I have noticed a pattern in the different ways that Democrats and Republicans deal with terrorism and abortion that I think reveals a fundamental difference between the two parties. My revelation came after learning that the number of abortions performed each year has, after a steady decline throughout the Clinton years, gone back up under Bush. That a man so opposed to abortion would somehow create more abortions struck me as eerily similar to Bush's apparently strong stance on terror leading to the creation of more terrorists. What is the connection? In both cases, Bush takes the underlying problem for granted and tries to deal with it once it exists. There will be unwanted pregnancies and there will be people who want to kill us. Given these `inevitabilities' the people on the Right come up with what seems to be a very forward-looking policy of preemption. In the case of abortions, it is to try to legally deny abortions, while with terrorists it is to attack the countries that harbor them (in theory).
Is there any evidence that preemption is a good strategy? In both cases, no. In the past, making abortion illegal did little to decrease the number of abortions. Similarly, taking aggressive military action can create more terrorists than it destroys, especially if that action is guided by bad `guesswork'.
Is there a better alternative? Yes, it is prevention and this is the level where Democrats prefer to operate. Democrats address the social and economic factors that lead to unwanted pregnancies: poverty, lack of health care, and a lack of contraception. These are all issues that Democrats address aggressively while Republicans look away. Similarly with terrorism, Democrats are more aware of the economic and political realities that cause people to want to kill Americans more than they want to live. Bush focuses on the existing terrorists, which is why he keeps trotting out the meaningless statistic that 75% of al-Qaida leadership as of 9/11 have been captured or killed. He seems not to recognize that new terrorists can be created and that a real forward-looking strategy would be to prevent that from happening. Instead he has encouraged it. Just like he has encouraged more abortions by limiting access to contraception, by denying health care to the poor, and by pushing economic policies that have forced many more people into poverty.
So that is it. Prevention versus preemption. It applies to many other areas. The war on drugs: compare a tough legal stance to deal with an existing problem to the Left's emphasis on addressing the causes of drug use. With energy policy, Republicans only want to increase production to meet the existing demand, while Democrats are willing to try to limit demand. It applies to environmental policy as well, although in this case it is more a comparison between prevention and nothing. The Left clearly puts greater emphasis on preventing environmental degradation. Gun laws. The Right thinks people need guns to protect themselves. This may be true once you have an armed felon in your house, but how do you prevent that from happening?
I think this fundamental difference explains why the Left is seen as pro-big government. The right sees government as useful only as an agency of defense and preemption (the military). To the Left, government is in many ways an agency of prevention. We on the Left think that government should play an active role in eliminating the conditions that get us into trouble.