Talkin' 'Bout My Generation's Conservatives (and Libertarians)

Mark "Catholic and Enjoying It" Shea links an article by Joe Carter of the neocon journal First Things on "those of us who grew up to be culturally and politically conservative" — X-Cons: The Conservative Mind of Generation X.

I, too, was "born convinced that the world would end in a nuclear holocaust," but the experience radicalized me. I find myself more and more like Old Rightist Frank Chodorov, who said, "I will punch anyone who calls me a conservative in the nose. I am a radical." Thus, this paragraph interested me most:

X-Cons are often Goldwater-style conservatives, holding views that are more individualistic than aligned with historical conservatism. We also tend to have many cafeteria libertarians, those who pick and choose from the buffet of libertarian ideology. X-Cons may, for example, be in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana while opposing the legalization of prostitution. The libertarians in our cohort tend to be less pure than those that came before or after.

Now that I know that I am a "cafeteria libertarian," I am perfectly happy to be "less pure than those that came before or after." I'd say the best statement of my generation's outlook comes from one of our contemporaries mentioned in Rod Dreher's seminal article, Birkenstocked Burkeans, who said, "I went straight from left wing to right wing without ever once passing through a phase where I trusted the government."