Well, this is the time for truth. Do it.

The Return of the Conservative Conscience

by Christopher Manion

In just thirteen hours, Rand Paul’s recent constitutional marathon established him as one of the best stump speakers in the senate. His easy-going, spontaneous, and cogent extended soliloquy sent a power surge through the somnambulant GOP. The ensuing swell of popular support for Senator Paul set the party—and, en passant, the conservative movement—on their collective ears. And they needed it.

For years, the grass roots have been longing for a plain-spoken advocate of principle. Frankly, there haven’t heard much good news lately in that department. Pat Buchanan has been banned from the majors because he was too honest. Human Events, a mainstay of conservatism since 1944, has just given up the ghost. The other old standby, National Review, has gone steadily downhill since it sided with George W. Bush over Bill Buckley on the Iraq War. Curiously, that sinking flagship now quietly admits that Bush was a failure and that conservatism is “weakened.” By National Review? It does not say.

Nor does it apologize. The truth, it appears, lies too far in the past.

In fact, in 1960. That’s when the first generation of conservatives heard Barry Goldwater’s challenge to the GOP establishment. The Conscience of a Conservative electrified delegations who took the book with them to the GOP Convention in Chicago. Delegates learned its core message by heart: “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible.”

• Opportunity Knocks, Opportunism Answers
• The Conservatism of Contradiction
• Toward Redemption and Restoration

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Well, conservatives, this is the time for truth. Do it.

Enough of the “Red Team versus Blue Team” game. Conservatives have to step off the playground, redeem their principles and renounce their cognitive dissonance. They will meet resistance, scorn, even hatred, from the powerful, the profiteers, and the plunderers in the GOP Hot Tub; but conservatives have the key to victory: they know that the only way to empty the Hot Tub is from the outside.

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