Posted on 02/18/2006 6:34:06 PM PST by DogByte6RER
2006: Turning point for young conservatives
Posted: January 5, 2006
By Hans Zeiger
Something big is going on in America, but few are yet aware of it. It is a generational shift comparable to that of the infamous '60s, and it will involve as much revolt and upheaval. In this case, revolution is desperately needed, for the previous revolution has almost destroyed the country. The new revolution will repair the country.
Yet 2006 will not be the beginning of the revolution – it has already been gathering steam now for several years. But it will, I predict, commence the vigorous public discussion of that revolution, much as it became clear sometime early or middle of the 1960s that a revolution was then taking place.
The main characters in the unfolding story are the Reagan Babies.
Reagan Babies are at the forefront of the rising generation. Those of us born between 1981 and 1989, the Reagan years, are on the cutting edge of what has variously been called the Millennial Generation or Generation Next or Generation Y. Reagan Babies are fascinating at the present moment because they are the emerging future leaders of America, now in high school and college and just joining the workforce and on the military frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. But beyond the present, the intellectual and political and cultural vanguard of our generation will hail from among the Reagan Babies. And it is decisively, revolutionarily, conservative.
Spiritually, Reagan Babies are interested in God and a return to more traditional patterns of faith. According to a UCLA study released in October, three out of four college students claim to be "searching for some meaning/purpose in life," and two thirds say they derive guidance and direction from their faith, and two thirds pray. There hasn't been a generation-wide Christian revival, but I am convinced that God is preparing our generation for such a revival.
"I think the generation today is open, they're searching and they're looking. They know there's more to life than just what you see," said Meredith Peterson, a volunteer for the 2006 Passion Conference which is expected to draw 18,000 students and young people to Nashville this week for prayer and worship. Young Christians are moving into the most influential places in our culture, and they are uniting together in the battle for hearts and minds. Evangelical Christian colleges have the fastest growing student bodies in higher education. Homeschoolers, most of them Christians, are ambitious and well-prepared for the world.
Morally, Reagan Babies are cautious and responsible. Teen pregnancy is down; teen abortion is down; teen drug use is down; youth volunteerism is up; manners and mores are coming back into fashion. Once, we were the most aborted generation, and now we are the most pro-life generation of Americans. Three in five young Americans support a complete ban or partial restrictions on abortion, according to a 2004 Zogby poll.
On campus, where the hippie Left has long thought their battle to be won, the growing conservatism of young Americans translates into activism. Conservatives are no longer silent in the classroom, popular Affirmative Action bake sales and conservative campus newspapers have confounded professors, and a well-funded network of "subversive" foundations and support networks is in place, ranging from Young Americas Foundation to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute to the Leadership Institute, and from College Republicans to pro-life and Christian student groups. Brendan Steinhauser, author of "The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle on College Campuses," calls the surge of activism "the new counter-culture on America's campuses."
In November, Christopher Flickinger, a recent graduate of the Ohio University Scripps School of Journalism, launched the Network of College Conservatives. Flickinger's mission is "to educate, inform, expose and counter the liberal bias on college campuses throughout America." So far, students at around 220 colleges have signed up to be part of the Network. As Flickinger told FoxNews.com, "Hopefully, we'll bring this quiet revolution to a loud, boisterous battle."
So, 2006 is looking to be the year when the quiet revolution becomes loud.
Hans Zeiger is an Eagle Scout, president and founder of the Scout Honor Coalition and a student at Hillsdale College in Michigan. His new book, "Get Off My Honor: The Assault on the Boy Scouts of America," can be purchased from ShopNetDaily.
The Marxist dope-smokers of the Woodstock Generation will be apoplectic if they can ever sober up from the reefer madness permeating their campus ivory towers.
Last spring I helped a College Republican club set up an affirmative action bake sale at Cal State San Bernardino and the faculty didn't know what hit them.
Change is coming...but there will be lots of sound and fury as the modern day liberal beast utters its last dying gasp.
Pearl Harbor toughened up one generation.
9-11 and realizing some nutburgers riot over cartoons is toughening up this generation.
He's a great kid.
They had better toughen up...there is a hard rain a comin'
They are gonna need every ounce of faith God will grant them..
My nephews got the word...one a freshman in college (and ROTC) and the other a Jr in High School...they are toughening up and are of this same new social and fiscal conservative mind set...
God bless 'em and give them strength and wisdom...
My daughter and her friends are very conservative. They love to skewer liberals with factual counter-arguments. Their opponents have never had their views challenged and become deer in headlights.
Bottom line: Their leaders are arrogant idiots. Let's hope they find the truth by going to the only source that can give it to them -- God's Word.
The Regan Babies, the Rush Babies all have a seminal event in their lives.......9/11.
This generation with need to be strong...Islamofascism is marching..
From a young boomer:
God bless Ronald Reagan and the Y-Gens. They are the new blood at a time of need for a major turnover at the centers of education. We need them to ensure the longevity of this country through solid values, common sense, and a belief in God.
I know the student body on my campus definately seems to lean conservative...
The largest facebook group is called "George Bush is my homeboy" =P
Yep I have to agree with you there.
However, and there is always that isn't there :)
I doubt that young conservatives are learning real lessons from the present administration what with spend until you drop and let someone else out it out attitude.
If they think that the "grow the government and spend like a drunken sailor" is the conservative way, god help us all.
ping
Great article. I'll be starting college next year, and I look forward to being able to help stem the tide of liberalism in academia...
I was born in 1975 and the activity of the younger conservatives gives me hope when I get down about where the movement is going.
My brother fought in Iraq, not Vietnam. Libs really need to get out of the 1960's....
Oh but you should share his optimism. My oldest just graduated college and she's fairly conservative. My youngest just started college. Oh gosh is she ever conservative. She truly is a Rush and Reagan baby. She grew up listening to Rush in the afternoons. He really taught her how to reason and not to believe what the media spoon feeds you. Not only that, both are now forwarding links to me in emails from Free Reoublic. That's my kids.
I discovered what a hippie was in the 6th grade. I correctly tagged the teachers I didn't like as annoying brainless flower-child freaks, though I had not yet learned the word "liberal".
South Park is real-world. The beauty of the show is that no matter how raunchy and wrong the kids are -- the leftist adults are far more revolting on every level (morally, behaviorally, common sensibly, etc).
From another younger Boomer . . . Go get 'em and God Bless you!
Our sons are just 10 and 12, but so far they're shaping up as good kids, and so are their friends. I'm encouraged by what I see among youngsters and young parents these days. Times are changing.
Yo! *was born June 22, 1982*
Mr. Holland indeed has had his final opus. He ain't coming back!
I attend a more-or-less conservative college, and hence most of my friends could be quantified as conservatives of different sorts, though we run the gamlut from libertarian to party-line Republicans to eccletic unquantifiable. Except for some of the party-line sorts, I doubt any of my conservative peers approach the Bush Administration without ample criticism; there is no lack of divergent thought- though we don't really have many who could be put in the left side of the spectrum. Attempts to establish a Young Democrat's organization have failed rather consistently over the years, for some reason...
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