William F. Buckley's Impure Conservatism

William F. Buckley's success in building modern conservatism had nothing to do with ideological purity

Ramesh Ponnuru writes an article that looks to the past to give conservatives hope for the future. He talks about the modern conservative movement Buckley fathered. He shows us that

... the coalition Buckley assembled ... seemed to be a ramshackle affair. It included anti-Communists (who were frequently ex-Communists), libertarians, traditionalists, and even the odd — very odd — monarchist. They disagreed with each other on everything from the existence of God to the necessity of government-run lighthouses. Conservatives and liberals said this coalition made no intellectual sense and could not possibly hang together politically, let alone succeed. But common interests, chiefly in resisting liberalism, kept Buckley’s movement in one piece.

The free-market Catholic Buckley collaborated with Sidney Hook, an atheist and socialist, on anti-Communist projects. The conservatives of today have smaller bridges to build. If Buckley could work with Hook, surely we can make the effort to reach out to environmentally conscious suburbanites and new Hispanic citizens.

A similar conservative collection of disagreeing odd-balls can work today. President Obama and his radical confreres in Congress have provided a cause evangelicals, irreligious moderates, libertarian constitutionalists, agnostic free marketeers, and cultural conservatives can all rally around:

Defeat Liberalism

Cultural and religious conservatives do not need to drop their beliefs, they just need to stop card checking others at the door. Non-believers need not bow before God to enter, they must merely acknowledge the constitutional right of believers to openly practice their faith.

Troy Senik, writing at RCP sums it up:

...effective political coalitions are built by addition, not subtraction. The notion that social conservatives, libertarian free-market types, or hawkish neoconservatives can be profitably removed from the party is usually an exercise in wishful thinking on behalf of their ideological adversaries.

William F. Buckley worked with atheists and others who did not share his cultural views. Can you?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzgzZThlOGJiZTRkZmQxODcxNWIyYzIwMWRlMjM4YzU=
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/450mnzei.asp?pg=2