Toward America's Recovery

...And throughout we are implored to remember that the President does not and cannot control the Congress, despite his party's overwhelming majorities in both houses...

...So it would seem...

...The means at our disposal are many and diverse, but most important among them, the s i n e qua non of our opposition, is military strength...

...We are told that the budget cannot be brought into balance due to "uncontrollable expenditures...

...0QQ0000Qg00QQD0ID0QiO0000Q00Q0QQDQ0OQQQgDQ00Q0Q0i0QQ0QIQ00U00Q0QO0iI0~QQ0~QOgDD0000o00Q00I0g0DQ0Q0000~0QOo00oQ0II0iQ000m000Q0000m00000000P0Qm00QOiU~ America entered the 1970s awash in self-doubt and self-recrimination...

...The truths about political reality easily seep in...

...and b) It is unnecessary to match or to exceed the military might of the Soviet Union...

...Nor was the United States "betrayed" by the Soviet conquest in Afghanistan, as the current Secretary of State has maintained...

...No one" will believe you again...

...It has become an article of faith in some circles that developing countries require centralized direction and command economies...

...Some predict, and others relish, the vision of a decade of shortages, scarc!ty, and limits...

...on the contrary, the citizens of Communist countries suffer material deprivations of every sort...

...Needless to say, it has been clear since he first took office that Jimmy Carter 14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980 has no such view of the world...

...Yet our strategy for American recovery must follow from a proper finderstanding of the failures of Democratic liberalism...

...Is it actually possible that those who specialize in political lying may have neither of these objects in mind...

...And it is time we understood the nature of the opposition in the proper terms...

...An odd situation...

...And then, how is it possible for Marxism to be both dead and alive...

...He is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...

...No one is misled, convinced, deceived, or self-deceived...

...Would they not move forward without the legitimate Israeli caution regarding a Soviet-backed PLO state on the West Bank...

...The Marxist contention that a measure of freedom is yielded to the state in exchange for a greater measure of material well-being is a myth, crushed by the evidence of history...

...Amid references to various "illusions" and "myths," and amid allusions to areas of American "concern" (absent any concrete plan for how to resolve such "concern"), his messages reduced themselves to this: a) It is a mistake to think that the United States can provide any significant leadership in the world today...

...that the future will be difficult and that we will not be able to do much about it...

...Clearly the time has come to turn things around...

...By indexing tax rates, it could make allowance for the effects of inflation on individual taxpayers and at least partially redress the balance of reward between those who produce wealth and those who only enjoy its benefits (already indexed...

...How is this possible...

...We are told to choose between recession and high inflation because there are no policies which can address both at the same time...

...T h a t our commitment to the principles of domestic prosperity flags together with our international resolve and our commitment to the principles of freedom internationally is not surprising...

...Is this kind of industrial dominance "fated" to be militarily inferior to a Communist regime which must rob every other sector of its meager economy to support its war machine...

...Countries which permit economic freedom at least offer hope that political freedom might follow...

...After eight full months, American diplomats are still held hostage in Iran...

...They are not-and the rhetoric of a foreign policy grounded in the principle of opposition would not stop short of saying so...

...The countries of the Third World and their Western benefactors feel compelled to divert massive resources from economic to military purposes...

...Preeminent among these failures are those domestic and foreign policies of the Carter administration which have led us, in essence, to a position of neither military strength nor economic growth...

...Nor should we feel all this need be undertaken alone...

...Yet of the two, the Big Lie is more ambitious and formidable...

...No more...

...They render us a purposeless society, and that is a society in grave peril...

...For instance, at his most extravagant Senator Edward Kennedy has proposed that the federal government create a's many as 820,000 new public jobs...

...but in its essence, in its aggressive, outward nature, it was anything but new...

...Our industrial might fades and our economy suffers stagnation...

...By cutting back on its own participation in the economy and by balancing its budget, it could help to move capital toward efficient, job-creating businesses and away from inefficient government programs...

...Political realism would counsel that we tolerate those governments which, although imperfect, may gradually move toward greater freedom and reserve our criticism for those totalitarian regimes which systematically 16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980 enslave every aspect of life--religious, intellectual, economic, and political...

...But here also lies the great opportunity for those who would restore America's confidence in herself and her future...

...But without a dramatic expansion of the American gross national product, we will not generate the revenues to pay the tremendous bills we have deferred during recent years of American coasting and Soviet buildup...

...they go abroad on business and holidays...

...Worse still, he has blamed on the American people national setbacks of which he himself was the sole author...

...In short, the Carter administration, in exhaustion and resignation, has represented itself as making a virtue of necessity, as accommodating America's "inevitable" economic, political, and military decline in a world too complex and problematic to permit domestic and foreign policies conducive to the restoration of American prosperity and preeminence...

...All of the Western democracies, including the United States, have long accepted the principle that some redistribution of wealth is both necessary and just...

...There is no Communist country in which the average man lives well...

...Our p91icy of assistance ought to be simple and direct: to encourage free enterprise in, and free trade among, developing countries...

...Domestically, we are told that high prices derive from our dependence on foreign oil, despite oil imports far below those of countries with lower inflation rates...

...and that the most we should expect in our president is a person who works hard, maintains high principles, and hopes for the best...

...it is misguided and immoral to adopt policies which restrict arid constrain productivity and wealth, thus condemning the poor to perpetual want...

...And it is this, the utter extinction of political liberty in Communist countries, over and above the destitution of their citizens, that gives our mandate of opposition its compelling moral force...

...Such principles are anathema to the kind of liberalism which infects the Carter administration Thus, while the President has failed to grasp the threat abroad, he has been equally blind to the essence of our domestic dilemma, again attributing it to the workings of arcane and inevitable forces where none exist...

...The Camp David accords stall...

...How can the lie be so vigorous when nobody, including its manufacturers, believes in it...

...For one thing, Marxist dogma and depictions of reality are contradicted by Soviet reality...

...The NATO alliance is under strain...

...No more...

...Would they feel this way in the absence of constant Soviet-sponsored intervention...

...He has followed an erratic course, shifting positions in answer to the pressures of the moment and belittling his opponents' criticisms as "simplistic...

...A rearmed military and reinvigorated economy are not severable choices for America...

...The respected Polish ~migr6 philosopher Leszek Kolakowski confirms this as far as his own country is concerned...

...An influential minority had convinced him that any claims to pride in America's past, in its values and its material attainments, were ill-founded...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980 17...

...Nobody there believes it any more...

...Even if one succeeds, the truth may ultimately come out, ruining one's credibility...

...By contrast, when growing at even modest rates, the private sector creates several million meaningful, productive jobs every year...

...It is a cogent new strategy for our country which dismisses liberal guilt and self-contempt in favor of optimism, patriotism, and a compelling moral rationale...

...The United States, Western Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia alone possess fully three quarters of the world's industrial capacity...

...But a state-controlled economy is no prescription for development: No centrally planned economy has achieved more than partial and uneven development, all the world's socialist rhetoric notwithstanding...

...There is no reason whatever that the 1980s must be a decade of limits, unless of course we construct policies upon that premise and conspire to bring it about...

...They threaten us not only materially but spiritually...

...Would this threat exist if the Soviets did not sponsor radical regimes and terrorist subversion in the region...

...But in the I980s if we are to continue assisting the poor, we will need to restore the economic conditions of growth and wealth which alone make redistribution possible...

...Everyone must accept its monopoly of public discourse...

...This much is sure: So long as presidents engage in demagoguery about "obscene profits" we shall not encourage productivity...

...Finally, it is the foundation for a new moral passion in our politics, and for a new vision of America as the coriscience of the world, an America which can, and must, be great again...

...We have yet to realize that when we seem bent on appeasement and compromise with the Soviet Union or on making easy peace with radical forces in the Third World we undermine the cause of freedom everywhere by effectively siding with the opposition...

...they listen to foreign radio programs (and in East Germany routinely watch West German television...

...The average American had become uncertain of his country's greatness...

...Indeed, some Americaris have come to believe that this condition is fated - - b u t it is not...

...Most experts furthermore contend that the lies which are routinely generated in Soviet-controlled media are believed by no one, and that everyone takes this for granted...

...What then can be the purpose of lying, when its practitioners aspire neither to deceive nor to convince...

...With this dodge, every form of inaction is excused and every appeal to the principles of genuine leadership is dismissed...

...There are, of course, any number of ways in which the government can undo the damage it has done...

...It is an admirable and moral decision to share national wealth with those who are disadvantaged...

...Several years ago, for example, George Kennan remarked that he had never met more than ten convinced Marxists in his most recent trips behind the Iron Curtain...

...By lowering marginal tax rates and by revising depreciation schedules, for instance, it could encourage work and investment...

...The lie reminds everyone of its own impunity...

...As Americans survey this grim landscape, the Carter administration pelts them with dubious contentions, for instance, that American security cannot be strengthened by greater defense spending, or that America must become a "mature" power, a power too mature to attempt to influence other nations...

...social realities and which encourages the double standard whereby we condemn human-rights violations in pro-Western countries while remaining mute about much worse violations elsewhere...

...It is time we understood not only the imminence and pervasiveness of the Soviet threat but also our moral obligation in the face of it: To defend the free world against Soviet political and military aggression...

...and we must redress the serious deficiencies in our conventional forces, by attracting and retaining more and better trained men and women to the armed forces...

...Although Carter's course has been erratic, it has been consistent in one respect...

...The world is really not so strange and incomprehensible as President Carter would have.us believe...

...People travel more than before...

...There is no need to take issue with the idea of the "welfare state...

...Such obstinacy in itself is a display of power and will...

...How can it be that such emptiness is so strong...

...This is not Orwell's 1984, where everyone is a robot...

...But one must have a grudging respect for those who practice this novel form of lying, an endless form of verbal calisthenics...

...There are good reasons, of course, why such lies are not believed...

...The solution is an act of political will commensurate with sound economic principles...

...But whether government will do these things, as I say, depends on an act of political will, a determination by the American people to reclaim that part of the American tradition which recognized the virtues of work, -thrift, investment, and risk...

...But even granting the government unprecedented efficiency, such a program, while draining still more resources, would employ fewer than one in ten jobless Americans, and a good percentage of those jobs would be properly characterized as make-work...

...Here is the real source of any public "malaise": Pessimism fills the vacuum where direction and hope are missing...

...Toward this end we must protect our strategic forces and improve our strategic delivery systems...

...The invasion was perhaps startling to some, even if it was not unprecedented...

...It matters little or not at all whether anyone is convinced...

...Deference to it serves to convince the undeceived of their powerlessness...

...First, we would do well to cast aside the tacit assumption that regimes now under Soviet military or political control--from Eastern Europe to Afghanistan, from Cuba and Angola to Vietnam and Cambodia--are fated to remain so forever...

...The problem is that even modest rates of growth in the private sector may no longer be taken for granted, so often does government policy militate against growth of any kind...

...Second, we would do well to consider the effect of our foreign assistance programs, because the political economies of those countries enjoying our beneficence bear directly on their prosperity and freedom and on their ability to resist the subversions of Marxism...

...Our heretofore forbidding military capability is now overshadowed by visible Soviet power...

...That these policies have placed our nation on a historic threshold is beyond question...

...American leadership should celebrate the success of those private enterprises which take great risks and create great wealth~ and point out the moral blindspot of those who are oblivious to the jobs, standards of living, and government services made possible by that wealth...

...Unfortunately, we may bring it about as well in a less deliberate way: by believing that government can reverse the effects of a shrinking economy better than the private sector can...

...Under American leadership the nations of the free world could come together in a powerful military alliance, an alliance which would present to the Soviet Union and its proxies unacceptable risks where they might otherwise attempt to expand their power through terrorism, subversion, and outright military conquest...

...If the political lie has as its chief object the holding of power, and if everyone knows it to be false, then its function differs radically from all other kinds of lies: It is defiantly used to assert its public uncontradictability, and thus to confirm that those who rule cannot be publicly challenged...

...Axiomatically, modern political leaders are best guided by a coherent view of the world, a view which tells them not only how the world works but also how best to go about confronting the problems before them...

...In either case, lying is risky...

...Furthermore, whatever the conditions of Eastern Europe were a generation ago, these countries are now very porous...

...It is odd to hear from qualified specialists in Soviet affairs that there, at least, Marxism is dead...

...But consider a third possibility...

...He has failed to recognize not only the economic and strategic consequences of these policies, but their moral consequences as well...

...But more important, the economic failure that follows from Communist political tyranny is used to justify tyranny still further...

...But opposition need not stop at the restoration of military power...

...To explore this possibility let us enter the labyrinth of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe...

...The quest for strength and growth is far more than a sensible course for dispassionate policymakers...

...The THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980 15 ideology of the Soviet Union makes it execrable...

...In Senate testimony just prior to his resignation, and in his recent Harvard commencement address, former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance intimated the premises upon which such contentions rest...

...Internationally, the American position is little better and the Carter administration's response has been little different...

...Would this strain exist without the looming presence of Soviet forces alongside Western Europe...

...Jimmy Carter has flinched from this ominous fact...

...One inescapable reality--the growing and aggressive military power of the Soviet Union--defines many, if not most, of the problems we face internationally...

...In totalitarian states, where propagandists monopolize all media, everyone can be convinced and contrary beliefs subdued or exterminated...

...It is a moral imperative for all Americans sincerely determined to see a world free from want and free from the modern totalitarianism which extinguishes every vestige of freedom...

...The flow of oil from the Persian Gulf threatens to be interrupted...

...A sense of foreboding pervades the country, a sense Richard Lugar is the Republican junior Senator from Indiana...

...Now it may be that, in nations without strong middle classes and broad democratic traditions, a greater degree of political centralization is inevitable...

...If they remain in place, the future will be very different from the past, not only for America but for the entire world--most especially for the emerging Third World...

...Post-war Soviet expansionism has not been, at bottom, ideological...

...Far from encouraging those who would oppose Communist regimes, we abandon them to vastly superior forces in a struggle that is fought not only militarily but ideologically as well...

...it matters greatly whether the lie is respected in silence...

...The American people should not be asked to sacrifice butter for guns when a strategy conducive to both is plainly available...

...The Soviet threat did not begin with the invasion of Afghanistan, and it will not end when the matter of Afghanistan is somehow disposed of in the conscience of the world...

...we must undertake a massive research and development program committed to new weapons systems, both offensive and defensive...

...Because they condemn poor people to poverty and oppressed people to servitude, policies of no growth and no strength do violence to America's most cherished moral purpose: to champion freedom from oppression and freedom from want for all peoples...

...The "mature" course is to assume with grace the role of a second-rate power, espousing high-flown ideals to foreign countries while making claims of military might to American citizens...

...The first three and a half years of the Carter presidency have amplified those waves of doubt in our culture...

...its essence lies in power and imperialism...

...As laudable as the ideals of our humanrights "campaign" may be, they are not served best by a rhetorical moralism which takes no account of economic, political, and...

...Lenin concentrated on the literati...

...It may be alive and well in other parts of the world where Marxists as yet have not managed to fasten their clutches, but in Eastern Europe, not so...

...In some Soviet-dominated countries such as Hungary, foreign newspapers and magazines are accessible...

...that no president could possibly be successful in addressing the sheer weight and complexity of domestic and world problems...

...Third, we would do well to discard the illusion that centralized political control-and its attendant abuses--can be abolished by abstract demands for "human rights...

...American military strength is necessary to the sustained growth of the economies of the United States and other capitalist countries, because it assures access to vital raw materials and to sea and air routes...

...Such observations pose a paradox: If Marxism is dead as ideology in such countries, why then is it that Marxism there is so alive--so ubiquitous, so domineering, and so unresponsive to reports of its extinction...

...Only after we have made plain our military readiness will we have a rational basis for even considering the question of arms reduction...

...its power makes it dangerous...

...The Soviet Union has conquered Afghanistan with impunity, the NATO alliance is in disarray, oil supplies from the Persian Gulf are more vulnerable than ever before, and Cuba openly interferes in the domestic affairs of other countries and embarrasses the United States without fear of reprisal or rebuke...

...But inflation, structural unemployment, regional and group antagonism, the sense of pessimism about future living standards--these and other problems will find their solutions in a real and sustained growth in the American economy, a growth to vShich the Carter administration has been less than wholly committed...

...If we allow the world to be dragged behind the bars of Soviet tyranny, we will have surrendered in the struggle against poverty as well...

...How long can it last...

...He has counseled us again and again that we should not ask too much from our president...