Conservatives and the Excommunication Temptation

[Valin]

Contentions:

Peter Wehner

9/27/13

 

Earlier this week I appeared on a panel discussion hosted by the Heritage Foundation on The Conservative Mind at 60. During the event I highlighted three themes that appear in Russell Kirks A Conservative Mind (published in 1953) and made the case for why those insights are still crucial to the health and wellbeing of modern conservatism.

 

(Snip)

 

Which brings me to the here and now. There exists what might be called a conservative temperament. To be sure, such a temperament doesnt preclude one from engaging in debates, with passion and conviction, to advance what one believes to be right. But what I do think is problematic are those who desire to excommunicate from the ranks those they perceive as apostates.

 

What do I have in mind? One example is the targeting of Representative Pete Sessions of Texas. As this article makes clear, Sessions, a rock-solid conservative who has a 97 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, is under assault from a super PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, for being a Texas RINO (Republican in Name Only) and a wishy-washy Republican who is willing to destroy our freedoms. And what is the grave and unforgivable offense committed by Sessions? He opposed the effort by Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and others to shut down the government if the Affordable Care Act isnt defunded. (As the Wall Street Journal points out in this editorial, this gambit is premised on the belief that if the House holds firm amid a shutdown, then the public will eventually blame Mr. Obama and the Democrats, who will then fold and defund ObamaCare. Which is about as likely as yours truly becoming the starting center for the Miami Heat next year.)

 

This excommunication impulse is becoming increasingly dominant within some conservative quarters. The issue is framed as a litmus test and conservatives are being told by prominent figures within conservatism that any Republican who votes against the Cruz strategy is not worth voting for ever again.

 

(Snip)

 

People should be judged in the totality of their acts. And the effort to portray the Cruz maneuver as a litmus test dividing real conservatives from RINOs is misguided. On some fundamental level it is also, I believe, at odds with conservatism as understood by many of its greatest exponents. Its time to return prudence to its proper place in the conservative pantheon.