I was in a funk after learning that Governor Sanford had adulterated his marriage. The reason that Sanford’s admission has affected me greater than some of the other recent adulterous admission, such as Sens. Vitter and Ensign, has to do with something that I have been pondering a lot lately: role models and heroes.

I am happy to say, and maybe even a bit surprised with myself, that the first thing that came to my mind after learning of the disgusting mess was not Governor Sanford’s political career but his family. You see, I have been paying attention to Gov. Sanford for some time now. Even before the 2008 election, he had appeared a few times as a rising star on our country’s political stage. Being a feverish consumer of all things politics at times, I naturally researched his biography and family. “Perfect,” I thought to myself. “He seems like a real family man.” That was the first thing that struck me as devastating. Mr. Sanford is going to be blighted, damaged goods, if you will, in the eyes of his family. His reputation, his word, has most likely been damaged beyond repair with his four beautiful sons. Who will now be their role models for a representation of a good husband and father who can be faithful to both his bride and his children? Therefore my first instinct is to worry and pray for his family.

Secondly, however, Sanford’s adultery affects me, and I think a lot of others in a more personal way. As I stated earlier, I have been following and cheering for Sanford for some time. After President Obama assumed office, Gov. Sanford became Obama’s greatest critic and represented what many of us thought should be the direction of a strong opposition. In that sense, for those of us who think the bad guys are often in Washington D.C., Gov. Sanford was a hero to us, the only one standing up to the full weight and power of the United States Federal Government, even against his own party in his own state. This took great political courage, and it is courage that many of us could get behind. In a sense, Sanford was becoming something of a hero among conservatives.  He was a hero for standing up to those who would have us believe that they are smarter than us; that if we only just leave our health, our education, our morals, our defense, our food, our textbooks, our churches, and our guns, to them, they will handle it all. In a sense, Sanford was saying no to all of that, claiming that South Carolina could handle itself much better without the Federal Government getting involved. Back in September of 2008, he was pretty much saying it alone.

Yet, at the same time, he was living the opposite in his own life. He was thinking he was smarter than his family. He could get away with it, not taking into consideration anything but his own extremely selfish wants and desires. So yes, in one sense it is simply a personal matter between his family. However, for those of us who thought well of him, who admired his principles and the stances that he took, and who bought into the same façade that he pitched to his family, he let us down too. It leaves at least one person thinking either that I have placed too much faith in politics, or that I should have given up on heroes a long time ago. For once, I hope it is the former.

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A recent quip made by a friend of mine brought to mind the current problem of how we as conservatives treat the ongoing conversation about “the environment.” I had turned on a television program that was highlighting the great technologies that NASA had employed in order to get two small “rovers” to last longer than ever imagined in their quest to explore the planet Mars. The cost of the exploration and all that goes with it, let alone the rovers themselves, was no doubt obscene. However, the comment by my friend was made toward the end of the program after the designers of the rovers were done proudly explaining that with no weather around to destroy the rovers, they could outlast even humans. (I find the possibility of this doubtful for any number of reasons including that an asteroid strike would likely burn the rovers and send unrecognizable particles flying into the atmosphere.)

My friend’s comment was along the lines that we were now polluting other planets. While in my arrogant omnipotence I quickly retorted “What were we really worried about Mars for anyways, it’s not like we’ll ever need it or live there,” it struck me today as highlighting the arrogance of humans, like myself, to separate themselves from nature. It also struck me as a perfect example of living by the liberalism that is so pervasive in both political parties today.

On the one hand, we have Democrats who want to impose top down regulation of all of humanity’s activities in order to achieve a “greener” world, not recognizing the consequences for their imposition of Utopia gone green. (One consequence that can be seen thus far is the impact that restricting DDT spraying in Africa has had on the large number of persons who have died from Malaria.) On the other hand, the Republicans, in their “knee jerk” attempts to oppose the Democrats, see the world as a vast resource to be used to its ultimate profit making potential. Rather than acknowledging man’s place in nature, both arguments instead separate man from his “environment.” Both arguments are different sides of the same liberal coin.

In T.S Eliot’s Idea of a Christian Society, Eliot briefly discusses the problem that taking man from nature can pose. In separating all resources, including “human resources” from their natural source and place, it necessarily permits the “abuse” of those resources rather than their proper “use.” It seems to me that a truly conservative challenge to the liberal view of “the environment” would place man properly in his role as independent caretaker and nurturer of what he has been given. This conservative critique of liberal environmentalism could maintain roots in both the founder’s talk of “Nature’s God,” and the Christian tradition of “Creation.” It would also be a much more long term approach than the “here and now” of shoving green cars into the lives of those who are accustomed to driving larger vehicles, or the self satisfying view that all resources exist to be used to the utmost by humans capable of their exploitation.

Such alternative lines of thought might even get us to think about a way to bring back rovers that we leave on other planets, or about the usefulness of funding space exploration in general.

A dear friend of mine pointed out that my thoughts yesterday may come off as somewhat harsh to pretty much everyone reading them. In asking what I was trying to accomplish through the essay, my friend pointed out something that I did not make plain yesterday, but which I meant to. Mainly, the arguments that I am making are about conservatives, not liberals. In many ways this could be seen as me attacking my own side, however I don’t think of it so much as attacking as I would like to refer to it as constructively building up. The arguments that I am making would not make much sense to a liberal at all. Modern liberalism might as well be called modern relativism and therefore there can be no “good” or “best.” Directives toward liberal chosen ends of course exist in liberal agendas, but are argued with the underlying claim that “everyone agrees,” and therefore there need be no discussion of what is good or best. (For a very obvious example, take a look at the liberal line on “global warming”).  

     In a sense, the liberal leg to stand on represents no leg at all. Liberalism necessarily is eventually defined as the equalizing of all cultures, beliefs, and lines of thought. Therefore the liberals stand on something, but that something is literally made up of an equality of “nothing.” There can be no best, no good, because all individual ideas of the best, all individual “goods” are equal.

     What I am arguing through a conservatism that actually interlays one’s life is that we as conservatives are now currently living life as it is defined by liberals. In order for us to have a leg to stand on in making arguments to others, this needs to stop, or else we are the same hypocrites that we claim liberals are. We need to begin living our lives as if there is an objective good that can be seen through a combination of discovery through reason and revealed intentions of a higher power. Only from this will conservatives, steeped in the wisdom of history, be able to begin representing a viable challenge to the culture once again.