Monthly Archives: September 2011

Historic Views on Government – Kilpatrick

Honest opinion about government from James J. Kilpatrick, Jr.:

The one great, precious factor that distinguishes a free society from a totalitarian society is the absence of unwarranted governmental restraint upon the free man. Within the broadest possible limits the free man may work as he pleases, come and go as he pleases, think, read, write, vote, and worship as he pleases. His liberties, of course, are not absolute…but…extend to the point at which Citizen A causes some serious loss, risk, or inconvenience to Citizen B.
   The Smut Peddlars, 1960

I had supposed it to be a fundamental principle of conservatism to challenge every doubtful intrusion of the state upon the freedom of the individual. The more serious the intrusion, the more it must be resisted. Only the most compelling interests of society can justify a major invasion by the government of a person's rights to be left alone…. If these are not fundamental principles of conservatism, I have wasted thirty years in the contemplation of that philosophy.
   National Review, 1967

A prolific columnist and author, James J. Kilpatrick began his long writing career as a newspaper reporter, then became an editorial writer, and later a syndicated columnist (currently syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate). He has been a television commentator, won numerous awards (including the Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service in Journalism from the University of Missouri), and written several books, including The Sovereign State (1957), The Smut Peddlars (1960), and The Writer's Art (1984).

Quotation and short bio from The Quotable Conservative: The Giants of Conservatism on Liberty, Freedom, Individual Responsibility, and Traditional Values. Rod L. Evans and Irwin M. Berent, editors. Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Publishing, 1996.

Historic Views on Government – Boaz

Honest opinion about government from David Boaz:

In the private sector, firms must attract voluntary customers or they fail; and if they fail, investors lose their money, and managers and employees lose their jobs. The possibility of failure, therefore, is a powerful incentive to find out what customers want and to deliver it efficiently. But in the government sector, failures are not punished, they are rewarded. If a government agency is set up to deal with a problem and the problem gets worse, the agency is rewarded with more money and more staff–because, after all, its task is now bigger. An agency that fails year after year, that does not simply fail to solve the problem but actually makes it worse, will be rewarded with an ever-increasing budget.

A key point to keep in mind is that nongovernment schools, which have to offer a better product to stay in business, do a better job of educating children. Defenders of the education establishment have tried to dismiss that success by claiming that the private schools start with a better grade of students–once again, blaming the customers for the enterprise's failure. But that excuse has been exposed time and again. Urban Catholic schools serve a clientele not terribly different from that of the government schools. Marva Collins's school in Chicago received national publicity for its success with poor black children, many of them declared "learning disabled" by the neighborhood government schools. Joan Davis Rateray of the Institute for Independent Education describes…the success of many minority-run independent schools. Any remaining doubts should have been eliminated in 1982 when James S. Coleman and his colleagues, after a comprehensive investigation of the results of public versus private schools, concluded that "when family backgrounds that predict achievement are controlled, students in…private schools are shown to achieve at a higher level than students in public schools.
   Liberating Schools, 1991

Executive vice-president of the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C. libertarian think-tank devoted to a belief in minimal government, David Boaz has written many articles and edited a number of works, including Liberating Schools: Education in the Inner City (1991) and Market Liberalism: A Paradigm of the 21st Century (with Edward H. Crane, 1993).

Quotation and short bio from The Quotable Conservative: The Giants of Conservatism on Liberty, Freedom, Individual Responsibility, and Traditional Values. Rod L. Evans and Irwin M. Berent, editors. Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Publishing, 1996.