Hillsdale conservatives need to change tack
Jillian Melchior
Issue date: 3/12/09 Section: Opinion
Why the recent melee toward the U.S. Constitution made by some U.S. senators is a bad thing, any Hillsdale student who passed Political Science 101 can posit.
The last couple of weeks alone have seen renewed talk about the Fairness Doctrine, and the Senate voted to give the District of Columbia a member in the House of Representatives, a move that would ensure a permanent Democrat slot and should require a Constitutional amendment.
Hillsdale students are responding to these outrages in their typical blustery way. The world is still going to Hell, and there's nothing left to do but light up the bowl of a good tobacco pipe and yell about it. The top hats are coming out, the frowns are plunging down, the voices are warbling, the sentiment is self-righteous - and that's exactly the wrong approach.
Not to say the instinct isn't good. After all, we're the ones most profoundly screwed by this situation. The bad economy isn't going to rebound any time soon. Before long, Career Planning will have a tough time finding nannying jobs for us all. Social Security is vomiting its woe on any plans we had for future tax breaks. Inflation will probably skyrocket soon, and we'll be sledding on piles of useless money. Even the Chinese won't want to lend us a buck.
So here is the earth... round. California is floating away, joining Hawaii, and Alaska can come, too, and the Australians are still confused.
In short, we've got the Great Depression and Jimmy Carter all rolled into one. Even though we can't remember that, we have the historical memory to tell us it really, really sucked the first time.
But another thing we can't remember is Ronald Reagan. That hasn't stopped us from appealing to him like God, or Ayn Rand. That's dumb, and it should stop. We need a man for our own time.
Conservatives are drifting toward an alliance with Libertarians, more so than has happened in a while. This is probably in part is because some of Bush's plans were an epic fail.
The last couple of weeks alone have seen renewed talk about the Fairness Doctrine, and the Senate voted to give the District of Columbia a member in the House of Representatives, a move that would ensure a permanent Democrat slot and should require a Constitutional amendment.
Hillsdale students are responding to these outrages in their typical blustery way. The world is still going to Hell, and there's nothing left to do but light up the bowl of a good tobacco pipe and yell about it. The top hats are coming out, the frowns are plunging down, the voices are warbling, the sentiment is self-righteous - and that's exactly the wrong approach.
Not to say the instinct isn't good. After all, we're the ones most profoundly screwed by this situation. The bad economy isn't going to rebound any time soon. Before long, Career Planning will have a tough time finding nannying jobs for us all. Social Security is vomiting its woe on any plans we had for future tax breaks. Inflation will probably skyrocket soon, and we'll be sledding on piles of useless money. Even the Chinese won't want to lend us a buck.
So here is the earth... round. California is floating away, joining Hawaii, and Alaska can come, too, and the Australians are still confused.
In short, we've got the Great Depression and Jimmy Carter all rolled into one. Even though we can't remember that, we have the historical memory to tell us it really, really sucked the first time.
But another thing we can't remember is Ronald Reagan. That hasn't stopped us from appealing to him like God, or Ayn Rand. That's dumb, and it should stop. We need a man for our own time.
Conservatives are drifting toward an alliance with Libertarians, more so than has happened in a while. This is probably in part is because some of Bush's plans were an epic fail.
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