By Jonah Goldberg
It's hard for a lot of people, particularly
on the right, to recognize that the conservative movement's problems are mostly
problems of success. The Republican Party's problems are much more recognizable
as the problems of failure, including the failure to recognize the limits of
that movement's success.
American conservatism began as a kind of
intellectual hobbyist's group with little hope of changing the broader society.
Albert Jay Nock, the cape-wearing libertarian intellectual -- he called himself
a "philosophical anarchist" -- who inspired a very young William F.
Buckley Jr., argued that political change was impossible because the masses
were rubes, goons, fools or sheep, victims of the eternal tendency of the
powerful to exploit the powerless.
Buckley, who rightly admired Nock for
many things, rightly disagreed on this point. Buckley trusted the people more
than the intellectuals. Moreover, as Buckley's friend Richard Weaver said,
"ideas have consequences" and, consequently, it is possible to rally
the public to your cause.
It took time. In an age when
conservative books make millions, it's hard to imagine how difficult it…
Source: Town Hall
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