IF CONSERVATIVES ARE SUPPOSED TO FAVOUR THE STATUS QUO, NO-ONE TOLD RICHARD NIXON

To reasonable people (NOT including Leftist psychologists) the Reagan/Thatcher revolution disposed once and for all of the Leftist myth that conservatives are mindless folk with no ideas of their own who simply favour no change from how things are. But from Edmund Burke onwards, that has never been true. What is usually conveniently forgotten is that it was not even true of Richard Milhous Nixon (37th President of the USA).

Nixon chose liberty rather than the status quo: Gary North at Lew Rockwell.com has an interesting piece on how Nixon abolished conscription and instituted an all volunteer army. North points out that for a conservative government to eliminate a long established policy, one that had been in place since FDR, during a war and against considerable opposition from the military (at that time), was "nothing short of remarkable". North traces the influence of a small group of libertarian economists, including Dr Martin Anderson, who originally sold Nixon on the idea. And it was Donald Rumsfeld who as a junior Congressman introduced the legislation to abolish the draft. Of course, neither Rummy or the "neo-liberal" economists who ended the draft get any credit or recognition from the left.

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