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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 1961)
- v' - ■ ■ ■ -■ ~ - 1 ^~ - • • Tuesday, December 12, 1961 College Station, Texas Pa ffe 3 THE BATTALION I Society n Room Suildim LIBERAL i n the H own i n toom at Re Insoi oent of j n S show ?nn ^ quest /ill mee •C, Mem Many wuses. full of make o find »seller 'ely to r land, in an dangle ing in lapels, ■eague ds; in iere, I « and iy the itte?!* died. filter veral riate and dock your died, or is and ould r, of il oil erry but lied, sons it is ro.” 1 set Old On sfor ! Of ris tew (Continued From Pape 1) attempts to revise old forms and attitudes will fail. Reaction Cannot Win In a sense, the reactionary can never win because clocks ro for ward not backward. That simple America they dream of (it never existed, by the way) will not re turn. Life is complex. If we are to remain a great power, we will have to spend uncomfortable amounts on armaments and for eign aid. Taxes will remain great. Government will always b£ large, no matter who is at the White House, Kennedy or Cold water. K’s hidden weakness Khrushchev is strong, says Stewart Alsop. But he has one great weak ness. And he knows it. In this week's Saturday Evening Post, you'll read why the satellite nations are giving Kremlin big shots the jitters. SPECIAL: 1962 CALENDAR PAGES f)pr The Saturday Evening The tendency toward socialism is as strong in this country as and other — though we will have to think of a new way to describe it: Dynamic Constitutionalism perhaps. The limits which gov ernment has set on the power of individuals and groups to exploit others will remain. The people — who are the country—will prob ably want more services from the country which is themselves and they will get those services, again no matter who presides at the White House. Limited Electorate Yet it is the dream of the re actionary to stop the majority cold The reactionary detests our form of government. One of his favorite arguments is: the United States is, a republic, not a democ racy. This statement is inac curate since we are both a re public and a democracy. What the Reactionary really means to say is that the will of the majority as expressed through elections should be circumvented. That there should be a limit to the franchise. The Right Wing has not yet had the courage to pro pose that some people be allowed to vote and some not to vote ac cording, say, to the size of their income but that is what they are after. For they mistrust and dis like the majority. Yet our Con stitution, which they profess to GORE VIDAL learned liberal politics at the knee of his grand father, Thomas P. Gore, the blind senator from Oklahoma. Author of several hit Broadway plays and a half dozen high brow novels, Vidal, now 36, has writ ten and lectured widely on poli tics and the liberal cause. 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Nor would it, sad to re late, be very difficult for them to impose themselves on the very people they dislike for we have become a passive, ill - informed fearful society. A recent nation wide poll of high school students should give aid and comfort to those who dislike the deemocratic EXCITING NEW HOME LAUNDRY VALUE FROM WESTINGHOUSE 1961 DIAMOND JUBILEE SPECIAL LAUNDROMAT® Automatic Washer Designed Specially for Families with PROBLEM WASHES • Four Cycle Wash Dial • Weighing Door and Water Saver • Automatic Lint Ejector • Exclusive Tumble Action ^ Only $199.95 KRAFT FURNITURE CO. 218 S. Main Downtown Bryan process. Among the findings: 60% of our young people favor police censorship o f books, movies, etc.; 60% believe certain groups should not be allowed to hold public meetings even though they meet peaceably to make speeches (First Amendment); 58% believe the police and the FBI should be allowed to give prisoners the third degree (Eighth Amendment). 41% do not believe the press should publish what it wants (First Amendment); 57% believe the average person is justified in keeping out of local “dirty” politics (which is to say they do not want to make our form of- government work); 76% feel the most serious danger to this country comes from the Com munists within. Of course the most serious danger is the pro foundly un-American attitude of these high school students which makes them perfectly vulnerable to any totalitarism-minded group. Left or Right. And those who like to point out that we are a republic not a democracy are totalitarian- minded. In their incontient at tacks on those they dislike, (any one favoring any sort of public welfare is a Communist or Comsymp) and by pretending that there is a vast Communist con spiracy inside the United States (it is not inside but outside) they do their best to divide and con fuse. Dictatorship of the Right Were the Communist pressure upon us less, I think it unlikely that those radical forces Gold- water is trying to unite will ever take power through the demo cratic process. The majority is too conservative for this “Con servative.” But I can see in a time of national panic, the emer gence of the first dictatorship in our history and it will come not from the Left but from the Right and a cynical, indifferent “un- American” electorate, already contemptous of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, will take to it eagerly. When that happens, and I pray it does not, that great hope for the human race, the American Revolution, will be at an end, and lost. CONSERVATIVE Walker Speaks To Dallas Exes Retired Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker will speak tonight to mem bers of the Dallas A&M Club in a meeting in the Dallas Memorial Auditorium. Gen. Walker retired from the Ai’my recently after being the cen ter of controversy over allegedly “indoctrinating troops.” He was relieved of his command of the 24th Infantry Division and given another post before retiring. (Continued From Page 1) GOO million victims. Communist sophistication — plus-nei-ve, com bined with Liberal innocence- plus fright equals Communist success. It is notoriously the Liberal who continues to be the easy target for Communist prop aganda, on everything from dis armament to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Only the Heavenly Registrar knows how many people have ac tually been murdered by the total itarian ideolists during this cen tury. That number includes six million Jews, millions of Russians, Chinese by the dozen of millions. Those whose blueprints brought on this carnage are not Liberals (though at root their philosophies share important premises). The point is, that Liberalism with its unsureness about the enemy, or about itself, or every about the meaning of human existence, proved unsuccessful in containing the Totalists. In 191^, President Woodrow, the first complete Lib eral to come to presidential pow er, set out to make the world safe for democracy. Forty-five years later there was less freedom, by far, than before he launched his great crusade. At this rate, a few more years of making the world safe for democracy, and we shall have lost our own. Here, as I understand it, are the principal differences between the Liberal and the Conservative approach to the most pressing problems of our time. tradition of creative and confident statecraft and move forward boldly, taking risks, winning vic tories, to bring the cold war right to the hearths of Russia. Among othei' concrete things he would liberate Cuba (instantly), impose an economic embargo upon the Soviet bloc (instantly), withdraw support from the General Assem bly of the United Nations (grad ually), and encourage the consoli dation of anti-Communist forces in Asia in order to turn the war around again in Vietnam and— yes, carry the liberation movement on into China. Negotiators Lose Abroad, the Liberal seeks con stantly to negotiate. And while WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR., is one of 10 children of a Texas oil millionaire. Just turning 36, he has established himself as a leading intellectual spokesman for the conservative position in American politics. Buckley is author of several best sellers, campus lecturer and editor and founder of “National Review,” a journal of conservative opinion. he negotiates he loses ground. For he is, actually, negotiating with himself, deciding how much to give in this time; the Communist, meanwhile, moves forward. (The New Frontier in Laos—have you noticed ?—is a couple of hundred miles closer to the United States than the Old Frontier.) The Con servative — for the profoundest reasons, including a faith in tran scendence, a belief in absolute values, a redemptive historical creed, a profound comprehension of evil, a realistic appraisal of history—woud not negotiate, at least not on the enemy’s terms. He woud revive the great Western HURRY-HURRY-HURRY THERE’S NOT MUCH TIME LEFT—BUT IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG TO FIND JUST THE RIGHT GIFTS FOR THE MEN ON YOUR LIST AT LOUPOTS. Car Coats, Jackets, Sweaters, Socks, Ties and Shirts In All Styles and Sizes Are Reasonably Priced. Attrac tive Gift Wrapping In Re-Usable Boxes Free With Each Purchase Over $3.00. (No Waiting). Make Your Shopping A Pleasure By Stopping In Today Where Your Business Is Appreciated and Friend ly Clerks Are Anxious To Help You. —THIS CHRISTMAS— PATRONIZE Jloupoik ss&sa Domestically, the Liberal is ob sessed by the notion of “equality” and the notion of “democracy.” But he does not understand what equality really is, or what is re quired to effect it. (Everybody is equal in East Germany, and everybody is miserable.) The Lib eral is determined to make every Negro in the South as contented as every Negro in Harlem. And every White as discontented. All this to be accomplished by, and for. Democracy. Democracy’s The Thing—only nobody knows any more what Democracy means. Ab solutely nobody. Democracy is what you had in the Congo when Lumumba took over? What you will have in Algeria after the F.L.N takes over? What you have in Egypt under Nasser? In Vene zuela under Betancourt? In Gha na under Nkrumah? Freedom Is Unusual The Conservative believes that the meaning of life, cannot be ap proached through abstract ideals like democracy, etc. “Equality” cannot be imposed by Liberalism’s fuglemen. It can only be done under tyranny. Nor can the dis tribution of wealth, or the dis tribution of freedom, or the en couragement of individuality, or a sense of community, be accom plished by making the state the overriding social entrepeneur. Man should be free, but freedom is the unusual predicament in this vale of tears: It doesn’t matter how many resolutions are passed by the General Assembly, or the Na tional Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People—the typical African tribesman is not going to be free, not for many generations to come; and to im pose upon him, in the name of democracy, an Nkrumah, a Nas ser, a Kenyatta, is to repress free dom, and hinder its growth; and to introduce the kind of nation alistic absolutism that the Com munists so successfully exploit. In philosophy, the Liberal is afraid of truths; only those things are true which have to do with method. Thus the Liberal is con cerned for the freedom of native Communists—because, so goes the theory of the open society—they ought to be free to convert us to their ways. The Conservative be lieves we have learned something in the past three thousand years, at least enough to know that Com munism is wrong from every point of view, no piatter how large a majority it might, at any given moment, attract; and that there fore only the society with a death- wish will permit the Communist to accumulate power. Go ahead and let the Communist be free; but if he begins to pick up strength, smash him. The Liberal is only happy (or is he, actually, ever happy? Isn’t Edward R. Mur- row’s face the face of Liberalism? Will he ever realize that he is sad because he has to look at the world he built?) when he is searching for truths. The Conservative is happy finding them, and defending them. The Liberal’s idea of the com plete political life is a never-end ing campaign to raise the mini mum wage, or 40 years of devoted service to the Department for the Location of Depressed Areas. The Conservative wants to worship his God, develop his talents, enjoy the fruit of them; and, in his political life, to work unsparingly to keep domesticated the principal agent of the suppression of individual freedom, the monopolistic, mono lithic, police-backed State. Talk not to me, Jefferson told us con servatives, of government by good men. Let us hear no more, Jeffer son told us conservatives, of trust in men, hut bind them down from mischief by the chains of the Con stitution. , Can We Outgrow Liberalism? The big question, then, and one in which students will play a crit ical role, is whether America can outgrow Liberalism in time. If the future of the Liberal in Amer ica is bright, then the future of America is not bright. Any way you look at it, then, the future of Liberalism is not bright: be cause to commit its irrelevancies on any kind of scale, the Liberals need room. Yet so long as Lib erals continue in power, there is less and less room. When the Communists take over the entire world, they’re not likely to leave the Liberals a little country in which they can continue to prac tice their fatuities unmolested. One would think they might do at least this, as an act of gratitude; turn over Bermuda, say to Pro fessors Schlesinger and Galbraith, Chester Bowles and Adlai Steven* son, and two shows a night by Gore Vidal. But the Communistsj on top of everything else, are un* grateful wretches. An invitation to shape your own future... • 1111111 llli^ «§ mi i :# ' - x ^ I ; . / • Ra##-'.' n mm ,1 * ‘ > - .-I' /V wm EUl Wliore \ W you can f start ■ \ Where V you can ^ start... ■ L-v ; ■ ,- : r At General Telephone your starting point is on the job. 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