THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 38, January 31, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DO CONSERVATIVES NEED TO GET BEYOND REAGAN?
By Rush Limbaugh
MUST AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES ABANDON THEIR CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES? MUST CONSERVATIVES
DISCARD THE IDEAS THAT RONALD WILSON REAGAN STOOD FOR? THE ROOTS OF THE ARGUMENT THAT
CONSERVATIVES NEED TO "GET BEYOND REAGAN" -- WHAT CONSERVATISM IS -- INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY & LIMITED
GOVERNMENT -- IS THERE SUCH A THING AS "BIG-GOVERNMENT CONSERVATISM" IN THE U.S.A.?
FULL STORY:
There are ongoing discussions and debates among Conservatives about the kind of President Barack Obama will
prove to be, and about how they should react to him. But there is a larger and more important debate going on within
Conservatism — a debate about what Conservatism is. Remarkably, we are hearing from a lot of people who are
thought to be Conservatives that Conservatives need to “get beyond Reagan.” After all, these people say, “The
Reagan era is over.” And the Liberal media love to print their articles and broadcast their pronouncements to this
effect. My response is, well, yes, the Reagan era is over in the sense that it has been 20 years since Ronald Wilson
Reagan was President. But the funny thing is, I never heard the Liberals saying that, because the era of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt was over — it ended in 1945 — that they needed to “get beyond FDR.” They didn’t say that 35
years later, when Ronald Reagan was first elected, or when he was reelected in 1984. They didn’t say that when the
Liberals lost Congress in the 1994 election. Nor did they say it after the 2000 or 2004 elections. Instead, they kept
arguing and fighting for the ideas they believe in. And now Barack Hussein Obama is plausibly promising to revive
the era of FDR.
So why are some socalled Conservatives today arguing that we need to “get beyond Reagan,” by which they mean
that we need to abandon the ideas that Reagan stood for? To understand the roots of this argument, I think we only
need to look back to the years when Reagan first emerged onto the national scene. There was a lot of resentment at
that time among many of the elites in the Republican Party because Reagan hadn’t gone to the right schools, he
didn’t come from the right part of the country, he had been an actor rather than a lawyer, he was a bumbling dunce,
he was an extremist who was too far outside the mainstream to win, and so on. People have been making these kinds
of arguments for a long time. They were saying that Conservatives needed to get beyond Reagan even before the
Reagan era began. A few of them are the same people. Many of them are new. But what they have in common is that
none of them agree with the principles that Reagan stood for. And I would argue that this means that they are not
Conservatives. Today the get-beyond-Reagan arguments are often put in socalled pragmatic terms of needing to
create blocs of voters who will support the Republican Party. And, in order to accomplish this, all that Conservatives
have to do, these self-proclaimed smart people say, is embrace the idea of big government, because that’s what the
American people want and because only socalled big-government Conservatives will be able to create blocs of voters
by spending money to do them favors. But, in answer to this, one has to ask the question — and I’m being a real
pragmatist myself here — what’s left for government to spend these days? It’s already bailing people out right and
left with taxpayer money that the government doesn’t have. The spigot has been turned on under President George W.
Bush. The Obama administration, we can presume, is going to be even more generous in terms of bailouts. But,
honestly, when we look at auto executives being grilled on TV by Liberal members of Congress about their
irresponsibility, can we take it seriously? Has anyone ever been as irresponsible with money — and, in their case,
other people’s money — than these very same self-righteous members of Congress?
As history has amply demonstrated, down the line, the kind of central planning that Mr. Bush has begun and that Mr.
Obama plans to escalate isn’t going to work. Although it may succeed in increasing the control of government over
people’s lives — which is how many Liberals these days seem to define prosperity — it will fail miserably in restoring
economic health to America. So, in fact, during a time of economic trouble like this, when Liberals are in charge of both
elected branches of government, Conservatives have a golden opportunity to reintroduce to the American people the
free market ideas and policies that have made our country the greatest and most prosperous country in human history.
My first point, then, is that there is no pragmatic reason today for Conservatives to abandon the ideas of Reagan. It is
worth remembering, after all, that, despite the warnings of Republican “pragmatists” in the economically bleak 1970s
that Reagan was too far outside the mainstream ever to be successful politically, Reagan won the Presidency in two
landslides — and, in 1994, his party took over the U.S. House of Representatives, for the first time in 40 years, using
Reagan-like arguments.
But there is a second and more important point to be made in response to the argument that Conservatives should get
beyond Reagan. The main idea that animated Reagan wasn’t anti-Communism or supply-side economics. Reagan’s
main idea was the main idea of the American founding — the idea of individual liberty — and the policies that he
supported, both internationally and domestically, grew from that. America was founded on the idea that our individual
freedoms derive from God, not from government, and that government should protect those freedoms and never violate
them. Reagan argued, and history has shown, that America does best when it is true to its original idea. It does best
when its people are left free to work in their individual self-interest — not meant in the sense of being selfish, but in the
sense that they are left free to work to improve their own lives and the lives of their families, and for the good of their
communities and of the nation at large. The biggest problem with the argument that Conservatives should get beyond
Reagan, then, is that the idea of individual liberty will never go out of style as long as America exists. To argue that the
Reagan era is over, is to argue that the era of freedom is over. And, to argue that Conservatives should abandon
Reagan’s principles is to argue that they should stop being conservatives.
There is no such thing, at least in America, as “big-government Conservatism.” A government that abides by the
Constitution and protects our God-given freedoms is, by definition, limited. Rather than carving out blocs of voters by
surrendering their principles, Conservatives need to continue to tell the American people as a whole that the ideas of
individual liberty and limited government are right and that the policies that come from those ideas work best to
produce prosperity. Conservatives don’t need to reinvent themselves. They need the courage to be once again who
they were.
Reprinted by Permission from Imprimis,
A Publication of Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, & Special Interest Groups
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, Marxists, & Other Leftists:
The Democratic Party, Academia, & the Mainstream Media
Liberalism Versus Conservatism in American Politics
-------------------------
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES:
COMPETING SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Conservatism
Traditional Conservatism: Questions & Answers
Conservatism: Attitudes, Types, & Present Status
Constitutional Conservatism: American & British
Liberalism
Classical Liberalism: Intellectual Foundations
Classical Liberalism: Conservative Liberalism
Manchester Liberalism & Social Darwinism
Modern Social "Liberalism": Statist "Liberalism"
Radical & Totalitarian Ideologies
Radicalism, Utopianism, & Totalitarianism
Rush Limbaugh launched his radio broadcast into national syndication on August 1, 1988, with 56 radio stations.
Twenty years later, it is heard on nearly 600 stations by approximately 20 million people each week and is the
highest rated national radio talk show in America. Mr. Limbaugh also hosts “The Rush Limbaugh Morning
Update,” writes “The Limbaugh Letter,” and extends his message to the Internet via RushLimbaugh.com. He
received the Marconi Award for Syndicated Radio Personality of the Year, given by the National Association of
Broadcasters, in 1992, 1995, 2000, and 2005. In1993, he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and in 1998, into
the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
The foregoing article by Rush Limbaugh was adapted from a speech delivered on December 4, 2008, at the
Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on the occasion of the Ninth Annual Hillsdale College Churchill Dinner.
The article first appeared in Imprimis, January, 2009 (Volume 38, Number 1).
Return to Top of Page
Go to the WEBSITE INDEX
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume XI, 2009
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights
Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage
CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION
This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics,
civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political
philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.
POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.
Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs,
International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests,
Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy
INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity