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What say you?
Great links CL. Keep them coming.
Thanks for the link, CL. I do appreciate it.
[...] The Classic Liberal has Ten Economic Blunders With Heidi (Klum) Samuel (last weeks). Also, Right Wing Links. [...]
What a load of crap. Do you even bother to read the link that you posted? As Hobbesean as ever? " Then we had the Bush years. The conservative movement became almost completely enthralled with the very worst of what government is capable of: mass murder. The American right began to take on the character of a truly totalitarian movement. Calls for deporting dissenters, shutting down the press, nuking tens of millions of people, banning Islam and other such despotic proposals were heard all over talk radio. At the height of Bush’s power and prestige, it almost looked like liberty was doomed in America, thanks primarily to the same crowd that gave us Reagan, the Contract with America and the defeat of Al Gore." That's called setting up a straw man as that does not exist on the right.
And this: "While today’s conservatives are in substantial areas better than the managerial progressives on the left, they are hardly a welcome alternative overall. Every indication suggests that when they regain power, they will be even worse than they were under Bush." Bush is not a conservative. Maybe a social conservative, but not a fiscal conservative. The moron writer is confusing the Establishment Republicans with conservatives. Sure, the Establishment will probably be worse than Bush, or at least as bad. But they are not the ones powering the Tea Party and the rise of conservatives in the recent elections and polls.
Same with the crack about the right: "The rightwing, however, considers it "politically correct" or even "treasonous" to defend the right of Muslims to pray on their own private property." This is pure unadulterated hogwash.
I can't believe you share any of these conclusions with this moron. That no more exemplifies the position of those who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque than some libertarian assssin's position exemplifies the libertarian's position. I think the guy is an absolute idiot who should be shunned by right thinking libertarians or any fair-minded person.
Oh, I get it, you were joking, right? Or, you were just linking to it to show how F#CKING idiotic the writer is. Hah ha! Now I get it.
Yes, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything I link to, only that I found it interesting, thought-provoking, entertaining, or perhaps even irritating. Preaching to the choir puts me to sleep.
I do agree with that particular article though. If freedom and liberty mean anything at all to those in the conservative movement, the first step in turning things around is to look in the mirror. Hey, I count myself as part of that group too.
To keep it simple, there are 2 primary points of view on man's rights and society - Hobbesian and Lockean. Hobbes gave birth to all the modern collectivist states. Locke gave birth to America. It can only be one or the other, the 2 can't exist in the same space. It's either Hobbesian "order," or Lockean liberty, not a little of both. The right has adopted Hobbes while hanging onto the rhetoric of Locke. This is a grave error with horrifying consequence. This is not controversial either. You yourself told me "Locke was overrated."
I have some posts I want to get to on the subject of the modern right's adoption of Hobbesian philosophy. Hopefully I can get to later this week. Been overwhelmed out here in the other world.
I am not a philosopher, and have forgotten (if I ever knew) the exact distinctions between Locke and Hobbe. I am a follower of history, and I consider myself to be a follower of the Founding Fathers. They adopted some of Locke's ideas, but they certainly never adopted them all, as libertarians would have us to do today.
The Founding Fathers had many laws regarding moral issues that you would profoundly disagree with. I think your continual reference to Hobbes and Locke avoids the real issue: You disagree with the Founding Fathers. Your beef is with them. You claim it is with modern "conservatives" (not sure who you are referring to particularly, or to which issue you are referring--as preaching to choir bores you, discussing generalities without getting specific bores me), but you really are taking issue with the way that our country was founded. If I am correct about your views and that you oppose the Founding Fathers, you are no less radical than the progressives--you want to change our country from the way it was originally meant to be governed into the way you wish it had been constituted. Where am I missing something?
My personal political philosophy is outlined perfectly in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was brilliant, way ahead of his time, and by far outshined all the other Founders combined. Hamilton on the other hand, was a tyrant who wanted a monarch/mercantilist system, so in his particular case, I do disagree with him. That said, even Hamilton's desires would be considered radical today for its limits on government.
People like to claim this, but the plain language of the Constitution is quite easy to read. The Constitution does not provide the federal government the ability to legislate morality. Period. It's not there. Doesn't exist.
Look back to the progressive prohibition era. At least then, they had the common decency to amend the constitution in order to enforce it. Why? Because the constitution didn't provide the federal government the power to prohibit alcohol. Nixon just went ahead a declared war on drugs. Screw the law of the land via the amendment process.
Locke, Hobbes and many others are extremely important. All ideas come from somewhere. Locke and Hobbes agreed that man's rights were inherent, but differed on how they were exercised. For Locke and our Founders (see declaration), the individual was sovereign and our rights precede government. For Hobbes, the State is sovereign, and man's rights exist in submission to the State. The difference between these 2 are extreme! Locke gave us Jefferson, Hobbes gave us Marx.
For me, the individual is sovereign above all, both politically and spiritually. The collective is an abstract idea. A myth. As our declaration states, "we the people" can abolish the government whenever we deem it has failed, or secede, so there is no loyalty to the State. The State is to be the servant not the master. Politicians are to represent the people, not act as their "leaders." I could carry on ...
Financially, our country is FUBAR. When the dollar collapses things will change in ways we can only best guess. But politics will change forever. So, the future of individual liberty is what matters to me, not the frinkin' Republican Party.
This is a political blog. I speak my opinion. I'm Old Right (paleo) - antiwar, anti-New Deal, anti-Fed, anti-State. I advocate Old Right ideas and hate the gnostic (see Voegelin) progressive neocons. Why? Because I'm against all forms of collectivism. History has proven collectivism to be evil. I can't sit idly by watching them take over the movement that was once steadfastly against all forms of collectivism. That would be crazy!
I think politicians are schmucks, not heroes, and government is nothing more than organized crime. I'd have fit in well with the majority of our founders. Washington, Jefferson, Sam Adams, Paine ... none of whom were friends of Big Government.
Seems like we've been down this road before. I KNOW the Federal Government does not have the power (should read AUTHORITY, since they do exercise such power) to legislate morality. But the states DO. Always have, from the institution of the U.S. until progressive/libertarian justices on the supreme court slowly began to chip away at the states' authority to do so in the past 80-90 years.
My point is that the same great thinkers who gave us our system of federal (supposed to be limited) government went back to their individual states and legislated morality--the very thing that you seem to despise. Admit it. You and they are on different political philosophical pathways. And me, if I found myself off a different pathway than the Founding Fathers, I'd back-track and try to find exactly where I deviated from their way of thinking...