The Conservative Revolution

I just watched David Bossie’s new film, “Hillary The Movie.” It was a good reminder of the corrupt and power-hungry Clinton political machine. I highly recommend it to conservative opinion leaders who want to spread the word about the threat her presidency would pose to our national security, individual freedom and economic prosperity.

The film also has a cameo by my boss, FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey, which is cool. So get the dvd, watch it and pass it along to someone else.

Congrats to Citizens United and David Bossie for a key tool in the arsenal of truth against the Clinton propaganda machine.

This article originally appeared in Campus Magazine.

Now that the title of my book has become part of the lexicon when discussing the situation on college campuses, I feel compelled to explain my purpose in using the term “the conservative revolution.” For some, this phrase flies in the face of traditional conservatism like that expressed by Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Conservatives, we are told, reject revolutions as radical and bloody innovations. While this may be the case in a political context such as the French Revolution, revolutions are not all the same. In this essay I hope to provide three examples where revolutions were in fact conservative, and one scenario where a future revolution could be conservative.

First, let us look at the American Revolution. Who could argue that this was a revolution whereby the colonists rebelled precisely to preserve their rights as British citizens? When listing the grievances in the Declaration of Independence that brought forth the revolution, Thomas Jefferson mentioned policies that the King and Parliament had instituted that had violated the colonists’ rights. Most of these policies were recently enacted, after the French and Indian War. It was the King and the Parliament, and not the colonists, who were changing things. Therefore, the revolution that ensued sought to restore things as they were before the innovations of the British government. This was a conservative revolution.

The Texas Revolution that began in 1835 was also a conservative revolution. The Texian rebels led by cult heroes like Davy Crockett, William B. Travis and Sam Houston were fighting to restore their rights that had been trampled by the Mexican dictator Santa Anna. In fact, the flag that flew over the Alamo was the flag of 1824, which represented the Mexican Constitution of 1824 abolished by Santa Anna. It was Santa Anna, and not the Texians, that was the radical innovator. The Texians did seek their independence, but only because the government that they had consented to had become tyrannical. They sought to restore their rights that had existed prior to Santa Anna, but in doing so, launched a new nation, the Republic of Texas.

Suppose that years from now our own government grew in power and began to dismantle our Constitution. Many on the left and right believe that this is already happening today, although I think we are far from it. If our government declared martial law, forced a national identification card, instituted a draft, jailed dissidents and launched wars of conquest around the globe, would Americans continue to want to “conserve” that government? Those on the left and the right might actually join forces to overthrow the government through revolution and restore it to its constitutional foundations. Would this revolution be a conservative revolution? It seems to me that if the effect of the revolution was not bloodshed and anarchy, but ordered liberty and a return to constitutionalism, one could call this revolution “conservative.” Let us hope we never come to such a scenario. But I think the example is helpful in understanding the term “conservative revolution.”

How does the use of the phrase “conservative revolution” apply to college campuses today? When free speech is violated, conservative newspapers are destroyed and Western Civilization is torn down every day why should conservatives “conserve” the campus culture? Conservative students are facing an intellectual battle daily in lecture halls, dormitories and administration buildings. Conservative students are fighting on campuses to restore the campus to a culture of free inquiry, intellectual pluralism and academic freedom. Since the takeover of the campuses by the sixties radicals, the academy has become a bastion of Marxism, multiculturalism and political correctness. Again, the radical innovators are the professors and administrators, and not the conservative students.

When choosing to describe the battle for college campuses as a “conservative revolution,” I deliberately chose this phrase. Conservative students who revere Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk should be comfortable with this term. And those students who read Locke, Hayek and Rand should be equally comfortable in this description of our goal. When I called for the launching of a “conservative revolution” to take back our campuses from the grip of the far Left, I was not calling for the use of bullets, bombs nor the guillotine. Rather, I was calling for an intellectual battle that holds no punches, that seeks to tear down multiculturalism, political correctness and Marxism. In their place, I urge my fellow conservative “revolutionaries” to promote the ideas of Western Civilization, the great books, Judeo-Christian values, the free market and ordered liberty. Students should be organizing on campuses, starting clubs and newspapers, and hosting debates.

The end game is not to destroy the institutions of higher education themselves. Rather, it is to destroy with the power of truth the failed ideologies of Marxism and collectivism, and return the campuses to an environment that upholds the ideas that have preserved Western Civilization. Nothing short of an intellectual and political revolution against entrenched Leftists on campuses will suffice. Therefore, I declare that the conservative revolution should continue to be the battle cry for conservative students everywhere.

Brendan Steinhauser is the author of The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle of College Campuses.

The whole British/Iranian hostage affair was embarrassing for our allies, the Brits. What Iran did was an act of war, and the world let them get away with it. I would hope that if U.S. Marines were kidnapped, they would at least have defended themselves, and not been so quick to praise the “nice” and “kind” Iranians.
The British soldiers groveling to the Iranian thugs was a pathetic spectacle. The West had better get its act together and stand up to these people, or we will only embolden them.

Furthermore, what is with Western women having to wear a head covering when they visit Iran? We are “intolerant” when we require Muslim women here to uncover their faces for their driver licenses. Why do we show so much respect for their culture when our women go abroad, but they show so little for ours when they come here?

Here is a good sampling of opinion on the matter:

National Review

Roger Kimball

Austin Bay 

After last year’s remarks, calling Muslims “ragheads” and this year’s remark, calling John Edwards a “faggot” at CPAC, Ann Coulter has solidified her reputation as a bigoted, loud-mouthed shock pundit whom true conservatives should ostracize.

As I watched her on C-SPAN today I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. On national television Coulter went out of her way to use a word that has no use, other than to hurt, offend and degrade. It wasn’t funny, and it wasn’t cute. It was stupid. The sad part is that some self-professed conservatives clapped and laughed and cheered for her. Shame on them.

CPAC should not invite Coulter back to speak, and organizations should not promote her as a writer nor as a speaker. I used to recommend her to students as a resource, but I will no longer do so.

Segregation is so fifties… or so I thought

Even more disturbing were conversations I had at a bar in Adams Morgan later on. There were a handful of kids wearing George Wallace buttons who were extolling the virtues of segregation and saying blacks and Hispanics had lower intelligence quotients. Their racism clearly influenced their views on illegal immigration policy. By the way, these guys were the loudest supporters of Tom Tancredo for president.

How, in 2007, anyone could hold such views and proudly display the image of a man (George Wallace) who represents hatred, discrimination and white supremacy is beyond me.

I certainly do not want to be associated with such ideas. Their thinking is tribalist, collectivist and deterministic. It stems from the identity politics and conflict theory that Marx devised and his intellectual descendants promote. How anyone who holds such anti-freedom and anti-individualist ideas can call themselves conservatives is perplexing. The whole reason conservatives should oppose affirmative action and multiculturalism is because we base our judgments of people on their individual merits, and not on their artificial “ethnic group.”

This was the first CPAC I attended and it very well could be the last if Ms. Coulter, Mr. Tancredo and their minions continue to hold center stage.

James Fitzpatrick has a good article on this question over at Catholic Exchange. I tend to agree with his conclusion that although “popular” conservatives often ignore the intellectual foundation of the conservative movement, they do bring people into the movement. This happened to me, as I started listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, but then was introduced to ISI and started reading the founding books by Russell Kirk, Bill Buckley and others.

Here is the piece.

Here is a great piece by M. Zuhdi Jasser, a courageous Muslim leader who is trying to encourage Muslim Americans to take a stand against Islamists.

He writes,

“the public face of American Muslim activity against terror — and the against the ideology that feeds it — has so far been inadequate. Other than press-release condemnations, there has been virtually no palpable public effort from the greater Muslim community in this regard.”

The link to my book is back online over at The Young Conservatives of Texas website. i am sorry that it was down for a while, but they were improving their website.

You can purchase a $10 signed copy of my book, The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle for College Campuses by clicking here. The link will also remain on the blog in the “About” section.

This Thursday, ISI hosted T. Kenneth Crib at our monthly “Conservatism on Tap.” He spoke about the history of the conservative movement, and how we have fractured in many ways recently.

We had a great turnout. Over 120 people attended the event.

The next event should be even better, with Senator Sam Brownback, who is a Presidential hopeful, speaking about how we must revive the conservative spirit in this country.

If you want to attend, please email me at bsteinhauser @ freedomworks.org

Every year I read books for school, books recommended by friends or books that I have wanted to read for a long time.

I also write them down every year and go back and think about their ideas, and how they influenced my thinking.

In 2006, I read a good sampling of literature, history, politics and biography. Here is the list. I have abbreviated some titles, and probably misspelled some as well. Forgive me.

Kurt Vonnegut- Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons.

Gary Gallagher- Lee and His Confederate Army

Russell Kirk- Roots of American Order

Douglas Hyde- Dedication and Leadership

Frederic Bastiat- The Law

Nathaniel Hawthorne- Scarlet Letter

Robert Louis Stevenson- Treasure Island

Thomas More- Utopia

ISI’s Guide to the Classics

David Horowitz- Left Illusions

Walter Lippman- Public Relations

Tony Blankely- The West’s Last Chance

The Call of the Wild- Jack London

Russell Kirk- The Politics of Prudence

Voltaire- Candide

Sigmund Freud- On Dreams

Ayn Rand- We the Living

C.S. Lewis- Mere Christianity

H.G. Wells- War of the Worlds

Marc Henrie- The ISI Student’s Guide to the Core Curriculum

General Josiah Bunting- U.S. Grant

John Lukacs- Student’s Guide to History

Robert F. Kennedy- 13 Days

Beowulf

Homer- The Oddyssey

David Halberstam- War in a Time of Peace

Hans Zeiger- Reagan’s Children

William Golding- Lord of the Flies

Russell Kirk- The Conservative Mind

Aristotle- Ethics

Common Truths (Natural Law)

St. Augustine- City of God

Marcus Aurelius- Meditations

Jacques Maritain- Natural Law

Alberto Piedra- Nutural Law

Robert Kagan- Of Paradise and Power

Christopher Dawson- Dividing Christendom

Michael Walzer- Just and Unjust Wars

Sun Tzu- The Art of War

Alexis de Tocqueville- Democracy in America

Richard Tuck- Rights of War and Peace

Hugo Grotius- The Rights of War and Peace

Andrew Sullivan- The Conservative Soul

Lance Armstrong- It’s Not About the Bike

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Young Alumni Association is pleased to announce that ISI President T. Kenneth Crib will be speaking at our next event on January 18th at the DC ChopHouse.

More details to come soon.