The Battle for Freedom and Fiscal Responsibility, Yet Again
This cartoon was originally published in the Chicago Tribune in 1934.
David Horowitz succinctly summed up this seemingly never-ending battle when he explained that our history is one of two “distinct revolutionary traditions,” as opposed to the idea of an old order (conservatism) and a new revolution (progressivism). Our two-hundred year history, that which has shaped our nation, is a history of two disparate revolutionary paths to the modern world, “two different paradigms of the European Enlightenment that took root, respectively, in America and France.”
He goes on to say that, “the radical ethos of the French Revolution became the wellspring of a socialist revolt against bourgeois order that culminated in the creation of the Soviet empire. On the other hand, the libertarian ethos of the American Revolution inspired the conservative opponents of the Soviet tyranny, a counterrevolution based on individual rights, free markets and democratic constitutions.”*
You’d think once the battle had been won by the historic experiences of the past century, the debate would be over; that, unfortunately, would be asking too much. So the same arguments must be won, the same battles must be fought, and the same truths must continuously be told.
*The Politics of Bad Faith, David Horowitz, The Free Press, 1998, p. 142.