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Conservatives: The New Rebels
Guest Column | By Cinnamon Stillwell | September 5, 2006
Where once liberalism represented a vibrant and youthful movement and conservatism a holdover from an earlier, more staid generation, the tables have now turned.
As the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 approaches, it's only natural for Americans to reflect on the day that forever altered our world. First and foremost, we must remember the crime against humanity that was perpetrated and strengthen our resolve to never again let Islamic fascism go unopposed.
Beyond the big picture, the reverberations of 9/11 can also be felt on a personal level. In my own case, the trauma caused an epiphany of sorts, leading me on a political journey from left to right.
It turns out I was not alone. All across the nation, people like myself realized that not only was it progressive (in the true sense of the word) to be on their country's side in the coming world struggle, but also that many societal traditions that had been so cavalierly dismissed by the left were indeed worth preserving.
But for liberals looking in from the outside, such a change in worldview must have been puzzling. For instance, it probably seemed counterintuitive for a freewheeling California type like myself to suddenly embrace conservatism. In their minds, conservatives are seen as stodgy, square and decidedly unhip. The fact that I retained essentially the same outward appearance and in many respect habits (yes, I still shop at health food stores) further compounded their confusion. The question that came to mind was, how can you be "cool" and be a conservative?
But the truth is, these days being a conservative is cool.
Where once liberalism represented a vibrant and youthful movement and conservatism a holdover from an earlier, more staid generation, the tables have now turned. Liberals are the old order, while conservatives have become the new rebels.
When I plunged into the waters of conservative political thought, I found myself in the midst of a movement crackling with intellectual energy and clearly on the rise. Writers, bloggers, filmmakers, activists and regular Joes alike were practically bursting forth at the seams of the establishment.
The emergence of Internet journalism and the right-leaning blogosphere provided the new frontier for this movement. Challenging what's become known as the old media, online journalists and bloggers have now ascended to the throne of legitimacy. It's no longer unusual to hear the investigative work of blogs referred to on television and in print media. The tables have been turned and so-called "mainstream" reporters now go to bloggers for the inside scoop.
This may be because, as author Bernard Goldberg recently put it on The O'Reilly Factor, "somewhere along the way, journalism became stenography." Or, as the blogger known as the Anchoress dubbed it, the "incurious press."
The propagandists of Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda are well aware of this vulnerability and they exploit it at every opportunity. No claim is too outlandish, no photo too fake, no blood libel too dangerous to be promulgated. With transparent sympathy for the enemies of America and Israel, the old media readily goes along with the ruse. Hence, the orgy of "fauxtography" on the part of Reuters and so many other mainstream media outlets during the recent conflict in Lebanon. And as Rathergate and more recently Plamegate have demonstrated, that was just the tip of the iceberg. If not for the blogosphere none of this media manipulation would have come to light.
Similarly, on college campuses across the country, Republican and conservative student groups are flourishing. Youth will always rebel against the entrenched power structure and in this case, the power structure is almost entirely liberal. Or to be more exact, a post-1960s Stalinist mindset dead set not on education but indoctrination. Invested in disproven visions of Socialism, the old order has no intention of going down without a fight.
But they're getting more than they bargained for from conservative students, who are no longer content to remain silent in the face of intimidation. They now have organizations such as Students for Academic Freedom and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education to represent their interests and columnists and documentarians to shed light on their situation. It's just a matter of time before the dinosaurs of leftist academia are replaced by the next generation.
When it comes to foreign policy and the war on terrorism, liberals again seem to inhabit an outmoded way of thinking. Seemingly terrified of change and intent on retaining the status quo whether it's working or not, liberals, to quote a former column, have become strangely conservative. Furthermore, the self-described progressives are actually rather regressive. Clinging to failed strategies and fantasies of "peace" and "negotiation" in the face of our enemies' naked aggression, liberals seem determined to deny the realities of a changing world.
In contrast, conservatives have become the new radicals merely by supporting a different U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. That this foreign policy actually fulfills the sort of goals liberals claim to believe in seems not to matter to the "antiwar" crowd. Instead, they focus all their ire on the allegedly sinister cabal of neoconservatives they believe are the real enemy. The contradiction inherent in liberals' condemnation of past American support for dictatorial regimes in the Middle East and their simultaneous opposition to the ousting of dictatorships in Afghanistan, Iraq and perhaps someday Iran is never addressed.
While modern liberalism appears to be dying on the vine, this is not to say that classical Liberalism is past its prime. In fact, it's modern liberalism's large-scale abandonment of the tenets of classical Liberalism that spells its doom. The few that still adhere to those tenets represent the only hope for the future of liberalism.
In the meantime, conservatives and their allies will keep fanning the flames of rebellion. The victims of 9/11 deserve nothing less.
The original article can be found at http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/
Cinnamon Stillwell is a columnist for SFGate.com, the online arm of
the San Francisco Chronicle and a contributing editor to FamilySecurityMatters.org. For more information, visit
http://www.cinnamonstillwell.com/
Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.
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