Its A Conservative Not A Republican Problem - Road to the Middle Class

A lot of conservatives have been blaming the feckless Republican Congress for the loss last November, writes Charles R. Kesler. For them the election defeat was “a rejection of a party that had strayed too far from the conservative path.”

Not so fast, says Kesler. If only it were true that all Republicans needed to do was to swing in line with conservative ideas and reap a gratifying majority! On the contrary, conservative ideas since the end of the Cold War have been a mish-mash.

Upward floated the balloons of civil society conservatism... "third wave" conservatism (technology to the rescue), and national greatness conservatism (McCain was an early enthusiast)... Libertarianism, emboldened by socialism’s pell-mell retreat, enjoyed its moment, too, though less than one might have expected.

Meanwhile the twenty-year Reagan boom has allowed the government to offer tax cuts and spending increases at the same time. There is no automatic conservative majority today. And President Bush’s ad-hoc adventure in Iraq does not exactly inspire confidence in the heartland.

It’s time for conservatives to admit the need to rethink and clarify their own precepts. To be sure, there are verities to which the wise and good may always repair, and conservatism is distinguished by its reverence for them. But these must be relearned in every generation, restated in the idiom of life, and applied to new circumstances. The challenge is as exhilarating as it is serious. Far from being a cause for despair, conservatism’s perplexities may contribute to making this the most illuminating political season in 30 years.

Let us call the era just past the Reagan Era. It was a glorious summer and glorious things were done for America and for the world. Now it’s time to retreat to winter quarters, to think and to plan.

Don’t worry. The problems are still going to be there 5 years, 10 years from now. That’s because our liberal friends only know how to spend and elect, privilege and subsidize. Every now and again they run out of money. That’s when the American people call for conservatives to come in and sort things out.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Hugo on Genius

“Tear down theory, poetic systems… No more rules, no more models… Genius conjures up rather than learns… ” —Victor Hugo
César Graña, Bohemian versus Bourgeois

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Postmodernism

A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ’merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy

Faith and Politics

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable... [1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Religion, Property, and Family

But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family. Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

US Life in 1842

Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

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