Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brough Down the Republican RevolutionFor conservatives generally and the Republican Party in particular, 2006 was a time of intense soul-searching. For the first time in a dozen years, Republicans lost control of Congress. As a result, they are being forced to reexamine who they are and what they stand for. It’s about time. After all, more than a decade has passed since President Bill Clinton announced in his State of the Union address that “the era of big government is over.” Yet, since then, government has grown far bigger and far more intrusive. It spends more, regulates us more, and reaches far more into our daily lives than it did before the Republican Revolution. Behind this alarming trend stands the rise of a new brand of conservatism—one that believes big government can be used for conservative ends. It is a conservatism that ridicules F. A. Hayek and Barry Goldwater while embracing Teddy and even Franklin Roosevelt. It has more in common with Ted Kennedy than with Ronald Reagan. Leviathan on the Right provides an incisive analysis of the roots and core beliefs of big-government conservatism and the major currents that fueled its growth—neoconservatism, the Religious Right, supply-side economics, national greatness conservatism, and Newt Gingrich–style technophilia—and offers a detailed critique of its policies on a wide range of issues. The book contains a clear warning that, unless conservatives return to their small-government roots, the electoral defeat of 2006 is just the beginning. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 91
... National School Board 9. Power to the President 10. National Busybodies PART III: DEFINING THE FUTURE 11. The Small—Government Alternative 12. The Coming Debate NOTES INDEX vii 19 61 77 99 119 139 165 181 197 207 229 235 301 Preface For ...
... National-greatness conservatives draw much of their inspiration from neoconservatism but take the ideas a step further. National-greatness conservatism argues that Americans need to be united around great national projects, bigger than ...
... national, cen— tralized government in the economic, social, political, and intellec— tual lives of citizens,” in the words of conservative sociologist Robert Nisbet.51 Neither libertarian nor traditionalist conservatives would ...
... national interest, ahead of individuals.”63 How much different is that from Rick Santorum's belief that freedom does not “celebrate the individual above society”?64 Or Brooks's admonition that the American people need to “serve a cause ...
... National Conference of Social Work, was writing that government workers were “social engineers” imposing “a divine order on earth as it is in heaven.”4 Government was already growing rapidly when the United States experienced one of the ...
Contents
10 National Busybodies | 197 |
DEFINING THE FUTURE | 205 |
11 The SmallGovernment Alternative | 207 |
12 The Coming Debate | 229 |
Notes | 235 |
Index | 301 |
About the Author | 323 |
Cato Institute | 326 |