TONY BLANKLEY OFFERS THOUGHTS ON "CONSERVATIVSM" IN AMERICA TODAY

Tucked into a larger, more wide-ranging article is this gem:

Conservatism always has been and always will be a force to reckon with because it most closely approximates the reality of the human condition, based, as it is, on the cumulative judgment and experience of a people. It is the heir, not the apostate, to the accumulated wisdom, morality and faith of the people.

Of course such a proposition needs to be defended and advanced, and that is the challenge facing conservatives in America today.

Blankley references Benjamin Disraeli, and then moves on to discuss our current circumstances:

Today there are certain profound values — free markets and respect for life — that are renounced at the price of our soul. Free markets, particularly, are under the immediate, explicit assault of the next government. Life may be undermined more surreptitiously.

But as a national cause championed by a national party, a conservative agenda must, for example, learn to speak persuasively to a near majority of Hispanic-Americans, or we will be merely a debating society. When Texas joins states such as Colorado, New Mexico (and even North Carolina, Virginia, Arizona and Florida), where Hispanic votes are necessary for victory, there is no possibility of national governance without finding that voice.

Our challenge is not to retreat to the comfort of self-congratulatory exile but to sweat and bleed — and be victorious — in the arena of public opinion.