Now that Brown has won, the Republicans can kill it by themselves–AND take the blame for it.

To (generously) summarize the above, Liberals hate the caricature of Ronald Reagan moreso than his policies.

To this:

“As for Obama and health care reform, Mark Steyn summed up the fears of conservatives when he wrote that if health care reform succeeds, it will make all Americans dependent on a government program and make them less interested in capitalism.”

To which piece of his are you referring? I would think, at most, that Steyn would argue that the mere fact of American’s being dependent on a government program means that program has failed.

FAIL.

What the left hated about St Ronny was that he was a criminal. A drug dealing gun running criminal. If he was not already a basket case he should have been in jail.

Nope – it was more his anti-environmentalist policies, his tacit support for right wing death squads in Central America, his support for anti-intellectualism, and his endless crusade against organized labor.

In a sense, what conservatives fear is that health care reform will work–and Americans will conclude that liberals really can make life better for most Americans after all.

Deeper than that – for the drivers of today’s Republican Party, it’s a fear that Americans will conclude once again that government really can make life better for most Americans after all.

This is, for example, why George HW Bush is so disliked by many Republicans – because the man clearly believed that government has a positive role in American life, even if he wasn’t completely in agreement with the Democrats as to where that line should be drawn.

This is why many Republicans give George W Bush a pass on his worst domestic failing – his mismanagement of the Federal Government. In part because they don’t believe the Federal Government CAN do the things Congress tasks it to do, and in part because they appreciated having termites unleashed on the foundation of government because that helped prove their point.

So you’re left with the simple equation (clearly espoused by some commentors here) that believing Government has a positive role in making Americans lives better is essentially liberal (or socialist, or communist, or statist, or whatever).

What the Republican Party has to decide, before they should ever be given the reins of power again, is whether they really believe Federal Government should play no role in making Americans lives better, or whether it should have such a role. Because until this particular bipolar neuroses within the party is dealt with, when the have the reins we can be assured we’ll end up creating new and greater economic disasters.

It goes to whether those policies end up enticing many Americans into joining the Left (or the Right) generally. It’s the classic argument from adverse consequences.

What the Left truly hated about Reagan was not his dealings with the USSR nor his tax cuts. What they hated most about Reagan was that by ending his presidency with the nation in better shape than it was under his predecessor, he made conservatism respectable in the eyes of millions of Americans–and made liberalism less respectable. That would make Americans more receptive to the arguments of conservatives in the future, and less receptive to the arguments of liberals.

As for Obama and health care reform, Mark Steyn summed up the fears of conservatives when he wrote that if health care reform succeeds, it will make all Americans dependent on a government program and make them less interested in capitalism.

In a sense, what conservatives fear is that health care reform will work–and Americans will conclude that liberals really can make life better for most Americans after all. If conservatives were confident that health care reform would become a mess, they would look forward to the day when Obama would be totally discredited in the eyes of the public.

I believe Mr. Steyn’s fears are groundless, if conservatives offer the right policies on other issues. After all, millions of seniors on Social Security and Medicare voted for Reagan. And single-payer in Canada didn’t keep Harper from becoming Prime Minister; nor is the NHS keeping Cameron from becoming Prime Minister of Britain.

Frum please drop Linnane and Geordiano and give this guy more column inches.