No Counterbalance; The Awful State of the Establishment Right
The establishment right is out-dated, and badly in need of renovation, mainly because of one poor choice rooted in a fin-du-siècle, or dare I say mediaeval mentality, that government need not or should not fund education or involve itself with education. This is a really bad choice in the 21st century. Education being funded by public money is a staple of modern society. If conservatives had been more willing to invest in this one area, at all levels, both personally as patrons and on a governmental level, we wouldn’t have to worry about the subversive influence of social justice on a grand scale like we do at present.
Conservatives in years past had two reasons, so it seems, to avoid increasing the public funding of education while in office and on a separate note, they also have had a problem with grassroots activism in the past.
The first reason is that ideologically libertarian conservatives have sought at every turn to destroy the pervasive influence of big government, and secondly, at least to some degree, establishment conservative politicians often come from the upper segment of society and as such funding education increases the competition that one’s child is going to face in the labour market. Thus establishment conservatives would have to overcome their own conflicts of interest in order to fund education.
Other than that, conservatives have in the past, selected improper targets for activism, strayed from the public good without consideration, been corrupt and generally offended the sensibilities of independent voters. A great example of grassroots gone wrong is teaching creationism in schools. Peddling this falsehood was a doomed and unacceptable plan, even St. Augustine knew better than interpreting Genesis literally and moreover any devout Christians should be aware that the reactionary blockheads who thought up creationism have done more harm to your public image than Engels, Marx and Lenin.
Therefore it behoves conservatives in the modern era to fight in ways similar to hard leftists. We must wage war by infiltrating educational institutions, and using those positions to teach Cultural-Libertarian values and fight back Cultural-Marxism at the source. Modern conservatives of a religious bent must also divorce activism from religion, faith alone will get you nowhere in the world. As a result any restriction on liberty that you advocate for must be founded in reason, not religion. Regardless of whether your ideas proceed from a religious frame of mind, you must use a secular method of activism or expect to be ignored.
The benefits of this cannot be overstated, if intellectual conservatives put themselves to work organizing on the grassroots level, we are likely to see a healthy mediating influence on educational insitutions. We don't need to win, we just need to provide an appropriate counterbalance. I used to hear long whinges from progressives that Bernie Sanders was going to use his influence to get activists into positions of minor power throughout the country. Where is the right’s response?