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W. James Antle’s Devouring Freedom

Longtime American Conservative contributing editor W. James Antle has an important new book out, Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped. Antle’s answer, regular readers will not be surprised to learn, is that it can only be stopped with great effort—and at great political cost: Government programs are like weeds. If they are merely […]

Longtime American Conservative contributing editor W. James Antle has an important new book out, Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped. Antle’s answer, regular readers will not be surprised to learn, is that it can only be stopped with great effort—and at great political cost:

Government programs are like weeds. If they are merely trimmed, they will grow back. They must be uprooted when possible.

But another lesson is that big government can be curtailed, even when it is not reversed. Not achieving all of your policy objectives doesn’t mean you haven’t accomplished anything important.

Success must also be measured by something more ambitious than prevailing at the ballot box. Of the three reforming Congresses we’ve looked at, the one that was least successful at getting itself reelected scored the most enduring victories against big government. Republicans controlled the Senate for six years under Reagan and the House for twelve years after Gingrich led them to victory in 1994. But they put a smaller dent in big government than the “do- nothing” Republicans of 1947–48, who lost their majority in 1948. By the time the Democrats retook the House in 2006, the congressional GOP was their partner in big government.

You can read a longer excerpt at Human Events, but that too gives only a hint of how carefully Antle has thought the case through—particularly the evidence provided by the suicidal but effective “Do-Nothing Congress” of the Truman era. (As Antle pointed out in an event for the book earlier this week, at the time Truman supported a national healthcare plan—not anything like Obamacare, but rather an outright government-run medical system similar to the British National Health Service. The “Do-Nothing Congress” actually did something quite significant in stopping that.)

Order the book here or through the link in the first paragraph of this post.

And speaking of books, you can support The American Conservative and get a signed (or even personalized) copy of Rod Dreher’s powerful new book, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life, by making a donation here. Doing so will help us continue to bring you more of Rod Dreher, James Antle, and all the other incisive writers you’ve come to expect from TAC.

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