Rob Leone

"Yet one senses that most young conservatives implicitly understand this. Their real objection isn’t actually Reagan’s tax cuts or his belief in free enterprise. What really grates them is his temperament—his happy-warrior disposition, his generous spirit, his belief that politics could be conducted with civility and good humour. In an era of polarized and performative politics, calm conviction looks like weakness. But these were in fact signs of moral strength. Reagan’s liberalism—his insistence on human fallibility and individual freedom—wasn’t weakness. It was wisdom. As one grows older and comes to terms with his own limitations, the allure of total certainty fades. You begin to realize, as Kant famously put it, that “out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.” If no man is perfectly virtuous or wise, why would we entrust any man’s moral vision with the full powers of the state? Reagan’s confidence in pluralism, in limited government, in the open society—all of it stemmed from a clear-eyed view of human imperfection. A state that claims the authority to impose virtue will soon impose vice. A government that claims to defend morality will soon define it. The irony is that the new Right’s critique of liberal neutrality rests on an un-conservative faith in human power. It imagines that if only “our side” held the levers of state, the results would be good and just. But conservatives used to understand that such confidence is precisely what needs conserving against."