Posted on 04/27/2003 12:31:21 PM PDT by quidnunc
I understand that you attempted to invoke the philosophies of ancient Greeks and Romans to argue that the paleo-con mindset is not antithetical to American principles.
There may be reasonable elements to their worldview, but taken all in all it is a noxious witch's brew of horribles which should athanama to all consciousness conservatives.
Read Eric Margolis' writings in the Toronto Sun.
Read Taki Theodoracopulos's column in Taliban Pat's magazine.
Tell me there's anything to admire there.
Can you elaborate on this?
I didn't mention "one particular person"; I mentioned Hobbes, Locke, the Enlightenment philosophes. Perhaps the most popular among the Founders was the Baron de Montesquieu.
I've always been a fan of inherently self-contradictory propositions, myself - one is left to wonder how we arrived at the conclusion that history is a better guide in political affairs than reason, if not through the application of reason itself. Divine inspiration? Those damned universal truths... ;)
History has its part to play as it illustrates what in the course of events worked and what didn't work.
Rex Stout's fictional detective Nero Wolfe's guiding principle was that of "intelligence guided by experience."
That doesn't seem to be such a bad prescription to me.
What cleared up the Ancient World's depravity was Christianity. (And incredibly hard times.) I can see nothing similar happening in the modern world for the foreseable future.
FreeRepublic entertains many old fashioned people, not terribly learned or articulate, bless them, and a small town, rather Nineteenth Century ethos. I like it. On the other hand, this will not be a successful defense against the "left" aspect of modernity. Take France and Germany as proof. Or Dalrymple's writing on English culture. Or the state of any big city USA. (And increasingly the small towns.)
So much for the big picture. On the near term new middle class jobs will be very rare. There is no reason to expect any real economic "recovery" until the excesses of the Bubble have been worked through. This could take a decade or more because of half measures applied to the problem. (The economic medicine applied will not be enough to cure but only prolong, as happened in the 30's. It will mostly be the wrong medicine as well.) There will be enough pain to shift a majority of voters to the left. Right now the situation is balanced, but another 10 or 20 million middle class jobs disappearing will change this.
If you want more brass tacks, look at the Democratic Party's behavior during this administration. They have many very smart, very ambitious people. They are acting according to a plan based on a view of the future not disimilar to mine. They will fight to the death to stop any tax cutting, regulatory reform, judicial reform, or legal reform that would in fact lead to recovery. They will blame without pause the Republicans for the increasingly dismal situation. When they gain power they will do whatever they believe it takes to insure that they cannot ever be dislodged. Political opposition will be suppressed.
There you go, plain as day.
So, in short, you are advocating a return to "fundamentalist" Judeo-Christian morality, circa...when exactly? And should the morality be codified in law? Has all progress since the Enlightenment, since the Renaissance even, been "nihilistic"?
FreeRepublic entertains many old fashioned people, not terribly learned or articulate, bless them, and a small town, rather Nineteenth Century ethos. I like it. On the other hand, this will not be a successful defense against the "left" aspect of modernity. Take France and Germany as proof. Or Dalrymple's writing on English culture. Or the state of any big city USA. (And increasingly the small towns.)
You lost me a little here. What does "this" refer to? FR as a tool of communication to advocate such a return to J-C values? How do France and Germany constitute proof as to is uselessness? And why exclude Scandinavia, Japan, South America, the whole industrialized world, in fact? Or is there something special about France and Germany?
On the near term new middle class jobs will be very rare.
Haven't "information careers" become the new "middle class jobs"? Are they really in jeopardy of disappearing in the new technological world?
There is no reason to expect any real economic "recovery" until the excesses of the Bubble have been worked through.
What exactly is the "Bubble"? Its excesses?
They will fight to the death to stop any tax cutting, regulatory reform, judicial reform, or legal reform that would in fact lead to recovery.
For argument's sake, what kinds of reform would you advocate?
When they gain power they will do whatever they believe it takes to insure that they cannot ever be dislodged. Political opposition will be suppressed.
"1984"? Is the future really that dim to you?
Sorry to barrage you with questions, but you've really stoked my grey matter, here.
On the contrary, it's extremely helpful to gain a background understanding of the different schools of conservatism in order to understand which school of thought is propelling which conservative public figure. Ex: David Horowitz = neocon; Pat Buchanan = paleo. Very different guys.
Hmmmm. i probably did not express it well. what I was trying to say was that regardless of the "neo" or "paleo" tag, we cannot be at one another's throats at this stage. As teh other poster said, Hitlery is still our there.....
Tia
One is also left to wonder what exactly your point is. Regardless of how that conclusion has been arrived at, it can be (and probably is) nonetheless a valid conclusion. If you can "reason" that there are limits to human reason, does that mean that reason is still king? Or does it mean that it's merely a useful stepping stone along the way?
Put another way, does it not mean that reason itself is an "inherently self-contradictory proposition"?
You said: So, in short, you are advocating a return to "fundamentalist" Judeo-Christian morality, circa...when exactly? And should the morality be codified in law? Has all progress since the Enlightenment, since the Renaissance even, been "nihilistic"?
My reply: I said nothing of the sort. I said, "This trend is "left". It is the major cultural trend in the West since the "Renaissance"." I am talking about a cultural trend. You are talking about "progress". Also, I advocate very little except that one be willing to distinguish between truth and lies.
You said: Has all progress since the Enlightenment, since the Renaissance even, been "nihilistic"? My Question: What do you mean by "progress"? Do not conflate the accidents of changing technology and the efforts people have made to come to terms to these technologies, nor increased populations, transportation, industrialization, access to media, etc. that are a result of changing technology. Otherwise you won't be able to distinguish between technological change and "progress". That is, you will be forced into the position of saying "progress = technological change." Technological change is morally neutral, I think we both can agree, and therefore has nothing to do with "nihilism", etc.
How do you know it's a valid conclusion? Applying reason? Watch out for that Jacobinism bugbear.
If you can "reason" that there are limits to human reason, does that mean that reason is still king? Or does it mean that it's merely a useful stepping stone along the way?
It means you probably shouldn't make universal pronouncements about the inapplicability of rationalism to the political sphere... ;)
Both sides agree that....universal truths of the sort expressed in the Declaration of Independence (or in twentieth-century liberalism: they tend to see the two as continuous) are ultimately destructive of authentic, historically rooted human communities;
How are the universal truths in the Declaration of Independence destructive?
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