Where's The Heir To Reagan?

by Tony Blankley - September 19, 2007 - Real Clear Politics

. . . . there was Reagan, quoting old Tom Paine -- the most radical of our Founding Fathers (who not only championed the American Revolution but also the French as a member of the French revolutionary councils) -- and proposing that we can throw civilization's institutions and traditions overboard and "begin the world over again."

True, Reagan had in mind throwing over liberal, statist programs and tax codes that had encrusted our ancient liberties since FDR's New Deal. Reagan's values were conservative, but his impatience with the failures of the status quo was radical.

That is my problem with the Republican leadership recently. Hastert went to Washington and he thought his job was to use the process of pork to help Republicans get re-elected. This meant that government grew dramatically against everything that the Republican Party stands for. Bigger government always burdens free enterprise. Cutting taxes is not the only thing that libertarians and conservatives believe. If you cut taxes but grow government you are helping big business but the consequences for small business are crushing. That may be defended as "capitalism" but it isn't free enterprise.

It is actually a new form of socialism that creates a government protected bubble for the super rich. These rich then ridicule small business (which creates 80% of new jobs) as evil and promote socialism. It doesn't matter whether the super rich are pampered inheritors like Paris Hilton and Ted Kennedy, arrogant movie stars like Richard Gere and Jane Fonda, narcissistic rock stars like Sheryl Crow and Bono, or self made business tycoons like Apple's Steve Jobs or Cable TV's Ted Turner; a large proportion of the super rich publicly talk against free enterprise even when it is what allowed them to become rich or created the wealth they enjoy.

Of couse these new super rich work really hard to assure that government doesn't tax them but instead taxes the productive members of society, the upper middle class people that they call "the rich". Even people like Ted Turner who once created business talk against the type of economic policies that would allow others to follow in their footsteps. They want to tax income and never tax wealth. Why have the Republicans suddenly embraced this big business socialism?

It doesn't mattter whether it is the corruption of Dennis Hastert or the big business socialism George W. Bush called "compassionate conservatism", Republican leadership stopped being the agent of radical reform exemplified by Ronald Reagan. When it stopped fighting against the overwhelming burden of the modern socialist state it lost its base.

The socialist state is secular and wants to control everything except sexual perversion. George W. Bush thought he could work with government, merely reduce their exclusion of religous groups and that would make socialism okay. We need to change Republican leadership back to warriors who reject socialism completely. If you believe in America, if you believe in the goodness of family, if you believe in free enterrpise, it is time to join a movement to throw socialist institutions and traditions overboard and "begin the world over again."

I want that. Don't you?