{"id":85595,"date":"2016-01-17T15:03:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-17T23:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=85595"},"modified":"2016-01-17T15:03:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-17T23:03:23","slug":"new-york-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=85595","title":{"rendered":"\u2018New York Values\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Williams writes<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Cruz, canny politician that he is, never bothered to go into much detail about what is meant by \u201cNew York values.\u201d Sneering at them was enough. But sneering at New York values isn\u2019t very smart for conservatives. Not in the long run.<\/p>\n

It has been said that you cannot understand America without understanding New York City, and the first thing to understand about New York is that it isn\u2019t very much like the rest of America. That is true, unquestionably. But New York\u2019s traditional virtues \u2014 its brashness, its hustle and enterprise, its anything-is-possible attitude \u2014 are the traditional American virtues, just as the city\u2019s vices \u2014 its materialism, its self-importance, its fascination with the transitory and the impermanent \u2014 are the American vices, too. <\/p>\n

Conservatives, of all people, should be more attuned to the virtues of the nation\u2019s commercial center; let the nation\u2019s art-school dropouts sneer at that great collision of money and culture. The city has been the incubator of our best minds \u2014 Buckley, Friedman, Podhoretz, Kristol \u2014 and is home to great conservative institutions from The New Criterion and the Manhattan Institute to this magazine. Ayn Rand, who didn\u2019t understand people but had a great and admirable capacity to be arrested by the beauty of human achievements, loved New York as only an immigrant can. <\/p>\n

To the extent that \u201cNew York values\u201d is another way of saying \u201curban values\u201d \u2014 and it is, to a great extent \u2014 conservatives would do well to develop a keener appreciation of them. (Never mind, for the moment, the notion that Donald Trump\u2019s values are identical to the values of New York, in which he is a figure of fun rather than a figure of respect.) From a matter of pure self-interest, Republicans would be in much better shape if their presidential candidates did not start in an electoral hole, with California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois wrapped up in a bow for the Democrats. It isn\u2019t California ranchers and Illinois farmers who have handed those states to the Left, but city-dwelling people who believe with some reason \u2014 Ted Cruz has just given them another \u2014 that Republicans hate them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Podhoretz tweets: “Boy is this good.”<\/p>\n

Ragged replies: “Were Jews “ill-advised” to sneer at and resist Roman values in the first century?”<\/p>\n

John Podhoretz replies: “This is one of the most repellent anti-American comments I’ve ever read. You’re basically a slimy worm.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Williams writes: Cruz, canny politician that he is, never bothered to go into much detail about what is meant by \u201cNew York values.\u201d Sneering at them was enough. But sneering at New York values isn\u2019t very smart for conservatives. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[616],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-york"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t