About

Right of Center was started in February 2005, during the early days of my second semester of graduate school at Southern Illinois University located in Carbondale, Illinois.  What led to me starting the site was my firsthand experiences of the hostility that liberal-controlled higher education has towards conservatism and those who defend what is now defined as traditional American values.  I heard what I now refer to as historical moral relativism in almost every class – judging past peoples and societies by today’s “moral” and societal standards.  In each of the courses I took, I always found it rather humorous that we, as the next generation of American historians, were told to leave our biases aside, to seek the truth as revealed by primary sources; however, when students would provide an alternative theory or understanding of events, immediately the double standard would apply.

As one of the few conservatives attending the courses offered by certain professors, I often heard other conservative graduate students or students that were active in their faith told that their political views were tainting their understanding of history.  During one such course, I was asked about the factors that could have contributed to the decline and fall of the Soviet Union. As I began to discuss critical factors, once the names of Eisenhower and Reagan came up, I was immediately greeted with the comment, “See, you are making something political when it’s not about politics…”  I was then told that it had nothing to do with what I thought it was. The United States was not simply reacting or misinterpreting Soviet intentions but was provoking the Soviets into action and large national spending deficits.

This faculty member did tell the entire class that the United States was responsible for Korea, Vietnam and even provoked and tricked the Japanese into bombing Pearl Harbor.  This professor continued to say that the United States needed to be brought down and divided into smaller nations as a means of righting generations of wrong that has happened during our national existence.  During a teaching assistant training session, she even defined it as being the primary responsibility of historians to correct the opinions and interpretations of the casual consumer so that they could appreciate the “real and unobjective” history of the United States.

In the beginning, I chose the name Right of Center because I had come across a letter in a collection of the writings of President Dwight D. Eisenhower where he stated that he believed that most Americans were not extreme right or left, but possibly just right of center.  He also said that our national government would only function at its optimum efficiency if it adopted policies that appealed to that group of Americans.  Even President Nixon considered this group of American citizens but referred to them as the silent majority rather than being right of center.  It was with that thought in mind that I chose the website’s name.

As a historian, I have always acknowledged my biases and strive to present an unbiased and transparent view of history.  I rely heavily on primary sources and encourage students to come to their conclusions about the covered materials throughout the course.  The only provision I have is that the student must base their opinion on fact rather than emotion.  Within our nation, we see the results when ideology begins to replace objective teaching, especially in courses such as political science, law, and history.  Each semester, I come across students who tell me that they hate being American, being white (or black, or whatever race they are), and believe that the federal government has the final say on our rights. Sadly, those students think the government has the responsibility to redistribute wealth to make our nation “more equal.”

These students have been indoctrinated by an education system that participates in the destruction of our national history and identity. Historical interpretation based on fact is being replaced with an emotional interpretation. Historical figures and events are being rewritten and redefined to support modern Liberalism. Traditional middle-class values are being tied unjustly and unfairly to racism, sexism, and other social taboos.  The freedoms that Americans once held dear, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion, are eroded daily by courts, Leftist peer pressure, and politicians who hide behind the claim that there is a cost we all must be willing to pay to have an equal and fair society.  We are being told that there has been no expectation of privacy since September 11, 2001, because we live in a more dangerous world; the CIA, NSA, FBI, and a half dozen alphabet agencies need to gather more information.  I beg to differ.

I intend to present, through this website, conservatism and the fundamental concepts of what was considered classical Liberalism that formed the very identity of the United States during the early years of the Republic.  If we ever forget the values that brought about this nation and fail to educate through any means at our disposal of what the concepts of conservatism and classical Liberalism mean, then we have indeed lost this great nation and have squandered the revolution which began on July 4, 1776.

History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill-suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy… These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened.