Maurice Re: "liberal" Good to hear from you as I've missed your essays lately. <g> Thought you were on a world tour?
There has been a lot of water under the bridge since the days of John Stuart Mill. You know Churchill in his early political career was a "liberal" but as Prime Minister he was considered to be an extreme Tory, especially in his last term. But in his writings Churchill claimed that he hadn't changed and that he believed in the same things, but that English "liberalism" had changed into something altogether different. I think you may have a bit of that at work here.
And I surely don't know much about New Zealand liberals as I mainly aim my barbs at the ones I know personally and those who live here. You have a very different history than ours as I would guess your form of government and the ideas which have formed your post-colonial arrangements owes a great deal more to the French Revolution than to the American Revolution, despite your English heritage.
Now this Classical Liberalism of the John Stuart Mill variety has points with which I agree, properly defined and in correct balance with our American experience. But there are very many features of our American heritage that I want to see preserved and enhanced whether they conform to the J. S. Mill variety of liberalism or not.
Let me give you an example of a really important conflict, just one among very many: Liberals claim that they want "limited government". But John Stuart Mill came along with his ideas LONG AFTER our founders had already established a system of VERY limited government and the maximum in personal freedoms, but with some important refinements I have never seen mentioned with regard to Mill.
Our system of limited government not only aimed to limit government, but to demand that what bare minimum of government that was needed be as LOCAL as possible. Mill, with his European view may have considered local control impossible to implement there and hence ignored it as an important benefit. There is NOTHING more important to personal freedom than local control of government, NOTHING. But the USA is the only place in the world with a high degree of local control.
Liberals here, because they have been frustrated in forcing their various programs through local governments desire to vastly expand the role of the NATIONAL government, indeed even INTERNATIONAL government (the UN, World Court, ect.). In fact, liberals both here and elsewhere are tireless advocates of BIG GOVERNMENT, despite the John Stuart Mill rhetoric.
Of course the USA has ALWAYS been the biggest advocate of "free trade" in the world. The British Empire had all sorts of schemes to create a closed system, like "Imperial Preferences", ect. So did the French, Germans, Dutch and all the rest. In both world wars Wilson and later FDR demanded (and got) all sorts of post war concessions to opening of colonial markets. We HAVE ALWAYS been the big "free trader".
But....our Constitution allows a tariff and describes in detail its usage. In fact the tariff is about the only tax that is legal and constitutional for the federal government to levy. Income tax is ILLEGAL and unconstitutional, so that leaves the tariff to raise revenue for the federal government. I believe it should be used to the maximum. <g>
The liberal self-hatred is a fact. But that is something far beyond classical liberalism and requires a separate explanation.
Slagle |
