The Conservative Mind: John Adams and Liberty Under The Law (An Excerpt)

The Conservative Mind: From Burke To Eliot | 1953 | Russell Kirk

[Wonder Warthog]

"I don't agree with this perspective. I believe that in aggregate, our liberties are plentiful and in many ways more prevalent than earlier in our history. Go to any state and examine some of the older "blue" laws. Compare a black man of today with one of 200 years ago, or even 100 years ago. Compare the freedoms women have today, as compared to the past."

Balderdash. The government steals FAR more of our wealth than ever, playing Robin Hood to the "underclass". Our rights not to have our land stolen under "eminent domain" have shrunken drastically. Our rights to use our property as we see fit has vanished under "zoning laws", and "environmental regulations, and more. Our rights to own firearms are disappearing at a rapid pace. The only rights women have won are the right to vote and to abort. Overall, blacks ARE better off, that I'll grant you. If Washington, Jefferson, (and Adams) were alive today, the Second American Revolution would already have started.

[William McKinley]

I am right with you in being abhorred with the French Revolution. My education left me woefully underinformed about how atrocious it was; it was only after reading Kuehnelt-Leddhin's Leftism Revisited that I grasped the totality of the wickedness involved.

[William McKinley]

I stand by my belief that the two things you talked about there are not the fault of the Federalists, but rather due to modifications in our Constitution pushed through long after the Federalists ceased to exist. Without the direct election of Senators and without the federal income tax, the tax system we have in place now and the land grabs by the government would never have been possible.

[Z in Oregon]

Interesting article.

[William McKinley]

Thanks, I thought so. But it isn't an article. It is an excerpt from the groundbreaking book by Russell Kirk "The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot".

[Roscoe]

BTTT

[AuntB]

redrock, I thought you'd appreciate this discussion. Then there was Thomas Paine (and Thomaspaine.com), someone we can all detest. He would have destroyed Adams and the constitution along with it.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I stand by my belief that the two things you talked about there are not the fault of the Federalists, but rather due to modifications in our Constitution pushed through long after the Federalists ceased to exist. Without the direct election of Senators and without the federal income tax, the tax system we have in place now and the land grabs by the government would never have been possible."

And those things happened because the Federalists were wrong, and the Anti-Federalists were right. The central government WAS too powerful, and the mechanisms of restraint WERE too weak. Re-read the Anti-Federalist writings---in light of today's events, they are frighteningly prophetic--especially the sections on the excessive power of the courts.

Although the Federalists ceased to exist AS A POLITICAL PARTY, their political heritage lived on in the structure of the Constitution (as did the heritage of the Anti-Federalists in the Bill of Rights). Time has proven that the restrictions added by the Bill of Rights were insufficient to overcome the deficiencies embedded in the Constitution. Would that more of that structure had been influenced by the Anti-Federalists, rather than just the BoR.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The problem has always been the robbing of the lesser number of self sufficient states by the majority of uncreditable states. The tradeoff for the self-supporting states is the protection of a larger union, but the dominant driver from the uncreditable states has always been greed combined with a profound disavowel of that greed."

You'll have to elaborate that point, as I don't get it. There ARE no "self-supporting states" although some were/are wealthier than others at various times. The South was originally wealthier than the North (which is why they objected so strongly to tariffs). Those relative positions switched after the Civil War, and the switching continues today as economic forces cause the movement of wealth from region to region.

[William McKinley]

Dude, that is just plain silly. Those things were pushed through as Constitutional amendments. The mechanisms of restraint against those are huge.

Those things passed because the nation succumbed to the temptations of direct democracy and of marxist levelling.

[Kevin Curry]

When the doctrinaire liberals repudiated the idea of Providence, they retained only a moral concept shorn of religious sanctions and left to wither into mere selfishness.

E.g., Ayn Rand's insipid atheistic objectivism pap, and modern atheistic libertarianism that believes that a people who reject God and the moderating influences of traditional virtue-instilling institutions including church and family can remain free, prosperous, and secure.

But Edmund Burke described well the deadly consequences of such morality-negating hedonism and populism when he critiqued the sorry state of France post-revolution.

Libertarians--particularly atheist libertarians--are drunk on the same rotgut populist, knee-jerk anti-government wine that the Jacobins brewed up in 1793. This drunkness led to the Reign of Terror which ultimately created the necessary conditions for Napoleon to wrest absolute despostic control of France.

What was it Santayana said about those who fail to learn from history?

[William McKinley]

I am surprised that Kirk did not write a bit more about the Jacobins in these early chapters. Granted, he is focusing on those who were repulsed by Jacobian thought, but still one who was unfamiliar with the Jacobins would probably not fully get some of the references.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Dude, that is just plain silly. Those things were pushed through as Constitutional amendments. The mechanisms of restraint against those are huge. Those things passed because the nation succumbed to the temptations of direct democracy and of marxist levelling."

Well, DUDE, the restraints built into the Constitution WERE NOT ENOUGH to prevent that, now were they? That simple fact speaks for itself.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Your knowledge of history is an absolute joke. All the census material gathered before the CW says so. I suggest you read Helper's little study on that. He was a southern gentleman who was no where near as ignorant as your are of the abosulute farce of southern slavery. The key to the collapse of the south was that it made work, for the majority of poor white southerners, a thing to be avoided. It should be no surprise that the states of the south in particular have never paid their way from day one of this country, neither could they ever repay the money they have sucked out of the states where any form of work was considered an honorable activity instead of a mark of social inferiority."

Ah, the light dawns--a South-hater. I didn't mention ONE SYLLABLE about slavery--you pulled THAT out of your own anus (after removing your head, I guess). You can stick it back there, now (your head, that is).

[William McKinley]

The constraints put into the Constitution against changes to the Constitution were not sufficient to prevent changes to the Constitution such as the 16th and 17th amendment.

But that has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists (except for the fact that the Federalists thought that the amendment process might allow 2/3 of the states acting together to subvert the Constitution. In other words, the Federalists wanted to make it tougher, not easier, to alter the Constitution).

[William McKinley]

And who was it that proposed and pushed for Congress to be able to propose amendments instead of only state legislatures? Madison, of the Democratic-Republican party, not the Federalists.

And who was it that proposed for there to be provisions for new Constitutional conventions to be called? Elbridge Gerry, of the Democratic-Republican party, not the Federalists.

If the provisions for modifying the Constitution were too lenient, blame the anti-Federalists, not the Federalists.

Personally, I do not think that the amendment process is too lenient. I think that when the 16th and 17th amendment were passed, the problem was that effective counter-argument against them were not made. The system didn't fail the country, the country failed the system.