Great article, “The Little Mr. Conservative,” in the NYT about Jonathan Krohn, the 14 year old who spoke at the CPAC convention. This article says that Johnathan is a home schooler who, in his short life, has listened to a lot of talk radio. He was early on hooked by Bill Bennett. For years, Jonathan has been regularly getting up at 6:00 AM to listen to Bennett on the radio.
Johnathan has published a book, “Define Conservatism,” that argues that conservatism is based on four principles: 1) Respect for the Constitution, 2) Respect for Life, 3) Less Government, and 4) Personal Responsibility. He writes, “Dear readers, I hope that each of you will individually learn from this book. It is my personal sentiment that America needs another Conservative revolution, and it is my prayer that that movement will begin with each of you.”
Wow. That is pretty strong advice coming from a 14 year old. It is no surprise to learn that Johnathan has a theatrical background . According to this article, Krohn has been performing on stage since he was eight, and, Inside Edition’s Debora Norville named him “Atlanta’s Most Talented Child” in 2006.
His speech at CPAC was impressive. He spoke with great poise, with good humor and conviction. He just seems like a great kid.
I looked Johnathan up on You-tube and found this brief interview in which Jonathan gives his view of what government should be. He says, “Government is about the people and protecting the people and the people’s rights as set forth in the constitution and not about helping the people. That’s never been government’s job. That’s a romanticized view of government and that is a major problem with government.”
When Johnathan says that America needs a “Conservative revolution,” I wonder what he might envisage that to be? But, more importantly, I wonder what Johnathan might have to say about all of this when he matures — maybe, in another twenty or thirty years — if, over the years, he maintains his passion for learning, his passion for ideas. Who knows? Maybe, in time, Johnathan will become a liberal.
St. Paul said that when he became a man, he put away childish things. He said that when he was a child he thought as a child. I’m sure Johnathan Krohn is doing everything in his power to think like a man and not think as a child. He is sitting at the feet of teachers like Bill Bennett and other radio personalities who serve as his models. Like all children, his is an absorbent mind. His CPAC listeners would probably disagree that Krohn’s thoughts are childish. But it is probably a good bet that eventually Krohn will look back on his thinking at this time in his life and make that very conclusion. Krohn’s idea of what constitutes mature thinking may be very different in a few years. But maybe not.
It is interesting that Barack Obama, in his Inaugural Speech, echoed St. Paul’s call to maturity and said, that among the childish things our society should discard should be “worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”
A young thinker like Krohn can declare a dogma with great certainty that “government is not about helping people, that’s not government’s job,” and make such a declaration as a statement of principle. Based upon what he has read or heard, Krohn, no doubt, believes that his declaration about the proper role of government is reflective of mature and principled thought. He’s repeating, of course, what he’s heard someone else say. But, don’t we all do that?
When Paul wrote, “When I was a child I thought as a child. When I became a man I put away childish things,” he signaled that maturity brings with it a transformation of one’s thought; with maturity comes independent thinking.
It seems if we are to find the transformative solutions needed for our future, our whole society will need to rise to new levels of mature thinking. Unfortunately one doesn’t stop being a child simply because one has accumulated a lot of birthdays.
