Hawks we are, hawks we must remain

With CPAC 2010 now fully behind us, conservatism’s rising generation has some choosing to do. Specifically, on the matter of war and national security, will we be the hawks that we were born to be? Now is the time to make a lasting decision, and we better get it right.

After all, those of us who fall into the Generation Y or Millennial bracket—born under Reagan/Bush, came of age under Clinton/Bush II—bear a special responsibility. That which we stand for today will define what American conservatism represents tomorrow. Indeed, it was the young conservatives who lifted Barry Goldwater to the Republican presidential nomination back in 1964 who eventually took over the GOP, redefined America’s mainstream political right, and continue to run the movement today.

Of course, no two conservatives anywhere are wired exactly the same and that naturally extends to those of us in our 20s. But there are certain overarching differences among our lot in particular that are too deep to ignore or diminish. A few years ago it was thought that social issues would be the barrier that partitioned us into separate camps. That has not happened. Instead, it seems to be our dramatically conflicting views over U.S. foreign policy that have drawn a thick, undeniable line in the sand.

No better snapshot of this under-acknowledged 10,000-lb. elephant in the room could be seen than when isolationism’s leading icon Ron Paul won the Conservative Political Action Conference’s straw poll for preferred 2012 presidential candidate. Almost immediately after the news broke, the pundit world fingered the conference’s overwhelming youth presence as the culprit behind the libertarian congressman’s surprise victory.

Never mind that only half of the mere 24 percent of CPAC attendees who actually remembered to vote in this year’s straw poll were under 25. And never mind that nobody seriously believes Ron Paul will ever see the White House let alone the Republican National Convention. What matters is that his brief moment of glory at CPAC gives young conservatives everywhere a reason (or perhaps an excuse) to ask ourselves, on the topic of foreign policy, the unnecessarily uncomfortable question of where we want to stand and who we want (and don’t want) to stand with us.

Our answers should lay in our generational identity.

We are the 9/11 generation.

We were born sometime in the ’80s—a period we know better through old films and theme parties than from actual memory, yet we’re still aware that a certain actor-turned-president is responsible for making the decade everything that the ’70s were not: harmonious, optimistic, and thriving.

We grew up through the roaring ’90s—a time of peace and prosperity that neither our parents nor grandparents ever knew. Occurring between the end of the Cold War and the arrival of Y2K, it was truly a holiday from history and we enjoyed every fruit it had to offer. The music was great, the movies were fun, the new cellular telephones were neat and the World Wide Web was even cooler. As much as we remember how easy that era was for us, we also remember how and why it ended.

It’s been almost a decade since 9/11. Many of us felt our first spark of political passion in the aftermath of the attacks because we saw something (or many things) that we deeply, personally admired in George W. Bush. Whether it was his character, his leadership, or that he was the guy who was going to send our warriors to rain down justice on our new enemies, we lined up behind him. He was not only our president, he was our avenger. We’d heard endless tales of the greatness that was Ronald Reagan, but we never actually knew him. Bush was different.