Posted on 03/03/2009 5:32:48 AM PST by Kaslin
I began writing these columns 36 years ago and have come to the conclusion that it's time to bring them to a close. It's certainly not a problem of lacking subject matter. It's simply that I am 85 now, and the energy and creative juices are just not what they used to be. Anyone in that age bracket will know what I mean.
Happily, I am not ending the column with a gloomy conviction that America is heading to hell in a handbasket. On the contrary -- barring all the usual problems with which I have had to deal in these paragraphs -- I think the country, on the whole, is in reasonably good shape. Certainly, 36 years ago there was nothing like the panoply of conservative activities that confronts the eye today. In the 1950s, there were plenty of resolute individual conservatives but very little that could seriously be described as a conservative "movement." In the late 1950s and 1960s, however -- owing in large part to Bill Buckley and a handful of other early spokesmen -- conservatives began organizing themselves institutionally. Magazines sprang up, and conservative organizations of various sorts were founded.
Beginning in the 1960s, conservatism has certainly earned the right to call itself a "movement" -- indeed, along with its great rival liberalism, one of the two major contenders for political leadership of the American society. Even many Democratic politicians insist today on describing themselves as "conservative," and the movement's influence is both vast and manifest.
Undoubtedly, the most important single factor in the growth of conservatism has been the realization, on the part of individual conservatives, that their views were shared by others, and constituted collectively a formidable national influence. There's a lot to be said for intellectual respectability, and conservatism today indisputably has it. Conservatives in the future will do well to remember this and deploy it in their support.
For the moment at least, the Republican Party is unquestionably the premier vehicle of the conservative movement. This is hugely important, for a political viewpoint needs an institutional vehicle just as much as a political party needs a viewpoint. Conservatism today is broadly comfortable in the Republican Party and would be extremely uneasy trying to adjust to life among the Democrats.
Thoughtful conservatives will realize that this fact makes it dangerous for them to engage in maneuvers that try to narrow the GOP's appeal to militant conservatives only. Conservatism should be the beating heart of the Republican Party, but the party must also reach out to incorporate people who are not necessarily ideologues but are sympathetic to conservative views in a general way.
For the future, conservatives can, I think, be confident that their viewpoint will be represented in the national debate. For conservatism is essentially an analysis of social problems from the standpoint of a particular understanding of human nature. As long as that understanding continues essentially unchanged, the ways of dealing with those problems will remain basically unchanged.
What is that understanding? Conservatives believe that people are designed to pursue their own best interests, and that the job of society is to make sure that, as far as possible, the pursuit of those interests conduces to the benefit of society as a whole. Happily, it tends to do so, and this is what makes possible "the good society."
So, I am basically an optimist for the future of the United States. Historically, its deepest roots are moral, grounded in the Anglo-American religious tradition. When we act as a nation, we tend to act in that tradition, respecting what we recognize as its obligations. The result is that our actions have generally been just and courageous. We have not always lived up to our highest ideals, but we have seldom slipped far below them. It is impossible to know what challenges will confront the United States in the years ahead, but there is reason to believe that we have within us the resources to meet and overcome them.
While I disagree with a couple of his points I wish him well. Fifty years ago I cut my conservative teeth on the writings of Bill Rusher, Russell Kirk, Bill Buckley and the many contributors to National Review at that time. I was probably one of only a few 14 year olds to subscribe to NR and read it faithfully. I believe Rusher has mellowed his conservatism over the years ( or maybe mine has become more militant) but I will, nonetheless, miss him.
I grew up on the National Review as well. We could never all sit down at the dinner table because it was covered with newspapers and magazines all the time! I thank God my mother and father spoke politics at the dinner table and around me all the time. It made me the informed voter I am today. Although, it didn’t make me teacher’s pet in 4th grade as I was already debating my liberal social studies teacher!
I received NR back then. My daddy subscribed it for me. He had his own and liked to be the first to open the cover.
I think he nailed it when he said Anglo- American. We are becoming a minority. And that is the real problem. It’s demographics at work. I’m not sure much can be done. Our only hope is if obama causes the masses sufficient pain. Only then will Republicans be returned to power.
By "Anglo-American religious tradition," I hope that he is referring to religious tolerance and not to the Anglican/Episcopal Church, which simply does not exist today as it did in past decades.
I haven't always agreed with him either but probably because I am a bit more strident in my beliefs than he. His columns once appeared in our little local newspaper with regularity, but in the past few years, less frequently. And, I certainly don't agree that the nation is in reasonably good shape. It has been in a slide for quite some time now.
Rusher has a few years on me - about ten truthfully - and I can certainly identify with his saying that the energy and creative juices are just not what they used to be. Some people seem to reach the end with as much energy and creativity as ever; others - and I think most - do not.
I wish him well in his retirement and hope that retirement will be long, comfortable and with all his faculties intact.
...I’m not sure much can be done.
God gave you the plan in Genesis. “Be fruitful and multiply.” That commandment didn’t come with an expiration date. ;)
If we conservatives have more children AND RAISE THEM PROPERLY than the liberals will not stand a chance.
It begins in the home, folks, not in the White House.
“Many conservatives are abandoning logical thought and argument for militancy. Much like abandoning bullets in favor of guns.”
Disagree. In my perspective it is logical thought and argument (discussion) of which the results in light of todays Governing atmosphere are driving us to militancy.
I believe thought and argument (discussion) preface any militancy, and that is good.
Concurring bump. Bill Rusher is a scholar and a gentleman and a foursquare, old-school "paleo" conservative.
He reminds us of something Emmett Tyrrell at The American Spectator once said about the difference between liberalism and conservatism. Liberalism is ideological and managerial. Conservatism is a disposition, one that wants to enjoy peace and freedom and one's own earnings.
“If we conservatives have more children AND RAISE THEM PROPERLY than the liberals will not stand a chance.”
Sorry, but we cannot possibly breed as fast as Obama can bring “immigrants” in. He knows that and has plans to increase immigration even more.
I like what you're saying. The question is, why have we done so? The answer, I think, is that we conservatives have not taken the trouble to understand the foundations of our beliefs. We've been mooching off of Reagan's legacy for over 20 years.
Look at the primaries last year -- all of the candidates invoked St. Reagan like a magic word, but not a one of them was able to articulate anything approaching a coherent, much less comprehensive, conservative position. (Of them all, the too-laconic Fred Thompson was probably best able to articulate the principles -- but he wasn't strident enough to make a dent in the idiotic media coverage.)
What today's conservatives lack as a "movement", is any clear idea of what we stand for, and we seem utterly unable to communicate what we believe in any case -- and we're far too impatient and short-sighted to spend the effort to build a proper movement.
That's where the real work is. The Buckleys, Rushers, and Reagans of the '60s and '70s got to where they were, precisely because they had the patience and foresight to create a coherent philosophy and a means to express it.
All we have at the moment, is talking heads like Limbaugh and Hannity -- both earnest, but both are constrained by their medium to spouting shallow talking points to an audiences consisting almost entirely of people who are already in the choir. They won't convince many folks who aren't already convinced.
We're screwed until we can change that.
Ok, friendly point of disagreement...
When the coountry botoms out, and the pain of Obama’s failure becomes widespread (if it isn’t there already)...Why should Republicans be given the power back???
Don’t get me wrong, I say this because since the GOP leadership has failed to maintain the conservative message and allowed the democrats and moderate republicans to secede the leadership roles in our government, why should they be allowed to get back at the helm, if they have nothing new to offer but moderation and governing from the center???
FYI, I am not an independent, that is a fate worse than death, I am an American by birth, Texan by the grace of God...
And a movement by conservative purists to steer the ship is what I would be most comfortable with...
Just my opinion...
My point is the issue is BIGGER than Obama. Obama’s time is limited and whatever he pushes through can be reversed. However looking at the bigger picture: if conservatives obeyed God and had bumper crops of children since God commanded us to “be fruitful and multiply” AND they raised them with proper biblical morality as commanded in the Scriptures then Obama and any other socialist eventually will fall away into oblivion because they would not be needed. These conservative children could elect leaders who would kick illegals out. These conservative children would lower taxes which would stimulate the economy and create more jobs. These conservative children would realize when a politician is lying to them and when they actually believe what they say, the difference between an Obama and a Ronald Reagan.
The REAL trouble is we as conservatives are raising our children (the 1.5 kids on average we have) with LIBERAL ideas and education in public school, then the parents can’t figure out why their children stand for nothing biblical or moral. Golly, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist.
By constantly blaming the liberals for everything we have a convenient scapegoat, don’t we, for reneging on our own moral and Spiritual responsibilities to clean and put our own house in order FIRST.
Well the “problem is not going to be solved by government, and until elected officials turn back to a more virtuous existance then we will continue down this road of oblivion till it is too late...
And what I mean is not virtue in a sense of a moral or religious change in the way we do things, it is more of an honesty, and do what is right for the country, as it used to be when the Republic first started...
Capitalism did not create dishonesty and corrupt behavior in business and government, it was already there in the hearts of men...
And the more we allow these elected officials to throw our money into their failures, then we stand a good chance of losing whatever freedoms and lifestyles we have had in very short order, no matter what they say...
America in general has turned into an intellectually lazy populace, and the few of us left who actually think beyond American Idol and Jerry Springer and the distractions that have been put in front of those whom are easily swayed...
We have a lot of work to do...And it may take the rest of our lives to fix this...
Who stands to be committed to this effort???
I’m one...
I have done my part by raising my 5 children with morals. They don’t use foul language, none got pregnant out of wedlock, they’ve always done well in school and the two oldest already have good paying jobs soon out of college, while the others follow up in the rear.
I will do what I can to make phone calls, write letters and emails, send money to the right conservative causes (RNC doesn’t cut it right now) but in the final analysis it’s how we deal with life morally that’s going to make a real and lasting change in society.
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