One of the tenets of conservatism, as I understand it, is personal responsibility.

Progressives have long criticized this concept as merely an excuse for self absorption. They say that we call for personal responisibility on the part of “society’s victims,” but want to hide from problems in our “suburbs and gated communities.”

Another feature of conservatism is its lack of *fuehrerprinzip.” We are not given to personality cults and we find it nearly impossible to come to consensus on anything.

So, why are we so dependent on leaders to fight the culture war?

If we have eyes to see what is happening, don’t we have a personal responsibility to do what we can to fight it? Do we really need a “mother may I?” to take action? Do we really use the rhetoric of responsibility to escape responsibility?
How is it that we lament the advent of the statists, when we already seem to have adapted the civic passivity that enables them? Are we “good little Germans” awaiting the orders of the *authorities?*
This is surely not the spirit that animated the Minute Men.