Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

With the File Cabinets Still In Them

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, February 01, 2011

One of the biggest problems that conservatives have is that of sharing the liberal view of history. They both believe the same thing is inevitable, but one is for it and the other is against it. This makes the conservative (the one against) the one who is always tagging along behind, trying to keep up appearances with a respectable amount of growling. But he believes, as much as the liberal does, that the fix is in.

But this actually means that most conservatives are liberals in their view of history. They think they can decorate their freight train of liberalism with a bit of opposition bunting, but the freight train is still going to the same place.

This is why the idea of actual victory (as defined by an actual change of direction) is so hard for people to get their minds around. We think that all debates are just over speed of implementation. The liberals want to wreck the country in three years, while conservatives want to do it in ten. Conservatives think that it is a victory to cut the budget for the Department of Education, when a real victory would be to abolish the Department of Education, and burn down all the buildings with the file cabinets still in them. That would be a victory. "Ah," say the conservatives. "Never gonna happen."

But sometimes, in spite of all the defeatism, something actually happens, and this is why the trials of Obamacare are so significant. As has been wisely said, anything that can't go on indefinitely, won't. The liberal view of history is wrong, erroneous, misguided and, as noted earlier, wrong. Sooner or later, as Lady Thatcher put it, you run out of other people's money. Reality catches up with us, and conservatives begin to recognize there might be greater depths to their political philosophy than bitching about liberalism.

Over fifty percent of the states filed suit against the federal government, and with the declaration yesterday that Obamacare was unconstitutional, they won their first round. The House of Representatives has repealed the misshapen thing. The Senate will probably not do so, but they are holding out under a seige. Various states, including Idaho, are weighing the option of nullification, meaning that they don't care who wins the case in federal court; they aren't going to implement Obamacare anyway. Elections in 2012 will have this as one of the central issues -- in House races, in Senate races (where Democrats have a lot more seats to lose), in the presidential race, and in the state legislative campaigns.

Obamacare stands a good chance of being actually repealed, actually turned back, actually returned to store. And who knows what might come from that? It might turn out that some conservatives conclude that the notion of progressive inevitibility was just another false liberal doctrine, which is exactly what it is. It might occur to us that there could be a conservative view of history. What that might be will prove to be a most interesting question -- because eschatological questions cannot be answered without reference to Jesus.