Defining ‘Conservative’

For the most part I agree with Tod Lindberg’s review of The Conservatives, by Patrick Allitt (“The Deepest Roots,” August 10), and I certainly look forward to reading the book. However, I take exception to this assertion: “A conservative crank who hates America because he thinks egalitarianism’s leveling tendencies have paved over the possibility of great achievement is no less a conservative than a conservative who cherishes American society for doing away with arbitrary hierarchical or class barriers to personal achievement.”

Mr. Lindberg is right that conservatism is largely an attitude of reaction and prudence, as opposed to a mere collection of causes and policy positions. But there are specific principles and customs that the American conservative’s temperament instinctively seeks to conserve. Our political and social principles go back to the English tradition of liberty and justice as protected by a limited government with separated powers. In both English and American history there are of course deviations from these principles, but just about every political event in that history contains a core element of pulling away from or seeking reform toward that very tradition — the American Revolution being a quintessential example of the latter.

So, anti-egalitarianism will never be a conservative attitude within the American political arena. Similarly, anyone who advocates limited government and the rule of law is indeed a conservative in that he seeks to conserve the attitude and principles handed down to us from the English tradition through the Founding Fathers.

Daniel Mencher

Long Beach, N.Y.

‘Defecting’ Conservative

In “The Carrie Effect” (August 10), Maggie Gallagher refers to a conservative defender of gay marriage as a “defector.” As a gay conservative and a Republican, I find it disheartening to hear this kind of language directed at someone simply for disagreeing with the Right on this issue. Are not other issues, such as fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and free-market economics, more important?

It is precisely this kind of rhetoric that prevents many conservative gay people from voting Republican.

Eric Armour

Nashville, Tenn.