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A Work in Progress
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12407 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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1 / 1987 |
3,058 Words |
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William J. Bennett
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American conservatism now sets the terms of our national debate. It does so because, without in the least abandoning its principles, it has succeeded in identifying itself with the quintessential American appetite for new challenges and new opportunities.
Under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, American conservatism has shed its skin of distrust and defensiveness toward the world in which we live. It has overcome what once was a suspicion of the future. It has become vigorous, bold, and assertive--in a word, fully Americanized. While contemporary liberalism has moved away from the mainstream of American political life, today's conservatism is at home with the common sense and common beliefs of the American people. As a result, where once conservatives resisted the future, they now view it as something to shape. And there is a good chance to do just that.
Consider the changes in two areas in which President Reagan has sought to bring about fundamental shifts in national policy--economics and foreign policy. In economics, we have delivered a historic tax reform made possible because the underlying terms of economic debate have been transformed. Tax reform signified the utter eclipse of the old economics, which was too often mistrustful of private enterprise while overly trustful of government planning. A new understanding has been established and it contains some old truths about the entrepreneurial sources of economic growth and well-being and the role of government as a reliable and steady economic umpire. The practical reforms that have been achieved in the past five years rest on a real intellectual revolution. And just as the failed ideas of the past underlaid the spirit of malaise that President Carter apparently thought to be our national condition, so an intellectual revolution led by conservatives justifies the optimism with which we face our future.
Foreign and defense policy is the other main arena in which the Reagan revolution has, of necessity, focused its energies. Here too, we have succeeded in fundamentally overturning the self-indulgent pessimism of the 1970s. If the president had achieved little else he would have secured forever his place in American history by his undeviating commitment to the rebuilding of our nation's defenses, which was the absolute precondition for conducting a sound foreign policy of any kind. On that foundation have been built the successes in Grenada and El Salvador, the historic opportunity represented by the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the new realism concerning the threat of Soviet and communist expansion, not least in Central America. In the light of such tangible
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