by Mickey Edwards
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Product Description
The conservative movement--which once nominated Barry Goldwater for President, and later elected Ronald Reagan--was based on a distinctly American kind of conservatism which drew its inspiration directly from the United States Constitution--in particular, an overriding belief in individual liberty and limited government. But today, Edwards argues, the mantle of conservatism has been taken over by people whose beliefs and policies threaten the entire constitutional system of government. By abetting an imperial presidency, he contends, so-called "conservatives" have gutted the system of checks and balances, abandoned due process, and trampled upon our cherished civil liberties. Today's conservatives endorse unprecedented assertions of government power--from the creation of secret prisons to illegal wiretapping. Once, they fought to protect citizens from government intrusion; today, they seem to recognize few limits on what government can do. The movement that was once the Constitution's--and freedom's--strongest defender is now at risk of becoming its most dangerous enemy. Edwards ends with a blueprint for reclaiming the essence of conservatism in America.
Touching upon many current issues, this passionately argued book concludes that many of today's conservatives seem to have it all backwards. They have turned conservatism upside down--and this book calls them on it.
Amazon.com Review
A leading figure in the American conservative movement for over 40 years, Mickey Edwards was a prominent Republican congressman, a former national chairman of the American Conservative Union, and a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation. When he speaks, conservatives listen. Now, in this highly provocative and frank volume, Edwards argues loud and clear that conservatives today have abandoned their principles and have become champions of that which they once feared most. Amazon Exclusive
Read a letter from Mickey Edwards, author of Reclaiming Conservatism.
Dear Amazon Reader, Having been repudiated even in states they had long dominated, Republicans woke up on November 5th faced with the challenge of rebuilding a political party that had been transformed overnight from powerful to pitiful. They should have seen it coming. In my book, Reclaiming Conservatism, I describe precisely how Republicans in the White House and in Congress became the enemies of the principles they once stood for, a threat to constitutional government, and a party thoroughly deserving of the rebuke it has received. I explain specifically how conservatives can again earn the public’s confidence. Now Republican leaders are trying to find the way back. In the process, they are continuing to look in the wrong direction, unwilling to face the reality of the disastrous choices that led to their defeat. So-called conservatives, they have abandoned true American conservatism--which is properly focused on limited (not small) government, individual liberty, and prudent governance--and have instead become the champions of wiretapping, government secrecy, federal deficits, questionable wars, and a nasty kind of politics that even questions the patriotism of those who disagree with their policies. The Republican Party long stood for the principles at the heart of the American Constitution, including a belief in the wonderful possibilities of self-government (instead of the anti-government rhetoric it has since embraced). It celebrated ideas instead of the rabid anti-intellectualism it has come to cherish. It celebrated diversity (Barry Goldwater argued that there was no such thing as a merely common man) rather than demanding sameness in religion, values, and beliefs. The Republican Party does not need to re-invent itself--it merely needs to remember what it once was. Sincerely, Mickey Edwards
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Hero present, 2009-01-06
This book was a gift to my favorite Republican. He gives it five stars so I will, too. Heard the author interviewed on the radio, thumbed through the book. Seems well-written and thoughtful -- not the usual diatribe.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A voice in the wilderness, 2008-11-12
Mickey Edwards review and critique of the modern conservative movement and its Republican party ally excellently reveals the deeply ingrained hypocrisy that controls both the movement and the party. When I finished reading this book, I realized that I am not the raging liberal I've always been labeled to be after all. Rather, I am a TRUE constitutional conservative who merely leans left. His willingness to expose the fact that the emporer has no clothes will, no doubt, vilify him among the party faithful but it makes him a hero and patriot in my book. As he has said many times, he may love his party but he loves his country more. After hearing similar rebukes of the Republican party by Colin Powell when he endorsed Barack Obama, I realized he and Mickey Edwards need to start a new political movement. If that happens, sign me up!
5 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
 No, Mr. Edwards, 2008-11-06
One has to regard a "conservative" feted by liberals and liberal publications from one coast to the other with some trepidation, and that it how I approached this book. I got as far into it as I could stomach, which wasn't far.
Why do liberals like this book so much? Because it advocates putting conservatives back in a tiny little box from whence they will forever be in "principled" opposition to liberal policy, which will rule the day. Edwards is a particularly self-abnegating specimen of a conservative. He has taken the liberal media narrative of the Bush administration with its neocons, its shredding of the constitution, its torturing of suspects, its wiretapping, its violation of terrorist's civil rights, and has swallowed it whole, uncritically. It is from that flawed basis that many of his arguments about the Bush Administration are made, and they are, as a result, worthless and painful to read.
The beginning of wisdom for conservatives is questioning those mainstream narratives, looking beyond them, and making up one's own mind about the meaning behind events with one's feet solidly planted in reality. Regardless of Edward's distaste for anything outside of his rarefied, purified idea of conservatism, actually making conservative ideas matter means winning elections, forming coalitions, making compromises, and making the tough choices of governance.
No, Mr. Edwards, we will not go back into that little box of yours. Conservatism has always evolved, naturally following a consensus of principled thinkers of the day. At one point in history monarchist, at the next point Federalist. Calcification of conservative ideas would be death, the conservatism of tomorrow may be something we can't imagine today, and whether it allows for "big government", or expansionist foreign policy, or whatever, it will always be guided by wisdom, intelligence, experience, tradition, and caution.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Outstanding. Simply Outstanding., 2008-07-25
I never had a definition so wrong in my life. I liked the fact the Winston Churchill thought American Conservatives were liberal. We let this current administration change the meaning of a word and in the process, steer us in the wrong direction.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Thanks! I needed this., 2008-07-15
I've longed for this book. When my high school friend and I reconnected after more than 50 years, he was astonished that I identified myself as a liberal and I was astounded that he called himself a conservative. How could two people who had so much in common be so different in such essential ways? "But your father was a Republican," he said. "Yes, I agreed, but he was a Goldwater Republican. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be voting for today's Republicans."
I've been searching since to find answers to the questions this encounter has raised. One friend, for example, said, "I'm a Republican because I'm a social liberal and a fiscal conservative." But it seemed to me that the Republican for whom he was voting had turned that on its head. I really want a personal understanding of what motivates these conservative friends of mine. Frankly, I have no trouble understanding those who think like me. Of course, who does have difficulty with those who agree with them?
And then comes this wonderful book, for which I am more than grateful. There it is, on page 15: "This book is ... a story of how we `conservatives' have moved from Barry Goldwater and the love of freedom to wiretaps, secret prisons, government intrusion into the most intimate private decisions, and the unprecedented assertion of federal authority and a presidency and bureaucracy that places itself above the law. The movement that once championed strict limits on federal power now recognizes virtually no limits at all. This book will be about how that came to be, how conservatism has become the enemy of all it once stood for and about what must be done to take the movement back from those who have stolen it."
Maybe I could be a conservative.
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