***
**
*
1
Senator
Eugene McCarthy was a liberal candidate for the presidency running in the
primaries against Lyndon Johnson in 1967-68.
His book on what he called “the Conservative Challenge” had been
published in 1964 but was reissued in 1968.
Many
of his statements about the “challenge” from conservatives and about the
current state of affairs turn out to be relevant to conservatives’ values,
initiatives, and actions of today. Many
statements about his own time could be made with equal force in our own time.
McCarthy’s
“Answer” is divided into several parts. The
first two parts – “The Scales of Economic Justice" and "Of Payrolls and Property" – were the subjects of my first two
reports. This final report deals with the rest.
2
Part
III is called “The Responsibilities of Responsible Government.” Reported below, ignoring the original page order, are what seem to me the most interesting
statements in this and the concluding parts.
A
general theme is that liberals find government action to be needed and effective in the pursuit of
social justice.
“It has been argued that once the federal government moves
to meet a particular problem, complete federal control or operation inevitably
follows. The overwhelming weight of
evidence in our national history is against this assertion.” [p. 65]
[Social Security] “was violently opposed by conservatives
when it was first presented, and it has been fought by them at nearly every
stage at which significant improvement or extension has been proposed.” [p. 97]
“…Experience has shown that this [Social Security] program,
including nearly all citizens of the United States, has been most effective as
a national program.” [p. 66]
[On the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation] “Again experience has proved the inadequacy of
the conservative judgment and demonstrated the need for the application of
reasoned judgment in developing governmental programs to meet economic and
fiscal needs.” [p. 104]
3
Particular
social problems of 1964, 1968… and 2012 are then discussed:
“…On November 19, 1945, President Truman requested the
enactment of a national health program.”
[p. 63]
“There are those who argue that private insurance, together
with state aid for the indigent sick, is adequate. The obvious answer is that, for many, this
has not been the case.”[p. 66]
4
“The state as an institution concerned primarily with the
temporal good of man has a right and an obligation to set up standards for education, and the right to require its
citizens to meet these standards insofar as it is possible to do so. The standards, of course, must be reasonable
and must leave open great areas of freedom for the pursuit of truth and
individual fulfillment.” [p. 74]
“The last four Presidents – Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and
Johnson – have asked for greater federal participation in financing education
in the United States.” [p. 71]
“ ‘Education,’ [President Kennedy said in 1963] ‘is the
keystone in the arch of freedom and progress.
…For the nation, increasing the quality and availability of education is
vital to both our national security and our domestic well-being.’ ” [p. 76]
5
“The consequences of discrimination
[in civil rights] are everywhere evident, but most clearly in the case of
Negroes. The median income of Negro
families is about 50 percent that of white families. In 1961 Negroes made up 21 percent of the
unemployed, although they made up only 11 percent of the working force. …” [p. 80]
“ ‘A conservative,’ [William Buckley] states… ‘is seldom
disposed to use the federal government as a sword of social justice, for the
sword is generally two-edged.’” [p. 82]
“Basic to the operation of the legislative branch of the
government is … rule by majority vote.
Frustrating the majority by prolonged debate was in no way sustained or
supported at the Constitutional Convention. …Since 1917, when the Senate
authorized the limitation of debate by two-thirds of those present and voting,
closure has been moved 27 times and has failed 22 times. It has failed every time when it was invoked
with reference to civil rights – some 11 times.” [p. 89]
6
“The danger of subordination of individuals or minorities to
the will of the majority has been offset primarily by our emphasis on
individual rights, our insistence on tolerance of nonconformity, and the
support and freedom and measure of authority we give to the government.” [p. 78]
“Alexander Hamilton [wrote] in The Federalist No. 22…: ‘To
give a minority a negative upon a majority (which is always the case where more
than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject
the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. … The majority, in order
that something might be done, must conform to the views of the minority, and
thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater…’” [p. 90]
“Free speech and the right to express minority positions is
not the same as unlimited speech.” [p. 93]
7
In
our own time, conservatives seek to “starve”
government in order to prohibit what they see as the liberal inclination to use government as a fundamental tool for
pursuing social justice – quality public education, accessible health care,
individual civil rights, protection of the average American, and security for
the poor and the aging – issues which, my goodness, are the very problems we
are trying to deal with today.
*
**
***
