Will GS ’68 discusses election

Prefacing his lecture with a disclaimer that he was not going to make any predictions about the winner of the 2012 general election, Will lectured on the policy issues that will divide Republicans and Democrats in the election season.

Will discussed the increasing ideological divergence between liberal and conservative leadership with a fusion of sports aphorisms, historical allusions and dry humor.

“I’m not going to make any predictions [or] political prophecies. I ascribe to the Zeke Bonura principle: You will not be charged with an error if you do not touch the ball,” he said.

Will devoted much of his lecture to the issues that he believes will greatly impact the outcome of the 2012 election. “The parties are diverging more and more ideologically and converging more in strength,” Will said.

Will said the differences between liberals and conservatives are based on dueling pursuits of freedom and equality. According to Will, Democrats are pursuing an increase in entitlement programs in order to increase equality. Republicans, conversely, are more inclined to support less government involvement in exchange for more freedom.

“The party of government wants as many people as possible dependent on the government,” Will said. He argued that the greatest costs to the government will be healthcare and welfare, noting the great expense that these programs will place on American workers as they support the programs’ beneficiaries.

The welfare state “is producing the politics of gerontocracy,” a hierarchy supported by longevity. “Longevity is a wonderful social achievement. It is hugely expensive,” Will explained.

He projected that the effects of a “buffet attitude with the health care system” would only be tempered by a legislature willing to tax health insurance. He called for a return to an independent and more self-reliant American spirit.

“The stakes can be pretty high when the government decides that it knows everything. There are costs. There are consequences,” he said.

Will’s son David Will ’14, who is the vice president of College Republicans, which co-hosted the event, facilitated the question-and-answer session. He said he agreed with much of what his father said.

Will added that it was “wonderful” to grow up with the conservative icon as his father.

“I got to hear a lot of this around the dinner table, which made for dense but intriguing discussions,” he added.

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Jordan Lee GS, a second year graduate student in the politics department, said he found Will’s speaking style “impressive and captivating.” He did, however, disagree with Will’s characterization of the ideological battle in modern politics.

“His description of the liberal versus conservative tendency to focus on freedom versus equality, especially the equality of outcome, was incredibly misleading. Democrats are much more about equality of opportunity in the same kind of strand as Republicans are these days,” he said.

Will’s lecture, entitled “The Nature and Stakes of the 2012 Election,” was presented in the Senate Chamber of Whig Hall and co-hosted by the American Whig-Cliosophic Society and College Republicans.