Summary Of In Defense Of Freedom

In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo Before diving into this literature, I find it important to understand the author, Frank Meyer. Meyer was born in New Jersey and attended Princeton and Oxford. He later studied at London School of Economics, but was expelled and deported for “communist activism.” Meyer, like the majority of founders of National Review Magazine, was one of the first full U.S. communist activists. It wasn’t until his service during World War II with the U.S. Army, where he read The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek, that he began to turn away from communism and to the right. Meyer has been summed up as “utilizing libertarian means in a conservative society for traditionalist ends.” Later in this essay I will discuss how …show more content…
Meyer. This quote encases Meyer’s ideology. Meyer went on a true pursuit of freedom and came to his own conclusion as a collection of libertarian and traditionalist beliefs (Dionne). Meyer defines freedom as the minimization of the use of coercion by the state in its essential role of preventing one person 's freedom from intruding upon another 's. He believes the state’s main function is to protect freedom and leave virtue to individuals. This has the small government aspect of libertarians and the individual virtue of traditionalists. In order to apply this theory to one of the two major parties of today is difficult. At the time this book was written, 1962, fusionism would align largely with the Republican party. A famous advocate for the fusionism theory is Ronald Reagan. Today, 2016, the parties show signs of shifting again. Fusionism could fall under the Republican party economically and the Democratic party socially. Based on Meyer’s fusionism theory, extreme polarization and time period; I predict our two party system will become obsolete in our