"Let us lay to rest, once and for all, the myth of a small group of ideological purists trying to capture a majority. Replace it with the reality of a majority trying to assert its rights against the tyranny of powerful academics, fashionable left-revolutionaries, some economic illiterates who happen to hold elective office and the social engineers who dominate the dialogue and set the format in political and social affairs. If there is any ideological fanaticism in American political life, it is to be found among the enemies of freedom on the left or right—those who would sacrifice principle to theory, those who worship only the god of political, social and economic abstractions, ignoring the realities of everyday life. They are not conservatives." ~ Ronald Reagan (1977 CPAC speech)
Yesterday, which coincided with the 224th anniversary of the Constitution's ratification (yeah, you didn't hear anyone in the media mention it), Levin took an opportunity to analyze a particular National Review article written by Jeb Bush that really cuts to the heart of the different perspectives between those of the establishment and those who are proud conservatives, as well as the divergence in understanding what conservatism is. It is not 'ideology'; it is the antithesis of ideology; it is experience...
On Thursday's Mark Levin Show: Jeb Bush wrote an article and tried to explain what conservatism is, and misses the mark completely. He doesn't understand that government exists to create a platform so that the individual can thrive and succeed, not for the government to. Mark compares Jeb Bush's view to that of Ronald Reagan - a true conservative.
Mark particularly seizes on Jeb Bush's perception of conservatism's fundamental principles and beliefs as "thick black lines of ideology" that "are good at keeping people in, but...are also good at keeping people out," and views those who attempt to adhere to conservative principles as "a small army of purists." This is tired, timid establishment rhetoric which Levin surmises sounds a lot like a rewriting, or rather twisting, of Reagan's 1977 speech.
I'd advise folks to at least listen to the first half-hour of the program (here), and there's also an interesting and somewhat lengthy discussion with a caller into the second hour, but the following gives you a taste of Levin's lesson...
As Levin makes clear, "We are constitutionalists, they are abstractionists."
ADDENDUM: Here's that discussion with the caller explaining why conservatism is not an ideology...
