Short-term memory

Yesterday I told you about George McGovern’s enlightenment (initiation by fire) of the small business owner’s quandary. We saw how McGovern came to realize that the government intervention he so prominently promoted in his political career was swallowing small business owners in regulations and paperwork. But did he do anything with this knowledge or did he revert to his old way?

Well, other than a few articles in the early 1990s sharing his knowledge and showing a less-liberal side of McGovern than anyone had seen before the effect was minimal, and it seems short-lived. In a 2002 article in Harper’s McGovern seemed to have forgotten that business even exists, reverting to his more laws, higher taxes, stiffer regulations type of government. He wrote, “Virtually every step forward in our history has been a liberal initiative taken over conservative opposition: civil rights, Social Security, Medicare, rural electrification, the establishment of a minimum wage, etc.”

It seems that the accomplishments of private citizens are completely disregarded in light of the brilliant accomplishments of government. Robert Fulford, writing for the National Post, appears to have it right when he said McGovern, “suffered under the system he had helped create, apologized for it – and then forgot precisely what he had learned.”