As an editorial board, we have emphatically expressed our distaste for commentators confusing Hillsdale College’s conservative ideals with the Republican party platform.
Today, however, as nearly 20 Hillsdale students trek to Washington D.C. for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, we want to consider instead, what is our relationship as college students to the political realm, and ought it be?
We are reminded of something a journalist-hero of ours, William F. Buckley Jr., said in the founding documents of his publication, National Review. He said he intended it to be a work that “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
We think Hillsdale students may have a similar role in the modern conservative movement.
We hope that Hillsdale students will be able to stand athwart issues like the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s defunding and then refunding of Planned Parenthood, ready to yell “Stop!” at the political pandering of even worthy research institutions.
And then, we hope, Hillsdale students will be able to articulate something more, to criticize not just the revised decision itself, but its underlying causes: the casting of a morally divisive issue in unilateral terms where one side is portrayed as inherently enlightened and the other as ignorant and outdated.
Let us also yell “Stop!” at the whiplash of Republican media campaigns and encourage them to settle into ideas, to think deeply and well and articulate concepts behind policy decisions.
In some ways, we are called as Hillsdale College students to serve the political realm in non-partisan ways. Our job is not to think in terms of “effectiveness” or “reaching demographics,” although we know “Ideas have consequences” and “Incentives matter.”
Our job is seek the true, to know the good and not merely the palatable, to not lose track of the “Why?” in the myriad of policy “How?”s.
So as Hillsdale students head off to CPAC, we wish you a good weekend. Represent our school nobly. Ask hard questions — don’t swallow the party line. Build up our public institutions from the ground level instead of judging them from afar. Be effective communicators and networkers. And don’t be afraid to yell “Stop!” if you feel so moved from time to time.
Buckley would not expect anything less of you, and neither would we.
