One thing that really bothers me is that the brightest students seem to really want to have a cause to pursue. The Left gives them many causes, but the Right offers little — very few alternatives. I guess conservatives generally just go to the business world (or big law firms, in the case of law-school graduates). Maybe this works out in the end, but it still feels like this generation of college students is being lost even more to the left-wingers than before.There is a stereotype out there that has some small truth to it: Last generation's conservatives just wanted the government to leave them alone while they worked at their jobs and raised their families. This generation, as a whole--conservatives and liberals--want a sense of wider community. And rightly so. But I don't think modern conservatism--which, of all "political philosophies," ought to be the most about community--has done a good job of offering that. And conservatism, of all "political philosophies," is the least about ideology, the most about lifestyle and relationships.
We younger generation of conservatives need to find ways to be involved in our communities, find causes that are about people. We've all seen how many people the Left is willing to hurt in their crusade for abstractions--equality, liberty, fraternity, as it were. How is it that they are the ones who are seen as having a monopoly on compassion? It's time to stop blaming society for seeing liberals as the compassionate ones, and ask ourselves what we can do to change a perception that we know to be false.
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