Just say no.

Bobbing in the surf with UnFortunate yesterday, he asked me, "as a conservative," what I thought about Ronald Reagan and his legacy.

Tough question. When Reagan was President, I wasn't a conservative. Well, not that I'd admit. In retrospect, I was parroting several liberal nostroms, but I don't know that I was doing so with any real conviction.

I don't dispute that Reaganomics was problematic. Ballooning deficits and all. Clinton's economic policies were closer to what I would hope for than Reagan's. But Reagan was doing his best to break the back of the Soviet Union by expanding the military and force them to devote more and more of their scarce resources to responding in kind until the Soviet system collapsed. Everyone I spoke to about this in Russia agreed. It was a nightmare. All of a sudden there was nothing in the stores because everything was going to the military. And in the end, this gambit was successful. it was left to Clinton to actually reduce the size of government by reining in government spending.

And foreign policy in Central America was pretty ham-fisted. (But gosh, didn't Al Haig cut a fine figure as our Secretary of State? Like, Woof!)

But Reagan did do something important. He made it okay to think that American is the greatest country on earth, and I'm proud to be an American. That had pretty much been anathema since the Kennedy administration. And I think that in itself, growing though it does from Reagan's sunny, simplified view of the world, that is the most enduring aspect of his legacy. That's why they renamed the airport in DC after the man. It was Reagan's sense that what unites us as a country is more important than what divides us.

Then UnFortunate raised Nancy Reagan and 'Just Say No.' And it dawned on me: Yes! That's it exactly. That's exactly my brand of conservatism. When she said it, Nancy wasn't making a policy pronouncement. She was visiting a school, and one of the children asked her the question about how to deal with the pressure to use drugs. Nancy was caught off guard, and responded as best she could. "Just say no."

Why do I like (suddenly) 'Just say no'? Because that's it exactly. That's the sanest and most sensible drug abuse policy that's ever been put forth by the Federal government.

"Hey, Government! Drug abuse is really a big problem! Whatcha gonna do about it?"
"Weelll... those Americans using drugs should just say no."

Perfect.

Because in fact, there is nothing that the Federal government can really do about drug use. Stiffer penalties, sending troops to South America there to become embroiled in factional fighting, midnight basketball, pouring money into drug treatment that fails eight out of nine patients. Not gonna work. And when the Federal government does try to do something, that's when things get really bad and the human misery starts to get quantifiable.

The most that government can do is say, "Americans who are using drugs should just say no."

And if they don't say no, then those Americans best be ready to deal with the inevitable repercussions of their actions.

Just say no.

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