Spirited Debate = Vitality, not Distress
Setting the standard for conservatives of all varieties, Lee Edwards, a National Review contributor that began in 1958, and Jack Butler at NRO discussed conservatism shortly before Edwardes died this past December. NRO, was Edwards’s “favorite” publication. He requested that his interview be published in NRO pages.
Jack Butler begins with is an easy one, a “no brainer.” How did Mr. Edwards became a conservative?
Lee Edwards: Not by reading The Conservative Mind [by Russell Kirk] or The Road to Serfdom [F. A. Hayek] or Human Action [Ludwig von Mises] or other classic conservative texts. “I became a conservative because I was an anti-communist.”
Hungarian Uprising 1956
In October 1956, while Mr. Edwards was studying at the Sorbonne, young Hungarian men and women were rebelling against the Soviets. The Hungarian Uprising was electrifying. The startled Soviets left, only to return two weeks later with tanks. Thousands, reportedly, were killed or wounded, and many Hungarians fled the country. An aghast Edwards waited for government intervention. Instead, what happened: a bloody press release.
As Edwards remembers, “they went to the United Nations and had a similar resolution, which had no impact whatsoever.”
I was angry. I said to myself, if this is the way we’re going to react officially, I’m going to do whatever I possibly can to support those who resist communism. And that’s the way it turned out, for the next 50, 60 years, finally ending in the formation [in 1993] of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and Museum.
Jack Butler asks Mr. Edwards about his time after the Uprising.
In 1964, Edwards was director of communications for the Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign.
Following that campaign, which ended in a disaster, I had my own public relations firm in Washington, D.C. I worked for, helped, probably almost every conservative anti-communist organization. I continued that to the mid-’80s, at which time I was pretty much burned-out. I went back to school, picked up my Ph.D. at Catholic University, then set out to be a historian, a biographer, and a teacher, which is what I’ve tried to be the last 30 years or so. As a writer, I’m most proud of my Goldwater biography, which I think really is a first-rate piece of research and writing. I also did a pretty fair short bio of Bill Buckley.
JB: Lessons learned from your life as a conservative, Mr. Edwards?
LE: The power of ideas.
You can spend all your time raising funds, organizing, becoming a great communicator, and all the rest. But at the base of all those things is the realization that ideas have the power to change history.
JB: What aspect of the Sharon Statement, of which you were a signatory, need conservatives reminded of today?
LE: “God-given rights.”
About 90 of us came to Sharon [where William F. Buckley, Jr. lived, in Connecticut] that fall. During the spirited debate, libertarians asked, do we really need “God-given”? Yes, said Edwards, and other traditionalists, “we need to make that a part of what we are as conservatives.”
“So Close”
The vote was 44 to 40 in favor of including “God-given rights.”
What did the libertarians do? Do they quit? No, because it was arrived at in a democratic fashion. That is something we need today: to be accepting of the other side’s point of view and to include it, if possible.
JB wonders about God, if America and conservatism are losing God?
Lee Edwards: As a Roman Catholic convert, Edwards believes in God.
We are not as inspired by the thought of Him as we were. There were more churchgoers at that time and more of an easy acceptance of God that you don’t have today. But there’s far more than a remnant left.
JB: Did early conservative activists focus on politics at the expense of culture?
LE: Back then, Edwards admits, we were all politics, all the time.
We believed that if we elected Goldwater president, that would solve so many of our problems. Now, looking at where we are and borrowing from Andrew Breitbart that politics is downstream from culture, we’re catching up, and becoming more culturally aware and seeing how we can influence American culture through things like podcasts, movies, and books.
Today we’re on two tracks, both the political track and the cultural track. That’s a big difference.
JB: Early emphasis on conservatives was one of Goldwater’s mistakes. Were there others?
LE: We made lots of mistakes. We loved Goldwater; he was so uncompromising in his beliefs.
(We realized) there are three branches of government and they’re coequal and you can’t be shifting too much toward the executive branch or the legislative branch or the judicial branch. But given where we are today, we (must) be even more careful not to tilt in one direction or the other. We have to be so careful that we don’t fall into the trap of what I call Caesarization, which was our case back in 1960–64. “Barry Goldwater is the answer.” Well, he was partially the answer, but was not as much as we made him out to be. I wanted to mention civil rights.
Most young conservatives, including myself, were influenced in our position on civil rights through National Review, through Bill Buckley, through a belief in states’ rights. We did not take into account the fact that Mississippi was burning and young men were being murdered. We somehow decided, that’s going to be solved, just gotta be patient. And I’m thinking, well, if I were black and I’ve been living with Jim Crow for a century, how patient would I be? So we were just dead wrong morally on that issue. Buckley admitted that. That was our biggest mistake.
JB: Although conservatives have a vast network today, the Left and what you have called the progressive intellectual–media complex have seemingly become more powerful. Why? And how can conservatives challenge it?
LE: We can work together more efficiently and effectively bringing together all the various youth groups. I would love to see [Young America’s Foundation] and [the Leadership Institute] and [the Fund for American Studies] and even Turning Point work together on issues, on events, to present a better, more clearly defined philosophy for young people.
We are confronted, on the other hand, with Behemoth. If you’re trying to have a more limited government, when you’re confronted with a 6- or 7-trillion-dollar annual budget, it is so easy to be corrupted by it. Making people understand that and resist it is that much more difficult now. How did it come about? Quoting our old friend Lord Acton: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A lot of conservatism today has been corrupted by this Behemoth in Washington.
JB: Your friend Don Devine [director of the Reagan Office of Personnel Management] recounts that Ronald Reagan, as president, said no nation had gone so far down the road toward statism as we had and still come back to freedom, but that Reagan “would like us to be the first.” Can we be?
LE: I would hope so. But probably … with a more federalist approach.
There are possibilities there of limiting government and of encouraging men and women to become part of the process. If you look at it that way, you can become encouraged. I know it’s an enormous problem and you can become discouraged. But we were able to do it even at the national level when we had the right president and the right members of Congress backing up what we were trying to do.
Jack raises a question: is Reagan still relevant?
LE: There are so many lessons to be learned from him. Conservatives need the right will.
Appointing the right justices to the Supreme Court can make an enormous difference. In foreign policy, Reagan had the idea of limited but concentrated force on a particular problem. Nation-building? No. Nation-building is not conservative, it’s radical. But are we going to help freedom fighters, as we did then, and as we’re presently doing today, (regarding) Ukraine? Absolutely. We need to back away from anything approaching isolationism.
JB: Are there better options than the foreign policy failures on the left and a resurgence of isolationism on the right?
LE: Liberal internationalism, a proper understanding of that, which is not nation-building. It’s not sending 100,000 troops to solve the war between Ukraine and Russia. It’s using calculated force to pick and choose.
That was one of the strong points of Reagan. For example, Afghanistan. We did provide the right kind of weapons. But Reagan did not send in 100,000 troops to try to solve Afghanistan. Depending upon alliances is absolutely key: our relationship with Taiwan, which is probably pretty close to a bilateral understanding that China may not and must not use force to bring about any kind of unification between Taiwan and mainland China.
Lee Edwards focuses on a political movement; it must have a clearly defined, consistent, and relevant philosophy. Does conservatism has that?
LE: Yes. Five ideas animate conservatism yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
- First, limited constitutional government. That word “constitutional” is all-important. You’re talking about limiting government, you’ve got to turn to the Constitution to understand how to implement it.
- Second, free enterprise, the market system, which is the best way that we know yet to bring about prosperity. Free enterprise works. Socialism doesn’t.
- Third, individual freedom and responsibility. Freedom is all-important, but no less important is what you do with that freedom.
- Fourth, a strong national defense. Reagan said “peace through strength.”
- Finally, traditional American values — things like community [and] faith.
If spirited debate indicates vitality, not distress, is that also true of conservatism?
Not always, regrets Mr. Edwards. There have been times when civility has gone out the window.
… national conservatism challenges the traditional conservative to defend his ideas. That’s all to the good. Reform conservatives have some good ideas. Then I think we — I’m a fusionist, bringing together the traditionalist point of view and the libertarian point of view — have the best ideas of all. They need to be properly addressed in any ongoing debate between conservatives of all kinds. I’m not frightened by what’s going on. Some of the best new literature is coming out of these debates, including Yuval Levin’s latest book [American Covenant].
Asked if conservatism add to a fusionist application of ideas, Edwards responds, Frank Meyer, then Buckley and then Reagan all became fusionists.
… in the case of both Reagan, a master fusionist, and Buckley you could argue the same, of fusing these various strains of conservatism and being able to draw on one particular strain or another at a particular time with a particular problem. A fusionist approach to the problem of abortion, today, would tend to put you in a different direction than the idea of a national ban. Having abortion go back to the various states is where it should be now determined.
William F. Buckley learned kindness from his mother, a devout Roman Catholic, who encouraged her son to think about other people. Or, as his dad would say, we are now able to give back, having received so much.
Buckley was skeptical about what was possible in politics, Reagan was a perennial optimist. Which is Edwards, Butler asks.
Edwards declares he is a Reagan optimist, based on his belief in God. His God, he believes, has a plan for him.
I think not that there’s going to be another Reagan coming down the pike, but I do believe that there are so many good things one can say about the conservative movement, beginning with just a bunch of isolated outposts back in the 1950s, to the present day.
Advice for young conservatives today?
LE: You can make a difference, encourages Mr. Edwards.
Don’t look to generations that have already come along. Step up and make a difference yourself.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.