Destaque:
Political fashions come and go, but political principles endure. President Clinton noted some six years ago that the era of big government was over. Yet today, conservatives who should know better see a new fashion. George Will, high on his Hamiltonian horse in the Washington Post last month, seemed delighted that minimal-government conservatism was dead. And on these pages recently, Francis Fukuyama declared the libertarianism that followed the Thatcher-Reagan revolution to be in retreat. We're all Keynesians now, apparently.
Well, we're not. Nor are most Americans, though you'd never know it from the drone today in Washington. Indeed, you'd almost believe we're all clamoring for tariffs on imported steel, welfare for agribusiness, and higher payroll taxes to save Social Security.
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It's odd that libertarians have come under fire since Sept. 11, for we stand for nothing if not a wise foreign policy and strong national defense. Yet both Mr. Will and Mr. Fukuyama contend that 9/11 underscored the limits of libertarianism. The facile equation of isolationism with nonintervention is the problem. Thoughtful libertarians have never called for isolation. We have said, however, that America cannot police the world; and such policing as we do must be closely related to our national interests. Reasonable people can disagree about those interests, of course, and how to secure them. But that's a far cry from isolationism.
Ironically, the 9/11 attacks constituted a massive failure of government to do the main thing libertarians call upon government to do -- protect us. Yet far from seriously examining that failure, officials rushed to acquire ever more power over American citizens, with marginal gains in security. In foreign affairs, then, the nation could well heed the libertarian call not for more but for wiser government. As a presidential candidate, George W. Bush spoke of the need for humility in foreign affairs, for a policy of restraint suited to a free people. That's exactly right.
