both ignoble and unwise.
        
             Second, conservatives must make the fight against
        liberalism broad rather than narrow. To cite the case
        of health care again, it is not enough simply to say
        that the Clinton plan will cost vastly more, or that it
        will be inefficient, even though both arguments are
        true. Conservatives must say loud and clear that the
        Clinton plan is fundamentally wrong. It will lead the
        country in the wrong direction. It will take away our
        freedom.
        
             Similarly, it is not enough to argue that the
        employer-mandate provisions in the Clinton plan will
        cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Conservatives must
        argue that it is fundamentally wrong to force employers
        to obey such provisions. (Besides, the Clinton
        administration can easily produce experts who will
        testify that the provisions will actually add 100,000
        jobs. A traditional Washington debate, in which each
        side throws around meaningless numbers, will quickly
        ensue, obscuring what is really at stake.)
        
             Third, conservatives need a positive agenda. We
        can't just oppose liberalism, we have to create a
        viable alternative. A number of conservative leaders in
        Congress are doing just that. They know, for example,
        that they cannot simply criticize the Clinton
        administration's national health care plan--they have
        to introduce their own reforms. They have proposed,
        among other things: (1) reforming insurance markets to
        make health insurance more stable; (2) eliminating
        barriers to small business insurance pools; (3)
        lowering insurance premiums by making them tax
        deductible; (4) establishing tax-free medical savings
        accounts; (5) reducing costs through malpractice
        reform; (6) simplifying health care paperwork and
        administration; and (7) providing health care tax
        credits or vouchers to low-income families.
        
             Fourth, conservatives must remember that it is
        easier to achieve big rather than little reforms. Most
        people tend to think that the best way to accomplish a
        task is to take one step at a time. But politics
        doesn't always work that way. It is sometimes like
        technology: There are moments when huge, sudden leaps
        are possible.
        
             Now is the time to leap. Americans are
        disenchanted with liberalism and with "politics-as-
        usual" inside the Washington Beltway. They are willing
        to support reforms that would have been unthinkable a
        short time ago. The Kemp-Roth tax plan was dismissed as
        unrealistic when it was introduced in the 1970s, but in
        the 1980s the Reagan administration relied on it to cut
        taxes by 30 percent. Term limits were regarded as a
        "fringe" idea up until a few years ago; in 1992, voters
        in 14 states passed initiatives limiting the terms of
        federal legislators and in 12 states they also limited
        the terms of state legislators. The recent "Perot
        phenomenon," which resulted in a 19 percent vote for a
        third-party candidate, also suggests the willingness of
        the American people to embrace bold action.
        
             Fifth, conservatives must make arguments that go
        beyond economics. Debates over all issues must take
        into account other factors besides dollars and cents.
        What is ultimately wrong with the Clinton
        administration's national health care plan is not what
        it will cost our economy (and it will cost billions of
        dollars) but how it will redefine the whole nature of
        the relationship between government and citizens in a
        free society. It will allow the state to tell us what
        to do, when to do it, and how to do it.
        
             On every issue, conservatives should shift the
        terms of debate in order to ask the all-important
        question: "What does it mean to be a self-governing
        nation?" People want to take care of themselves, their
        families, and their communities instead of relying on a
        "nanny state" to do it for them. Indeed, our insistence
        on independence and self-reliance has been our most
        outstanding quality for more than two hundred years.
        
             That quality is just as strong now as it was in
        1776. With it, and with a positive agenda, conservatism
        can triumph--the forces of freedom can prevail. But
        they cannot do so unless we rally intelligently and
        purposefully to their side.
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
        Former White House chief of staff for Vice President
        Dan Quayle, William Kristol is currently chairman of
        the Project for the Republican Future. He has also
        served as chief of staff for Secretary of Education
        William Bennett; as a professor at the University of
        Pennsylvania and the John F. Kennedy School of
        Government at Harvard University; and as director of
        the Bradley Project on the 90's for the Bradley
        Foundation of Milwaukee.
        
             Dr. Kristol's published work has appeared in such
        sources as the Chicago Law Review, the Harvard Journal
        of Law and Public Policy, the Public Interest, and the
        Wall Street Journal.
        
                                  ###
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                            (End of file)
          The March 1994 issue of Imprimis includes the files,
           IMPR9403.TXT and IMP9403A.TXT---A special reprint.
          Information about the electronic publisher, Applied
              Foresight, Inc., is in the file, IMPR_BY.TXT
        +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
        
