Email This PageNo Mainstream Conservative
My daughter attends Swarthmore, and it’s clear that the bent of the College is towards a liberal view of politics. The Swarthmore College Bulletin has every right to slant in any political direction the College chooses, but if “A Mind on the Right” was intended to somehow balance the liberal politics of the publication, it did not succeed.
Paul Wachter ’97 is a skilled wordsmith, but his opinions show through, especially when he writes that “following Barack Obama’s landslide and rampant infighting within the Republican ranks, the future of conservatism in this country is uncertain.” Obama received just 53 percent of the vote (hardly a landslide), and there was far more “infighting” between Obama and Hillary Clinton than among Republicans.
Professor George comes off as an intelligent and charming man, but he’s not what you’d call a mainstream conservative. In fact, his views seem to come out of deep “right field.” I haven’t heard natural law talked about since I attended Notre Dame 35 years ago. Still, I would have liked a more lucid justification for George’s views on natural law. But Wachter tells us, “It’s impossible to give these issues and George’s views a fair hearing in such limited space”—just before a very long paragraph on George’s ideas about sex. I assure you that most conservatives—and Catholics—would strongly disagree with George’s medieval views of sex.
The net effect of the article was to paint conservatives as a wacky fringe element of society. Hardly balanced.
Dan Baker
Effort of the Poconos, Pa.
