Editor,
In Thursday’s Daily Lobo, Opinion Editor Nathan New blasted Donald Trump and conservatives.
He’s wrong about the latter. For societies ruled by despots, conservatives support change — transformative change. Ronald Reagan made this clear at his 1987 Speech at Brandenburg Gate where he implored: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Likewise, in 2009 conservatives heartily supported the Iranian people in their peaceful protest against an election stolen by tyrants. Had President Obama voiced support for this Iranian “Green Revolution,” change for the better might have been possible.
On the other hand, in non-despotic countries with functioning civil societies, amelioration is best achieved through reform guided by experience and precedent, not by New’s “progress” and “real change.”
This was largely the message of the father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, in his 1790 book Reflections on the Revolution in France.
France would have been better served by prudent correction than what transpired under “real change” — 16,500 guillotined during the Reign of Terror.
Rightly, we do not fear nor expect any such catastrophe in America.
Our distresses are modest by comparison. Yet they are not insignificant. “Hope and change” and “change you can believe in” have given us 8.8 percent unemployment, yearly deficits of $1.5 trillion, food prices rising sharply, gasoline near $4 per gallon, and a still-falling housing market.
Perhaps this is the “progress” New had in mind?
Donald Gluck
President of UNM Conservative Republicans
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