Up from Conservatism

Judge Neil Gorsuch and a Bill Buckley Wannabe

I would rather be in the garden but the temperature is hovering around 20F, there’s 10-inches snow cover, we’re getting our daily 1–3, 2–4 inches of the fresh powdery stuff.

This leaves plenty of time for pondering the ways of the world particularly the weird twists and turns of life and fate and choices and responses.

This morning the Mail Online reported on some of the youthful adventures of Judge Neil Gorsuch, the pick of Donald Trump and his minions to be the next associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Among Judge Gorsuch’s achievements was founding Fascism Forever, a group dedicated to opposing the “liberal” faculty at Georgetown Prep.[1] His high school yearbook shows the William F. Buckley wannabe leaning back in his chair reading (or at least holding) Buckley’s “Up From Liberalism.”

I cite this for one purpose. That could be me. Well, if I was male, wealthy, had gone to selective all-boys prep school, then on to an Ivy League college (Columbia)[2], law school (Harvard) and studied abroad (Oxford).

Somehow in high school I became enamored of Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley. I poured over Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative.” I religiously watched Buckley’s “Firing Line.”

Mother was appalled. I can now admit that her reaction and her life may have been a motivation. She was born poor and never got to even the middle-class. She worked in a garment factory, never had health insurance until she qualified for Medicare, and was a staunch Democrat. Her union was largely ineffective but gave me opportunities for travel and education that I would have never had on my own.

It got worse in college. I became an ardent devotee of a conservative political science professor. Joined the Society of the Right. Read Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind: from Burke to Santayana.” Have a signed copy. A friend and I spent hours trying to justify Goldwater’s speech at the 1964 San Francisco Republican convention and its famous quote, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that [[moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! “

At that same convention a delegate set afire the coat of an African-American delegate.

Still, my goal was to write for the National Review. I, too, was a Bill Buckley wannabe.

And then, I started reading the speeches, digging into what was really being said, comparing what these conservatives did with what they said. What I found was jargon and code words.

Behind all of the rhetoric was an approach to the poor, the dispossessed, those who would never make it into the Ivy League, who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth. And the support of a war in a far off Asian country[3] against people who simply wanted to be in charge of their own destiny.

Somehow I learned that there are things called public goods. Clean air, clean water, an educated citizenry, nonpoliticized administration, open and fair elections that are worth government action and citizen support.

Progressive programs are not perfect. Liberals are not perfect. I know now, however, that they care about people like my mother in ways that conservatives cannot imagine. I hope our fate is in the hands of a justice that when he had a chance looked beyond the constraints of his ideology, who walked off the campus of Columbia and into the world of Harlem that surrounded it; who cares for people as much as for texts and formalism. That, unfortunately, does not seem to be Judge Neil Gorsuch.

[1] NOTE: Snopes.com reports that there was no such group. A history teacher at the school is quoted as saying, “The students would create fictitious clubs; they would have fictitious activities. They were all inside jokes on their senior pages.” Ha, ha. For the record, Georgetown Prep (as it is known locally) is the country’s oldest Jesuit school. Current tuition, according to its website, is $35,955 (US) for day students and $58,460 for boarders. Check out www.gprep.org.

[2] Where he founded “The Fed,” alternative, conservative newspaper.

[3] And then three countries: Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

I would rather be in the garden but the temperature is hovering around SSF, there’s 10-inches snow cover, we’re getting our daily 1–3, 2–4 inches of the fresh powdery stuff.

This leaves plenty of time for pondering the ways of the world particularly the weird twists and turns of life and fate and choices and responses.

This morning the Mail Online reported on some of the youthful adventures of Neil Gorsuch, the pick of Donald Trump and his minions to be the next associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Among Judge Gorsuch’s achievements was founding Fascism Forever, a group dedicated to opposing the “liberal” faculty at Georgetown Prep.[1] His high school yearbook shows the William F. Buckley wannabe leaning back in his chair reading (or at least holding) Buckley’s “Up From Liberalism.”

I cite this for one purpose. That could be me. Well, if I was male, wealthy, had gone to selective all-boys prep school, then on to an Ivy League college (Columbia)[2], law school (Harvard) and studied abroad (Oxford).

Somehow in high school I became enamored of Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley. I poured over Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative.” I religiously watched Buckley’s “Firing Line.”

Mother was appalled. I can now admit that her reaction and her life may have been a motivation. She was born poor and never got to even the middle-class. She worked in a garment factory, never had health insurance until she qualified for Medicare, and was a staunch Democrat. Her union was largely ineffective but gave me opportunities for travel and education that I would have never had on my own.

It got worse in college. I became an ardent devotee of a conservative political science professor. Joined the Society of the Right. Read Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind: from Burke to Santayana.” Have a signed copy. A friend and I spent hours trying to justify Goldwater’s speech at the 1964 San Francisco Republican convention and its famous quote, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that [[moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! “

At that same convention a delegate set afire the coat of an African-American delegate.

Still, my goal was to write for the National Review. I, too, was a Bill Buckley wannabe.

And then, I started reading the speeches, digging into what was really being said, comparing what these conservatives did with what they said. What I found was jargon and code words.

Behind all of the rhetoric was an approach to the poor, the dispossessed, those who would never make it into the Ivy League, who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth. And the support of a war in a far off Asian country[3] against people who simply wanted to be in charge of their own destiny.

Somehow I learned that there are things called public goods. Clean air, clean water, an educated citizenry, nonpoliticized administration, open and fair elections that are worth government action and citizen support.

Progressive programs are not perfect. Liberals are not perfect. I know now, however, that they care about people like my mother in ways that conservatives cannot imagine. I hope our fate is in the hands of a justice that when he had a chance looked beyond the constraints of his ideology, who walked off the campus of Columbia and into the world of Harlem that surrounded it; who cares for people as much as for texts and formalism. That, unfortunately, does not seem to be Judge Neil Gorsuch.

[1] For the record, Georgetown Prep (as it is known locally) is the country’s oldest Jesuit school. Current tuition, according to its website, is $35,955 (US) for day students and $58,460 for boarders. Check out www.gprep.org.

[2] Where he founded “The Fed,” an alternative, conservative newspaper.

[3] And then three countries: Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

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