1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
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A year after William F. Buckley Jr.'s death, conservatives find themselves at a political low point and divided over what to do next. An enduring hallmark of conservatism is the belief that tradition includes deposits of wisdom that can guide decisions today. In that spirit, a panel of distinguished conservatives
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will take a fresh look at one of conservatism's seminal moments: the founding of National Review in 1955. An examination of Buckley’s inaugural editorial shows how conservatives have succeeded in the past--and sheds light on how they might face the challenges of today.
At the panel, AEI senior fellow Christopher DeMuth, Claremont Review of Books editor Charles Kesler, and National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru will discuss the continuing impact of Buckley's thought and the future of American conservatism. AEI president Arthur C. Brooks will moderate.
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4:45 p.m. |
Registration | |
| 5:00 | Panelists: | Christopher DeMuth, AEI |
| Charles Kesler, Claremont Review of Books | ||
| Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review | ||
| Moderator: | Arthur C. Brooks, AEI | |
| 6:30 | Adjournment and Reception | |
1150 Seventeenth St., NW
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-862-7183
E-mail: riva.litman@aei.org
American Enterprise Institute
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-862-4870
E-mail: VRodman@aei.org
Buckley's Conservatives: Standing Athwart the Wrong Side of History?
WASHINGTON, MARCH 3, 2009--Just over a year after William F. Buckley Jr.'s death, the American Enterprise Institute convened a panel of friends and admirers of the conservative icon to discuss what Buckley means to the movement he founded over half a century ago. Arthur C. Brooks, the president of AEI, summed up Buckley's intellectual contribution as improving America by "making it respectable to have a conservative policy vision [that] conserves our best values and traditions as a nation."
Christopher DeMuth, the president of AEI from 1986 to 2008, noted that when Buckley launched National Review—and with it the conservative movement—he and his ideological peers were "powerless except for the power of their ideas." Those exceptionally American ideas about preserving the traditionally limited role of government in the lives of individuals inspired a generation of conservative politicians, from Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan.
Since then, DeMuth said, "the ideas of limited government, fiscal prudence and restraint, ideas about the dangers and corruptions of power, have vanished from practical political discourse." Their disappearance, he noted, was heralded not by a popular shift toward liberal values, but rather by a Republican administration that failed to communicate or implement its own conservative policy vision. It was, after all, the ostensibly conservative George W. Bush whose domestic initiatives laid the foundation--currently being built upon by President Obama--for the most ambitious expansion of government since the New Deal.
The editor of the Claremont Review of Books, Charles Kesler, said that though Buckley's was an era of progressive government and social mores, "the inroads of relativism are much easier to see today." It would be helpful, then, to remember that even fifty years ago, Buckley felt "conservatism needed to cut to the root of things," Kesler said. More recently, amidst the policy debates of the 1990s, "conservatives put aside their opposition to [big] government" because it looked as though its time had passed and "history needed no help" to finish the job. But, Kessler reminded the audience, in the current political climate "tax and spend liberalism is back with a vengeance," and conservatives now find themselves once again "in a fight for America's soul."
Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor of National Review, pointed out that the problems confronted by Buckley remain "strikingly relevant to contemporary conservatives" and that the value of his proposed solutions has been utterly undiminished by the passage of time. But, in contrast to the conservative movement's fondness for tradition, Ponnuru also pointed out that its greatest weakness has been the tendency to associate political programs of a particular moment with the "great conservative axioms," casting any departures from or adjustments to those programs as if they "represent an abandonment of conservative principles." Today, it is not Buckley's lessons that must change in the face of waning conservative political fortunes, but rather the students of his movement. His modern successors, Ponnuru said, would be well-served to retrace their own steps along the trail that Buckley blazed.
--JOSH EBOCH
Arthur C. Brooks is the president of AEI, a position he assumed on January 1, 2009. He was previously the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a visiting scholar at AEI. Mr. Brooks researches and writes about the connections between culture, politics, and economic life in America. He is the author of several books, including Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books, 2006), Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America—and How We Can Get More of It (Basic Books, 2008), and Social Entrepreneurship: A Modern Approach to Social Value Creation (Prentice Hall, 2008).
Christopher DeMuth is the D. C. Searle Senior Fellow at AEI and was president from December 1986 through December 2008. He was previously managing director of Lexecon Inc., a law and economics consulting firm; editor and publisher of Regulation magazine; administrator for regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget and executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief in the Reagan administration; a lecturer and director of regulatory studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; an attorney with the Consolidated Rail Corporation and with the law firm of Sidley & Austin; and a staff assistant to President Richard M. Nixon. He is a director of the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company and two family firms. Mr. DeMuth’s essays have appeared in The American Enterprise, Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and other publications.
Charles Kesler is a professor of government and director of the Henry Salvatori Center at Claremont McKenna College and the editor of the Claremont Review of Books. He is the editor of and a contributor to Saving the Revolution: The Federalist Papers and the American Founding and coeditor, with William F. Buckley Jr., of Keeping the Tablets: Modern American Conservative Thought. Mr. Kesler has published widely in newspapers and periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Times, National Review, and The Weekly Standard.
Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor for National Review and a columnist for Time. Mr. Ponnuru has published articles in numerous newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the New York Post. He has also written for First Things, Policy Review, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, Reason, and other publications. He has appeared on numerous television news programs. He is the author of The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life and of the monograph The Mystery of Japanese Growth. Mr. Ponnuru has been a fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London and a media fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
