Building a Better Conservative

Young Americans have the opportunity to learn, research, express themselves and gain a proper education. As part of their education, is also the education of philosophical issues, religious debates, and political ideology.

Everywhere young conservatives turn there are conferences, seminars and reading lists that promote figures from the movements formative years. Along with Kirk, they include such canonical names from the 40s and 50s as Friedrich A. Hayek, Frank S. Meyer, Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley Jr.

Ms. Pajak, 18, who was home-schooled in Andover, Minn., will be a freshman this fall at Wheaton College, an evangelical school in Wheaton, Ill. While her conservatism springs from her upbringing, the literature helps me explain what I already believe, she said. I dont want to just say, Oh, its because I was raised this way.
Every political movement has its texts. But James W. Ceaser, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, argues that the conservative focus on core thinkers has no exact parallel among liberals.

It doesnt mean theyre not interested in ideas, Professor Ceaser said. It means their approach to politics doesnt rest on theory in the same way.
Liberalisms main tenets formed earlier, he said, in the Progressives expansion of government, and are conveyed as assumptions rather than matters requiring theoretical debate.

The retreat here is run by the Young Americas Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Arlington, Va., that has long run weekend seminars. A $2.5 million gift allowed the group to begin this expanded effort, the Ronald Reagan Leadership Academy. With an inaugural class of 26, it combines classroom study with public speaking lessons and visits to Reagans former ranch.

At a foundation event last year, Ms. Pajak met a fellow student who urged her to join him in reading The Politics of Prudence. Their long-distance romance now includes comparing notes about which of Kirks 10 conservative principles they find most compelling. (Ms. Pajak is partial to No. 1: There exists an enduring moral order.)

Many conservatives say they have to promote their own thinkers because scholars and journalists ignore them. They dont study us; theyre ignorant of who we are, said Floyd Brown, who runs the foundations West Coast office. You can find college courses on all sorts of radical left-wing ideas, but you cant find a course on Russell Kirk.

Donald Devine, a lecturer here, said the task of teaching conservatism had changed with political success. When he began to lecture four decades ago, we had to make the term conservative respectable, he said. Now conservatism has become such a popular word it doesnt mean anything. The challenge is to decide what is truly conservative.

Two students here tried to do just that one night after dinner. Ana Lightle, a senior at the University of Baltimore, had just read Kirks book The American Cause. He wrote it after the Korean War, in part to define, as he saw them, the principles the United States had defended.

Now were fighting a war in Iraq, and people say it isnt our business, Ms. Lightle said. I have this core belief that the true state of man is free and the best way we have to be free so far is through democracy.
Kirk just nailed it on the head, she said.
Matthew McCorkle had doubts. The way President Bush has phrased it If you support terror well take you out and install a democracy may be biting off more than you can chew, he said.

Mr. McCorkle, a junior at Hillsdale College in Michigan, countered with a different Kirk book, The Roots of American Order, which traces the roots of American civilization to ancient Jerusalem and Rome.
My impression is that Iraq doesnt have those roots, Mr. McCorkle said. Were dealing with a sapling here.

Kirk, who died in 1994, wrote 32 books, the most famous being The Conservative Mind, which was published in 1953. It championed 150 years of conservative thought, and offered conservative as a unifying label for the rights disparate camps.
These days, a bookish conservative has many places to turn. The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y, runs programs on free-market economics. The Heritage Foundation, a Washington group, offers courses for interns and Capitol Hill staff members. The Claremont Institute, in Claremont, Calif., emphasizes the founding principles of the United States.

The emphasis on philosophy, over policy mechanics, may reflect the movements origins as an insurgency. A conservative who stays simply at the level of fighting policy battles may win some significant victories, but hes still playing the liberal game of tweaking big government, said Charles R. Kesler, who runs the Publius fellowship program for Claremont. These thinkers give you the chance to step back and think outside the liberal box.

Here, the students conservatism varied. Jaimie Ucuzoglu wants to keep taxes low and abortion legal. Chris Meece calls abortion barbaric. Drawing on Kirks notion of prudence, Ms. Pajak, an abortion opponent, would allow it in rare cases because if you tried to outlaw abortion right now, itd still be there in the back alley.
One common trait is a reverence for Reagan, who left office when they were infants. Most focused less on his policies than his magnetism, what Lauren Wilson called his immense amount of character.

I love Ronald Reagan, said Ms. Wilson, who attends Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. One of the biggest things was his affection for Nancy; its just obvious they were each others world.

Some conversation strayed from the canon. Dormitory banter cheered on Ann Coulter, the best-selling provocateur. Arguing for private property, Mr. Devine, the lecturer, noted there are bums all over here downtown, and they sit on public property, not private property. He lamented the prosecution of Kenneth Lay, the late Enron executive convicted of fraud, by asking, Do you think its possible for a rich person to get justice in the U.S. today?

One highlight was a trip to Rancho del Cielo the Western White House which the Reagans sold to the foundation in 1998 for $4.5 million. It consists of a surprisingly modest stucco home, set on 680 acres of horse trails and mountain brush.

Lecturing from a tent beside the home, Mr. Devine, who was the head of government personnel in the Reagan administration, seemed moved as he remembered his old boss. He reminded the students that the president gained strength from Russell Kirk and Friedrich Hayek and urged them to be as good and decent and helpful as Ronald Reagan.
That reminded Ms. Pajak of another line from Kirk, his call for more elevation of spirit. Without that, she said, reading from her well-thumbed book, order, freedom, and justice fall into ruin.

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