The Public Eye Magazine

The Public Eye, Winter 2007

Three of the cops had jumped out of the white nondescript van and attacked me. They were all wearing ski masks and dressed as anarchist black bloc protesters. I threw up my hands and offered no resistance.

The Heritage Foundation’s headquarters sits two blocks from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., a symbolic representation of its intimate access to Congress and public policymakers. Heritage’s rise to prominence has paralleled the rise to power of conservative political thought. Having survived seven administrations, the think tank’s goals have remained the same since its inception: “to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”

“Models of idealized family structure lie metaphorically at the heart of our politics,” writes linguist George Lakoff in his 2002 book Moral Politics. “Our beliefs about the family exert a powerful influence over our beliefs about what kind of society we should build.” Certainly, many Christian Right leaders would agree with him.