We must now ask ourselves, in the wake of the sudden eruption of "celebratory" gatherings on college campuses around the United States, if conservatism is now the force which truly inspires collective action amongst college-age youth. Most visible campus events these days seem to be either Tea Party gatherings, anti-affirmative action protests, or (most recently) the repressed youthful desire to celebrate the death of a childhood boogeyman mixed with empty slogans of nationalism. Whatever it is, the Right is on the move, while the Left is stagnant, distracted by internal squabbles, theorizing into a void, or lost in a self-interested and delusional indifference.
Eyewitness accounts from Binghamton University's campus suggest that College Republicans were immediately on site handing out American flags and stoking the flames of nationalist sentiment. Meanwhile, the Left was nowhere to be seen.
Where did the Left go so wrong? How can we inspire others again to stand up for what really matters?
Meanwhile, media pronouncements about the significance of Osama bin Laden's death ranged from speculation about the collapse of al Qaeda to the insistence that an attack against the United States is imminent .
In truth, we have no idea what is about to happen.
Our contemporary situation can be distilled to a particular quote from "Politics and the English Langauge,"
Where to start? The war in Afghanistan was largely justified as an intervention to get rid of Osama bin Laden. It is time to end this engagement now. However, now that bin Laden has been killed, we may find ourselves in a paradoxical sitaution where President Obama, bolstered by uber-conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, takes on a more hawkish view of the middle east. We may even get to see, as Salman Rushdie has already suggested, Pakistan labeled a "terrorist state." From this one can only imagine the possibilities.
The specter of Osama haunts America... We're all conservatives now.
C. Wesley
