The Revenge of the Radcons : Part 2

Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America
by Robert B. Reich, Ph.D.

(Page 2 of 2)

In the sixties (a period that in political and cultural terms actually ran from about 1964 to 1972), the New Left was the source of most of the political passion and intensity in America. Liberals were considered wimps - wishy-washy, bourgeois. The militant organizer Saul Alinsky adopted the definition of a liberal as someone "who leaves the room when a fight begins."

Now it's hard to find any sixties lefties, except maybe in the rarefied precincts of a few universities where aging radicals still debate Marxism and deconstruction. Most of the political passion and intensity these days are on the radical conservative right.

But the two extremes - what remains of the sixties left, and the Radcons - share much of the same sense of moral superiority, the same unwillingness to consider alternative points of view. There's an important difference, though: The left never gained the power in America that the Radcons now have.

In my view, both extremes are wrong. Liberals, on the other hand, doubt that anyone has a monopoly on the truth. That's why liber- als place such a high value on tolerance and democracy. That's why liberals have insisted on a clear separation between church and state. And it's also why liberals worry about wealth and power. When wealth and power become concentrated in the hands of a rela- tively few citizens, the strong become stronger; everyone else, more vulnerable.

The word "liberal" was used by George Washington to indicate a person of generosity or broad-mindedness, as opposed to those who wanted to deprive Catholics and Jews of their constitutional rights.2 Franklin D. Roosevelt defined a "liberal" this way: "[S]ay that civilization is a tree which, as it grows, continually produces rot and dead wood. The radical says: 'Cut it down.' The conservative says: 'Don't touch it.' The liberal compromises: 'Let's prune, so that we lose neither the old trunk nor the new branches.' "3 FDR himself expanded and altered the common understanding of liberalism. Before the New Deal, liberalism was mostly about protecting people's freedom.

Even some of the individuals are the same: A few lefties from the sixties transported their moral absolutism to the radical right in the late seventies and eighties and became "neoconservatives." The term is generally applied to those who moved from far left to far right, but for the purposes of this discussion, I include them together with other Radcons.

But the Great Depression taught America that unemployment and bad luck could be just as harmful to personal freedom as tyranny. Protection against these required a larger role for government.

Henceforth, liberals were assumed to be in favor of a big government. But that's way too simple. The government's size or reach isn't the issue. It's what government does and whose interests it represents. Does it guard our civil liberties or intrude on our privacy? Does it protect the weak or promote the strong? I don't want a big government eavesdropping on my private telephone calls or e-mail, checking the books I've borrowed from the library, monitoring my movements, telling me what I can and can't say. I don't want a big government pouring billions of dollars into big companies - energy behemoths, agribusinesses, pharmaceutical giants, whatever - because they've made large political donations. And I don't like the idea of a giant military machine mounting "preemptive" wars without international backing. I don't want a big government that's the center of an intimidating, unaccountable empire.

Being a liberal isn't at all the same as being in favor of big government, despite what Radcons claim. Most liberals would prefer a small government that supported and protected the little guy over a big government that did the bidding of the wealthy and powerful. Frankly, people I know are more worried that our democracy is being corrupted by an increasing flow of campaign money from rich people and corporations to politicians. I also don't want a big government imposing any particular religious view on me or my kids, or on anyone else. In my view, government has no business telling people how to run their private lives or dictating personal morality. I don't want government giving or withholding funds to promote marriage, discouraging childbearing by welfare mothers, or pushing religion in our public schools.

Again: Government's size isn't the issue. It's what it does, and for whom.

radcons aren't real conservatives

Here, briefly and in its most undiluted form, is the Radcon agenda for America:

• prevent sex before marriage
• ban abortion
• condemn homosexuality
• prohibit gay marriage
• require prayer in the public schools
• give large tax breaks mainly to the rich
• cut social services mainly for the poor
• "privatize" social insurance
• eliminate regulations on business
• allow pollution of the environment
• ban affirmative action
• impose long prison sentences and, for the most serious crimes, the death penalty
• make English the official national language
• invade and occupy countries that may harbor or help terrorists
• go it alone in foreign affairs, disregarding the United Nations and avoiding international treaties
• squelch dissent about foreign policy
• restrict civil liberties for the sake of national security.

Most open-minded Americans will grant that there are arguments for and against each of these positions. What defines a Radcon is not openness to the case for them but fervent certainty they're correct and necessary, and disdain for those who disagree.

This list, of course, doesn't cover all radical conservative goals. And not every radical conservative subscribes to every one of them. But most radical conservatives agree on most. The consensus among Radcons is strong because these goals are based on a common worldview - both about the forces America is battling at home and abroad, and about how these forces can best be overcome.

Most of this book is about why these views are wrong, what a vigorous liberalism stands for instead, and why our future depends on the latter. But it's important at the outset to understand the roots of radical conservatism. Radcons, it must be noted, are very differ- ent from real conservatives. A real conservative is somebody like the late Senator Robert A. Taft, of Ohio, or Senator John McCain, of Arizona - someone who wants to conserve many of the things that are great about America: the value we place on hard work, our dedication to family and community, our love of freedom, our storehouse of generosity and tolerance.

Copyright © 2004 by Robert B. Reich

About the Author

Robert B. Reich is University Professor at Brandeis University and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis's Heller Graduate School. He is also a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He served as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. This is his tenth book. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.