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Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Freedom Evolves Liberty Doesn’t by Chuck McGlawn Chuckest@aol.com 02/02/2020


 by Chuck McGlawn 02/02/2020

It wasn’t too many years ago that Conservatives and Libertarians were in agreement on most issues. During that time Conservatives overlooked some minor differences that libertarians held. Conversely, Libertarians tolerated some slight differences that conservatives advocated. But the bottom-line at the time was that Conservatives and Libertarians were allies. Less than 10 years ago Conservatives that I know generally voted a straight Libertarian ticket.

I was drawn into the “Freedom Movement” by a line in The Blue Book of The John Birch Society written by Robert Welch, “the goals of the JBS could be summed up with just five words, less government, and more responsibility”. I joined because I saw the DC Government causing more problems than they cured. I 1972 after six years I became inactive.  When I rejoined the Society in 1985, I discovered that Robert Welch's goal of less government had become LESS important. Now they favored programs calling for more government. More government to stop immigrationmore government to make abortions illegalmore government to make stem cell research illegal. They even called for the President to use the Federal Registry to make partial-birth abortions a crime. It wasn’t just the JBS, many of the stalwarts of the freedom movement began embracing similar “more government” advocacies.  

In 2016 a Republican candidate for president broke ranks with all previous candidates. Instead of appealing to the educated middle class fraught with the small business owners, professionals, middle managers, homeowners, in short, the voters that paid 80% plus of all the US taxes.  Candidate Trump decided it was time to borrow a page out of the Democrat Party Playbook by appealing to the less educated. This was a growing pool of voters that were denied any real education in “government schools.” Ill-prepared to understand the exodus of higher-paying manufacturing jobs forcing many voters to take two and sometimes three jobs in the service industry in order to make ends meet.

Candidate Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again” covered promises to negotiate from a position of power trade agreements that would put America first.  He promised to return to America the jobs lost through multi-national corporations out-sourcing manufacturing to third-world countries, but most of all he would "Build that Wall" and stop the rapist, smugglers, murders, and illegal immigrants from entering the US. Trump must have garnered millions of votes by promising that Mexico would pay for the wall.  

Trump dismantled one by one all of the other candidates. Over a dozen Republican candidates were making Republican-type promises to cut taxes, reduce spending, pay down the National Debt and dismantle Obama Care. The most libertarian and the least conservative of the candidates began dropping out. The candidates that hung on the longest did so by evolving their rhetoric to a more anti-immigrant and less free-market position. All candidates that didn't take-on the anti-immigration position were gone.

The Anti-Immigration virus began spreading. Any talk-host on the radio that even hinted at a free-market approach to immigration began losing listeners and sponsors. Any Think-Tank that didn't jump on the bandwagon began losing contributions. The virus spread to major conservative spokespersons and authors. They gave up free-market speeches and books in favor of anti-illegal immigration rants. And everyone began sounding like Candidate Trump. And he pulled off the biggest electoral upset in modern times. No political pendant, no political prognosticator, no political pollster predicted a Trump victory. 

The end result is a conservative movement, on the issue of immigration, has become less free by abandoning free-market liberty in favor of more government Central Planning. And in the process, this stand has converted conservatives and libertarians from allies into enemies, a loss for both groups.