The Liberating Power of Truth - Victor Davis Hanson review of "South Park Conservatives"

VICTOR HANSON.COM ^ | JUNE 23, 2005 | VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

[CHARLITE]

In the sixties, many of us were pulled to the left because we thought it was the ideology of liberty. Duped by a false caricature of the conformist fifties as a neo-Puritan, repressed enemy of the individual, we were attracted by the spontaneous, exuberant celebration of individual freedom we thought characterized that decade.

Those of us with intellectual pretensions further asserted that the sixties sensibility was squarely in the American tradition of autonomous individualism. Surely, as the movie Easy Rider suggested, the hippy was the new mountain man, the new Huck Finn, the new frontiersman — and so, more quintessentially American than that conformist, buttoned-down "company man" worried that he'd get fired for folding, spindling, or mutilating something.

Well, we were wrong for many reasons. We ignored the confusion of license and liberty, ignored the destructive consequences of liberating the appetites from social restraints, and most of all, ignored the simple fact that the hippy "if it feels good, do it" creed had been appropriated by a totalitarian ideology that has been history's greatest enemy of freedom and the individual. By the early seventies it was clear that the New Left's hijacking of the hippy movement had resulted in a new conformity, one more sinister and destructive than what we thought was so oppressive in the fifties.

[CHARLITE]

For your interest.

Char :)

[derheimwill]

VDH/Power of positive thinking is a post-modernist cult. Please do some research before you continue to assault us with this trash.

[escapefromboston]

I am more of a Scooby Doo Conservative.

[WKB]

buttoned-down "company man" worried that he'd get fired for folding, spindling, or mutilating something.



Or arrested for tearing the tag off a mattress!!!

[Paleo Conservative]

What's that?

[Sam Cree]

He makes a good point about the irony of the puritanism of the Left. But a quick tour around here will demonstrate that there is still plenty of it on the Right.

[benjaminjjones]

Hanson's great as usual, thanks.

[Chi-townChief]

bttt

[wrathof59]

Conservatives are now in a cultural clash with the larvae of hippies, i.e. the left-wing lunatic elites.

[EveningStar]

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[ReadyNow]

I've never been able to see the nuanced differences between liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, and pathological liars.

[knews_hound]

Huh?

Do you actually READ VDH?

Cheers,

knews hound

http://knewshound.blogspot.com/

[derheimwill]

Yes.

[evilC]

I think it is where you get old and cranky and feel that everything would be great "if it wasn't for those pesky kids!"... or something like that!

[Sam Cree]

A lot of liberals think they are for liberty, as described in the first paragraph. They are in the old hippie tradition. They don't have political principles, though, and out of misguided compassion, vote for those who do have principles, albeit it evil ones, socialists and commies.

[wildwood]

this was written by bruce thornton anyway.

[evilC]

Are you confusing him with Mark Victor Hansen?

[knews_hound]

I have read Hanson for over 5 years and have not a clue WTH you are talking about.

Power of positive thinking?

He is a Military Historian.

Power of positive thinking?

What am I missing?

Cheers, knews hound

[flashbunny]

check your meds, and your reading comprehension.