Phyllis Schlafly’s Death Is a Reminder That Conservatism Still Matters

[Valin]

National Review:

Along with other figures such as Reagan and Scalia, Schlafly demonstrated how conservatives have made a difference.

Jonah Goldberg

September 7, 2016

 

Phyllis Schlafly died this week at the age of 92. I had my disagreements with the legendary conservative activist, particularly of late. She died the day before publication of her last book: The Conservative Case for Trump. The title alone should offer the reader a hint of at least one of those disagreements.

 

(Snip)

 

Even her harshest left-wing detractors concede that Schlafly almost single-handedly stopped the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. When she launched her effort, the ERA’s adoption was seen as a foregone conclusion. Most historians agree she was indispensable in defeating it. The battle over the ERA highlights a contradiction in the term “conservative.” Generally speaking, a conservative is someone who resists unnecessary change. As Viscount Falkland said four centuries ago, “When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.” In this formulation, the conservative is the brake pedal and the progressive is the gas.

 

(Snip)

 

And on that score, conservatism has had quite a few successes. Without conservatives, the statism of Woodrow Wilson’s war socialism and FDR’s New Deal would never have been beaten back or kept at bay. Without Ronald Reagan and groups like the Federalist Society, constitutionalism would be a dead letter or footnote to the cult of the “living Constitution.” The Heller decision affirming gun rights would have been unimaginable, as would be the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby rulings. Without conservatives, Bill Clinton would never have signed welfare reform, and Obamacare would certainly have had the public option the White House wanted. One can only wonder how the Cold War would have ended — if at all — if liberals had the run of the field since World War II.

 

A world where William F. Buckley Jr., Robert Taft, Russell Kirk, Barry Goldwater, Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Jean Kirkpatrick and, not least, Phyllis Schlafly never bothered to make the effort would certainly look quite different, but as a conservative, I find it hard to imagine it would look better.