
 |
|
Feb. 8, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Dec. 19, 2005
/ 18 Kislev, 5766
Lessons of 25 Years
By
Michael Barone
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
At year's end, it is often useful to look back at the year past and seek to learn its lessons. But it's more useful now, I think, to look back at the past quarter century. Twenty-five years ago, in December 1980, Jimmy Carter was serving his last full month in office and Ronald Reagan was president-elect. More than 50 Americans were being held hostage in Iran an act of war by the revolutionary mullahs. The Soviet Union was on the march in Afghanistan. The American economy was finishing a decade of high inflation and sluggish growth at best stagflation. The past three presidents had been repudiated: Richard Nixon in 1974, Gerald Ford in 1976, and Jimmy Carter 1980.
Experts preached that America's best days were behind it, counseled that we seek accommodation with the Soviet Union, and urged nations of the avaricious North to share their wealth with nations of the deserving South. Low-inflation economic growth was no longer possible.
Now we know, with as much certainty as is possible in these things, that these experts were dead wrong. Less than a decade later, the Berlin Wall fell, and not long after that, the Soviet empire was no more. If you had told anyone in the early 1970s that advances in human freedom would be led by the king of Spain and the pope, he might have doubted your sanity. But King Juan Carlos I moved to bring democracy to Spain, with reverberations in Portugal and Latin America, while Pope John Paul II, speaking to crowds of millions in his native Poland, spread the message that the people of Eastern Europe need not be afraid and could build themselves a better future.
Elites. Ronald Reagan had similar hopes and produced similar results. The hint that he would use force persuaded the mullahs to return the hostages the moment he took office. His assertion that communism was on the ash heap of history gave heart to jailed dissidents like Natan Sharansky, and his robust defense budgets laid down a challenge that the Soviets' sclerotic economy could not meet. Reagan's tax cuts and tight money squeezed the inflation out of the economy and produced vast economic growth.
What are the lessons of the past 25 years?
First, that American military power can advance freedom and democracy to all corners of the world. Under Reagan and his three successors, America has played a lead role in extending freedom and democracy to most of Latin America, to the Philippines and Indonesia and almost all of East Asia, and, most recently, to Afghanistan and Iraq, with reverberations spreading through the Middle East. Area experts said, often plausibly, those countries' cultures were incompatible with democracy. Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and brave men and women in those nations proved them wrong.
Second, that markets work and that lower taxes and less onerous government produce more economic growth than the alternative. About 43 million jobs have been created in the United States since December 1980, while the number in the more statist nations of western Europe is on the order of 4 million. Markets are creating millions of jobs in nominally Communist China and once socialist India.
Third, that politics and effective government can, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, change the culture. The crime-control methods pioneered by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the welfare reforms pioneered by Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, imitated around the country and followed up by federal legislation, resulted in huge decreases in crime and welfare dependency.
These lessons have been widely learned and widely applied by George W. Bush and also to a large extent by Bill Clinton. But not, curiously enough, by those who see themselves as the best and the brightest, our university and media elites. They would still like to see America's power reined in, as it was in the 1970s. They are insouciant about the costs that larger and more intrusive government and higher taxes impose on the economy. They think that leniency and subsidy are the appropriate responses to deviant and self-destructive behavior. They think our most important right is a right to kill our unborn children. You have to be awfully smart, someone once said, to believe something so stupid. And to be so blind to the clear lessons of the past quarter century of history.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
BARONE'S LATEST
Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future
America is divided into two camps, according to U.S. News and World Reports writer and Fox commentator Michael Barone. No, not Red and Blue, though one suspects Barone may taint the two groups in the hues of the 2000 presidential election. Barone's divided America is one part Hard, one part Soft. Hard America is steeled by the competition and accountability of the free market, while Soft America is the product of public school and government largesse. Inspired by the notion that America produces incompetent 18 year olds and remarkably competent 30 year olds, Barone embarks on a breezy 162-page commentary that will spark mostly huzzahs from the right and jeers from the left. Sales help fund JWR.
|
JWR contributor Michael Barone is a columnist at U.S. News & World Report. Comment by clicking here.
Michael Barone Archives
© 2005, US News & World Report
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Alan Douglas
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
Marybeth Hicks
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|