The Conservative Mind: Tocqueville Part I (Excerpt of chapter "Macaulay, Cooper, and Tocqueville")

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

[William McKinley]

I need to catch up- I missed the last three. Think I'll do it now.

[William McKinley]

My wife and I put our kids into a private school starting a year ago, and this school does insist upon a good amount of rote memorization. They demand that the kids be able to do certain things without thinking; they don't want the memorization to be a replacement for being able to figure something out on demand, but rather want the child to be able to quickly and instinctively answer certain things, and to learn the discipline required to commit something to memory in this manner.

I love it.

[William McKinley]

America was the great home of the natural leveller, which was the land itself. Anyone could go and get the land they needed to use to raise themself up, and all of the poorest had the same opportunity to take it.

Emphasis mine. I think that most every conservative would lose most of their objections to any sort of levelling that involves raising up rather than tearing down (knowing, of course, that absolute levelling could never occur with that constriction).

[William McKinley]

Levelling that involves someone taking action to raise themself up, I should say.

[William McKinley]

You are talking my language. Of all the qualities that I needed to have honed more in school than I did, discipline is it. I pray that I can help my kids in this regard.

[sam_paine]

America was the great home of the natural leveller, which was the land itself.

Agreed. What I meant by my extension of the argument was that levelling of oppty or wealth by the goverment was not possible...because of the land.

If I felt repressed back then, I could move to Texas!!! NOW WHERE DO I GO!!!! :-(

[William McKinley]

Alaska?

[fortheDeclaration]

Do you know where that great quote is by Tocqueville that went something like this,

I did not find the greatness of America in her farms, her natural resources, her vast land, her political system, but in the thundering righteouness that sounded from the pulpits of her churches'

Thanks.

[KC Burke]

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers; and it was not there.

I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forests; and it was not there.

I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her rich mines and her vast world commerce; and it was not there.

I sought for the greatness of America in her public schools and institutions of learning; and it was not there.

I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her democratic congress and her matchless constitution; and it was not there.

Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pupits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.

America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” P. 34

Sounds good -- but I don't think it is authentic. See THE TOCQUEVILLE FRAUD The Weekly Standard November 13, 1995 By John J. Pitney, Jr. for a more detailed explanation.

[fortheDeclaration]

Thanks, I was wondering if he had said it, since I could not find it in his Democracy. I will check out the link you gave me.