Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute and National Review, who I have always thought was a solid, quality conservative writer and whose new book The Age Of Reagan is said to be one of the definitive works on that glorious American era, has put out a piece in the Washington Post which is worthy of comment.
Sadly, it’s not worthy of agreement; at least not in large measure.
The title of Hayward’s column asks whether conservatism is brain-dead, which might have resulted from the gleeful opportunism of the Post’s editorial staff and not the writer. Nevertheless, Hayward’s thesis is that since the majority of the heat generated from the Right is coming from talk radio and other entertainment-media figures, there is an “imbalance” within the movement because conservative academics aren’t driving it on a more intellectual level.
Hayward doesn’t exactly disparage the pop-culture conservatives, but while he mentions that in the past the intellectual and populist wings of the Right have peacefully coexisted, and happily so, he laments that there are no apparent titans of the movement in the ivory towers like William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol or Milton Friedman. “We’ve traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites,” he cries.
Hayward goes further:
The best-selling conservative books these days tend to be red-meat titles such as Michelle Malkin’s “Culture of Corruption,” Glenn Beck’s new “Arguing with Idiots” and all of Ann Coulter’s well-calculated provocations that the left falls for like Pavlov’s dogs. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with these books. Politics is not conducted by Socratic seminar, and Henry Adams’s dictum that politics is the systematic organization of hatreds should remind us that partisan passions are an essential and necessary function of democratic life. The right has always produced, and always will produce, potboilers.
Conspicuously missing, however, are the intellectual works. The bestseller list used to be crowded with the likes of Friedman’s “Free to Choose,” George Gilder’s “Wealth and Poverty,” Paul Johnson’s “Modern Times,” Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind,” Charles Murray’s “Losing Ground” and “The Bell Curve,” and Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History and the Last Man.” There are still conservative intellectuals attempting to produce important work, but some publishers have been cutting back on serious conservative titles because they don’t sell. (I have my own entry in the list: a two-volume political history titled “The Age of Reagan.” But I never expected the books to sell well; at 750 pages each, you can hurt yourself picking them up.)
About the only recent successful title that harkens back to the older intellectual style is Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism,” which argues that modern liberalism has much more in common with European fascism than conservatism has ever had. But because it deployed the incendiary f-word, the book was perceived as a mood-of-the-moment populist work, even though I predict that it will have a long shelf life as a serious work. Had Goldberg called the book “Aspects of Illiberal Policymaking: 1914 to the Present,” it might have been received differently by its critics. And sold about 200 copies.
Certainly I can agree with Hayward on Liberal Fascism; it is without question one of the most important works of conservative literature in the past 30 years. But he neglects to give due credit to Mark Levin, whose Liberty And Tyranny is a brilliant work owed a tremendous debt by conservatives of all stripes. In a post in National Review Online’s The Corner blog today, Hayward mentions, and attempts to explain, the omission:
The omission of Levin from my piece is conspicuous, but was a combination of deliberation and space limitations. Mark is a special case, and I could have chosen him instead of Glenn Beck for my approving case study at the end, but I decided to go with Beck because he’s in everyone’s cross-hairs at the moment, and also because I don’t think Mark needs to learn anything from me. I think Liberty and Tyranny is an excellent book, exactly the kind of book we need that explains in a serious way how liberalism has unraveled the Constitution thread-by-thread.
But, would Liberty and Tyranny have sold over 1 million copies if the author were merely Mark Levin of the Landmark Legal Foundation rather than Mark Levin the national talk radio host? Doubtful I think.
Again, many of Hayward’s points are fair ones to make. And he doesn’t seem to be disparaging the talk radio/Fox News conservative circuit in the main, though some barbs are thrown (particularly at Sean Hannity, who is on occasion less intellectual in his orientation than he should be given his influence).
What is a little disturbing, however, is why it’s necessary to take apart the conservative movement and set its proponents against each other in this way. As Hayward himself says, the movement needs a broad spectrum of voices in order to reach a maximum number of people, and one of the most memorable of Ronald Reagan’s pronouncements about fellow travelers was his 11th Commandment – namely, thou shalt not speak ill of thy fellow Republicans. This piece certainly seems to have at least scraped the edge of the 11th Commandment, if not actually having broken its skin.
The fact is, while Hayward’s stomping grounds at National Review still provide a sensational outlet for conservative intellectuals to generate strong work, there is hardly the difference between NRO and, say, the message Limbaugh puts out on a daily basis Hayward seems to be trumpeting. In fact, if you listen to Rush on a daily basis you’ll find that he draws a great deal of material from NRO, and The American Spectator, and Levin, and from lots of other conservative intellectual sources to include think tanks like the Heritate Foundation and the Cato Institute. Limbaugh certainly doesn’t ignore the intellectual side of the conservative movement; his message is remarkably similar to that of William F. Buckley even if he differs with Buckley as to style.
Similarly, while a listener to Levin’s show might find it to be often abrasive and quirky in a way one wouldn’t expect from someone of his accomplishments both professional and academic outside of the talk-radio milieu, the content of his show and certainly that of his books rivals that of the think tanks.
Beck is likely the source of Hayward’s piece more than anyone else; he echoes my criticism of the rising-star host’s sometimes off-putting style, but notes that there is real power in his message and a mother lode of intellectual ground to be gained in Beck’s investigations of what Hayward calls “liberalism’s patrimony,” which as Goldberg’s excellent book describes at length is an extraordinarily dubious one. Beck, informed by Liberal Fascism and other great conservative intellectual works like Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man and R.J. Pestritto’s Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, has done the necessary work of re-examining where modern left-wing thought comes from and is exposing the fact that very little of what the Obamas, Pelosis and Reids of the world are attempting to foist on our country differs greatly from other, ultimately horrifying, statist movements in the past piled upon their populations. Hayward sees the great value in this line of inquiry.
But here comes this haymaker:
Yet it was not enough just to expose liberalism’s weakness; it was also necessary to offer robust alternatives for both foreign and domestic policy, ideas that came to fruition in the Reagan years. Today, it is not clear that conservative thinkers have compelling alternatives to Obama’s economic or foreign policy. At best, the right is badly divided over how to fix the economy and handle Iran and Afghanistan. So for the time being, the populists alone have the spotlight.
Hayward is off the rails badly with that statement. The idea that there isn’t firepower in conservative writings on the policy issues which confront America is ludicrous, frankly. Hayward’s own NRO has a half-dozen excellent policy suggestions on a bad day, and that’s true of most other major conservative sites. The criticism he attempts to offer is nothing more than a defeatism gained from too much exposure to the Left.
And as Hayward is immersed in the Beltway community of ideas, it’s not a surprise he sees things as they are. That community is dominated by the Left and has been for the better part of a century, if not longer. It’s no secret that conservatives have lost the battle in America’s intellectual institutions – legacy media, culture, academia – and so those of the Right who remain are faced with a choice between intellectual dhimmitude like that accepted by the likes of Peggy Noonan or David Brooks, or being targeted as a dunce by those who dominate that scene.
But the intellectual community in Washington, New York, Hollywood or on campus is a pitifully small, if not insignificant, slice of American political or ideological life. He, and others styling themselves as the conservative elite, need to understand this. They also need to understand that the intellectual life of the movement is no longer confined to elite academia or the pages of well-respected tony publications; with the blogosphere and YouTube and the advent of entrepreneurial journalists like Michelle Malkin or Andrew Breitbart we are seeing that good work may come from virtually anywhere; it is no longer necessary that conservative commentators carry sheepskins from Yale. Limbaugh and Beck are as educated as any Ivy League professor of political science, but their base of knowledge comes from independent study of issues and philosophies and not the stilted leftist indoctrination of so many of our elite universities.
Hayward also seems to decry the loss of those giants like Friedman, Buckley and Kristol, all of which have come recently and all of whom are greatly missed. He is without a doubt correct in noting the contributions of those titans and lamenting their absence in so troubling a time. But the great conservative minds of the 20th Century stood on the shoulders of titans who came before; men like Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Montesquieu and the American founding fathers – and those great minds in turn drew deeply from sources which had come from long before. The conservative intellectual patrimony dates to the ancient Greeks and Romans and the very beginnings of Western civilization. It also comes from millenia of experience in the human condition and a recognition that giving fallible human beings power over their fellow man and asking those humans to successfully manage vast and complex systems will in turn lead to abuse and failure on a grand scale.
The truths conservatives have to offer do not require grandiose new explanations or brilliant bells and whistles. Conservatism is timeless and practical; in that sense it will never compete with the scientific utopianism of the statist left in an academic setting. Conservatism is basic and it is common sense. The intellectual elites thrive on the constant seeking of a new avant-garde; how is that to be found in tried-and-true principles like individual freedom, fiscal sanity and military strength? It’s no challenge to defend those ideas. In an academic setting it’s far more interesting and rewarding to concoct theories to disparage those notions, particularly when the bomb-throwers who seek the ivory tower as a refuge seldom have to put their “innovative” theories to the test in actual governance. The Obama administration has brought a host of the academic left into power, and we are seeing an epic failure which has been tried on repeated occasions in the past; it will be quite some time before the experiment is tried again.
The point is that while it would be a welcome development for conservatism to rise in Hollywood, academia or the media, it isn’t necessary for that to be the case for the movement to regain American governance. But if the light of classical liberal thought as evidenced in the conservative movement is to be kept alive by Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Chuck Norris, so be it – it does require, though, that the elite, intellectual side of the conservative movement take a back seat and let those in the movement who have found a way to actually connect with the American people and articulate the movement’s principles with force and verve to control the agenda.
And in fact a “populist” conservatism is in all likelihood a truer conservatism. At base, this is an ideology centered on the liberty of the individual. It is hardly a surprise that the loss of “elite” conservatives like Buckley, Friedman and Kristol is so mourned and that those figures go unreplaced; it is difficult in the extreme to find someone who can combine a commonsense philosophy with a style those in the elites admire. Their world is one where multiculturalism and Gay and Lesbian Studies can be taken seriously; is it really necessary to placate them in order to govern a country?
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
It does seem that
Leopard1996 (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 5:24AM EST (link)This guy is pretty much stating that if we don’t have the PhDs running the show we won’t get anywhere. I totally disagree with that point of view.
“The accumluated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout, “Save Us!”….and I’ll look down and whisper, “No”…The Watchmen
That attitude is a leftist-oriented one...
MacAoidh (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 9:23AM EST (link)…and in Goldberg’s Liberal Fascists and other works Hayward wishes there were more of it shows up very prominently: Leadership has to come from the Brahmins because those are the enllightened, qualified ones. Why a conservative whose philosophy is that individuals are qualified to make their own decisions would bar anyone of merit from the ability to lead is beyond me.
Check out MacAoidh’s commentary on Louisiana and national politics at TheHayride.com
Beck's TV show has been a turning point
bk (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 6:13AM EST (link)He’s the sort of populist we need to get people cranked up. O’Reilly tries to act like a populist but his main interest is his ego. Limbaugh is heard but rarely seen. Hannity is heard and seen, but it’s all talk.
Beck’s show is perfect for the masses. He looks like a normal guy, dresses like a normal guy. He doesn’t talk down the viewers. But the big thing is that instead of just using the TV show like it was a radio show, he paints a picture on his board of what he’s talking about and that really rams home all these ties among all these Obama folks like nothing else. He goes step by step to tie the pieces together that you see in the picture.
It’s something you don’t feel like you need a PhD to understand, or that you feel like you being talked down to. It’s great!
amen bk and a better title for this column would be
Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 11:32AM EST (link)A pundit at a conservative site writes a column attacking conservatives. He is not important enough and doesn’t represent enough people to justify the conclusion that there is serious infighting among conservatives.
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
it seems to me that Hayward does not perceive the shift that has taken place
kyle8 (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 6:34AM EST (link)We will continue to have conservative intellectual books, but the need now is different than it was back in the days when conservatives had no power (well I know we have no power now either, but I meant before Reagan)
We have moved from the long march stage to the great leap forward stage in our revolution, (how is that for a tortured metaphor).
Some of the books he mentioned encapsulate conservative governing philosophy so well that there really is no need to read anything else about what conservatives believe.
Now it is precisely the books about popular politics that we need. We need to read about how to push our ideas and battle our enemies. It is a different milieu.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Hayward has "slowly" succumbed to the elitism....
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 7:33AM EST (link)that infects those who move from writing to TV. I have watched him on FOX and he was quite the Conservative firebrand when he first started however having spent more time in NY with Juan and while I love him greatly, the intensely overeducated Krauthammer he has slipped into the ELITISM disease that afflicts those who never move beyond the 95 corridor.
The difference between people like Beck, Hannity, Malkin etc and Hayward, Barnes, Noonan’s would be the ability to mix among We The People of these United States of America. It is a given that when you NEVER meet us or speak with us you tend to forget that the MAJORITY of people from sea – to – shining sea are NOT rich with PhD’s. We are quite simple in our desires in that WE want the government out of our lives and that makes us Conservatives.
You will see as I have that Hayward will be the next Kathleen Parker or Peggy Noonan in that he will write about US not knowing US at all!
OBTW Hayward DREAMS of selling the books that Malkin, Beck, Levin sell and the listeners that Rush Limbaugh enjoys and he NEVER will!
Unified Patriots – How-To:
Activists Taking Action
Yes, it is sad to see the "Elitism disease" spread into...
penguin2 (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 8:07AM EST (link)the ranks of our recognized respected Conservative thinkers. If people are more concerned about who is delivering that message, rather than what the message is, then they have indeed joined the elitist ranks. I don’t need a fancy car to get me to where I want to go, just a vehicle that can get the job done.
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. – Benjamin Franklin
When Good stands up to Evil, Evil blinks. – Vassar Bushmills
Conservative Education: Suggested Reading List
Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots
5 to the vehicle analogy penquin :)...nt
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 8:22AM EST (link)Unified Patriots – How-To:
Activists Taking Action
Jaded, I made a point that we don't really need them
Richard Mullins (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 12:29PM EST (link)and to be honest, you prove why we don’t need them. Conservatives in 21st Century should move away from the stogy Opinion writers to Conservative blogging of which we point the reasons for conservatism. The reason Beck,Hannity and Malkin are were they are is because they know that.
Richard Phillip Mullins BlogThe Squash Satire SiteNews on Happy Jet Airlines
Rmullins Pics
Rpmullins Twitter
Joe Biden is like a Decrepit Park owner with a Meth lab that happens to not only be a dealer but a user.
Let’s Bankrupt the Democratic paty. Make spend all the money to defend thier candidates.
Hayward going the way of Kathleen Parker
toni100 (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 8:25AM EST (link)These ‘Beltway elitists’ are the ones who have succumbed to the progressives group think. Funny since this guy wrote the book on Reagan yet if Reagan were coming on the political scene today (like Palin) he would be denigrating Reagan just like his ‘ilk’ denigrate Palin today.
He’s the type that will be in the tank for every RINO that comes down the pike like Romney, Pawlenty and even Huckabee making him irrelevant to the masses in flyover land like myself.
http://www.bearcreekledger.com
Twitter – http://twitter.com/Toni100
Franklin,TN (Middle Tennessee)
Formerly a MN resident
Dhimmi Republicans need to be treated with...
MacAoidh (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 9:41AM EST (link)…all the disdain true conservatives can muster. If you can’t suitably anger the Left you haven’t done the necessary work to lead as a conservative.
Check out MacAoidh’s commentary on Louisiana and national politics at TheHayride.com
The Intellectual Conservative, John McCain, presses GOP makeover to broaden reach
Scope (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 9:52AM EST (link)Speaking of David Brooks, he had an article in the NYT a day or so ago- “The Wizard of Beck.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/opinion/02brooks.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1254573231-jt2G5hB0O05kq63a22rdug
He goes at the “shock jocks” Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity just as Hayward referenced in the diary above. He says that the talk show hosts don’t really have such a wide audience as they claim. He says that they just keep remaking themselves, and falsely believe that they have influence.
The problem I have with the moderates is that they keep banging their collective heads against a wall, hoping that they will find just the right message that will resonate. Now it’s intellectualism. They will not give up on their losing ideas that the country wants to be center, not right of center, but in ways left of center. I do not see anything intellectual about Obama’s simple message of “Hope and Change”, yet it worked for him. They cannot understand that when Palin spoke, she didn’t use 50 cent words, she spoke very plainly, and she hit home to many with her simple messages. She didn’t go to Havud, she shops at consignment shops, she goes to the grocery store just like you and I. That has resonated with millions, just as does Rush and Beck. They speak in everyday language, and they give their audiences food for thought. They don’t demand that they be listened to. They are not Washington insider power mongers. The moderates within the R party, with their elite positions, don’t even know what real people and real life are like, yet they want to set our table for us, and invite us, only if we know our manners, and don’t even consider taking the seat at the head of the table.
I could have referenced David Brooks...
MacAoidh (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 11:26AM EST (link)…but as he is clearly not a conservative, I don’t see any reason why he belongs in a discussion such as this one.
Your point is well-taken all the same.
Check out MacAoidh’s commentary on Louisiana and national politics at TheHayride.com
The funny thing about the Brooks article
gator_hoo (Diary) Sunday, October 4th at 12:32AM EST (link)was it was so factually wrong.
He insists that Limbaugh and Co. were salivating over Thompson, hated Huckabee, etc. I listened regularly and all of the radio hosts were very close to the chest regarding their primary candidate preferences
I didn't read this piece closely
Loren Heal (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 10:05AM EST (link)but the parts I did read were excellent. I have to dash off.
The problem with saying that we don’t have enough conservative Deep Thinkers, or that they aren’t countering Obama’s Deep Thinkers, is that Obama’s Deep Thinkers aren’t. He has only envy and the fear of being called a racist on his side.
More later.
–
Join the Concord Project, and follow @lheal, if you dare.
Well I have said it before and I will say it again
Richard Mullins (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 11:03AM EST (link)the old guard conservatives have lost their way and have let us the conservative bloggers do their work for them. It’s quite natural to do such seeing that they got too high brow for the ordinary person. Personally, we don’t need them or any of the whiners that say they are conservative.
Richard Phillip Mullins BlogThe Squash Satire SiteNews on Happy Jet Airlines
Rmullins Pics
Rpmullins Twitter
Joe Biden is like a Decrepit Park owner with a Meth lab that happens to not only be a dealer but a user.
Let’s Bankrupt the Democratic paty. Make spend all the money to defend thier candidates.
I think I can sum up.
Loren Heal (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 11:25PM EST (link)If Beck’s success is a problem for you, then write something that is easier to read.
Even the most complex ideas can be expressed simply, if a writer has but the wit. Ideas that do not seem to find simple expression are often not clearly understood by the writer, so it is no mystery why they are difficult to understand for the reader.
–
Join the Concord Project, and follow @lheal, if you dare.
There's enough philosophy on both sides to inform
Achance (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 10:49AM EST (link)program and policy for a thousand years. You don’t have to get far past Aristotle’s Cave to inform a conservative point of view. I think we’re just looking at Hayward’s sour grapes; Beck, Levin, Coulter, and, especially, Limbaugh are getting rich and famous and he isn’t.
In Vino Veritas
Here's the problem, achance
Jack_Savage (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 12:14PM EST (link)The left has to deal with situational ethics and secular humanism – nothing is ever right and wrong, so they have to evaluate each particluar situation like a judge would evaluate each case. They don’t have bedrock principles to draw from, with one exception – how does this help or hurt politically?
Because of this problem, they have a million academics writing a million journal articles on a million different things. They think that all the noise passes as serious thought, when it is simply an attempt to come to some sort of conclusion, on anything, just once.
We operate from basic principles, which inform our world view and our decisions. It’s not that tough when you have the basics down, and it drives them up a wall. Their last refuge is to cry “Philistine!” and “nuance!”, and have that pass as a critique of conservatism.
It really must be a drag being a lib.
Yeah, lack of nuance has made me a bad person.
Achance (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 12:41PM EST (link)I just can’t make myself into one of those “there’s more than one side to the story” people. Makes it hard to get along with stupid and emotional people.
In Vino Veritas
I can't pass as the feeling conservative either
Richard Mullins (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 1:07PM EST (link)I can only work into it with a intellectual understanding. Everything has to be based in reality and not in fantasy
Richard Phillip Mullins BlogThe Squash Satire SiteNews on Happy Jet Airlines
Rmullins Pics
Rpmullins Twitter
Joe Biden is like a Decrepit Park owner with a Meth lab that happens to not only be a dealer but a user.
Let’s Bankrupt the Democratic paty. Make spend all the money to defend thier candidates.
You are correct
Jack_Savage (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 2:59PM EST (link)It actually turns people off when I argue with them because they have no set of core values, no sense of history and no knowledge of current events. I just can’t stand it, and have taken to patting them on the head.
Bingo, Jack
jlynnr (Diary) Monday, October 5th at 12:39AM EST (link)And it is with that missing “sense of history” that they filter current events.
Heyward, Like Michael Moore, Misses The Point on Salesmanship
Repair_Man_Jack (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 10:55AM EST (link)Michael Moore is famous for saying capitalism didn’t give him anything because he had to beg and fight for fund-raising to make “Roger and Me” and some of his earlier stuff.
Hayward is putting down M. levin because he pimped his book on a talk radio show. Well, guess what Hayward? If you don’t tell people why your work is important, they won’t believe it is.
I’m not crazy about getting spammed by salespeople, but I have sold for a living and understand that salesmanship is a vital part of a free market economy. Until Hayward gets that figured out, on at least one issue, he is as bad as Michael Moore.
” I side impenitently with the human race against the modern reformer.” – C.S. Lewis
If you write like an academic and want the approval of academics,
Achance (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 11:03AM EST (link)your market is academics. Last I looked, there weren’t a whole bunch of conservatives in academia.
In Vino Veritas
I think getting the Liberals out of the GOP would be a start
bucfish Saturday, October 3rd at 11:24AM EST (link)John McCain’s mission: A GOP makeover
Fresh from a humbling loss in last year’s presidential election, Sen. John McCain is working behind-the-scenes to reshape the Republican Party in his own center-right image.
McCain is recruiting candidates, raising money for them and hitting the campaign trail on their behalf. He’s taken sides in competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial primaries and introduced his preferred candidates to his top donors.
When the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy created a vacant Senate seat in Massachusetts, McCain went so far as to solicit former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling to run for the seat.
It’s all part of an approach that is at odds with most other recent failed presidential nominees, whose immediate response to defeat was to retreat from the electoral arena. But those familiar with McCain’s thinking say he has expressed serious concern about the direction of the party and is actively seeking out and supporting candidates who can broaden the party’s reach.
In McCain’s case, that means backing conservative pragmatists and moderates.
read the rest here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/27832.html
If that makes you puke like it does me then join
the fight to knock out McCain
www.komccain.com
McCain must be IGNORED at all costs...
MacAoidh (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 11:29AM EST (link)…he has done enormous damage to the Republican Party and it is long past time he be held accountable for it.
Check out MacAoidh’s commentary on Louisiana and national politics at TheHayride.com
Mac -- How did you crank this out so quickly?
CodeRedinPA (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 11:49AM EST (link)Excellent, excellent, excellent analysis! May I say that, to me anyway, this stands a terrific example of Intellectual Conservativism — Yes!@ It can be found outside of a dust covered, velum bound volume at Yale
You touched on many of those thoughts which bounce around in my mind yet can never seem to articulate.
That stated, is Hayward going to actually sit there and tell me that the average Obamacrat spends his/her weekends reading and critiqueing Socrates, Locke, Kant, Keynes, Tribe, Dworkin, Sabato et.al? Or that the roots of current liberal power politics in this country has an actual intellectual foundation?????
…..Hayward’s piece is yet another example of an intellectual proving his worth by stepping on the toes of those who he deems is his inferiors.
What people like Hayward don’t get is that the Conservative Movement is again taking shape — finally. I think it’s doing so in a shape that many intellectuals don’t really understand. Beck, Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh are a draw for people who can see how screwed up things are getting whether or not they understand the philosophical roots of it all.
So, even if it becomes the ‘dreadful’ populists that drive the Conservative Movement moving forward, I’ll certainly take that any day and twice on Sunday. That’s still way better than electing the person that currently baffles us with the best bull**** ….like it has been for the last 70 years
Let’s take power, govern from the Center-Right and refine the thinking from there.
Sorry for the rambling rant
Thanks - and you touch on something I was going to...
MacAoidh (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 12:27PM EST (link)…mention but didn’t fit it in – which is that while Obama comes from an “academic” background (peculiar as it is given he’s demonstrated ZERO record of academic activity other than that he managed to get into Columbia and Harvard), it was NOT some intellectual renaissance on the Left which led to his election. To the contrary, the Democrats took power through sheer muscle. O’Keefe and Giles demonstrated the intellectual prowess of the Left’s ACORN footsoldiers; the fundamental equation of American political debate hasn’t changed in the past three years at all.
Check out MacAoidh’s commentary on Louisiana and national politics at TheHayride.com
"for the [conservative] movement to regain American governance"
ColdWarrior (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 2:15PM EST (link)The only way to achieve that is for conservatives to flock into the voting ranks of the Republican Party and create a conservative majority within it. Half the precinct committeeman slots nationwide are empty. Those that are filled are split about 50-50 between conservatives and moderates/RINOs. That split manifests itself in the elected Party leaders and the candidates that win the Party primaries.
IF conservatives were to invade the Party and fill up the empty PC slots, THEN that 50-50 split would be 75-25 in favor of conservatives.
Even the “conservative” elected Republicans will not explain this to the Tea Partiers or other conservative audiences. Why not? Isn’t it obvious? Even THEY fear an influx of “real” conservatives into the Party, because THEY might get booted in their primary contest.
A huge influx of conservatives into the Party NOW would have an immediate impact on the existing Republican officeholders.
Or we can all sit behind our keyboards all day and endlessly preach to the choir.
FIRST get to a GOP meeting to volunteer to become a precinct committeeman so you can vote for the Party leadership and to endorse the BEST conservatives in the primaries, THEN go back to your keyboard.
Priorities, folks.
Crossing our fingers and hoping we’re going to get great conservatives to win the Republican primaries isn’t going to happen because a bunch of books have been written about conservatism. The only way that’s going to happen is if conservatives flock into the Party and take it over.
Do it. Now. In some states, the deadline to become a PC for the next election cycle is fast approaching.
Plus, it’s fun. I have met so many great people since I became a precinct committeeman.
Don’t you want to be able to say, “I was a conservative Republican Party precinct committeeman before it was cool?”
Thank you.
ColdWarrior
www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com
In 2012, will YOU become a “voting member” of the Republican Party in your precinct?
Where it all started. Twitter @kaltkrieger
Unified Patriots.
Learn how to GOTV at The Concord Project and at Procinct and
CW, your are absolutely
CodeRedinPA (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 3:08PM EST (link)Not wrong….
I hope it is that people like Beck, Coulter and Malkin are providing the animus for this to happen.
We have to give Hayward the golf-clap and pat on the head he seeks and then proceed to summarily dismiss the point he’s trying to make, because he’s forecasting ideological climate incorrectly.
As a new committeeman myself, the problem is you run up against others that think that because they’ve been asleep on the job with all the other good ol’ boys for a while they know more than you do….or because they made 50 phone calls last year they’re somehow automatically more “tuned in” .
I’m up against that right now and being preached to at every meeting that the hard stance is costing us and we have to co-opt more progressive stances on certain issues in order to be more “mainstream”
I’ve tried to explain that trying to out Democrat any Democrats doesn’t make us better Republicans and is what has is in One Party State mode….We MUST offer a positive, forward thinking alternative that is a clear contrast to the Dems — hopefully in a way that shows that it is actually THEY who are out of the “mainstream”
This area in NEPA is crammed full of Conservatives that don’t realize that Republicans are actually occupy a spot on the ballot. These old coal-crackers are programmed to vote Democrat and the Republican establishment here simply lives with it and conducts electoral business with the presupposed notion that we can only get noticed by serving up Democrat-Lite. We are an egregious example here of a mindset that needs to change!
I had to smack another committeeman down in a letter to the editor of a local paper 5 months ago for publishing a piece advocating that kind of back-peddle
Otherwise, you get more quality feedback talking to rocks.
*sigh* Quixotic as it may be, I will never stop pushing and I’m doing my damned-est to get equally uncompromising Conservatives on board at the precinct level with me.
….If I can’t convince them that I have it right, maybe twenty more of me can
CodeRed, thanks for the PA info
ColdWarrior (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 6:51PM EST (link)You are exactly right — we have to keep recruiting kindred souls to ACT.
Here’s some info you already know that you can pass on to your moderate PCs in PA. In 1980, that famous moderate Reagan got 49.6 per cent of the PA popular vote to 42.5 for Carter. In 1984, that famous moderate Reagan got 53.4 per cent of the PA popular vote to 46 per cent for “Moandale.”
http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=1980&fips=42&f=0&off=0&elect=
http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?f=0&fips=42&year=1984
Bottom line, thank you for doing your “my damned-est to get equally uncompromising Conservatives on board at the precinct level with” you.
That’s the answer, as you so clearly articulated. It’s a pure numbers game. If, in actuality, we conservatives are outnumbered by “hard core moderates,” that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I don’t think that’s the case. I think we’ve just got a lot of conservatives who are too “high and mighty” to descend into real, grass roots Party politics at the precinct level. Standing on the sidelines, they let the moderates outnumber us in the real ball game that matters.
Thank you.
ColdWarrior
www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com
In 2012, will YOU become a “voting member” of the Republican Party in your precinct?
Where it all started. Twitter @kaltkrieger
Unified Patriots.
Learn how to GOTV at The Concord Project and at Procinct and
Part of the current problem is that...
MacAoidh (Diary) Sunday, October 4th at 9:39AM EST (link)…too many principled conservatives are so disgusted with the Republican Party that not only aren’t they willing to do the hard work of leading it, they won’t even admit to being in it in the first place.
That’s an issue which is only going to go away when a leader they believe in emerges, the way Reagan did. Otherwise it’s a chicken-and-egg thing.
Check out MacAoidh’s commentary on Louisiana and national politics at TheHayride.com
That's why I started the effort to implore Sarah Palin
ColdWarrior (Diary) Sunday, October 4th at 10:34PM EST (link)to urge conservatives to come into the Party. It’s one thing for a nobody like me to try to convince conservatives to come into the Party at the grass roots, it’s quite another when Erick Erickson does it or, if we could only get her to do it, Sarah Palin.
This is what I wrote to her:
Dear Sarah,
Sorry to be so informal, but I feel I know you.
I implore you to consider imploring conservatives to recapture a strong working majority within the Republican Party through the Neighborhood Precinct Committeeman Strategy.
Would you please take on this task? I know that if you would repeatedly IMPLORE conservatives to come into the Party as precinct committeemen (50 per cent of the available slots nationwide are VACANT) they would do so, especially if you would explain that THEN they could elect conservative Party leaders and make sure the BEST CONSERVATIVE candidates win the primary elections and, thereby, have the best chance of having principled conservatives defeat the Democrat candidates in the general election.
PLEASE DO THIS!
For Liberty,
[signature and signature block]
I’m an American first, conservative second, and Republican by necessity.
P.S. I’ve enclosed my recruitment flyer and a couple of articles I’ve posted at www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com.
I also post about this at Redstate.com.
Search the site using the search terms precinct and committeeman and you’ll find all of my articles.
<<<<
I hope you all will consider sending her a FedEx or snail mail letter.
Here’s her address and phone number:
Sarah L. Palin
1140 W. Parks Highway
Wasilla AK 99654-6910
(907) 373-3113
I tried calling the number but got no answer. I’m sure it’s just some number they use that they never answer. My letter was delivered on Friday, Sept. 18 at 2:50 pm and signed for by J. Palin.
If she were to get hundreds or thousands of such pleas, in writing, maybe she’d take notice.
Others who would be great national spokesmen for this are Fred Thompson, Ted Nugent and Chuck Norris.
Thank you.
ColdWarrior
www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com
In 2012, will YOU become a “voting member” of the Republican Party in your precinct?
Where it all started. Twitter @kaltkrieger
Unified Patriots.
Learn how to GOTV at The Concord Project and at Procinct and
Hayword should understand that
aesthete (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 3:57PM EST (link)the academic legwork for conservatism is, by and large, done. The reason that conservative/classical liberal academics were so prominent before is because that view had lost its sea-legs, so to speak: from the 30s onwards, there hadn’t been a single domestic classical liberal in office until Ronald Reagan, and there had to be some level of academic pushing in order to once more make it a viable ideology to the voters. That is not the case anymore, and it can be stated that the voters, by and large, know why conservatism is beneficial on an intellectual level. Talk show radio and the like are simply fulfilling the purpose of demonstrating the failures of liberalism, and reinforcing the fact that conservative governance works.
In short, the idea that conservatism is all well and good so long as the proles don’t do anything with it isn’t only antithetical to the concepts of meritocracy and non-elitism, but is also horribly outdated.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
Here is a great SMACKDOWN on those who would tell...
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Saturday, October 3rd at 4:14PM EST (link)Conservatives what makes a Republican and really Hayward is the perfect FOIL for those who think they know better then a Beck, Limbaugh or Malkin…
If you are not amongst the Conservatives don’t speak of them
Unified Patriots – How-To:
Activists Taking Action
I have an off topic question, please.
Jaimo Saturday, October 3rd at 5:34PM EST (link)I went to a Glenn Beck book signing today and afterwards ran into a very liberal friend who asked about where I had been, so dumb me, I told her. Anyway, she asked me if Glenn Beck had said something bad about the 9/11 widows or victims or something and she wanted to know if it was true.
Does anyone remember Beck saying something years ago that would fall into this category and what exactly did he say?
Thanks for your help. I need to come back with some sort of answer for her.
Jaimo- It was Ann Coulter
Scope (Diary) Sunday, October 4th at 8:33AM EST (link)who knocked the 5 widowed babes from NJ that weren’t happy with the amount of money they got from the settlement, and wanted more.
Jaimo- It was Ann Coulter
Scope (Diary) Sunday, October 4th at 8:33AM EST (link)who knocked the 5 widowed babes from NJ that weren’t happy with the amount of money they got from the settlement, and wanted more.
Jaimo-Beck's "anti-9/11" comment
ajl_mo (Diary) Sunday, October 4th at 11:10PM EST (link)I believe your friend is referring to this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dMeo_XjtWs
I pay for porn.
You know macaoidh I think the title could be....
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Sunday, October 4th at 10:19AM EST (link)Republican against Conservative infighting and as PROOF that we are only talking about those with an R against those who are ideologically Conservative to the core I give you an R named Scarborough….
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2009/10/04/scarborough-trashes-conservatives-too-partisan-just-plain-stupid-olympic
If a Republican is writing on the Huffington Post does that make him an idiot….well yes it does. I take people in the Republican Party who try to define the grassroots and fight against us as simply idiots. The bottom line for those tools is that the Democrat leadership NEVER separated themselves from their base. Obama, Reid, Pelosi all reveled in the love from the hardcore left and they are paying them back and WE in the base of the Republican Party as BETRAYED at every turn by elite and I would say LIBERAL Republicans.
This ends in 2010! If you run as a Conservative but you vote as a liberal the next election you are GONE. There can be no go along to get along anymore because the left NEVER goes along to get along and WE are tired of being told we have to!
Unified Patriots – How-To:
Activists Taking Action
I almost did not read this
Joe Rivers (Diary) Monday, October 5th at 3:19PM EST (link)I get tired of the media, left, and uninformed regular people harping on supposed rifts inside conservatism. Usually these call the Brooks-Sullivan-Parker bunch as a legitimate wing of conservatism. If not them, they call the liberal (beltway) Republicans likewise as a wing of conservatvies.
But along with a really, really well-written piece, you make a significant point: the ivory-tower conservatives, who really are conservatives, are unhappy that the teaching is being delivered to the masses by people they deem too dirty-handed and common. As you make the case, there can be no real complaint that Limbaugh and Levin dilute or pervert conservative teaching.
So to Hayward et al, I say “duly noted”. Bye now.
Maquisard