"Every age refights
the Civil War in its own way and ours is no exception. Roundhead and Cavalier,
Whig and Tory, Gladstone and Disraeli, Labour and Conservative, each conflict
is an echo of the original.
Every age has its
own Cromwell, the man repainted, regilded, forged, twisted to suit some
current purpose. The historian Isaac Foot, father of Michael, said that
he judged a man by one thing, 'On which side would he have fought at Marston
Moor', the King’s or Parliament’s.
The pendulum of politics
long ago stopped swinging from Left to Right, now being stuck on Right.
But it always swings from Roundhead to Cavalier. It swings from the authority
of democratic institutions, defended ceaselessly and sometimes bloodily,
to the corruption of over-centralised power."
- Simon Jenkins, "The London Times"
"Politics? Boring?
Politics is history on the wing! What other sphere of human activity calls
forth all that is most noble in men's souls, and all that is most base?
Or has such excitement? Or more vividly exposes our strengths and weaknesses?"
- Cicero, in "Imperium" by Robert Harris
People once blamed
or thanked God for everything that happened beyond their control. Now we
blame or thank Government instead.
- Peter Hitchens, "The Express"
There has seldom been
a time when responsible, intelligent people were less interested in serious
politics.
- Peter Hitchens, "The Spectator"
Is Osama bin Laden
left-wing or right-wing? How about Robert Mugabe? Who has a more left-wing
approach to women’s sexuality: Pope John Paul or Hustler magazine? Consider
Fidel Castro. He persecutes homosexuals, crushes trade unions, forbids
democratic elections, executes opponents and criminals, is a billionaire
in a country of very poor people and has decreed that a member of his family
shall succeed him in power. Is Castro left-wing or right-wing? Explain
your answer.
- Andrew Kenny, "The End of Right and Left", "The Spectator"
It is easy to say "the
parties are no different" or "things couldn't get any worse." People have
said that before —
and have been proved wrong before. Before the election of 1860, abolitionists
said it would make
no difference whether Lincoln or a Democrat was elected. But millions of
people were freed
because that prediction was wrong. In Germany, the Weimar Republic was
nobody's
idea of an ideal government
and, in the desperate days of the Great Depression, no doubt many
German voters thought
that nothing could be worse. But they discovered during the dozen years
of
Nazi rule just how
much worse things could be.
- Thomas Sowell
LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES
Any man who is under
30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and
is not a conservative, has no brains.
- Sir Winston Churchill (attributed)
What is conservatism?
Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?
- Abraham Lincoln
The Conservatives should
never disregard political and social reform, but if there is any lesson
to be learnt from history, I believe it is that the party cannot expect
to win success by outbidding the radicals. This merely muddles the Conservative
Party's traditional supporters and it does not actually capture the radical
vote.
- Lord Robert Blake
Many revolutions are
begun by conservatives because these are people who tried to make the existing
system work and they know why it does not.
- John Maynard Keynes, "Essays in Persuasion"
Conservative, n. A
statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the
Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
I feel an insuperable
reluctance in giving my hand to destroy any established institution of
government, upon a theory, however plausible it may be.
- Edmund Burke
There is always a certain
meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority
in its fact.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Conservative"
"Conservatives measure
the effectiveness of government programs by results; liberals measure the
effectiveness of government programs by inputs."
- Karl Rove
If you want government
to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to
intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene
everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene
anywhere, you're an extremist.
- Joseph Sobran (1995)
"I dream of the day
when conservatives learn the difference between a sin and a crime and liberals
learn the difference between a virtue and a requirement."
- William A. Niskanen
"The central psychological
proposition of liberalism is that for every problem there is a solution...
it faltered when it turned out it could not cope with truth... became a
political culture that rewarded the articulation of moral purpose more
than the achievement of practical good... having the ability to immediately
dissolve every statement of fact into a question of motive."
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, selected quotes
This nonsense is typical
of a certain breed of liberals who refuse to debate facts when they can
demean motives.
- Jonah Goldberg, "The National Review"
"There's nothing liberal
about the Left except on two issues: personal sex activity and personal
drug use. On everything else they are totalitarians."
- David Horowitz
A liberal is one who
says that it's all right for an eighteen year-old girl to perform in a
pornographic movie as long as she gets paid the minimum wage.
- Irving Kristol, "Two Cheers for Capitalism"
"Liberals are people
who think that being tough on crime means longer suspended sentences."
- Ronald Reagan
Not being a liberal,
I have very little grasp of things that I know nothing about.
- PJ O'Rourke
Liberalism is a philosophy
of consolation for Western civilization as it commits suicide.
- James Burnham
The great advantage
that conservatives have over liberals is that we are bilingual. We can
speak our language and we also know theirs. They however even now still
don’t know ours and cannot be bothered to learn.
- John Podhoretz
Conservatism is the political belief that
best mirrors human nature across time and space; but because its precepts
are sometimes tragic and demand responsibility rather than ever-expanding
rights, it requires adept communicators.
- Victor Davis Hanson
"The facts of life
are conservative."
- Margaret Thatcher
The word "conservative"
is used by the BBC as a portmanteau word of abuse for anyone whose views
differ from the insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, naive, guilt-ridden,
wet, pink orthodoxy of that sunset home of the third-rate minds of that
third-rate decade, the nineteen-sixties.
- Norman Tebbit, former Conservative Minister
Politics does terrible
things to words. Once flung into the public arena, they are bruised, battered
and twisted until they end up meaning the opposite of what they started
out meaning, if they still mean anything at all. Something even ghastlier
can happen when one innocent word is yoked to another - "national" to "socialism"
or "democracy" when it has "people’s" jammed in front of it. "Neoconservatism"
is this season’s noun in the mangle.
- Ferdinand Mount reviews Irwin Stelzer's "Neoconservatism" for "The Times"
I long for a political
leader who can rescue the word 'liberal'... It should not mean spending
lots of public money, or being soft on crime, or denigrating marriage.
It means believing in freedom — a free economy, a free (independent) country,
trial by jury, a smaller state, choice in health and schools, no ID cards,
a bicameral legislature with real powers. Freedom is not the only thing
a nation needs, but it is the necessary start.
- Charles Moore, "The Spectator"
One of the most pervasive
political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate
and conservatives as less caring. It is liberals who advocate "forgiveness"
of loans to third-world countries, a "living wage" for the poor and a "safety
net" for all. But these are all government policies — not individual acts
of compassion — and the actual empirical consequences of such policies
are of remarkably little interest to those who advocate them. What are
the facts? People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money
to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals.
They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes. It is
not that conservatives have more money. Liberal families average 6 percent
higher incomes than conservative families.
- Thomas Sowell
The conservative movement
constitutes an alliance of those who accept unchangeable facts rather than
trying to wish fantasy into reality, remake human nature, or avoid economic
tradeoffs. Traditionalists embrace timeless morals, even when they deny
one immediate gratification. Libertarians embrace the sovereignty of consumer
demand and the sometimes-disorienting effects of technological change,
even when the result isn’t to one’s personal liking. And hawks embrace
the reality that America lives in a dangerous neighborhood, one full of
bullies, pirates, and fanatics who respond to gestures of good will with
contempt, larceny, and brutality.
- John Hood, "National Review"
"Liberals are builders
and conservatives are defenders. Liberals want to build a good and just
society. Conservatives defend what is already built and established. This
is what the left and the right are for. What draws a person to one or the
other is more a matter of personality than anything else...
Defenders, unlike
builders, are on the lookout for threats. This is what conservatism is
for. In the absence of civil war or revolution, threats exist abroad. Canada
isn’t a problem, and Mexico isn’t really either. The biggest threats are
on the other side of the world. Conservatives don’t write about China and
Iran because they’re into Taoism or because they swooned at the Persian
film festival. The interest is there because these countries are dangerous...
Liberals are more
likely than conservatives to study the negative consequences of American
foreign policy. But that’s about it. If you want to find a person who knows
the history of pre-war Nazi Germany, the Middle East during the Cold War,
or the partition of India and Pakistan, you’re better off looking to the
right than to the left. Conservatives are more likely to study pre-war
Nazi Germany because they’re watching out for a repeat."
- Michael J Totten, "Builders
and Defenders"
In 1964, political
psychologists Lloyd A. Free and Hadley Cantril famously asserted that Americans
were ideologically conservative but operationally liberal. Americans loved
Barry Goldwater’s rhetoric about yeoman individualism, but not if it meant
taking away their Social Security checks or farm subsidies. “As long as
Goldwater could talk ideology alone, he was high, wide and handsome,” Free
and Cantril wrote. “But the moment he discussed issues and programs, he
was finished.” ...Liberals have an inherent advantage. As long as they
promise incremental, “pragmatic” expansions of the government, voters generally
give them a pass. And every new expansion since FDR and the New Deal has
created a constituency for continued government largesse... "Liberals sell
the welfare state one brick at a time, deflecting inquiries about the size
and cost of the palace they’re building,” wrote William Voegel.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
Patriotism is merely
the devotion to a set of ideals, rooted in history, and attached to a specific
place. To a certain extent patriotism is conservatism, in the same way
that being a Christian involves some level of conservatism. It is a devotion
to a set of principles set forth in the past and carried forward to today
and, hopefully, tomorrow. Christianity, as I understand it, holds that
the perfect world is the next one, not this one. We can do what we can
where we can here, but we’re never going to change the fact that we’re
fallen, imperfect creatures. And while Christianity may be a complete philosophy
of life, it is only at best a partial philosophy of government. Any ideology
or outlook that tries to explain what government should do at all times
and in all circumstances is un-conservative. Any ideology that sees itself
as the answer to any question is un-conservative. Any ideology that promises
that if it were fully realized there would be no more problems, no more
trade-offs, no more elites, and no more inequality of one kind or another
is un-conservative.
The simple fact is
that conservatives don’t have a settled dogma. How could they when each
faction has a different partial philosophy of life? The beauty of the conservative
movement is that we all get along with each other pretty well. The chief
reason for this is that we all understand and accept the permanence of
contradiction and conflict in life.
- Jonah Goldberg, "What is a Conservative", "National Review"
Jonathan Chait begins
by restating his argument that "conservatives believe that smaller government
is an end in itself, because it promotes freedom. Liberals, on the other
hand, do not see bigger government as an end in itself. Therefore, on economic
policy, liberals are much more interested in what works than are conservatives."
I will concede that most liberals don't see the hammer (bigger government)
as an end, but they do have a well-deserved reputation for bringing a hammer
to every problem and saying "Hey, will this work?" Jonathan sees a man
willing to pound a broken vase with a mallet and says, "Aha! A pragmatist!"
- Jonah Goldberg, in an 'opinion duel' with Jonathan chait, "National Review"
International fascism
drew from the same intellectual wellsprings as American Progressivism...
The edifice of contemporary liberalism stands on a foundation of assumptions
and ideas integral to the larger fascist moment. Contemporary liberals,
who may be the kindest and most racially tolerant people in the world,
nonetheless choose to live in a house of distinctly fascist architecture
- Jonah Goldberg, "Liberal Fascism"
"Conservatism is the
negation of ideology."
- H. Stuart Hughes
Those Conservative
values, which we abandon at our peril, are a belief in the maximum freedom
for individuals, a recognition that wickedness should be countered by discipline,
not therapy, and an acceptance that the price of progress is a patchwork
world. A belief in freedom is the beginning of my politics. Buried in my
soul, at a level too deep to surrender, is my passionate dislike of coercion,
conformity and collectivism. I think the inherent dignity of humans depends
on the free exercise of their will, and efforts to curtail, corral or conscript
for the sake of a greater good not only stifle the human spirit, but also
generally fail to achieve the good proclaimed. To my mind there is a beauty
in the quirky, the eccentric, the divergent, which one never sees in uniformity.
And underpinning my conviction is the knowledge that progress, from Socrates
through Galileo to Václav Havel, has depended on the defiance of
consensus, on those who dare to be Daniels.
- Michael Gove, Conservative MP, in "The Spectator"
The durability of Conservatism
has depended, to a great extent, on it being a disposition rather than
a philosophy. What marks Conservatives out, across the generations, and
whatever the environment they operate in, is an attitude of mind rather
than an adherence to dogma. And that disposition — sceptical, cautious,
pragmatic, sensitive to the local and the particular — has been politically
successful because it has been in tune with human nature.
- Michael Gove, "The Spectator"
Conservatism is about
responding prudently to scarcities, of resources and virtue.
- George Will
"My theme is not a
creed or a doctrine, but a disposition. To be conservative is to be disposed
to think and behave in certain manners; it is to prefer certain kinds of
conduct and certain conditions of human circumstances to others; it is
to be disposed to make certain kinds of choices... The general characterisitics
of this disposition are not difficult to discern, although they have often
been mistaken. They centre upon a propensity to use and to enjoy what is
available rather than to wish for or to look for something else; to delight
in what is present rather than what was or what may be. Reflection may
bring to light an appropriate gratefulness for what is available, and consequently
the acknowledgment of a gift or an inheritance from the past; but there
is no mere idolizing of what is past and gone.
...To be conservative,
then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to
the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to
the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant,
the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. Familiar
relationships and loyalties will be preferred to the allure of more profitable
attachments; to acquire and to enlarge will be less important than to keep,
to cultivate and to enjoy; the grief of loss will be more acute than the
excitement of novelty or promise. It is to be equal to one's own fortune,
to live at the level of one's own means, to be content with the want of
greater perfection which belongs alike to oneself and one's circumstances."
- Michael Oakeshott, "On
Being Conservative"
REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship.
The Democratic Party
is the party of this form of popular corruption...
(but) Alexander Tyler
was overly cynical and unduly pessimistic. Over the last several decades,
a party has arisen in American politics that is anti-big government and
that, despite tacks and retreats, is committed to an agenda of reducing
government's ability to reach into the peoples' pockets in pursuit of its
insatiable greed. The modern Republican Party is the creation of Ronald
Reagan, who dramatically reduced marginal tax rates in 1982, and Newt Gingrich,
whose 1994 "Contract with America" imposed balanced budgets over determined
Democratic resistance.
"Didn't you wonder
why you were getting checks for doing absolutely nothing?"
"I figured because
the Democrats were in power again."
- Anon
Republicans are politicians
and politicians promise to do things but conservatives are people who —
ultimately — explain why many things shouldn’t be done. As Hayek noted,
'conservatives' in America are defenders of liberty because we wish to
conserve those institutions that keep us free.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
"You need me Springfield.
Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down
inside, you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes,
brutalize criminals and rule you like a king!"
- Sideshow Bob, "The Simpsons"
In America billionaires
vote Democratic, mere millionaires vote Republican.
- Irwin Stelzer, "The Telegraph"
Republicans are the
sort of peole who wouldn't stop to help you fix a flat tire, for fear of
being late to "ugly pants night" at their Country Club. Democrats are the
sort of people who would stop and help you fix the tire, but end up blowing
up your car.
- Dave Barry
A big political stink
erupts over adding drug benefits to Medicare, with Republicans and Democrats
battling fiercely to see who can pander the hardest to the crucial senior-citizen
voting bloc without letting the other voting blocs figure out how much
they will have to pay.
- Dave Barry reviews 2003
"You have the support
of all right-thinking Americans."
"That’s not enough,
I need a majority."
- Adlai Stevenson, Democratic Presidential candidate, and a supporter,
1952
"If you give me a week,
I might think of one."
- President Dwight D Eisenhower, asked about VP Richard Nixon's useful
contributions
The only thing the
Democrats have to offer is fear itself.
- Dick Armey
Nixon has a fascinating
reputation as one of the most right-wing presidents of the 20th century.
This impression is largely a product of the fact that few presidents have
been more hated by the Left. But simply because the left despises you doesn't
mean you're particularly right-wing. If LBJ were alive, you could ask him
about this. Or just take a look at poor Joe Lieberman. The truth is, Nixon
was the last of the New Deal-era liberal presidents.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
I have only one firm
firm political belief about the American political system, and that is
this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. ...God is an elderly
stern fellow. ...God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God's
heavenly country club. Santa Claus is another matter. He's always cheerful,
and he loves animals. He may know who's been naughty and who's been nice,
but he never does anything about it. He works hard for charities, and he's
famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every
way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.
- PJ O'Rourke, "Parliament of Whores"
My Grandmother wouldn't
even speak the word Democrat if there were children in the rooom, she'd
say Bastards instead.
- PJ O'Rourke, "Republican Party Reptile"
Why are you a Democrat?
Are you a Democrat because you're a union member? Then why, after eight
years of Bill Clinton, does some Chinese guy in Guangdong province have
your job? Are you a Democrat because you're a woman? Then how come you're
married to a Republican? Most women are. Face it, you were afraid that
a two-Democrat family might cause the kids to grow up to be liberals. Are
you a Democrat because you're gay? Come on, do you really think Republicans
hate gays? You've been to Republican houses. Do they look like they were
decorated by Pat Robertson?
Are you a Democrat
because you're part of a minority group? Forget about it. Mexicans, Blacks,
Jews, Italians, Irish, Puerto Ricans - you guys hate each other. Become
Republican and at least you'll be allowed to admit it - after three drinks.
- PJ O'Rourke, "An Open Letter to the Other Party"
Why should it be that
two parties with few if any essential differences are ready to speak of
each other as if a cultural or even a civil war were only a few speeches
away? Obviously, much of this fatuous rhetoric arises from the need to
disagree more and more about less and less, to maintain the mills of fundraising
in a churning condition, and to keep the dwindling groups of genuine loyalists
and activists in a state of excited pseudo-commitment.
- Christopher Hitchens, "Thinking Like an Apparatchik", from "The Atlantic"
"I'll be back.
You can't keep the Democrats out of the White House forever. And when they
get in, I'm back on the street! With all of my criminal buddies!"
- Sideshow Bob, "The Simpsons"
"If you believe that
government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government,
then you are a Republican! If you believe a person should be treated as
an individual, not as a member of an interest group, then you are a Republican!
If you believe your family knows how to spend your money better than the
government does, then you are a Republican!"
- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, speech at 2004 Republican National Convention
According to the Pew
Center, the less you like to fly the American flag, the more likely it
is you are Democrat. The more you think hard work and personal initiative
aren’t the ticket to the good life, the more likely you are to be a Democrat.
The more you believe the United Nations is a better steward of international
relations, while America is a negative actor on the world stage, the more
likely you are to be a Democrat. The more you believe that the government
is there to help, the more likely it is you are Democrat. The less seriously
you take religion, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. Flip all of
these values around and the more likely it is you are a Republican — or
that you vote that way. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this study
is what it says about class and ideology in America. And what it says is
that they don’t have that much to do with each other, which runs contrary
to generations of leftish stereotypes. Poor Americans who believe in the
American ideal of by-your-bootstraps success are likely to vote Republican.
And rich Americans who cringe at the idea of hanging a flag from their
porch vote Democrat.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
BRITAIN AND IRELAND
We only have to be
lucky once. You have to be lucky every time.
- IRA Threat to Margaret Thatcher, after a failed assassination attempt
"I am not a consensus
politician — I'm a conviction politician."
- Margaret Thatcher
"You turn if you want
to. The lady’s not for turning."
- Margaret Thatcher
"If you are guided
by opinion polls, you are not practicing leadership, you are practicing
followership."
- Margaret Thatcher
"Where there is discord
may we bring harmony, where there is error may we bring truth, where there
is doubt may we bring faith, and where there is despair may we bring hope."
- Margaret Thatcer quotes St Francis of Assisi on becoming Prime Minister,
1979.
"The Labour Party believes
in turning workers against owners; we believe in turning workers into owners."
- Margaret Thatcher, 1987.
"We should back the
workers, not the shirkers."
- Margaret Thatcher
"Greens are like tomatoes.
They start off Green, but always turn out Red."
- Margaret Thatcher
"Unless we change our
ways and our direction, our glories as a nation will soon be a footnote
in history books, a distant memory of an offshore island, lost in the mists
of time, like Camelot, remembered kindly for its noble past."
- Margaret Thatcher, speaking in 1979
"We have been ruled
by men who lived by illusions."
- Margaret Thatcher
"We Conservatives changed
Britain for the better. And we helped change the world, bringing liberty
to millions who’d never known it. Moreover, let’s admit it, we changed
our opponents, at least on the surface, and so made them electable. But
we didn’t, and we couldn’t, make them believers in liberty and champions
of enterprise."
- Margaret Thatcher, Plymouth Speech, 2001
Thatcherism was a bit
like an operation for varicose veins: we’re probably better off for having
had it, but it wasn’t pleasant, fun or an experience you want to repeat.
- AA Gill, "The Times"
In trying to arrest
Britain’s long-term decline, Thatcherism may well have sometimes pushed
the political pendulum too far in the opposite direction to its post-war
swing. But self-interest is different from selfishness, which is itself
different from greed. No politics can succeed if it is not based on self-interest,
that most basic of human desires. How self-interest can be directed to
promote the public good lies at the very heart of policy.
- Frank Field, "The Spectator"
The Thatcherite argues
that being one’s own master — in the sense of owning one’s own home or
disposing of one’s own property — provides an incentive to think differently
about the world. The Thatcherite, whilst not believing that patterns of
ownership absolutely determine people’s moral attitudes, nevertheless stresses
that the two are connected, and sees in wider individual ownership a means
of promoting moral attitudes Thatcherism seeks to cultivate.
- Shirley Robin Letwin, "The Anatomy of Thatcherism" on 'ownership society'
Margaret Thatcher is
the great unsung hero of British feminism, who just by being there, by
doing it, showed women what was possible. Her mistake, if you can call
it that, was to deny lesser women the chance of making easy excuses for
their own shortcomings.
- Eilis O'Hanlon, explaining 'feminist' hostility to Thatcher, "The Irish
Independent"
There can be no compromise
on fundamental principle.
- Jack Lynch, holding the line during the Arms Trial
If I happened to be
dead, it would have been very difficult for anyone else to deal with the
allegations against me.
- Dessie O'Malley, on his defence of his conduct in the Arms Trial
I stand by the Republic,
and I will not oppose this bill.
- Dessie O'Malley, last speech before expulsion from FF party for 'conduct
unbecoming'
Some people take a
negative view of my career, that I was always opposed to things. But I
am not ashamed of that, there are things that it is necessary and worthy
to oppose. Some people's greatest achievements are not the things they
did, but the things they stopped from happening.
- Dessie O'Malley
The main victims of
socialists are the very people that socialists claim to represent.
- Michael McDowell
You promise you will
spend a pound; then, you tell them you are spending it; finally, you tell
them you did spend it. That way, you get to spend every pound three times.
- Donogh O'Malley, former Fianna Fail Minister
I am now slowly coming
to terms with the fact that what I regard and realistic and radical the
left calls right-wing. Being labelled right-wing is a damn sight better
than being lumped in the bankrupt alliance of convenience that is the left.
I'm proud of it because the right is the new left. It is where the radicals,
the defenders of freedom, stand these days. It is where freedom of speech
thrives, where debate happens, where progress happens and where truths,
however uncomfortable, get an airing. Most importantly, right now, radical
realism is against tyranny.
- Brendan O'Connor, "The Irish Independent"
As it happens, I wasn't
being particularly right-wing that day.
- Brendan O'Connor, "The Irish Independent"
The people have wearied
of mainstream politics, period. They have wearied of the suffocating, stultifying
battle to command the favour of a minuscule tranche of the electorate and
the concomitant absence of ideology (a dread word, I know) or principle.
They have wearied of spin and counterspin replacing, as instruments of
political persuasion, conviction and belief. If you doubt this, take a
look at the last council and Euro elections or, indeed, the elections in
May 2003. The turnout was at its highest where the BNP or UKIP stood a
chance of electoral glory. In other words, people flocked to the polling
stations in order to vote for, or against, political parties that offered
a genuine choice, unpalatable though their platforms may have been. People
became, I suppose you could say, energised by the prospect of real debate,
a debate shorn of an obsession not to offend or disquiet the 800,000 or
so lower-middle-class voters who the pollsters assure us will determine
the outcome of the next election.
- Rod Liddle, "Forty
Per Cent of Nothing", "The Spectator"
'Apathy' is the word
always applied to modern voters, but it seems a bit unfair. It is rather
a rational sense that the difference between the likely winners is not
overwhelming, and that what you, as an individual, can do about the result
is limited.
- Charles Moore, in "The Spectator"
In 1979 the public
agreed with the Tories that Labour wasn’t working. The problem, for both
Labour and the Conservatives, in 2004, is that the public believe that
politics isn’t working. The sense of disconnection that many people feel
towards the political establishment is a direct consequence of the lack
of control voters now have over the areas for which politicians are supposed
to be responsible. In those spheres of life in which politicians have got
out of the way, from budget flights to commercial television, control lies
in our hands, with a simple click giving instant effect to our various
wishes. But in those huge areas in which governments take responsibility
on themselves, and increasing sums out of our pockets, such as policing,
schools and hospitals, our wishes are treated as just one factor among
many which may, just may, be given due consideration. And the closer one
gets to the political ground, the more profound is the sense of powerlessness.
- Michael Gove, "The Times"
A book about the failures
of the Left in the last 28 years could have been very much longer than
this one. The success of Mrs Thatcher’s revolution was such that it made
her, and her immediate heir, ultimately redundant. The ordinary political
positions put forward by the mainstream of Labour policy as recently as
the 1983 election have been abandoned to the point where they are only
believed in a very few mad rumps. Wage control policy, exchange controls,
direct political power exerted by the trade unions, state ownership of
airline companies and car manufacturers (let alone ‘the commanding heights
of the economy’, as they used to say) all these have long ago gone into
the bin. We are all effectively Thatcherites now. So what on earth does
it mean to declare oneself of the Left these days? The Left has been kept
going by a sense of the tribe, of membership of a gang which has nothing
to do with economic or social policies... The peculiar mentality (...of
the Left is...) the assumption of virtue... Given a world where leftists
would have preferred Saddam to have remained in power and where they denied
there was anything much wrong with Milosevic, what does it mean to refer
to yourself as left- or right- wing?
- Philip Hensher, reviewing "What's Left?", "The Spectator"
THE LIBERAL WAY
Wealth is, for most
people, the only honest and likely path to liberty. With money comes power
over the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation. Businesses
can be started, homes built, communities formed, religions practiced, educations
pursued. But liberals aren't very interested in such real and material
freedoms.
They have a more innocent,
not to say toddlerlike, idea of freedom. Liberals want the freedom to put
anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private
parts in art museums. At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child -
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined,
despotic, and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.
- Seth Lipsky
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
Liberals want the government to be your Mommy. Conservatives want government to be your Daddy. Libertarians want it to treat you like an adult.
No conservative should
commit to a policy without first consulting the libertarian position. Indeed,
once conservatism forgets to ask, "Should the government really be doing
this?" it will have ceased conserving what is best about conservatism.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
POLITICKING
"All political careers
end in failure."
- Enoch Powell
"The people have spoken,
the bastards."
- Concession speech by California State Senate candidate Dick Tuck
"You won't have Nixon
to kick around any more."
- Richard Nixon
Great armies, faced
with the confusion of battle, were told to "march to the sound of guns."
In contrast, today's political armies often "steer to the sound of applause.
That is, when confronted with Matthew Arnold's "darkling plain, swept with
confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by
night," they turn to polls for guidance.
- Michael Gove, "The London Times"
"I must follow them
for I am their leader."
- Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, allegedly spoken whilst observing a passing
mob in 1848
"I cannot indeed take
it upon me to say that I have the honour to follow the sense of the people.
The truth is I met it on my way, while I was pursuing their interest according
to my own ideas."
- Edmund Burke, addressing the House of Commons
A post-intellectual
society is one where public relations substitutes for public policy, where
one mass-media image can wipe out many careful arguments, where sound moral
character means feeling good about yourself, and the increase of freedom
means more consumer choices. It is, finally, a society where intellectuals
are very comfortably kept thinking about what they are told to think about.
I suppose the biggest difference in the past 30 years is that the intellectually
gifted now have so many more places to sell out. Freshmen with any smarts
at all now arrive at universities eager to become commodities.
- Richard Lee
It's in the nature
of all politicians to want to be liked by as many people as possible. What
distinguishes a statesman from the common run, however, is what he is willing
to be disliked for.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
"A politician thinks
of the next election, a statesman of the next generation."
- James Freeman Clarke
"Compromise makes a
good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in
party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship."
- James Russell Lowell
Nations don't always
rise to the occasion. And the next generation can pay a great price when
the preceding one shirks its responsibilities.
- William Kristol, "Time Magazine"
Some campaigns are
not worth waging if you can't win; others have to be fought on grounds
of principle regardless of the chances for success.
- Patricia Ireland, political activist
I heard one poll statistic
cited in so many news stories that I started to wonder if the number of
journalists quoting the poll was beginning to exceed the number of people
actually surveyed.
- Alan Rivlin, Peter D. Hart Research Associates.
If the price of freedom
is eternal vigilance, the price of participatory democracy is constant
tedium.
- Minette Marrin, "The London Times"
"The average citizen
expends less disciplined effort on mastering a political problem than he
expends on a game of bridge."
- Joseph Schumpeter writing in 1950
A citizen who cannot
be bothered to find out the facts about the issues, not just media spin
or party propaganda, is doing a disservice to this country by voting —
especially when electing leaders making life-and-death decisions whose
consequences will affect this generation and generations to come.
- Thomas Sowell
When television first
came on in the early ’50s during the Eisenhower campaign, I said, "Now
we can look the creature in the face while he’s lying to us, and we’re
going to be able to tell." And I was wrong as I could be. The man is packaged
on television for you to look at, and you can be fooled very badly. The
result is, in an election, I no longer vote for the man, I vote the party.
- Shelby Foote
(1) Do not talk about
process. People want to hear about results.
(2) It is not enough
to oppose. Voters expect you to propose. "No" cannot be your primary answer.
(3) Don’t tell people
what you want. Ask them what they want.
- Frank Luntz's rules for political candidates, "The Spectator"
"The aim of oratory
is not truth but persuasion."
- Thomas B. Macauley
"The most obvious strategy
for an Opposition is to tell the public that it would do things differently.
Sometimes, that suffices to get the party elected. Once it is in government,
it has to consider not only whether the policies on which it has won office
are practical, but even whether the party itself really believes in them."
- Michael Portillo, former Conservative Minister, "The London Times".
"The key feature of
this election campaign has been a clever use of what professionals call
'dog whistle politics'. A dog whistle is pitched so high that dogs hear
it but humans do not. Dog whistle politics involves pitching a message
to a particular group of voters that other voters do not hear. John Howard
wanted One Nation voters back. He also saw a chance to attract some traditional
'blue-collar' Labor voters with similar concerns. The Tampa episode provided
him with the dog whistle he needed."
- Laurie Oakes, commentating on the 2001 Australian election in "The Bulletin"
"I don’t ask what people’s
politics are. I ask what their principles are."
- Chistopher Hitchens
"One mark of a self-confident
political mind is its willingness to take opposing arguments seriously."
- Andrew Sullivan
The time to repair
the roof is when the sun is shining.
- John F. Kennedy
The key to success
in politics is choosing your predecessor.
- Bruce Reed, "Slate Magazine"
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power is derived by a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
- Lord Norman Lamont, former Conservative Chancellor
Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.
Ideology, which regrettably
has become a pejorative term, defines that set of ideas that we each believe
explains how the world works and therefore how we need to act to achieve
our goals. Some of our views of causative forces are rational, some are
otherwise. Much of what we confront in reality is uncertain, some of it
frighteningly so. Yet people have no choice but to make judgments on the
nature of the tenuous ties of causation or they are immobilized. I do have
an ideology.
- Alan Greenspan
Dogma has a terrible
reputation these days, but it is actually vital to a free society because
dogma establishes the boundaries of legitimate debate and action. Most
people can't offer a rigorous defense of free speech or private property;
they just know these are important things for a free society. Well, that's
dogma. Indeed, dogma means "seems good."
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
Those who say they
dislike dogma, or 'certainty', tend to be liars, hypocrites, or simply
wrong. What they really dislike is the dogma of those they disagree with.
A society that was certain, certain beyond all certainty, that putting
its citizens in death camps was wrong, would never put people in death
camps. Such things are only possible when you're open to new ideas.
- Jonah Goldberg, "An open mind is a dangerous thing"
At the end of the day,
arguments must stand on their own merits, regardless of who delivers them.
There are war heroes who oppose the Iraq war, and there are war heroes
who supported it. John Keegan is the greatest living military historian,
and he never saw a day of battle. George McGovern flew 35 combat missions
in World War II. I'll take Keegan's guidance on military matters over McGovern's
any day.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
William Jennings Bryan
was a champion of free silver, he unapologetically admitted that he didn’t
know much about economics. “The people of Nebraska are for free silver
and I am for free silver,” he proclaimed. “I will look up the arguments
later". The American constitutional order, on the other hand, recognizes
democracy as a qualified good, necessarily tempered by republican and constitutional
safeguards. As the heirs to classical liberalism, American conservatives
in particular have long emphasized the importance of individual rights
even when they come at the expense of what “the people” want. Most populist
movements have contempt for mechanisms which dilute or delay people power.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
Huge numbers of Americans
don’t know jack about their government or politics. According to a Pew
Research Center survey released last week, 31 percent of Americans don’t
know who the vice president is, fewer than half are aware that Nancy Pelosi
is the speaker of the House, a mere 29 percent can identify 'Scooter' Libby
as the convicted former chief of staff of the vice president, and only
15 percent can name Harry Reid when asked who is the Senate majority leader.
And yet, last week, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that two-thirds
of Americans believe that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’s firing
of eight U.S. attorneys was 'politically motivated'... This is a column
about how confused and at times idiotic the United States is about polls,
public opinion and, well, democracy itself... The days when politicians
would actually defend small-r republicanism are gone. The answer to every
problem in our democracy seems to be more democracy, as if any alternative
spells more tyranny.
- Jonah Goldberg, "The Will of the Uninformed", "National Review"
If I told you that
Ned Kelly died because a platform gave way beneath him, it would be factually
true, but you would wrongly conclude that it was an accident. If I added
that he had a rope around his neck at the time, you would correctly conclude
that he had been hanged. Facts can be fitted to almost any agenda. For
anything near the truth we not only need all the facts, but we need the
facts fitted into their proper place. And that means a narrator without
an agenda. No such neutered political animal exists.
- Eoghan Harris, in Ireland's "Sunday Independent"
It is only about things
that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion; and
this is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.
- Oscar Wilde
Any partial step towards
the goal is inherently morally imperfect, and yet morality cannot be approximated
without it.
- Henry Kissinger
In the end, every political
dream must collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
- Matthew d'Ancona, "The Telegraph"
I used to look down on the world for being corrupt, but now I adore it for the utter magnificence of that corruption.
In political discussion heat is in inverse proportion to knowledge.
- David Lloyd George
To be a Nazi is not a political standpoint, and thus tolerable. It is a moral one, and insupportable.
- David Bennun
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
"Ninety percent of
the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."
- Henry Kissinger
I would rather be governed
by the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than
by the first two thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University.
- William F. Buckley
Nowadays there is a
school of cartoons that depicts ordinary politicians who have come to power
in an open, democratic tradition as weird, putrefying monsters. They look
as though they have fallen out of ridiculous horror films. All blood-flecked,
claws and fangs. It is a topsy-turvy world in which the freer the society,
the more grotesquely its politicians are caricatured.
- Nicholas Garland, "Great Political Cartoons", "The Telegraph"
"Politicians aren't
normal people and they've never lived normal lives - but the media expect
them to exemplify normality defined as heterosexual monogamy."
- John Dugdale, "The Times", reviewing Edwina Curries' "This Honourable
House"
"Iain Duncan Smith
is right. There is a plot against the Tory leader. But that’s about as
far as Duncan Smith’s credibility in the matter goes, for there is always
a plot against the Tory leader. It’s the natural state of affairs. The
only surprising thing is that he should have found this to be anything
out of the ordinary."
- Michael Dobbs
"When you are in opposition,
if you're trying to dislodge a government that has presided in a time of
economic boom, it's not enough to just be there. You have to have something
to say. Even if it's empty rhetoric. The traditional thing to do when in
opposition is to make a feint to the left, to throw some radical shapes.
It always works. However, that's out of fashion today. Any party trying
a left-wing pose would be stomped on by the media gurus who know everything;
the new liberalism that cannot tolerate disagreement with its own ideology."
- Gene Kerrigan, "The Irish Independent"
Somehow, the New York
Times and the Washington Post find the “right-wing” to be far more interesting
and noteworthy than “left-wing.” Since 1996, the Washington Post
has used this loaded term more than twice as frequently as “left-wing.”
References to “right-wing” increased in even-numbered election years when
the political stakes were higher – 73.2% of the “-wing” references compared
to 67.5% in non-election years. This disparity was even more palpable at
the New York Times, where 80.2% of the left-right mentions on the national
news pages since 1996 have spotlighted the right. The research also found
that the more loaded and derogatory the phrase, the more likely it was
to be associated with the political right. The term “conservative” outpolled
“liberal” by 66-34% in New York Times news page mentions, while the aforementioned
“right-wing” clocked in at 80% in a similar measure. However, the term
“right-wing extremist” was used at least six times as frequently than “left-wing
extremist” (at 87.4% since ’96 in the Times).
- Patrick Ruffini, "Liberal
Bias In The Media"
Being so much a selection
of facts from an infinitely complex reality, [news] can never achieve objectivity
or impartiality, and hence any accusation of bias can only be one partisanship
attacking another.
- Kenneth Minogue, "The Silencing of Society"
You cannot hope to
bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what the
man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to.
- Humbert Wolfe, "The British Journalist"
After 10 years of economic
growth... Mr. Blair has managed to get himself roundly, fundamentally,
panoramically hated at home. He’ll leave office well and truly loathed.
Loathed, mocked and despised. Hey ho, but he’s in good company. Margaret
Thatcher was as viscerally hated at home as she was warmly respected abroad.
Churchill himself, consistently voted Greatest Englishman Ever in popularity
polls, was precipitously voted out of office at the first opportunity,
even before the Second World War had actually finished, to be replaced,
as he’d described it, by a modest little man, with much to be modest about.
Mind you, Clement Atlee was in turn kicked out at the next election, having
given the nation the foremost socially splendid political years of the
century, including the welfare state, nationalized utilities, nuclear defense
and independence for India. There’s no pleasing the British, or winning
their favor. They simply hate politicians. All politicians. Hatred goes
with politicians like mint sauce with lamb. It’s as old as Parliaments.
The Duke of Wellington, vanquisher of Napoleon, most respected and regarded
man in Europe, a 19th-century Eisenhower, foolishly allowed himself to
be made prime minister and became instantly reviled. He was once assaulted
by a mob on Waterloo Day, and another time a crowd broke every window in
his home, a house that, incidentally, a grateful nation had just given
him... The difference between British politics and American is that you
maintain a collective respect for the office, if not the holder. So the
presidency is a venerable thing, even if the president is a cretin. And
every president leaves office with his title. He will always be Mr. President,
a peculiarly regal touch for a republic. But when he wakes up on Thursday,
the prime minister will be plain Mr. Blair, M.P... No British TV company
could ever make a series like “The West Wing” about British politics. It
would beggar credibility. No one could write it with a straight face, or
perform it without giggling. All our homegrown political dramas are black
comedies and ironic, vicious satires.
- AA Gill, in "The New York Times"
Peter Oborne is sceptical
of the political consensus. In "The Triumph of the Political Class", Oborne
– the former political editor of The Spectator — has condensed his criticisms
into a thesis. In the late 19th century, Britain was ruled by a "class
of benign and above all disinterested administrators", such as Gladstone.
In the 20th century, universal suffrage brought about ideologically opposed
political parties that drew on popular support. (In the 1950s, the two
main parties both had memberships in the millions; now they would be lucky
to manage half a million between them.) Our rulers came from many backgrounds:
Ernest Bevin left school at 11 to become a farmhand; Alec Douglas-Home
was an aristocrat. Over the past 25 years there has been a profound transformation
of British political life. Politicians now emerge from the same pool of
political degree courses, think tanks, special adviser jobs and the media.
Few have business experience. Almost none has done a blue collar job. Their
outlook is London-based and middle-class. They despise the civil service,
the monarchy and Parliament. They see re-election as their primary task
and have grown fat on rising salaries and dodgy expense claims.
- Sameer Rahim, from his Telegraph review