University of Virginia Library

Rise Of The Right

It has to happen eventually. What with the
election of Richard Nixon, the reaction
around the country to student protests and
the increasingly frantic efforts of the super patriots
there had to be an organization
reflecting the trend here at the University. We
speak of the Young Americans for Freedom.
The right is getting organized.

YAF made its presence known last week
when it sought and obtained a voice on the
Virginia Weekly and then threatened to sue
President Shannon if he cancels classes for the
Vietnam moratorium on October 15. Their
resort to the Weekly was especially ironic
since that paper was founded in the days of
not-so-yore when the left felt that it needed a
voice in the University media. Their attempt
to block any cancellation of classes was
something they had every right to do; it
entailed legal means and we are certainly not
going to criticise them for that.

But we do feel that the time may be right
to ask the YAF just what breed of
conservatives they are? The conservative
movement, like the Communist movement, is
not monolithic. It is split into at least two
groups, One is libertarian, opposed to the
encroachment of government into what it
regards as the rights of the individual. It is a
fairly dogmatic group, yet it can make
alliances with the radical left against what
both groups oppose, even if for different
purposes. Opposition to the draft is a good
example of such an alliance. The libertarian
conservatives tend to be more isolationist than
militaristic.

The other branch of the conservative
movement, however, has no real ideology
other than a rigid belief in preserving the
status quo from whatever or whomever might
be seeking to change it. For lack of a better
term, this group may be referred to as the
reactionary branch of the conservative movement.
Quite often this group aligns with the
libertarian branch because its opposition to
change, to better opportunities for minority
groups and anything else that threatens the
status quo looks a great deal more palatable if
it is couched in libertarian terms.

It remains to be seen whether the right, in
its belated attempts to organize and become
militant, can succeed in its goal of taking the
thunder away from the left. The radical left
has a tremendous inherent advantage if the
right wing organizers are indeed reactionaries
rather than libertarians, the advantage of
initiative. It capitalizes on the obvious flaws
and injustices in our society simply by calling
for radical means to change them. The right,
on the other hand, when it stays a prisoner of
the reactionary syndrome, finds itself in a
position of attacking those who seek to
correct injustices. By implication, it aligns
itself with those who perpetrate the injustices.

This is the crux of the newly organized
right's opportunity and its dilemma. It seeks
to influence a generation of students well
aware and often appalled by the injustices of
the society it is about to inherit; many of
them, however, have been equally appalled by
the tactics used by the left in seeking to
correct those injustices. The YAF, if it is to
supplant or even rival the radical students,
must adopt a progressive posture and combine
it with a tactical program that appeals to the
masses of students whose concern with
academic and societal reform is equalled only
by concern that moderate means be used. The
conservative students cannot succeed if they
are merely reactionary.

The University's right wing, feeling its oats
with its threat to sue if President Shannon
cancels classes for the moratorium, might do
well to consider its future with that in mind.
There is more than enough room here and in
the nation for an alternative to the measures
of the radical left. YAF's challenge is to
provide that alternative — not to act as
President Nixon's kiddy corps, attempting to
hide a reactionary opposition to peace and
equality behind a veil of libertarianism.