Opinion
Conservatism rapidly increases
March 12, 2009
For far too long I have been hearing the statement “conservatism is dead.” This premature ejaculation of rhetoric that would put a prepubescent boy to shame is in the papers, on the Internet and is paraded around by most ostentatious and intemperate left-wing puppeteers.
I’ve heard it regurgitated so frequently since the presidential election that when I rise in the morning I expect to see it posted in the obituary columns adjacent to Al Gore’s career. However, these eulogies will never come forth as they are both destined to live on; conservatism is indissoluble, and Al Gore will undoubtedly exploit some other issue in hopes to regain his mediocre-stardom status.
Case in point, two weekends ago, I had the great pleasure of attending the 2009 Conservative Public Action Conference in Washington D.C. It is there where I saw first hand, that conservatism is far from dead and to my surprise, that the ironic, and mythical “conservative college student,” does exist.
For three days, I watched as fellow conservatives, old and young, came together and discussed the plagues of our nation, our parties and from there, conversed on how to venture forward. Also, while at CPAC, I was witness to fervid speeches by Niger Innis, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and the directors of “Not Evil Just Wrong,” that had crowds infinitely at attention, and could have paralleled the hysteria that would ensue if a lock of hair from Barack Obama was sold on eBay.
If CPAC 2009 taught me anything it is that there is a conservative tsunami in the works that is growing exponentially greater as government becomes vaster, deficits become larger and when the fundamental values our country was based on are being tossed to the wind and replaced with a welfare state.
I see it as a tsunami fueled by a generation of youth that is emboldened and optimistic for a brighter future, similar to the youth that helped catapult Barack Obama into the presidency.
Yet these youth will not be catapulting a mere man, but a way of life that will give everyone the opportunity at the American dream and through this dream they will live a life that cannot be purchased with any amount of “change” the Barack Obama administration could give you, or should I say, borrow from someone else and give you.
Spencer Gansluckner is a student at UW-River Falls.