Kevin Moloney for The New York Times
Austin Bramwell, 26, of Denver,
one of five new trustees of
National Review, is a leader in a
group no longer characterized by
uniform views.
Posted on 07/17/2004 7:40:06 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Kevin Moloney for The New York Times
Austin Bramwell, 26, of Denver,
one of five new trustees of
National Review, is a leader in a
group no longer characterized by
uniform views.
In 1954, when he was 28, William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review to bear the standard of a fledgling conservative movement defined by three commitments: to fight Communism, to diminish the federal government and to uphold traditionalism in social affairs.
That formulation held the movement together for five decades, as Ronald Reagan brought conservatives to power, George H. W. Bush declared victory in the cold war and Bill Clinton pronounced the end of big government.
Now, many conservatives say, the current Bush administration is testing that definition of conservatism as it has never been tested before, from the expansion of federal health and education programs to the campaign to remake Iraq. And as Mr. Buckley prepares for retirement by handing over control of National Review, a new generation of young would-be Buckleys is debating just what conservatism means when their side has taken over Washington, and yet they still do not feel that they have won.
"Conservative is a word that is almost meaningless these days," said Caleb Stegall, 32, a lawyer in Topeka, Kan., and a founder of The New Pantagruel, newpantagruel.com, an irreverent Web site about religion and politics named for the jovial drunkard created by Rabelais. "It tells you almost nothing about where a person stands on a lot of questions," he said, like gay marriage, stem cell research, the environment and Iraq.
The debate among members of the young right is unfolding on Web sites like Mr. Stegall's and Oxblog, oxblog .blogspot.com, set up by three Rhodes Scholars. It is discussed at roundtables and cocktail parties organized by groups like America's Future Foundation in Washington. In journals for young conservatives, they tackle subjects as heterodox as the perils of Wal-Mart and urban sprawl, the dangers of unfettered capitalism to family life, and the feared takeover of their movement by hawkish neoconservatives.
In May the Philadelphia Society, a prestigious club for conservative intellectuals, tapped Sarah Bramwell, a 24-year-old Yale graduate and writer, to address the views of the young right at its 40th-anniversary conference. "Modern American conservatism began in an effort to do two things: defeat Communism and roll back creeping socialism," she began. "The first was obviated by our success, the latter by our failure. So what is left of conservatism?"
Rearing new conservatives has long been a subject of keen interest to their elders. To counter what they considered the liberal dominance of the major universities and news organizations, a handful of conservative foundations has helped build a network of organizations to train young members of the movement, most prominently the 51-year-old Intercollegiate Studies Institute. It publishes journals and books, sponsors fellowships and administers a network of 80 conservative college newspapers.
"I think one of the principal, even signal, features of the conservative movement is its overriding concern for nurturing young people," said Jeff Nelson, 39, the institute's vice president for publications.
Mr. Buckley recently chose Sarah Bramwell's husband, Austin Bramwell, 26, as one of five trustees of National Review. Mr. Bramwell, a clerk for the federal appeals court in Denver and an alumnus of the institute's programs, declined to comment because of his job at the court.
Mr. Nelson said young conservatives' greatest challenge might come from their predecessors' success. "Buckley started the conservative movement athwart history, yelling `stop,' " he said, "but there has been a subtle shift in the conservative movement's view of itself, from history's opponents to destiny's child."
"We have a lot of conservatives who reflect the values of the mainstream culture," he continued. "There are polls that show younger-generation conservatives trust the government much more deeply than their parents did."
The increase in federal domestic spending under President Bush would have been "unimaginable" to conservatives a few years ago, he said, and so would foreign policies like the invasion of Iraq.
Doubts about the justification for the war are a common theme among young conservatives. "Many conservatives, especially since Sept. 11, believe that a major, if not the major, calling of conservatives today is to articulate and defend a certain brand of international grand strategy," Ms. Bramwell argued in her address to the Philadelphia Society. "I believe this view to be not only mistaken, but quite possibly harmful to the conservative movement."
Still, Ms. Bramwell, who now works as deputy press secretary for Gov. Bill Owens of Colorado, said in an interview that she nonetheless supported the war in Iraq as a chance to advance United States interests in the Middle East.
Daniel McCarthy, 26, an assistant editor at The American Conservative, the magazine founded by Pat Buchanan, said that although many of his contemporaries questioned the war, few were willing to turn against the president, as he had.
"I say we have to go back to before the conservative movement became a movement," he said, "back to when it was just a few tormented intellectuals who didn't necessarily see themselves as a coherent group, and even to the so-called isolationist and noninterventionist right. America is a nation state. It is not meant to be a sort of world government in embryo, not meant to be a last provider of justice or security for the entire world."
But some young conservatives argue that the United States may need to become more active, not less. Eric Cohen, 26, is the director of the biotechnology and American democracy program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington; the editor of its journal, New Atlantis; a consultant to the President's Council on Bioethics; and a contributor to The Weekly Standard.
In an interview, he argued that conservatives needed to accept an active role for government in dealing with advancing technology, whether in the form of terrorists' weapons abroad or attempts to change the nature of life at home. "The conservative project is making the case for progress abroad while confronting the dilemmas of progress at home," he said.
Mr. Cohen defended the Bush administration's preventive intervention in the Middle East as well as its limitations on federal financing for stem cell research.
"Medical progress is going to keep people alive longer than they would have been," he said. "I think prudent conservatives are going to have to find some responsible way to have sensible government to deal with the needs of aging generations. We have seen a version of this in the prescription drug bill, and there are going to be other obligations."
Mr. Stegall, an evangelical Presbyterian and the son of a minister, said he shared Mr. Cohen's support for government social programs, but for religious reasons. He said he and other theological conservatives had founded The New Pantagruel as an alternative to the politics of the older generation of Christian conservatives.
"If I could sum up what we stand for in one word, it would be sustainability," he said. By that, he explained, he meant theologically conservative views on sustaining family life, as well as typically liberal views on sustaining the environment and local communities and helping the poor. "For us, those two halves are inextricably linked," he said.
But several conservatives, young and old, said the greatest division in the movement pitted young traditionalists against their more libertarian peers. David Weigel, 22, the former editor of a conservative magazine at Northwestern University, a contributor to the libertarian magazine Reason and an intern at the editorial page of USA Today, said that last spring his college paper had trouble finding any conservatives on campus who supported amending the constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
He contended that even young conservatives who maintained a strict moral code for themselves were increasingly reluctant to regulate the behavior of others. "I am personally abstinent," he said, "and I plan to stay that way, but I have no problem with international aid programs that use or distribute condoms."
Ramesh Ponnuru, 29, a prolific writer for National Review, complained that the Republican party had been focusing on social issues because limited government did not have as big "a political payoff."
"There is a serious possibility that the libertarian wing of the conservative movement goes off in its own direction, either breaking off or allying with the Democrats," he said.
Mr. Buckley, however, said he was unperturbed. "The sweep of the Soviet challenge was what I call a harnessing bias, and now that harness has come apart," he said. "But I don't think the threads are by any means abandoned." He added: "There has never been a movement that doesn't go through this perplexion and development."
Putting the Pied Piper in Perspective
by Jane H. Ingraham
William F. Buckley, Jr.: Pied Piper for the Establishment by McManus
Conservatism used to equal an undeniable love for God, family, and our Republic. That was before the "neo" conservatives came, before William F. Buckley, Jr. was chosen by the liberal establishment as the chief spokesman for conservatives. From the 1960s to today, conservative Americans have been led astray by Buckley and other false conservatives who want to interject the U.S. government into almost every aspect of our lives.
John F. McManus, president of The John Birch Society, presents a critical examination of Buckley's life and career, including Buckley's:
promotion of liberal causes, from abortion, drugs, and pornography, to the Panama Canal giveaway;
connections to the CFR, CIA and Yale's Skull & Bones Society;
selection of ex-Communists, Trotskyites, and CIA veterans to staff National Review; and
unwarranted attack on JBS founder Robert Welch to prove himself "acceptable" to the liberal establishment.
Don't let yourself be fooled! By understanding how and why the New York-Washington establishment embraced Buckley and his so-called conservatism, you can avoid the traps laid down by similar false conservatives. Get your copy today! (2002, 288pp, hb) Order Book Review
Yep. He was the orignial metrosexual. Did you know that the tote-bag-carrying donors of PBS are all peeved that they're giving little Tucker his own show? Seems that they're worried that PBS is becoming too conservative. How much of a laugh is that, that Tucker Carlson, who bashes Republicans ranging from President Bush to Mark Steyn, and who admitted having sexual fantasies about Hillary, is too conservative for these PBS fans!
I heard that interview too. I wish he hadn't been such a gentleman. But then, Terry Gross isn't exactly "all woman", if you get my drift...
You probably won't agree with this, but in my mind, the practice of prostitution doesn't even come close to causing the amount of damage caused by child pornography.
I'd rather have "radical individualism" than "radical equalitarianism" any day.
Much as the liberals' idea of making everyone the same, by making them individuals (yes, it's tortured logic), as much as that train of thought tortures me... I see from some on the right, a similar tack. Everytime I hear "long-haired hippie" from a radio host, I wonder if they're giving Ted Nugent a slide because he's a conservative. There's still plenty on the right who would love for every man to look like Ollie North and every woman like June Cleaver; they may not admit it in public, though, and with good reason. There's an element of "it's okay if you're your own person, as long as you match our appearance and beliefs" in the right.
Of course, the Hillarites and their "it takes a village" mentality are far more insidious, but whenever someone on the other side says "no man is an island", my Collectivist Thought Alert goes off.
Should "sodomy", between monogamous, married heterosexual couples, be illegal? Wasn't it at one time?
Well, OTOH, weren't those laws made by tight-assed Old School Southern Democrats? Like the ones in Alabamastan, who said that women don't have a right to experience sexual orgasm? That style of anti-pleasure nutburger still exists, and we don't need their "help".
Buckley is a "so-called conservative"?
Damn. Next you'll be telling me that Gene Rodenberry was espousing communism in "Star Trek".
Next you'll be telling me that Gene Rodenberry was espousing communism in "Star Trek". >>
Actually Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas delt heavily with the New Age.
Though I do know a few guys who drink scotch-or, in some cases, whiskey-who are completely apolitical.
According to them, they adopted the habit out of respect for the great Western novelist Larry McMurty.
By the way, how come you never hear about there being any "old Turks?"
Curious.
I have a profile of her on amiannoying.com.
Check it out!
Yup, I'm still a' birchin! And I despises that other Bill! You get us confused, I'm liable ta birch ya!
I don't quite see why such is a scathing indictment in your book, LD. People working hard, minding their own business. Is it really such a big deal if they bat an eye at a kid who walks into a diner sporting dreadlocks or whatever?
My point is, there is an element, both in the left and the right, to look at people who Aren't Like Them, with disdain. Odd, coming from the left, who claim to be tolerant, and from the right, who claim to be for the individual.
Just my observations here, NCB. I'm no trained expert. But I've seen the stares from rednecks, and realized I should have taken my earring out before I stepped into that bar.
Imagine, there are still people who cling to the outmoded idea that men who wear earrings are, well, odd...
I've also gotten it from liberals, because I have a Bush sticker on my car. "You really LIKE that SOB? And you're a libertarian?? You're REALLY dangerous!" Go figure.
The writer seemed confused between conservatism and libertarianism
period.
Somewhere there is a really pissed off old lady 'cuz somebody stole the upholstery off her couch.
Admittedly, even without the annals of Freud, there are a lot of peculiarities and bizarre detours to human sexuality.
I'm only familiar with the missionary position in consecrated monogamous heterosexual union so I shall pass on speculating on any of the psychological esoterica of anal eroticism. Not something that has ever popped up or interested me, alas. Never found anything wrong with normal vaginal intercourse. Very happy with that. Thank you.
Though I do know a few guys who drink scotch-or, in some cases, whiskey-who are completely apolitical .....
"Sodomy" isn't just that one particular activity, H. And nobody said you had to be interested in anything more complex than "baby-makin'" sex. The point is, why have laws against things that DON'T fall into the latter category? Unless people are doing these things on park benches, these laws are unenforcable; yet, in the past, there were people so dead-set against them, they wasted perfectly good ink and paper and manpower writing laws against them.
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