Correspondence
Correspondence Intellectuals Prefer Culture David Brooks offers thoughtful criticism of conservatives who argue that America's central challenge over the next 20 years is to rebuild the family,...
...Hundreds of terrible programs, regulations, and court decisions have to be dismantled or overturned if civil society is to flourish...
...As a contributing editor to the conservative Cornell Review, I witnessed firsthand just how destructive a joint effort by the daily student newspaper and assorted student-assembly rah-rahs might be when aimed at individuals disfavored by the radical-culture guerrillas...
...15), was Matt Labash being tongue in cheek, or did he intend to make a point about amateur voyeurism...
...Both national institutions have declined in quality over the past couple of decades, collapsing into petty spite and selective moralizing...
...However, despite his charge ("Leviathan in the Suburbs," Dec...
...When a town like Alexandria starts losing too many businesses it will have to reconsider its oppressive bureaucratic policies...
...Brooks says arguments about character building will remain "airy-fairy" unless reified into public policy proposals...
...Should we exchange the current welfare state that is blamed for the moral decline of the country and replace it with another great experiment of policies and programs to change the culture and moral fiber of America...
...It is rather to issue an invitation to acknowledge the depths of our social crisis, to move beyond policy determinism, and to create a politics of prudence and realism, which I maintain most Americans would find appealing...
...The professor's solitary weakness is his concession that the book "scores points" against the Christian America claim...
...As conservatives, we are discovering that "revolution" in the political realm alone is misleading (as Brooks himself states), not to mention highly elusive...
...I guess all of us unsophisticates in the provinces outside the Beltway just don't get this hip stuff...
...Some just don't want their kids to excel academically or be in any way different from the rest of the kids on the block...
...References to God in our Constitution were gloriously preceded by Thomas Jefferson's Godly Declaration, which formed America's philosophical foundations and set out her creed with, in Chesterton's words, "theological lucidity...
...Besides being closer to the people and better acquainted with local circumstances, communities offer one supremely valuable guarantee of liberty: freedom to exit...
...Second, the majority of voters here are unaware of the deficiencies of the structure of the classroom...
...In fact, devolution is a program to lift the dead hand of Washington from our states and communities so that they can flourish in all their variety...
...Don Eberly Lancaster, PA Please tell me that David Brooks's article was tongue in cheek...
...But after being the obsessive subject of the daily newspaper's editorial and cartoon staff, he was finally led to a hearing before a faculty committee...
...An entirely predictable state of affairs, as when they came for the conservative students, the professors did not speak out...
...the same acknowledgment that made America Christian...
...18), devolution is not a danger to these liberties...
...The job of politics, in addition to statutory reform, is to "shape the public sentiments," as Lincoln put it, without which policy reforms will be of little effect...
...The crisis in America is excessive politicization...
...First, Californians are susceptible to religious cults...
...He wonders why "intellectuals have abandoned politics...
...Finally, California has lost a whole generation of lazy parents who reflect the mind-set of television programming...
...Sandra Price Cambria, CA More Hell at Cornell So now they have come for the professors at Cornell ("Briefing for a Descent into Hell: Today's Campus," Jan...
...When American life is radically out of balance, the answer is not replacing a crusading liberal politics with a messianic conservative politics-it is to fight to depoliticize society...
...To the contrary, authors Isaac Kramnick and Laurence Moore miss God in America only because they know not where to look...
...Adam Meyerson Washington, DC David Brooks offers an outstanding critique of the politics-versus-culture debate...
...I'll never forget the look on his face when he came out of that meeting...
...In America's states and localities you have a means by which people can protect their rights and express their disapproval: They can move on to the next town, the next county, or the next state...
...Social engineering doesn't work...
...Andrew Rusk Galveston, IN In his informative review Jeremy Rabkin tells us that "Jefferson, the staunchest advocate of secular government, frequently graced his presidential speeches with religious appeals and Biblical allusions...
...He is correct on most counts, but he misidentifies me as a person who has "simply given up on policy and politics...
...Rights were Creator-given, said Jefferson's Declaration, and not the progeny of polls or politics...
...Culture and politics cannot be divorced: A nation's laws, and the rhetoric of its politicians, send strong signals to its culture...
...Because they realize, as intelligent intellectuals must, that social problems are beyond the realm of government...
...Kim Russell Darnestown, MD Hillary, Worse Than Nixon The grotesque caricature of Hillary Clinton and the accompanying article ("The Hidden Tale of Travelgate," Jan...
...Watts Beverly Hills, FL California School Choice Iworked for many months on the voucher initiative in California and thought you might want an opinion as to why it didn't pass ("School Choice is Back," Scrapbook, Jan...
...Assuming the Casual is just for fun, is S&M what passes for fun in Washington these days...
...The fear of any religious training in the classroom caused much hysterical debate...
...In their efforts to cleanse the secular temple, authors Moore and Kramnick overlook the importance of this solemn national acknowledgment of Providence...
...To raise doubts about politics is not to be anti-politics...
...To be "concerned about the space that is neither government nor market" would seem to be the most distinctively conservative proposition anyone could put forward...
...22) is your most devastating satire yet...
...Many parents have given up trying to have any input into the education system, as this can be very unpleasant...
...Indeed he did...
...Religious observance is much higher in the United States than in places like England, where there is an established church...
...Bolick criticizes those he believes offer devolution as a "one-size-fits-all" solution to our policy problems...
...W.R...
...A main target at the time, a classmate of mine, was a promising student with excellent grades and a perfect LSAT score...
...In many cases new private institutions-colleges, religious movements, charities, business associations, and so on-will be more innovative, less bureaucratic, and more effective than government has ever been...
...Spencer Abraham United States Senate Washington, DC...
...He is right to say that the civil society, or citizenship, movement should not and cannot ignore politics and public policy...
...But Brooks is dead wrong in suggesting that the usefulness of citizenship proposals can be judged by whether "Big Ideas on character" can be translated into "Big Policies...
...Isn't the failure of the Great Society proof enough...
...I fail to see how attacking her by comparing her to a disgraced fellow Republican would advance the conservative agenda...
...Even if the current revolutionary program were fully implemented, it would not greatly change moral problems such as teen pregnancy, adolescent crime, father absence, drugs, and divorce...
...22) have the stench of blasphemy toward the memory of President Richard Nixon...
...The media ads overpowered the very concept of free choice...
...We should not throw away this opportunity to resuscitate democratic experimentation in the hope that we will get all the reforms we want at the national level and somehow permanently hold power and thwart liberals from ever reversing them...
...Alan Gura Elizabeth City, NC I Do Want a Devolution Both in court and out, Clint Bolick has done much to defend personal liberties...
...Devolution will not bring utopia, but it will allow communities and citizens to work out better, more responsible, and more limited government arrangements...
...I used to be quite a fan of Herblock, but then I also used to be a fan of American liberalism...
...Conservatives will lose the debate and the support of the majority of the voters if they sign on to this wacko idea now that they are in power...
...John Lockwood Washington, DC The Naked Secular Square Hallelujah for Jeremy Rabkin's review of The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness ("Godless in America," Jan...
...This not only allows the citizen to find a community he or she finds suitable, it also allows citizens to combat the growth of government...
...it is a crisis rooted in the loss of a realm that is consensual, voluntary, and belonging to the people...
...A great wave of social entrepreneurship is sweeping America, in which new private institutions-such as the National Fatherhood Initiative, Prison Fellowship, Teen Challenge, Best Friends, and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship-are stepping up to the plate to solve problems where Big Government has struck out...
...Secular government is good for religion...
...I suspect it's a look that will be worn upon the faces of many of the professors who haven't bothered to concern themselves with political repression on their campus...
...He had to plead with uninterested and unsympathetic professors not to put him on academic suspension...
...George Jochnowitz Staten Island, NY S&M, Washington Pastime Regarding "It's an S&M Kind of Thing" (Jan...
...Correspondence Intellectuals Prefer Culture David Brooks offers thoughtful criticism of conservatives who argue that America's central challenge over the next 20 years is to rebuild the family, churches, civic associations, and other institutions of civil society ("Culture Equals Politics," Jan...
...Nonsense...
...Preston P. Birenbaum Woodland Hills, CA Herblock in Decline The parody of Herblock's style (Jan...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 20
