Peggy Noonan on Conservatism

Lopez: What is a conservative?

Noonan: Thank you for asking. I think this is something we should talk about more, and something I would urge NR to address with a greater force or breadth. Bill Buckley and his hardy band — James Burnham, Jeffrey Hart, etc. — brought to their task a certain missionary zeal. They thought they had to explain this thing, conservatism, to an American public that had just come through 25 years of the New Deal and had not heard or seen conservatism announced, put forward, or explained in a coherent way in more than a generation. (Russell Kirk of course was very much a part of this project, in perhaps a broader way.) Let me tell you, everyone wants to talk about politics, and the kind of ad McCain should cut, but what about the philosophies that animate our politics? But briefly, my views. You can debate whether conservatism is a philosophy, a program of settled ideas, a school of thought, a way of seeing the world. I tend to see it, to experience it, as a way of being, a way of understanding the world and responding to it. I cannot help but think that knowing there is a God is the start of all conservatism. (Apologies to agnostic friends who are various kinds and flavors of conservative.) Once you know that you know something big. From there you go on to knowing man. “If men were angels . . . ” They are not, so you don’t want to give them too much governmental power. I’ll throw forward some words and phrases meant to be shorthand for a lot. Prudence. A sense of reality. Understanding limits. Respect for tradition — it didn’t happen by accident. The long view. Respect for the individual and his rights. A knowledge that life is worth living, we’re lucky to be here. I would add or emphasize, for me, a Catholic sense of mystery — we don’t know all, can’t know all, must do our best. I think of ideology as some abstract thing dreamed up by intellectuals and squished down on the heads of human beings — “You will conform your actions to my ideological assumptions and expectations!” I see philosophy as something that rises up from human beings who observe and live with human beings. Conservatism is not an ideology. That’s the last thing it is.

This is taken from an enlightening interview with Noonan.  Going forward from this current political situation, she shares her view that Conservatives need to begin focusing on what makes America...and she is clear that Washington isn't it.  It's worth reading the whole thing.