Ten books every conservative should read

by Gene Wisdom, reposted July 23, 2022, Originally posted Oct. 2, 2017 - As a conservative reader and student of this outlook called conservatism I have developed a passion for helping others to “turn that light on”, to make that discovery of a set of ideas that would bring them perfect understanding, intellectual nirvana, of our political world.  No, no, not a grasp of political strategy and the correct stance between RINO’s and Tea Partiers, and how insiders operate.  Not even a policy guide presents a checklist of the issues important for conservative voters. 

 First published in 1976, and revised in 1996,
George H. Nash’s celebrated history of the postwar
conservative intellectual movement has become
the unquestioned standard in the field. This new
edition, published in commemoration of the volume’s
thirtieth anniversary includes a new preface by Nash
 and will continue to instruct anyone interested in
how today’s conservative movement was born.
(Amazon link)

No, I’ve long believed that as conservatives we need, we require, a better understanding of the ground beneath our positions.  Because I believe that conservatives are rooted both in the truth and in the knowledge that there is truth, we should hunger for it to feed our minds, to secure us to the ground and thereby protect ourselves from liberal flights of fancy.

So my friend Rod Williams tasked me to do what I’ve been tumbling around in my head for several years: present a list of the top ten books for conservatives.  I’ve got to admit, I had to kind of round out the group as the first three or so were automatic, works that I have been repeatedly sharing on Facebook and with friends, urging “Conservatives, you must read this!” 

Number one, then, is the one I have probably most worn a groove in my Facebook timeline with, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, by George H. Nash.  It is no exaggeration to declare that it is the place to start for anyone who wants to understand conservatism and who seeks to grasp the roots and foundations of modern conservative thought.  Nash explores the three-legged stool of conservatism: libertarianism, traditionalism, and anti-Communism.  And no, these legs aren’t simply marijuana legalization, the Christian right, and kill-a-commie-for-mommy.  He examines the postwar thinkers behind each of those elements and those, like William F. Buckley, who sought to bring their often disparate ideas together into a movement. 

(Amazon link)

Another standout is the second one on my list, James Burnham’s Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism.  While I believe that conservatives must be grounded in conservatism as a set of ideas and must understand their philosophical history and roots, I am convinced that we should no less seek to understand our opponent in the realm of ideas, modern liberalism.  Burnham investigates key areas such as the liberal’s view of human nature, the liberal order of values, their attachment to universalism and internationalism, their devotion to equality, and their sense of guilt.  If we do not understand the bases of their beliefs we WILL NOT understand where they seek to take us. 

A particular longstanding favorite is Men and Marriage, by George Gilder, described back in the day as Ronald Reagan’s “intellectual guru” for his landmark book, Wealth and Poverty.  For me, a key insight is Gilder’s exploration of the fact that marriage civilizes men.  He argues that single men are the bane of civilization for the destructive—and self-destructive—influences and impulses they wield in society. 

A companion that must be mentioned with Gilder’s work is Charles Murray’s blockbuster Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980.  This book is often credited as being the inspiration behind the “Clinton welfare reform” (actually the Republican welfare reform that Clinton vetoed several times before finally signing it) and its premise is that welfare policy has been a miserable failure, that the War on Poverty became instead a war on families.  He builds on Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s insight from two decades earlier, that the War on Poverty contributed to the dissolution of black families in the United States and was beginning to have the same impact on white families while expanding its destruction to blacks.  By the way, Murray carries forward and expands his contributions in his recent Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010. 

Because it embodies so many of the truths of conservatism our American Constitution is rightfully honored by people of various stripes on the Right and it embodies both the love of liberty and the rich history and tradition of our British forbears.  In order to understand its principles and protections we properly look to the period of its writing to understand the Framers.  

In my opinion, one of the best sources on the struggle to ratify the Constitution, a controversy which should shape how we view its provisions, is Library of America’s two-volume, The Debate on the Constitution, a collection of both Federalist and anti-Federalist arguments, for and against the Constitution, including several of Publius’s writings in The Federalist Papers.  Here I’ll throw in what I believe is another indispensable read and a reference.  In my opinion, many conservatives and liberals err in understanding what our Founders were seeking to hammer out, misunderstanding that could be allayed by simply reading James Madison’s Notes on the Convention.  James Madison was present every day of the Federal Convention and took copious notes of the proposals, debates, and votes.  

A reference that belongs on the shelves of every student of the Constitution is Liberty Fund’s The Founders Constitution, a 5-volume oversize collection of writings that both informed the Founders and contemporary understandings, and does so, clause by clause for the Constitution and the first twelve amendments. 

Rounding out the gotta have’s is a primer, and so a placeholder for an explication of its principles, Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt, that timeless work on free-market economics.  We all laugh about how little liberals understand about the basics of economics.  But how much do we know?  One of the three legs of the conservative stool, as Nash detailed, is libertarianism.  And there is nothing in libertarianism that is built on so rigorous and studied a system as the principles of the Austrian school of economics, developed by Carl Menger, Eugen Bohm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek.  Modern libertarianism has degenerated, due to some unfortunate influences from the 60’s, into a hippie “if it feels good, do it and keep the government’s hands off me” and has largely left behind these pillars.  I doubt if more than a handful of my libertarian friends has read one of those classics, even Hazlitt’s introduction. 

And, speaking of Hayek and being forgotten by modern libertarians.  Another work that merits top-shelf consideration for any conservative is Hayek’s The Mirage of Social Justice, which is the second volume of his 3-volume Law, Legislation, and Liberty.  The centrality of that concept in the lexicon of modern liberalism (and thereby into modern political policy discussions) merits the place of this work for modern conservatives.  Hayek lays bare the utter meaninglessness of the concept and crumbles one of modern liberalism’s fundamentals.  Not a small contribution from someone who in another essay explained “Why I Am Not a Conservative” and contributed so many other major works to our understanding, including The Road to Serfdom, The Constitution of Liberty, and The Counter-Revolution of Science. 

The attack of the cultural Left on morality and Western civilization has required the shoring up of our philosophical foundations.  This became clear to me as I began to explore natural law (Thomas Jefferson’s “laws of nature and of nature’s God”) as the underpinning, the philosophical roots, of conservatism, of society.  For myself, that study began with the reading of Heinrich Rommen’s The Natural Law, which provided a basic understanding of both the concept and its philosophical history.  This opened the door to such modern natural law scholars as Robert George (whom the New York Times called America’s “most influential conservative Christian thinker”), J. Budziszewski, and Hadley Arkes.  Start with Rommen, though. 

The next book is really more of a genre than a single work.  And I almost left it out of this listing.  One of the three legs of the conservative stool identified by George Nash is anti-Communism.  As an element of the movement it was the unifier that often bridged the warring divide between libertarians and traditionalists.  There is a long list of go-to books for understanding the subversive influence of Communism in America.  The first two I would suggest are legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s Masters of Deceit and You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists) by the Founder of the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, Frederick Schwarz.  One corrective to the historical smears that make up liberal revisionism is Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case by Allen Weinstein.  In this blockbuster, Weinstein set out to prove Alger Hiss was not a Soviet spy and wound up making the definitive case for Hiss’s guilt. Another is Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies, by M. Stanton Evans, an icon of the conservative movement.  There are easily a dozen other books that recommend themselves in this area. 

The reason I almost left these in history’s dustbin is that modern conservatives have seemingly forgotten that there is true evil in the modern world.  The evil of Communism is one of the “gifts of the Left” and is part of the poisoned progeny of Jean Jacques Rousseau.  It is therefore the ideological cousin of modern liberalism and that kinship explains why Burnham in Suicide of the West found that, for modern liberalism, there are no enemies to the Left.  While Communists were often contemptuous of their cousins as “useful idiots”, liberals seem to have a warm spot in their hearts for their murderous kin.  I also fear that modern libertarianism shares some traits with liberalism, viz, a belief that human nature is good, an attachment to rationalism over traditionalism, and the hyper-rationalists’ over-confidence in the ability to remake society on these bases. 

As starting points for a couple of social conservative issues (issues because the Left’s agenda has forced them on us and not even through democratic means), the best place to start, to learn the best grounding for the pro-life/anti-abortion position is Francis Beckwith’s Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights.  Though the title is rather emotionally-charged this book lays out in very clear and logical terms the scientific/medical arguments against abortion.  A close second in this category is The Moral Question of Abortion by Stephen Schwarz. 

The other issue of the day for social conservatives is of course the attack on the institution of marriage posed by the push to legitimize same-sex marriage.  While there are other works on this subject, the author to look for is Ryan Anderson, who has become the go-to expert in presenting these arguments for preserving this core institution of Western civilization.  Anderson was a force of one around the country and often cited, including by Justice Alito in his dissent in the recent Obergefell v. Hodges U.S. Supreme Court decision, by proponents of preserving this institution.  Anderson’s first book on this issue, as one of three co-authors, was What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, which began as an article for The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, a Federalist Society online publication.  His second is a compelling critique of that decision, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom, which explores the ramifications for our First Amendment liberties. 

OK, like the dessert list, I couldn’t limit myself.  There are probably a few more than ten above but I believe they make a good starting point for anyone seeking to better understand the political thought of the Right.  As I suggested earlier, there are different elements of conservatism and in fact it can be broken down further than the three listed in Nash’s history.  And neoconservatism and the New Right were barely making their appearance when his book first appeared and so he added them in a later edition.  

Gene Wisdom, a retired naval officer, is a lifelong conservative Republican and is active in local conservative organizations.  He is a native Alabamian but has lived in the Nashville area since 2007.  He formerly moderated the monthly Conservative Fusion Book Club. 

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The Insufferable Become Sufferable: The Evolution of A Never-Trumper

Gene Wisdom

by Gene Wisdom - There are few things that does the soul good like admitting you’re wrong. Having officially entered the ranks of the elderly in turning 60, I have certainly had my share of those occasions. But fortunately, just as “love means never having to say you’re sorry” (OK, that’s a lie, right, men?), being a conservative means rarely having to admit to error. Well, now it’s my turn.

When Trump entered the Presidential race (which I’m convinced he decided to do when President Obama ridiculed his “birther” position, shortly after Obama was elected, at a White House correspondents’ dinner) I was like most, I think, surprised at that move. Throughout the nomination process I remained a devoted Ted Cruz supporter. I still think he would have made a better President. Whether he would have beat Hillary, who knows?

As you might guess from my support of Cruz, I am a lifelong Reagan Republican. The postwar (WWII, I suppose I now should add for clarification) conservative intellectual movement consisted of three legs of a stool: traditionalism, represented by Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet; libertarianism, best represented, at least early on by Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman; and the anti-Communists which included James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers. As the differences sharpened between these three groups, there was an effort to bring these strains of thought together, to fuse them. Hence, “fusionism”, propounded by Frank Meyers. The best-known examples of individuals who combined all three influences together were William F. Buckley, Jr., who was arguably the founder of the movement, and Ronald Reagan. I have spent my life reading, studying, and advancing the ideas of conservatism. I know what it is and I are one.

Donald Trump, I am convinced, is not. There is nothing in his biography that gives any hint that he has said or done anything to advance conservative principles. As is well-known, he contributed to Planned Parenthood and a list of Democratic (i.e., not conservative) candidates. His history as a successful businessman was often advanced as suggestive of someone who would make sound decisions but it says nothing of what he even believes. It certainly doesn’t make one a conservative unless one wants to put George Soros, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos on the Right side of the divide. Further, his record of ruthlessness and bankruptcies in business says nothing about principles except a readiness to sacrifice all, including his creditors, in pursuit of the dollar. Between God (or other principles) and mammon, his choices in favor of the latter have been clear.

Even while “God’s spokesmen” lined up to support and endorse him. Shamefully so, in my opinion.

Trump’s behavior on the campaign trail gave me no further reason for confidence. There is no doubt that he lacked polish; he also doesn’t have the judgement, character, or temperament to occupy the Oval Office. And there is much reason to have such doubts to this day. He plays fast and loose with the truth. His virtually daily outbursts on Twitter display the maturity of a stunted 12-year old. A pathological narcissist and adolescent.

We conservatives became well-known—and mocked by the media and Hollywood elites--in the 90’s for insisting that character still matters. Congress not only impeached Bill Clinton but we cast aside our own for sexual misconduct: Bob Packwood, Bob Bauman, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig. And it still matters as Republicans wrestle with the proper response to the candidacy of a very popular Senatorial candidate, Roy Moore, accused of sexually assaulting a minor.

But in Trump’s case, at what point do his negatives cancel out accomplishments of his Presidency? Do they require that the positive entries in the ledger never be considered or even entered? We know that the media rarely give even a passing glance at them. For myself, I have remained a continual critic of Trump while acknowledging those “few” things he got right.

It is time for me to take a second look. And there is much there for conservatives to celebrate. My friends, who often accused me, rather ridiculously I might add, of being a Hillary supporter during the campaign, often reminded me of Trump’s commitment to appoint solid conservatives to the Supreme Court and other federal courts. And then came Neil Gorsuch. A knock out of the park. Trump came through. Though Reagan’s legacy also included Antonin Scalia and Ed Meese, who arguably began the originalist debate and revolution, his appointments also included Anthony Kennedy whose proximity to the Right side is belied by his reputation as a “swing” voter on the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Gorsuch’s legacy, I will be presumptuous to predict, will equal the intellectual heft, if not the wit, of Antonin Scalia, and the fidelity to text and history of Scalia and Clarence Thomas. And Trump’s appointments to the appeals courts will only deepen that legacy as we see with the appointments of Kyle Duncan and Davis Stras.

We soon saw President Trump’s much-maligned and miss-distorted travel ban. He campaigned on tightening immigration, both from south of the border and of Muslims. He sought to clamp down on immigration from nations that did not adequately vet those leaving. Those nations included Venezuela and North Korea. The Supreme Court recently validated this executive prerogative in a 7-2 decision.

On the national defense side, the pluses start with the appointment of General “Mad Dog” Mattis as Secretary of Defense. Need I say more? OK, I will. Among the military accomplishments was the elevation of Cyber Command to a “Unified Combatant Command”, raising their profile and priority. For a glance at how far that capability has come I suggest that you read Fred Kaplan’s Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War. There was also the reversal, by President Trump, of President Obama’s decision to allow transgender individuals to serve in the military.

Diplomacy is again being used to advance U.S. interests. As a recent example, North Korea has again finally been re-designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism”. Long overdue. Just this week, Trump declared that the U.S. embassy will be moved to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, by which policy will reflect reality. Again, long overdue. The Trump State Department is also cutting funds to some United Nations organizations, such as the UN Population Fund.

The Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions (a particular favorite, being formerly a strong conservative Senator from my home state of Alabama) is a particular bright spot for conservatives. While there is a significant negative in Sessions’ commitment to civil asset forfeiture, he has sought to restore the rule of law in cracking down on sanctuary cities. Toward restoring the integrity of the election process, he demonstrated commitment to election integrity with the DOJ’s recent stand with Texas on its voter ID law. Justice also recently ended the Obama-era Operation Chokepoint initiative which sought to block some businesses, including firearms dealers and payday lenders, from having access to bank loans.

The Obama Administration’s collaboration with the far Left in the “sue and settle” strategy was ended. With “sue and settle” an environmental group, for example, would sue the Environmental Protection Agency and then reach a settlement by which a consent decree would be entered effectively extending regulations without benefit of legislation or even the formal regulation process. Regulation by litigation. Over.  For more on “sue and settle” read the Heritage Foundation study at http://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/report/regulation-through-sham-litigation-the-sue-and-settle-phenomenon.

President Trump promised to trim down the Leviathan of regulation, saying he would do away with two regulations for every new one implemented. In this case, he has over-accomplished. In a presentation I heard from a representative from Freedom Works this past weekend (which was the inspiration behind this essay) I learned that the ratio is actually SIXTEEN to one.

A list of Trump accomplishments would be incomplete without mentioning the absolute paroxysms of hate and rage his election and presence in the White House has elicited. Oh, the joy this gives me. Beginning with the feminist protests and their pussy hats immediately after the inauguration to snowflake college students who simultaneously require safe spaces on the hearing of Trump’s name while also violently protesting conservative speakers, much of the “resistance” has more ideological affinity—and sympathy--for Venezuela’s government and Jane Fonda than protecting American interests. CNN programming is a continual drumbeat of anti-Trump “news”. Positives? If mentioned at all, they are covered as negatives.

Am I now a Trump supporter? Don’t rush out and get me a MAGA hat. Trump is still Trump. But Trump’s accomplishments? Many would make Reagan proud.

Gene Wisdom, a retired naval officer, is a lifelong conservative Republican.  He is a native Alabamian, and he and his wife have recently moved from Nashville, where they lived for ten years, to Knoxville. While in Nashville Gene was moderator of the Conservative Fusion Book Club. 

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Ten books every conservative should read

Gene Wisdom

by Gene Wisdom - As a conservative reader and student of this outlook called conservatism I have developed a passion for helping others to “turn that light on”, to make that discovery of a set of ideas that would bring them perfect understanding, intellectual nirvana, of our political world.  No, no, not a grasp of political strategy and the correct stance between RINO’s and Tea Partiers, and how insiders operate.  Not even a policy guide presenting a checklist of the issues important for conservative voters. 

No, I’ve long believed that as conservatives we need, we require, a better understanding of the grounds beneath our positions.  Because I believe that conservatives are rooted both in the truth and in the knowledge that there is truth, we should hunger for it to feed our minds, to secure us to the ground and thereby protect ourselves from liberal flights of fancy.

So my friend Rod Williams tasked me to do what I’ve been tumbling around in my head for several years: present a list of the top ten books for conservatives.  I’ve got to admit, I had to kind of round out the group as the first three or so were automatic, works that I have been repeatedly sharing on Facebook and with friends, urging “Conservatives, you must read this!” 

Number one, then, is the one I have probably most worn a groove in my Facebook timeline with, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, by George H. Nash.  It is no exaggeration to declare that it is the place to start for anyone who wants to understand conservatism and who seeks to grasp the roots and foundations of modern conservative thought.  Nash explores the three-legged stool of conservatism: libertarianism, traditionalism, and anti-Communism.  And no, these legs aren’t simply marijuana legalization, the Christian right, and kill-a-commie-for-mommy.  He examines the postwar thinkers behind each of those elements and those, like William F. Buckley, who sought to bring their often disparate ideas together into a movement. 

Another standout is the second one on my list, James Burnham’s Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism.  While I believe that conservatives must be grounded in conservatism as a set of ideas and must understand their philosophical history and roots, I am convinced that we should no less seek to understand our opponent in the realm of ideas, modern liberalism.  Burnham investigates key areas such as the liberal’s view of human nature, the liberal order of values, their attachment to universalism and internationalism, their devotion to equality, and their sense of guilt.  If we do not understand the bases of their beliefs we WILL NOT understand where they seek to go.  To take us. 

A particular longstanding favorite is Men and Marriage, by George Gilder, described back in the day as Ronald Reagan’s “intellectual guru” for his landmark book, Wealth and Poverty.  For me, a key insight is Gilder’s exploration of the fact that marriage civilizes men.  He argues that single men are the bane of civilization for the destructive—and self-destructive—influences and impulses they wield in society. 

A companion that must be mentioned with Gilder’s work is Charles Murray’s blockbuster Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980.  This book is often credited as being the inspiration behind the “Clinton welfare reform” (actually the Republican welfare reform that Clinton vetoed several times before finally signing it) and its premise is that welfare policy has been a miserable failure, that the War on Poverty became instead a war on families.  He builds on Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s insight from two decades earlier, that the War on Poverty contributed to the dissolution of black families in the United States and was beginning to have the same impact on white families while expanding its destruction to blacks.  By the way, Murray carries forward and expands his contributions in his recent Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010. 

Because it embodies so many of the truths of conservatism our American Constitution is rightfully honored by people of various stripes on the Right and it embodies both the love of liberty and the rich history and tradition of our British forbears.  In order to understand its principles and protections we properly look to the period of its writing to understand the Framers.  In my opinion, one of the best sources on the struggle to ratify the Constitution, a controversy which should shape how we view its provisions, is Library of America’s two-volume, The Debate on the Constitution, a collection of both Federalist and anti-Federalist arguments, for and against the Constitution, including several of Publius’s writings in The Federalist Papers.  Here I’ll throw in what I believe is another indispensable read and a reference.  In my opinion, many conservatives and liberals err in understanding what our Founders were seeking to hammer out, misunderstanding that could be allayed by simply reading James Madison’s Notes on the Convention.  James Madison was present every day of the Federal Convention and took copious notes of the proposals, debates, and votes.  A reference that belongs on the shelves of every student of the Constitution is Liberty Fund’s The Founders Constitution, a 5-volume oversize collection of writings that both informed the Founders and contemporary understandings, and does so, clause by clause for the Constitution and the first twelve amendments. 

Rounding out the gotta have’s is a primer, and so a placeholder for an explication of its principles, Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt, that timeless work on free-market economics.  We all laugh about how little liberals understand about the basics of economics.  But how much do we know?  One of the three legs of the conservative stool, as Nash detailed, is libertarianism.  And there is nothing in libertarianism that is built on so rigorous and studied a system as the principles of the Austrian school economics, developed by Carl Menger, Eugen Bohm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek.  Modern libertarianism has degenerated, due to some unfortunate influences from the 60’s, into a hippie “if it feels good, do it and keep the government’s hands off me” and has largely left behind these pillars.  I doubt if more than a handful of my libertarian friends has read one of those classics, even Hazlitt’s introduction. 

And, speaking of Hayek and being forgotten by modern libertarians.  Another work that merits top-shelf consideration for any conservative is Hayek’s The Mirage of Social Justice, which is the second volume of his 3-volume Law, Legislation, and Liberty.  The centrality of that concept in the lexicon of modern liberalism (and thereby into modern political policy discussions) merits the place of this work for modern conservatives.  Hayek lays bare the utter meaninglessness of the concept and crumbles one of modern liberalism’s fundamentals.  Not a small contribution from someone who in another essay explained “Why I Am Not a Conservative” and contributed so many other major works to our understanding, including The Road to Serfdom, The Constitution of Liberty, and The Counter-Revolution of Science. 

The attack of the cultural Left on morality and Western civilization has required the shoring up of our philosophical foundations.  This became clear to me as I began to explore natural law (Thomas Jefferson’s “laws of nature and of nature’s God”) as the underpinning, the philosophical roots, of conservatism, of society.  For myself, that study began with the reading of Heinrich Rommen’s The Natural Law, which provided a basic understanding of both the concept and its philosophical history.  This opened the door to such modern natural law scholars as Robert George (whom the New York Times called America’s “most influential conservative Christian thinker”), J. Budziszewski, and Hadley Arkes.  Start with Rommen, though. 

The next book is really more of a genre than a single work.  And I almost left it out of this listing.  One of the three legs of the conservative stool identified by George Nash is anti-Communism.  As an element of the movement it was the unifier that often bridged the warring divide between libertarians and traditionalists.  There is a long list of go-to books for understanding the subversive influence of Communism in America.  The first two I would suggest are legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s Masters of Deceit and You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists) by the Founder of the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, Frederick Schwarz.  One corrective to the historical smears that make up liberal revisionism is Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case by Allen Weinstein.  In this blockbuster, Weinstein set out to prove Alger Hiss was not a Soviet spy and wound up making the definitive case for Hiss’s guilt. Another is Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies, by M. Stanton Evans, an icon of the conservative movement.  There are easily a dozen other books that recommend themselves in this area. 

The reason I almost left these in history’s dustbin is that modern conservatives have seemingly forgotten that there is true evil in the modern world.  The evil of Communism is one of the “gifts of the Left” and is part of the poisoned progeny of Jean Jacques Rousseau.  It is therefore the ideological cousin of modern liberalism and that kinship explains why Burnham in Suicide of the West found that, for modern liberalism, there are no enemies to the Left.  While Communists were often contemptuous of their cousins as “useful idiots”, liberals seem to have a warm spot in their hearts for their murderous kin.  I also fear that modern libertarianism shares some traits with liberalism, viz, a belief that human nature is good, an attachment to rationalism over traditionalism, and the hyper-rationalists’ over-confidence in the ability to remake society on these bases. 

As starting points for a couple of social conservative issues (issues because the Left’s agenda has forced them on us and not even through democratic means), the best place to start, to learn the best grounding for the pro-life/anti-abortion position is Francis Beckwith’s Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights.  Though the title is rather emotionally-charged this book lays out in very clear and logical terms the scientific/medical arguments against abortion.  A close second in this category is The Moral Question of Abortion by Stephen Schwarz. 

The other issue of the day for social conservatives is of course the attack on the institution of marriage posed by the push to legitimize same-sex marriage.  While there are other works on this subject, the author to look for is Ryan Anderson, who has become the go-to expert in presenting these arguments for preserving this core institution of Western civilization.  Anderson was a force of one around the country and often cited, including by Justice Alito in his dissent in the recent Obergefell v. Hodges U.S. Supreme Court decision, by proponents of preserving this institution.  Anderson’s first book on this issue, as one of three co-authors, was What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, which began as an article for The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, a Federalist Society online publication.  His second is a compelling critique of that decision, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom, which explores the ramifications for our First Amendment liberties. 

OK, like the dessert list, I couldn’t limit myself.  There are probably a few more than ten above but I believe they make a good starting point for anyone seeking to better understand the political thought of the Right.  As I suggested earlier, there are different elements of conservatism and in fact it can be broken down further than the three listed in Nash’s history.  And neoconservatism and the New Right were barely making their appearance when his book first appeared and so he added them in a later edition.  

Gene Wisdom is an Alabama native but has lived in the Nashville area since 2007. He, his wife Vicki, and their dog Savannah live near Nolensville.  Gene is a conservative activist and leads the Conservative Fusion Book Club.

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Reflection on Trump's victory

I did not vote for Donald Trump and I did not expect him to win.  I fully expected Hillary Clinton to win last night. My greatest hope for the evening was that Republicans could hold the Senate. That is what had me anxiously watching the election returns   I thought a weakened Clinton as president with a Republican Congress was the best possible outcome. Four years of obstruction and gridlock with a weakened Hillary Clinton on the ropes was, I thought, the best possible outcome.

I had and still have reservations about Trump, especially on trade policy and government spending and Trump's temperament. However, I am pleased that Obamacare will be repealed and replaced and that a Conservative Justice will fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. 

Despite not voting for Trump, I could not help myself but get excited as I saw the vote tallies come in. It may just be tribal identity and team loyalty, but I was cheering for a Trump win. My head still thinks he may be a danger and is a big-spending liberal, but my gut was cheering for a Trump win. 

Now that he has won, I hope Republicans will regain their values and stop Trump's  proposed massive new spending programs and new entitlements and a trade war. I hope Trump surrounds himself with good advisers and is really more open to listening to expert advice than he appears and I hope his ego is not as big as it appears. 

Despite not voting for Trump, I am relieved that Clinton did not win. Someone with her recklessness and ethics should not be in the White House. Although I did not vote for Trump, I am pleased with the outcome. May God give him wisdom and give Republicans in Congress some backbone to stand up to him when he is wrong. 

Below are comments gleaned from Facebook from people whose opinions I respect.

From Gene Wisdom:

I was clearly wrong in my judgment that someone of Trump's lack of judgment, temperament, character, and integrity could not win the election (assuming it goes the way it is currently headed). I'll leave aside what that speaks of the American electorate. But I may have been wrong on another consideration: I have long worried, since Trump won the nomination, that his nomination would mean the dissolution of the conservative movement and the Republican Party.

What if I read that wrong (and, of course, here is a huge dash of hope)? Perhaps the anger exemplified in this election is an OPPORTUNITY that the Republican Party should not piss away as they have so often in the past. Now that the GOP may now gain all three political branches (President, House, and Senate), will they now:

--scrap Obamacare and strengthen free-market principles in healthcare?
--seize the opportunity to unshackle the economy from burdensome regulations?
--strengthen the American energy market and finally give some "ooomph" to domestic fossil fuel production and reverse the Obama attempt to destroy the coal industry?
--restore America's military and scrap the social laboratory Obama was turning it into? Will they rebuild American military presence around the world as a deterrent to those eager to displace American leadership in the world?
--continue to chip away at the baby-killing industry of America's abortion "clinics"?
--capitalize on the opportunities to restore common sense and a faithful adherence to the Constitution by the selection and Senate consent to originalist jurists on the High Court, in the mold of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito?
--turn back the educariat's domination of our schools and get back to local control? --cut back on our punitive tax code, especially capital gains that chase American industry overseas? Is America no longer naturally an industrial giant? Was it inevitable that we evolve away from that industrial backbone? Perhaps. But let's let a dose of freedom and incentive have a shot at it. --turn loose the economy, as Reagan did, and bring back actual strong economic growth, not the 1-2% malaise we've been stumbling along with?
--work to preserve and restore religious liberty even while the assault on the family continues apace.

There is anger in this election tonight, for sure. Congress may have to work to channel that anger away from Trump's protectionist predilections, an impulse that could very easily lead us, as my friend Rod Williams has reminded us, into trade wars and even worse economic malaise. We would be foolish to ignore the role of high tariffs in bringing about the Great Depression.

There is a reason that Republicans control the majority of state legislatures, of governorships, and of both houses of Congress: Republican principles of economic growth and a firm grasp of traditional values work. Strong and stable intact traditional families provide a foundation which means boys aren't as likely to wind up in prison and girls aren't as likely to become single mothers.

Is Trump's election a cure-all for all our ills? Gosh no. If it was I would have supported his candidacy. Given his appalling personal qualities, he is not the ideal person to guide us in the direction of the policies above. His election now simply increases the CHANCE that the Congress will steer HIM in these directions.

God be with us.

From Daniel Turklay:

Elections have consequences.

I am not a Trump supporter, but America dodged a giant bullet tonight in avoiding Hillary. Everybody knows it.

I have not had Trump's back in this election and I will be watching him like a hawk along with every other bonafide Constitutional Conservative in this country waiting for him to expose his New York liberal roots, But, what I can say for Trump that I never could say for Hillary is that at least I can root for the man to succeed. The man DOES love this country and he will not be giving any speeches about fundamentally transforming her. I'm rooting for him, but I'm not going to be shocked at all if he's a giant letdown. Trump is fully primed to be the first sitting President to face a serious primary challenge, and I know exactly who will be waiting to do it.

Elections have consequences.

To all of the absolutist political pundits who claim over and over that X can't happen and Y has no chance....your analysis means nothing.

To Obama, your legacy is nothing but a severely crippled national health care system. Your executive orders are about to meet a shredder. Your fundamental transformation of America is a colossal failure. You outkicked your coverage for 8 years and this is what happens. I'm sure you'll spend the next 2.5 months trying to stuff the White House toilets with paper towels and issuing pardons to all of your friends and arming America's enemies.....but I suppose all of that is your parting gift for 8 years that add up to nothing. Good for you. Take your pen and phone with you.

Elections. Have. Consequences. And they start now.

God Bless the United States of America: a Republic, if we can keep it.

Richard Upchurch

Many good people I know are expressing their pain, shock and perplexity. I share some of this with them. Why was the electorate so angry this time? Why have they chosen such an unlikely, inept and unready champion? Perhaps radical and extremist policy has indeed provoked a commensurate reaction. Perhaps the present administration's policies of effective disdain for what is most fundamental in human society has stirred up not reactionary revolution but a dull, inarticulate gesture of uncertain and reluctant insurrection. The voters cast ballots as though believing that in our public life something is deeply amiss but as though they recognize not yet, at this juncture, what they want or need or where they want to go.

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Rod, come back to the Tea Party

by Gene Wisdom, May 23, 2014 -

Gene Wisdom

Rod Williams is not everyone’s idea of a conservative. The local 9-12 chapter decided a while back that he just wasn’t one of them—and they kicked him out. I know that Rod didn’t lose any sleep over that. Hell, I’ll bet good money that he went to sleep that night chuckling. And I know that I’m not everyone’s idea of a conservative. One libertarian friend jokingly (?) calls me a neo-conservative. For some that would be fighting words. Since there are some fine “neo-cons”, beginning with Charles Krauthammer, I’ll take that as a compliment. Even though I’m not one. I don’t really give a rat’s hindparts if I meet anyone’s definition of a conservative because I know what a conservative is and I know I are one. And I would put some more good money on the fact that Rod feels the same way.

Which is why I’m confused. I am perplexed over Rod’s recent decision  to disavow the Tea Party label. We know he is a “disgruntled Republican” but apparently now also a disgruntled Tea Partier. The difference is that while he still considers himself a Republican he has left the Tea Party.

As a conservative I know that words mean things. It’s what allows us to converse with one another and to exist with our fellow human beings in society. It is a core assumption of Western civilization that is just one more reason for its success. Hopefully that notion will survive the postmodern assault on truth. On justice. And on the American way. And even though the word “conservative” includes many strains of thought and conservatives will argue with blue faces over who is truer, we as conservatives all know what the Tea Party is.

Yes, of course we’re smart enough to ignore the Left’s smears and attacks on that term and on Tea Partiers. We can ignore that because they do that to everyone on the Right, everyone who doesn’t agree with them. Because the Left is dominated by bullies who preach tolerance. Oh, they see an alternative, all right. There’s their way. And there’s the highway.

But we know. Taxed Enough Already. Ben Cunningham’s Nashville Tea Party best summarizes the core principles: (1) Constitutionally limited government, (2) fiscal responsibility, and (3) free markets. Anything else is extraneous. Though most Tea Partiers are social conservatives—and I would guess, vice verse—not all are. And foreign policy is almost irrelevant to the Tea Party vision. If you believe in those three things you are a “member” of the Tea Party. By definition.

In his column Rod bemoans at length the involvement in the Tea Party of members of the John Birch Society. I’ll here offer a brief opening defense of the JBS by way of a disclaimer: I was a member a long time ago, for a year. What attracted me to the organization was the education I received through JBS books and publications on the nature and menace of Communism, both nationally and around the world. As I read more, though, I began to learn of “the conspiracy”, the diffuse cabal going back, as Rod explained, to the formation of the Illuminati in 1776 down through the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States. I obtained from the CFR copies of some of their annual reports which included their membership list (not a very effective conspiracy, huh—they tell us who they are. But there wasn’t a picture of the secret handshake). A quick perusal of that list turned up some stalwart conservatives, including several who were in the Reagan Administration: Richard Allen, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Elliot Abrams and many others. It also included the godfather of the modern American conservative movement, William F. Buckley, Jr.

Thus ended my affiliation with the John Birch Society. I also began to learn, as I studied liberalism, that among its core elements is internationalism. They see things not through a prism of what is good for America or for the principles represented by America but they seek rather to advance international institutions, which is also rooted in their view of the “brotherhood of man” and a Rousseauian view of man’s nature as good. So I began to understand that what the JBS saw as a plot was often little more than liberals being liberals. That still makes them and their worldview dangerous but not the machinations of a secret society.

What Birchers have brought into the Tea Party is this misguided paradigm which skews the focus into chasing phantoms like, as Rod noted, Agenda 21. These issues distract the Tea Party from its identity of restoring fiscal sanity and limited government to the halls of power. While I suppose I remain a member of 9-12 despite my dampened enthusiastic two cheers, I disagree with them on such issues and perhaps with them, and others, on the nullificationist approach also detailed by Rod. There is a wide range of strong support for the Second Amendment short of arresting federal agents at the state line and stripping employers/property owners of the right to refuse to allow guns in the workplace and on their property.

One area where I tend to agree with them and greatly credit them for their efforts to educate the public is on the issue of radical Islam. While I believe that reasonable people can disagree on the issue of Governor Haslam’s hiring of a Muslim woman to his administration there can be no doubt of the dangers of a Muslim Brotherhood organized effort to ingratiate jihadism into American society. Including the building of a Wahhabist mosque in Murfreesboro. Though I respect Rod’s holding fast to First Amendment religious liberty, I disagree with my friend that this is a benign development in our community.

But again, I believe that Rod has allowed himself to be distracted by these agenda items of some local Tea Party organizations. Though I disagree with them on Agenda 21 and nullification and for the most part agree with them regarding radical Islam, neither is a part of what the Tea Party in general stands for.

And yes, the Tea Party has made some poor choices in politicians. On that I would just offer that (1) hey, nobody’s perfect. Some choices don’t pan out; and (2) hopefully the Tea Party will learn from these mistakes and perhaps do something that principle-based organizations and causes have a hard time doing, which is to learn to temper their enthusiasm with prudence. Don’t give up the principles but be wise. Sounds like something Rod Williams might say.

It is also true that such efforts, however misguided they might seem, especially in hindsight, are based in what I’m sure Rod knows is frustration that we all feel as conservatives. The liberal agenda has crammed some foul-tasting policies down America’s throat that have made our country sick and weak. We have truly become a nation of takers growing increasingly dependent on a welfare state that becomes bigger and gains political support—votes—from more people on the dole. Our culture is being pushed downward by a Hollywood hostile to traditional values and pulled by a culture already sunk into that pit. Personally, I wonder if America has reached a tipping point.

It is my hope, though, that Rod will decide not to leave the Tea party but will come to see that many there, including some fine organizations with some fine people, have allowed themselves to become disoriented. And maybe that’s not fair. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that some Tea Party organizations have other or additional objectives. Others, though, aren’t driven by JBS views, such as Americans for Prosperity. And some, like the Nashville Tea Party, are driven by the animating ideals of the Tea Party as originally conceived. Take your pick, Rod. Don’t let the disparate and even disagreeable agendas of a few groups push you out of what you know is your ideological home—commitment to sound government, fiscal responsibility and free enterprise. Proudly don your “Don’t Tread on Me” shirt and come back. You know it fits.

Gene Wisdom is an Alabama native but has lived in the Nashville area since 2007. He, his wife Vicki, and their dog Savannah live near Nolensville.  Gene is a conservative activist 

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Report on the Constitution Refresher

by Gene Wisdom

We conservatives in America cherish the document by which this nation of free men governs itself.  We love reading about those who handed it down to us as well as the principles behind it.  Americans as worthy as our veterans and as lowly as our politicians swear oaths to defend it.  And it is by the sacrifices of the former and the legislative recesses of the latter that we still enjoy the freedoms guaranteed by its limits on government. 

And so I joined many of my fellow conservatives for the Constitution Refresher class on August 17 organized by the 9-12 Project of Tennessee and taught by attorney and Tea Party leader Hal Rounds, and held at Three Brothers Restaurant in Murfreesboro.  It is a good thing for activists to reflect on their animating ideas and Mr. Rounds provided an excellent opportunity to immerse ourselves in our charter of government, its history, and ideas, and how it was designed to bind that government. 

He did an excellent job in the eight hours provided of detailing how our Constitution was shaped by Founders who left the Old World seeking freedom and opportunity, and took us through the Declaration of Independence and then through the document itself as well as its amendments.  All this while taking several questions from the audience.  If there was a disappointment in the presentation it was that it is not a week long or even a full weekend course.  I would love to have seen more flesh on the history and principles of the Constitution, more discussion of the disagreements even among fellow conservatives on such ideas as incorporation (of the Bill of Rights through the 14th Amendment), nullification, and judicial review as well as a more detailed examination of Supreme Court opinions. 

There was one exchange toward the end of the course which I did find rather disturbing.  The instructor mentioned the “might have been” of a Congressional payment to former slaveholders as compensation for the loss of their “property” (i.e., their slaves and fellow human beings) following the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment.  When I mentioned the clear injustice and evil of paying one group of men for enslaving other men I was met with defenses such as slaveholders paying for brogans for their slaves and the expense of providing them with homes/shelter.  It seemed to escape them that farmers provide shoes and barns for their horses but that treating humanely is not the same as treating humanly—and morally.  Not to mention the further injustice of asking other Americans to pay for compensation of this evil.  If anyone stood to be compensated it was the former slaves themselves by having their life and liberties stolen and beaten from them.  Oh, there were the hand-wringing protestations of “Of course, it’s evil”, but the tenor of the discussion was a not understated, “But it wasn’t that bad.” 

This was but a very short, albeit troublesome, exchange in what was a very rewarding and fruitful weekend of being reminded and taught why our Constitution is important and why devoted activists in the Tea Party, 9-12, ACT for America, and dozens of other organizations in our state and nation continue in daily honorable efforts to protect it and our liberties.  Energy is good, activism is wonderful, but we must not neglect our education in the principles we seek to defend.  Thank you, 9-12 and Mr. Rounds.  

Gene Wisdom is an Alabama native but has lived in the Nashville area since 2007. He, his wife Vicki, and their dog Savannah live near Nolensville.  Gene is a conservative activist and leads the Conservative Fusion Book Club. 

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