Will Conservative Movement Split Over Mark Steyn - Road to the Middle Class

AS CONSERVATIVES and Republicans try to come together to get Judge Roberts onto the Supreme Court, squabbling in the ranks is threatening to reverse the painfully won victories that conservatives have gained over the years and perhaps even put the nomination in jeopardy.

At the center of the storm is the self-styled “global content provider” Mark Steyn. This brilliant writer and controversialist is proving to be a divisive influence on conservatives in the United States.

Writes Jonah Goldberg: “I hate him.” And he’s not the only one. Here’s John Derbyshire, inspiration for Andrew Sullivan’s Derbyshire Award, on Steyn: “I H-A-T-E him.” Things are getting so bad that if you Google up "mark steyn" and "i hate him" you’ll get 181 hits.

With this kind of dissension in the ranks it’s no wonder that the president’s legislative program is languishing in Congress. Worse than that, lefty fashion editors are smelling blood in the water and think they can get away with criticising the seersucker suit worn by young Master Roberts at the announcement of his father’s nomination. This outrage went almost unchallenged except by Wes Pruden. (Yah boo to grungy fashion editors, he wrote. Seersucker suits are back, and white suits can’t be far behind.)

Something must be done. It’s time for Karl Rove’s White House operation to put a stop to the backbiting and petty sniping.

What, you might ask, are all these conservatives riled up about? Jonah Goldberg was upset that Mark Steyn turned out to be the best dancer on the recent National Review British Isles cruise, and John Derbyshire was upset that not only was Mark Steyn a “genius of opinion journalism” but also seemed to know everything about 20th century Broadway and the details of everything written by Frank Baum and every stage adaptation of Baum’s Oz books.

For years, conservatives have accused liberals of practicing the politics of envy. Seems like liberals are not the only ones into envy.

Come on chaps. We can do better. Let’s moe on and put Roberts over the top.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Hugo on Genius

“Tear down theory, poetic systems… No more rules, no more models… Genius conjures up rather than learns… ” —Victor Hugo
César Graña, Bohemian versus Bourgeois

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Postmodernism

A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ’merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy

Faith and Politics

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable... [1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006

China and Christianity

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Religion, Property, and Family

But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family. Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
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Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

US Life in 1842

Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

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