“There are burglaries and heists and capers and robberies, but few thefts in history can match what Baby Boomers have done to Millennials since 2008: they stole their children’s economic futures right out from under them.”  So says Joseph Sternberg, editorialist and columnist for the Wall Street Journal and author of the new book The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials’ Economic Future.

 

One generation looking down on another is all to common these days.  Yet, in spite of the book’s provocative title, Joseph’s arguments are surprisingly nuanced and even sympathetic to Boomers.  Both Millennials and Boomers came of age and entered the workforce at a time when the economy was suffering.  However, Boomers learned all the wrong economic lessons of their childhood by mistaking economic outputs (rising wages, an explosion in home ownership, pensions, healthcare, etc.) with economic inputs (investing in the equipment, labor, and knowledge that drove the economy).

 

As a result, Boomers have largely been pursuing economic policies designed to re-create the robust economy of their youth.  But because they’ve been focused on the wrong end of the spectrum (outputs instead of inputs) much of their efforts have led to distortions in the market that have had a profoundly negative impact on their children—the Millennial generation.

 

Joseph contends that one of the more surprising aspects of the political battles over the past few decades is not how much had changed but how much stayed the same.  Our past four presidents have been Boomers and three of them (Clinton, Bush, and Trump) were even all born in the same year of 1946.  Boomers held enormous power—both as the largest voting block and as our leaders—and regardless of what party or president was in charge, much of the economic policies of “investing” in things like education and cutting taxes to spur the economy remained relatively the same.

 

Millennials are anxious to break outside of the narrow lane created by the Boomer generation as we perceive we aren’t doing that well economically.  And Joseph would definitely agree Millennials have a real beef.  Lurching to the Left—as we’ve seen with the rise of socialism and candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—is one way to break outside of that lane.  But Joseph is hopeful Millennials will find more market-friendly and pro-capitalist means of breaking outside of the narrow lane created by our parents’ generation.  And he invites us to engage in the generation-wide conversation of what economic policies make sense for us today.  And that conversation begins with a better understanding of what our parents got wrong in the first place.

Josh and Bob continue their conversation on the national interests of the United States that drives the nation’s foreign policy in part two of this two-part discussion.

 

To the casual observer, American foreign policy over the past 240 years can come across as sporadic at best.  We’ve gone from Washingtonian noninterventionism to the territorial expansions of the nineteenth century to gearing up a massive military industrial complex for two world wars to Soviet containment to democratic nation-building to a series of non-specific military engagements with rogue terrorist groups.

 

Some conservatives have argued the best thing we could do as a nation would be to heed George Washington’s warning of no entangling alliances with foreign powers and stop meddling in the affairs of other nations.  Other conservatives argue for a strong military presence around the globe needed to keep world peace and free markets operating.  Which view is truly “conservative” and which view represents the best course of action?

 

Irving Kristol—the father of Neoconservatism—spoke of the challenge of developing universal foreign policy principles.  Although Neocons usually get a bad rap for being war hawkish, Kristol’s observations argued for constraint and contemplation:

 

“Western political thought has very little to say about foreign policy.  From Thucydides to our own time, political philosophy has seen foreign affairs so radically affected by contingency, fortune, and fate as to leave little room for speculative enlightenment.  John Locke was fertile in suggestions for the establishment and maintenance of good government, but when it came to foreign affairs he pretty much threw up his hands: ‘What is to be done in reference to foreigners, depending much upon their actions and the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the prudence of those who have this power committed to them, to be managed by the best of their skill for the advantage of the Commonwealth.’”

 

While the best foreign policy may change depending on how the pieces on the chess board are arranged, one thing that does not change are a nation’s national interests.  And American interests are an excellent gauge for evaluating American foreign policy.  What are those national interests?  Bob Burch joins the conversation with Josh once more to walk through American foreign policy.

To the casual observer, American foreign policy over the past 240 years can come across as sporadic at best.  We’ve gone from Washingtonian noninterventionism to the territorial expansions of the nineteenth century to gearing up a massive military industrial complex for two world wars to Soviet containment to democratic nation-building to a series of non-specific military engagements with rogue terrorist groups.

 

Some conservatives have argued the best thing we could do as a nation would be to heed George Washington’s warning of no entangling alliances with foreign powers and stop meddling in the affairs of other nations.  Other conservatives argue for a strong military presence around the globe needed to keep world peace and free markets operating.  Which view is truly “conservative” and which view represents the best course of action?

 

Irving Kristol—the father of Neoconservatism—spoke of the challenge of developing universal foreign policy principles.  Although Neocons usually get a bad rap for being war hawkish, Kristol’s observations argued for constraint and contemplation:

 

“Western political thought has very little to say about foreign policy.  From Thucydides to our own time, political philosophy has seen foreign affairs so radically affected by contingency, fortune, and fate as to leave little room for speculative enlightenment.  John Locke was fertile in suggestions for the establishment and maintenance of good government, but when it came to foreign affairs he pretty much threw up his hands: ‘What is to be done in reference to foreigners, depending much upon their actions and the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the prudence of those who have this power committed to them, to be managed by the best of their skill for the advantage of the Commonwealth.’”

 

While the best foreign policy may change depending on how the pieces on the chess board are arranged, one thing that does not change are a nation’s national interests.  And American interests are an excellent gauge for evaluating American foreign policy.  What are those national interests?  Bob Burch joins the conversation with Josh once more to walk through American foreign policy in part one of this two-part series.

In an age where much of the Right is embracing nationalism, populism, and the cult of personality that is Trumpism, some are beginning to ask themselves what being a conservative even means anymore?  But few have gone further to reinforce the idea that conservatism is about putting principles over party loyalty or allegiance to any one individual than Heath Mayo.  Heath joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to discuss the #PrinciplesFirst movement and how it’s shaping what it means to be a conservative by developing a vision for the future without abandoning the principles of the past.   Heath Mayo is a native of East Texas and currently a management consultant at Bain & Company where he helps some of the country's largest companies solve their strategic challenges.  He did his undergraduate work at Brown University where he pitched on the baseball team and graduated from Yale Law School this past May.  Politically, Heath is a self-described conservative activist and most recently traveled to New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida volunteering for Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.   During the build-up to the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Heath became frustrated over the line-up of speakers who did not represent the conservative movement he was immersed in during college but instead embodied a group who did not tolerate competing ideas or calls to principles over party.  Heath tweeted—jokingly—that conservatives who were still interested in putting principles first should meet separately during CPAC and the tweet went viral.  Ever since then Heath has been facilitating meetings with conservatives across the U.S. who are interested in restoring the movement.  These sessions are held under the banner #PrinciplesFirst.   #PrinciplesFirst sessions are designed to be 2-hour brainstorming sessions that bring together the most energized folks with the goal of (1) determining what a modern definition of conservatism is—what its principles are and how those principles might map onto a modern conservative agenda, and (2) developing a plan of action that can actually elevate those principles back into the national discussion which have fallen out of favor on the right as personalities have gotten bigger and crowded out an idea-driven discourse.   You can follow Heath on Twitter @HeathMayo

Politicians are fond of talking about “the people.”  But who are “the people”?  That might sound like a nonsensical question but—it turns out—there are a lot of presuppositions baked into the concept of “the people” and much of the divide between the Right and the Left begins here.  Identifying “the people” leads us to other important questions, such as: Who speaks on behalf of “the people”?  And what system of government or society can best represent their interests and protect their rights?

 

In much of our political rhetoric today we are told that the most democratic expressions best represent “the people”.  But what lurks behind the belief a direct, popular vote is somehow in the best interest of “the people” is the assumption is that “the people” can best be defined as a simple headcount.

 

They can’t.

 

“The people” is not a simple headcount. It is a recognition of sub-groups loosely bound to a larger group, of various interest groups within a nation-state, of factions that voluntarily choose to live in civil harmony with those with whom they don’t always agree and sometimes despise.  Simply blending these sub-groups into one mass doesn’t provide clarity, it only makes our understanding of these collective interests harder to untangle.

 

One ought to be suspect of any political system which defines who speaks on behalf of “the people” either too narrowly or too broadly. Circumstance coupled with prudence dictates whether the polling of the majority, or the voice of the perceived “leaders” within each faction, or some truck driver who happened to call into a local radio talk show to weigh in on the matter, or some other means of discerning what “the people” have to say best represents what “the people” have to say. In practice, this means we should be suspect of the politician who seems wholly disinterested in “the people” just as we should be suspect of the politician who seems absolutely and consistently convinced they speak on behalf of “the people.”

The emergence of the modern conservative movement came about in the twentieth century with the fusion of multiple groups that found they not only had common interests, but they shared common foundational beliefs.  Free market advocates, libertarians, Burkean traditionalists, the religious Right, and foreign policy hawks found common ground that led to the high watermark of the conservative movement culminating with the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s.

 

What led to this?  Why do conservative interest groups today seem far more splintered?  Why is the conservative movement devolving into so much infighting when we were once more unified?  And how might we chart a course forward that reunites the shared interests of the various factions under the conservative umbrella?

 

Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is Justin Stapley, a freelance advocacy journalist whose writing has typically centered around federalism and classical liberalism.  Justin’s first political writings appeared in 2016 on his NeverTyranny blog which was revamped as The Millennial Federalist in 2017 and today his blog is entitled Unpopular Dissent.  He has written extensively on behalf of the Federalist Coalition and has also been published in the American Legislative Exchange Council website, featured at NOQ Report, and will soon be featured as a contributing opinion columnist at Porter Medium.  Justin’s writings have even been featured on the Saving Elephants blog.

 

While Justin is certainly a conservative, he describes himself as a federalist and a classical liberal, firmly in the camp of Jefferson and Madison and their view of a government of ordered liberty.  This will be evident in the conversation as Justin describes the special tension between order and liberty that has run throughout all American conservative movements.

 

A composite of Justin’s writings can be found at justinstapley.com.  His writings extend beyond politics and touch on philosophy, religion, and the great outdoors.  He was born and raised in the state of Utah and currently resides in Bluffdale.

“Welcome to Conservative Minds – a podcast dedicated to examining conservative intellectual history to determine the core values of American conservatism.  What does it mean to call yourself a conservative?  What did it mean in prior times and how did we get where we are today?  We explore these questions and more by turning to conservative political thinkers from the past and present.  Each episode we select readings and conduct a discussion to share with you our investigation.”

 

Thus begins each episode of the Conservative Minds podcast.  In a dizzying weekly release, cohosts Corey Astillck and Kyle Sammin read a notable work of a conservative intellectual leader and hold a discussion summarizing the reading and comparing/contrasting what they’ve found to previous readings.  The result is an interesting and in-depth approach to examining the many nuances of the conservative worldview. 

 

Since conservatism isn’t a rigid ideology that can be traced back to a single godfather, it can be notoriously difficult to define.  What’s more, there are inherent tensions throughout the worldview that create interesting paradoxes.  Sometimes conservative thinkers will emphasize one aspect of conservatism over another and the seeming contradictions may take considerably time and effort to work through.  Part of Saving Elephant’s mission is to help clarify and define the conservative worldview—no easy task—and Corey and Kyle have made much progress in this endeavor.

 

Thus far their podcast has included examining the writings of:

 

Barry Goldwater

Richard Weaver

John Locke

George Will

Robert Bork

Edmund Burke

Milton Friedman

Robert Nisbet

Irving Kristol

William F Buckley

Patrick Buchanan

Friedrich Hayek

Alexis de Tocqueville

Antonin Scalia

 

In this episode of Saving Elephants, Kyle Sammin joins host Josh Lewis to offer a summary of the discussions he’s had in season one of Conservative Minds.  Kyle lives in Pennsylvania where he practices law and writes.  His contributions have appeared in The Federalist, National Review Online, Hardball Times, University Bookman, and the Weekly Standard.  You can listen to the Conservative Minds podcast here.

There are just two problems with social justice: it’s not social and it’s not justice.  So says Noah Rothman, Saving Elephants’ guest and author of the new book Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America.

 

Noah walks us through the evolution of the concept of justice in the West to show how some political activists (perhaps unwittingly) have twisted it.  Social justice may be well intentioned and be useful as a philosophical perspective.  But when applied to practical politics, the results are anything but just.  Perhaps most surprisingly, social justice is no longer chiefly a tool of the Left, as some groups on the Right are learning how to wield the weapon of retribution.

 

In a society governed by “social justice,” the most coveted status is victimhood, which people will go to absurd lengths to attain.  But the real victims in such a regime are blind justice—the standard of impartiality that we once took for granted—and free speech.  These hallmarks of American liberty, already gravely compromised in universities, corporations, and the media, are under attack in our legal and political systems.

 

Social justice is a creed born of grievances, some of them undoubtedly valid.  But Noah shows that tribalism and the fanatical pursuit of retribution threaten to destroy a political culture that is historically unmatched in its friendliness to justice. Social justice is an ideology that runs counter to the American ideal, and it must be stopped.  And on this episode Noah offers some guidance on how it might be stopped.

 

Noah is the associate editor of Commentary, a journal of scholarly opinion and analysis that has been in continuous publication since 1945, a contributor to MSNBC/NBC News, and a widely followed commentator and guest on such notable shows as Tucker Carlson Tonight and Real Time with Bill Maher.  He graduated from Drew University with a degree in Russian studies and political science and received a master’s degree in diplomacy and international relations from Seton Hall University.  He lives and works in the New York City area. 

Is healthcare a right or a privilege?  As the Democratic party swings Left, more and more Americans—Millennials in particular—are growing comfortable with the idea that we have a right to healthcare.  Not to mention free education, food, shelter, and a host of other things.

 

But before we can even hope to have a productive conversation about these things, we must first address some fundamentals: What is a right?  How do rights differ from privileges?  Where do rights come from?  What is the basis of a right?

 

Traditional conservatism has long distinguished between what we might call negative rights and positive rights.  In its most basic form, a negative right is the right to enjoy things that are yours by virtue of you being born or earning property.  They are called “negative”, not because they are somehow pessimistic, but because no one has to do anything for you to enjoy these rights.  Your right to exist and do what you will with the things you’ve earned and possess requires no government bureau.  Nothing is required of anyone save that we leave each other well enough alone.

 

A positive right, on the other hand, is a claim to something such as access to healthcare, food, or shelter.  A positive right requires that someone give you something.  Your “right” to healthcare means someone else must pay for your healthcare and provide you whatever services your “right” entitles you to.

 

But what is the basis for our rights?  Do negative and positive rights share the same basis and are they equally valid?  Are they simply favors doled out by a benevolent government that wishes its citizens to enjoy good things?  What happens if negative and positive rights conflict?  Who should win out?  And who gets to decide?  Joining Josh once more is frequent Saving Elephants guest Bob Burch to discuss these very important issues.

Conservative thinkers from Russell Kirk to Irving Kristol to the Founding Fathers have, at best, cast a wary eye towards cities.  And across the country today, Leftist safe havens are often found in dense, urban areas.  Does conservatism only thrive in small towns?  And, if so, what does conservatism have to say for city life?  Should conservatives abandon cities in hopes of a renewal of rural America?  Or might there be a way to forge a path that both respects cities as cities and cultivates traditional virtues?

 

Joining us from Israel is Saving Elephant’s first international guest, Avi Woolf.  Avi is a translator and editor whose work has been published in Arc Digital, Commentary, National Review, and The Bulwark.  He is chief editor of the online Medium publication Conservative Pathways, and hopes to help forge a path for a conservatism which is relevant for the 21st century while not abandoning the best of past wisdom.

 

In a four-part series appearing in Arc Digital, Avi laid out a detailed blueprint for how conservatism might be applied to cities.  A true conservative, Avi cautions that, while a “thin” understanding of conservatism might provide some value to cities, what’s sorely needed is a traditional conservatism that seeks to restore institutions and communities in our urban centers.  To do this, Avi recommends focusing on four broad conservative principles:

 

1. Opportunity –Removing regulations and increasing opportunity for all city residents to live where they want, work how they want, learn where they want, and thrive as they wish.
2. Social Pluralism – Embracing real diversity, of the sort conservatives fight for in universities, where atheists and fundamentalists, family values people and social libertines, and Americans of all kinds live together, find ways to get along, learn from each other, and work for the common good.
3. Community – The approach of conservatives in city government should simply be this: Get out of the way. No forced development lumped on people unequally, but also no to zoning barriers and rules that prevent people from moving around.  Let—and even encourage—people to find ways to move around, to form bonds, and to create community.  If they need some material assistance, that’s fine—but at their request, not top down.
4. Tradition – For too long, we have effectively given up on the idea of cities as places with a “sense of the sacred” and the eternal, in every sense from customs to silly jokes and accents to history. We need to change that.  Instead of places mired in presentism and opportunity solely for this generation’s residents or visitors, we need to think more carefully about creating cities which truly embody the covenant between the dead, the living, and the unborn that Burke spoke so highly about.