Tony Woodlief | Author

conservatism

Some more things

Well, it’s been a hell of a summer. Pestilence, economic destruction, bitter partisanship, and now, the politicians descend from their lairs to commence the quadrennial feeding season. It puts me in mind of Merle Haggard’s old standard: “If we can make it through December/ Everything’s gonna be alright.” I’ve been reading a lot, which means …

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Cheaper by the dozen

There is a difference between being anti-intellectual and being anti-intellect, and this is where Russell Jacoby foundered, in his essay last year about the lack of intellectualism among conservatives. As Peter Lawler notes, it’s shoddily done for want of defining terms, which is a frequent flaw in Chronicle of Higher Ed essays about conservatism. There …

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On the conservative as warmonger

The problem with political science professor Corey Robin’s claim that warmongering is woven into the DNA of conservatives is that he can’t seem to define his subject. One minute a conservative is a Burkean, the next he’s a tea-partier, then a neocon, then a Republican politico. Richer still, Robin represents these British-American country-clubbing anti-marxist quasi-literate …

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The new Conservatism

Mickey Edwards explains why he didn’t go to CPAC, the annual Conservative self-lovefest, arguing that the traditional conservatism of America has been supplanted by a state-aggrandizing European-style conservatism. I’m not sure if the shift is even that intellectual, or if it’s simply that Conservatives — like members of any tribe facing an enemy tribe — …

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Be it resolved

I read once that the historian’s admiration for authority affects his assessments of civilizations past — that oppressive regimes, with their monuments to state power, will draw his eye and his imagination more readily than a nation of citizen farmers. That’s probably true for most people; we can’t help but watch the parade’s prancing exhibition of the …

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If only he’d come along when people had longer attention spans

I once heard Charles Murray say he was booed by faculty at an Ivy League school for announcing that half of Americans have below-median intelligence. Here he is in front of a friendlier audience, proving once again that it’s possible to be a thorough-going conservative without behaving like a mean-spirited tribal shaman: “We know from …

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Post-Rush

John Derbyshire on the negative consequences (he notes there were positives as well) of the Rush Limbaugh radio revolution: “Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead us to this sorry state of affairs? They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they …

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