There really aren’t many classical liberals in the US government either, other than perhaps RP. And I don’t know if he would gotten through as a say Conservative Party candidate in the UK party system. Might be wrong, but I believe the party has a much greater say in selecting the candidate than in the US.
True.. but his influence was over a mere 30 year period. Britain’s political history is nearly 300 years long, and even further back if you trace it to the individual countries, and has largely been socialist since the dawn of the 20th century, with a brief 14-15 year corporatist switch.
In Britain, the most major right wing party blasted a UKIP MP for criticising the National Health Service. At least in America, socialism is still a dirty word (even if it is improperly defined).
As for the US.. while they may not have been perfect, I’d take Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Grover Cleveland, James Garfield and Calvin Coolidge over Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts and Johnson any day of the week. Republican candidates at least pay lip service to fiscal conservatism, while Conservatives in the UK tend to be more about economic nationalism or mercantile policy (“save our jobs from the evil darkies” or “public private partnership”), indicating that there is at least some voter influence in regards to freedom issues. America tends to pride itself on being the “land of the free”, where Britain tends to pride itself on things like government television and government healthcare.
There is that Daniel Hanan guy.
True, but even he believes in NATO, the ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK, and that Britain entering WWII was a good thing. But his views on federalism and the size of government are better than most. But unfortunately things like the NHS are viewed as sancrosanct, at least by the political and chattering classes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS-tyOQjFVA this is an example of the kind of treatment folks who criticize the NHS receive.
Which is my point. In America, at least there’s a debate on government healthcare and television is pseudoprivately rather than publically owned. In Britain, it’s as much a non-starter as criticizing Juche in Pyongyang.
Yeah, but America is totally sucked into the false paradigm. The two parties appear very ideological and have a great polarizing effect. The more flavourless the party establishment the less crazed the populace by ideologies offered by parties and more receptive to new ideas from the bottom up, if only such ideas would be offered.
The advantage of America is that it is at the forefront of thought so the good ideas still get spread there even if they have to push aside a much greater resistance than they would in a place more cynical about their establishment and more lukewarm about party ideologies.