Cal Thomas: "Embracing and exporting freedom"

oldstyleliberal does not often agree with opinion columnist Cal Thomas, whose views are (he feels) too religiously conservative and morally absolutist. But this column, "Embracing and exporting freedom," dated Jan. 24, 2005, is one he can agree with wholeheartedly. (The Cal Thomas column archive may be accessed here.)

Well, maybe not this part: "If we don't export freedom, we risk importing the viruses which have corrupted other nations." That may be a little strong. The main thing, though, is not that other nations are all virus-corrupted without our ministrations; it is rather that America has a longstanding love affair with helping others gain their liberty.

President Kennedy: "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it." And, "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." And, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

President Reagan: "Let us ask ourselves, 'What kind of people do we think we are?' And let us answer, 'Free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.'" And, "Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best — a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny."

The current President Bush: "There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom. We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

As Cal Thomas says, "By boldly embracing freedom as his second term theme, President Bush stands in some pretty good company."

oldstyleliberal is frankly discouraged and ashamed at the many among his fellow liberals who in their post-inaugural punditry have sneered at Bush's address. G. Jefferson Price III of The Baltimore Sun, on Jan. 25 in "President's grand speech on freedom rings hollow" (available here until the newspaper starts wanting dollars for it), wrote that "the speech President Bush made last week could have been made by any president of the United States in the last century — and in one way or another it has ... ."

Amen to that! But Price also snarled, " ... and with more credibility."

And, he further groused, "Authoritarian rulers the Bush administration does not like — such as the rulers of Iran — have plenty to worry about. Authoritarian rulers the Bush administration gets along with don't have much to worry about at all."

Price thus turned himself into — in the immortal words of one Spiro T. Agnew, ex-Vice President of these United States — a "nattering nabob of negativism."

Another nattering nabob is Ted Widmer, director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. He wrote in The Sun, "Certainly, many presidents have seen America — rightly — as a beacon of light in a world where enlightenment was often hard to find, as [President] Bush expressed Thursday [in his inaugural address]. ... But there is a world of difference between a hope and a plan, just as [President] Lincoln reminded us there is a wide distance between a horse chestnut and a chestnut horse." (His Jan. 23, 2005, opinion piece, "Hints of danger in bold pledge," is temporarily available here.)

The nattering nabobs have carped and caviled that the President's inaugural address gave no specifics, no plan, no criteria by which Administration-suggested U.S. initiatives to "export" liberty — especially those involving the military — might be limited to those with a chance of success that can be pursued with justice and honor. oldstyleliberal agrees that we need to know the limits of Bush's bold policy thrust. But he feels it is wrong to trash the thrust just because in the context of a 21-minute inaugural address it could not be thoroughly nuanced and encyclopedically qualified.

And he feels it is short-sighted of liberals to dump on the President's "bold pledge" simply because it was made by a President they hate. For that pledge of extending a helping hand to liberty seekers the world round is an august part of liberal American history itself. How graceless for liberals today not to honor this fact with the respect it deserves!