Philosophy

The book Letters to a Young Conservative by Dinesh D'Souza teaches and informs younger political strived people of the culture and well being of being political motivated. This book is excellent because it entails all the details of being involved in politics in these days.

In the first pages of the book, D'Souza explains how he was at a university to give a speech and how all of these protestors would not let him make his speech. He found this absurd. He then explains what the difference is in being liberal and conservative. The key points in being a liberal are virtues that include; equality, compassion, pluralism, diversity, social justice, peace, autonomy, and tolerance to name a few. It seems to D'Souza that key points to being conservative are merit, patriotism, prosperity, national unity, social order, morality, and responsibility. In my opinion conservatives seem to be more country first oriented. The liberals seem to be more self-oriented thinking of the individual before the country way. As the author says, liberals proclaim self-humanity. Another key difference is the fact that most conservatives stress economic growth while liberals emphasize redistribution. In other words, conservatives want people to get money almost means possible. On the other hand, liberals want money almost split up, not anywhere near the idea of communism or any of those ideals, but spread out more among the citizens.

Many different ways to thinking come about from these two sides. Liberals tend to believe in the enlightenment thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau's ways. He stated that "human nature is intrinsically good" This means that when people do wrong things in liberal eyes, they are doing this because "society has put them in an unfortunate position." Now conservatives think differently. They realize there are two sides to the equation, good and evil. Conservative social views try to bring about mans good side so to speak and hold down mans evil side.

Dinesh D'Souza talks about libertarians, which isn't to be confused with liberals. Libertarianism is a philosophy that describes the main function of the government to protect the big question, liberty. In this way of thinking, government should be constantly trying to find ways to expand rights to people. Supposedly this would bring about happier citizens. However, what makes people happy? Libertarians are silent on this question. The answer to this is freedom. At least that is what most libertarians think. According to the author, so do conservatives. Conservatives agree with this idea because in their words, "it is only when people choose freely that they can choose good." There are some concessions between these two however. Both feel that the federal government has grown to be to influencing in peoples everyday lives, and needs to be severed down. Another agreement is the fact that both feel that it is not up to the government to redistribute income. One argument favors both sides in my opinion. Conservatives argue that the government should promote good moral behavior. Libertarians find this daunting arguing that if you don't trust the government with your money, then why trust them with your soul and mind? Of course the government cannot directly influence the way you think, but they can use public policies to make citizens act a certain way. Just look at the standard form of law to figure this point.

While at Dartmouth College, D'Souza joined a political newspaper modeled after the National Review entitled the Dartmouth Review. D'Souza joined the paper and became radical through his articles in part because the college was a very political hostile community. Conservatives think it is foolish to defend that type of action. Rather their position is to destroy this culture at the base level which would be the college community. While at this college, the staff of the paper forced many professors to give up there tenure and resign their positions because of stands made by the Dartmouth Review.

In one of the letters to Chris, D'Souza gives him tips on how to stir up controversy on his campus and to get others involved. He explained his problems at Dartmouth College and how they overcame those using tactics to embarrass the staff. Dinesh explains how the old-line liberals are gone and that the generation of the 1960s is fully in charge across many campuses. These people thought that Marxist or communist ideas would break out in different places all over the world. D'Souza explained how they compared this idea to Stalin's Russia, Mao's China amongst others. These professors realize things have changed to a more conservative view, and they are in no position to change these patterns. He explains that there only hope is to influence the areas directly around them. He makes example to professors taking over and influencing their English