The Conservative Rebellion
Why the principles of limited government and individual responsibility remain the only viable path forward for a free society.
For more than half a century I have watched the slow erosion of the principles that once defined American conservatism. What began as a movement dedicated to ordered liberty has, in too many quarters, become a collection of slogans without substance.
The conservative rebellion I speak of is not against authority, but against the centralization of power in every sphere of life — government, education, culture, and the economy. It is a rebellion in favor of the person, the family, the local community, and the mediating institutions that stand between the individual and the state.
Gerhart Niemeyer taught me that politics is the art of the possible only when the possible is rooted in the permanent things. Michael Oakeshott showed that tradition is not the dead hand of the past but the living conversation of mankind. These lessons have guided every chapter of my life.
Today the threats are different in form but identical in substance: the administrative state, the ideological university, and a culture that prizes authenticity over truth. The response must be the same: rebuild from the ground up. Start with education. Start with the family. Start with the local.
The work is long. It will outlast any of us. But it is the only work worth doing.