In Reason Magazine, W. James Antle, III analyzes a book by Bill Kauffman entitled “Ain’t My America.” Antle says Kauffman is correct that the warfare state is as injurious to many conservative goals—keeping government small and taxes low, promoting free enterprise, maintaining stable families, affirming the value of human life—as the welfare state.
Antle continues, “Only six Republican congressmen and one GOP senator voted against authorizing the Iraq war. The upper chamber nay vote was cast by Lincoln Chafee, the most liberal Republican in the Senate. The six House members were divided evenly between noninterventionist conservatives (Paul, Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee, and John Hostettler of Indiana) and Rockefellerites (Jim Leach of Iowa, Connie Morella of Maryland, and Amo Houghton of New York). Almost six years later, after more than 60 percent of the American people have concluded that our Mesopotamian adventure was a fiasco, there are exactly four consistently anti-war Republicans in Congress.”
He concludes by saying, “During his 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan said that his political message could be summed up in ‘Just five words: family, work, neighborhood, freedom, and peace.’ When the right applies these principles more consistently to foreign policy, it will be morning in Bill Kauffman’s America.”
Permalink
Comments Off
