Advice for the New Year

Conservatives: if you want a future, you have to stop taking advice from your enemies.

by Rod D. Martin
January 1, 1999

It's a new year, but many conservatives can't quite get over 1998. Feeling repudiated because their over-zealous expectations were not realized (even though in fact they held their own), many have spent a good bit of time questioning whether they should even continue the fight. They have been joined in this by their enemies, who could not be happier at their squeamish indecision.

On the left, the enemies of conservatism -- most prominently represented by the mass media -- advise "moderation," code for "the Democratic Party's agenda." Why otherwise intelligent people would take advice from their enemies remains a bit unclear, but Republicans are all too prone to do it, and the media's counsel is eternally the same.

When conservatives win great victories, the media tells them they must moderate lest they lose in some future election. When conservatives lose, the media tells them they must moderate lest they face extinction. The only thing the media never man…