The Reagan Myth???

Whether at Q&O or The Next Right, we at Delmarva Dealings have always been a fan of Jon Henke.  Unfortunately, today’s piece over at The Next Right forces us to examine several factors in evaluating future Henke commentary on the future direction of the GOP and the conservative movement.  Perhaps:

• I’m simply too old (I was born in 1960).

• Henke is too young to adequately grasp the history of the modern conservative movement (Jon was in kindergarten when I was knocking on doors for Reagan in 1976).

• Henke has swallowed the foolishness of political “branding” and abandoned his (former?) libertarian philosophy.

I always considered Henke to be a better student of history:

The conservative movement that arose in the 60′s and 70′s reached maturity in the 1980′s.  That period became the conservative movement’s frame of reference; the experiences, lessons and skills learned up to that point became the Republican Party’s hammer, and when all you have is a hammer…

The conservative movement has reached maturity?  I’ve been re-reading Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France recently.  Many of the ideas which Reagan and Goldwater espoused in the 1950′s, ’60′s, ’70′s, and ’80′s were seen as problems by Burke in the late eighteenth century; namely that individual liberty is protected by the rule of law and limited government.  If one reads Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative and simply substitutes “Islamic extremist” for “communist” or the Soviet Union it holds up pretty well.  Truth is timeless.

Henke is correct that simply harping about tax cuts will not lead to a permanent (or even long lasting) conservative majority in this country.  What he fails to acknowledge is that the faux cons who claim the mantle of Reagan are not of the same philosophical heritage as Locke, Burke, Bastiat, Goldwater, or Reagan.  I can only conclude that Henke believes that Mark Levin’s recent book, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, is simply not relevant to today’s politics.

Have future leaders, like Henke, grown up in an atmosphere were philosophy (and the ideas of how to implement that philosophy) are now superceded by a “win at all costs” mentality?  Perhaps.  The GOP ceased to be motivated by philosophy when Newt Gingrich was driven from the Speaker’s chair.

We all need to realize that victory, at the cost of our beliefs, is simply not worth the cost.  However, as Reagan proved, victory can be attained with those beliefs intact.

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