Merely uttering a reasonable understanding and vision (always contestable) of the American founding has become contentious, within political parties and more broadly in the ‘culture.’
Sometimes, I have my doubts Secular Humanists have properly grasped….humans:
‘Regular readers of Quillette need no introduction to the ways in which authoritarian strains of social-justice leftism conflict with traditional liberal precepts such as free speech, rational inquiry and due process…
…This is the story of my own little corner: the Vancouver-based British Columbia Humanist Association (BCHA).’
There is plenty of good writing about ignorance, vanity, righteousness, sincere belief, grifting, and fanaticism, simply within our own traditions.
This used to be called the ‘Humanities.’
Meanwhile, if you’d like an alternate vision to the freedoms and responsibilities stemming from the American founding (and deeper still), I’d like to offer you Man and Nature harmoniusly living, and loving, together.
What are you waiting for?:
At Peace Pavilion West, we have a mural of our doctrinal Leader receiving Gaia’s blessing by way of animal welcoming committee. A Polar Bear cub, various golden retrievers, frolicking Neanderthals, the measles virus….it’s all there. We welcome you into our Community.
‘I continue to believe that it is in the U.S. interest to promote the independence, territorial integrity, and security not only of Ukraine, but also Georgia, Moldova, and all countries threatened by Russian hegemony. And the United States and its allies must develop new strategies for engaging Russian society and other societies throughout the former Soviet Union, including even in the Donbass region of Ukraine now occupied by Kremlin-supported separatists. We need more student exchanges, more peer-to-peer dialogues, more business internships to increase connections between our societies. We cannot revert to a policy where we only speak to officials in Moscow and attempt to do right by the Kremlin.‘
A lot of those former Soviet satellites, especially the Baltics, needed courage, hard-work, and luck just to get far enough away from Moscow to recieve NATO protection….:
‘The fact that the world is more disorderly and less lawful than when Obama became president is less his fault than the fault of something about which progressives are skeptical — powerful, unchanging human nature.’
‘A fundamental claim of my argument for Darwinian conservatism–as combining traditionalist conservatism and classical liberalism–is that Darwinian science supports the constrained or realist view of human nature as fixed that is embraced by conservatism, as opposed to the unconstrained or utopian view of human nature as malleable that is embraced by the Left. ‘
As previously posted: Richard Epstein ‘Barack vs. Bibi:’ takes the classical liberal, non anti-war libertarian position:
‘In the end, it is critical to understand that the current weaknesses in American foreign policy stem from the President’s adamant reluctance to commit to the use of American force in international relations, whether with Israel, Iran or with ISIS. Starting from that position, the President has to make huge unilateral concessions, and force his allies to do the same thing. Right now his only expertise is leading from behind. The President has to learn to be tough in negotiations with his enemies. Right now, sadly, he has demonstrated that toughness only in his relationships with America’s friends and allies.’
As the house libertarian in a publication where feminist discontents have increasingly become settled, I’m guessing Friedersdorf knows he has to get his facts right in an atmosphere where his position is not likely to be popular.
Worth a read:
‘These commentators are doing Will and their own readers a disservice. At best, they are construing his argument in the least charitable way possible. More often, they’re outright mischaracterizing Will’s actual argument in a way certain to maximize the offense, outrage, and umbrage-taking from their readers. If I were a rape victim, and a writer I trusted informed me that a Washington Post columnist said people like me wanted to be raped, or that we deserved to be raped, or that being a rape victim makes one fortunate or privileged, I’d be upset. But it ought to be clear enough that Will isn’t actually making those arguments’
As I’ve gotten a few nasty e-mails myself on this subject, I want to reiterate this is not a dismissal of the seriousness of the moral horror and crime that is rape, but a freeing of such a horrible crime to be discussed in the public square calmly and reasonably by differing points of view. The crime is bad enough without the cult of victimhood out to morally and ideologically dominate the issue.
This ‘holding the line’ is more an appeal to keep civil society civil, and wrenching a very serious subject away from ideologues who traffic in often questionable statistics, gin up moral outrage and panic, and gain advantage by using blind, rabid emotion to their advantage to shun, shame and attack anyone who disagrees. That’s really all it can take to have a less free society, and it’s really all some people have.
After six years of an administration which also benefits from bringing further Left activists into the public square (gun-rights, Keystone pipeline, Organizing For Action), and will likely do little to turn those ideologues away, some media outlets which have drifted in the same direction lately will find it hard indeed to even criticize the ideologues among them.
This ain’t liberal, nor open, nor civil.
Here’s George Will reasonably explaining his position, and the reasons for it:
—————
This blog continues to support civil libertarian feminists, often ex-feminists, or even continuing feminists who criticize feminist ideology in good or bad faith because they are free to do so. They are free to bring-up the often shoddy use of statistics by many feminists, the cultural Marxism and troubling tendencies of victimhood/oppressor theories, the controlling impulses on display in the video below.
Via David Thompson, from Canada via the Agenda with Steve Paikin, notice how two panelists just can’t bring themselves around to the idea of other people speaking their minds, thinking differently and critically, and pursuing ideas freely in an open debate.
They really don’t seem to see a problem with where the logic of their own ideology leads: To silence and shout-down opposing points of view, to constantly try and control the speech and thoughts of others.
‘But Gibson thinks “MVB” — he refers to Van Buren as if he were a neighborhood chum — deserves to be a tea party favorite because he was Andrew Jackson’s sidekick in slaying theBank of the United States, which they considered an instrument for people who practiced the vice nowadays called crony capitalism.’
Chris Gibson’s the Republican incumbent, and Sean Eldridge, married to Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook and owner of the New Republic, is the Democratic challenger.
‘But when progressives say there is “too much money in politics,” etc., conservatives should remain relaxed. Everyone, including Eldridge, should have the right to do what he or she wants with his or her money. Besides, Eldridge will use his money to disseminate his political speech, which conservatives should be confident will do Gibson much more good than harm.’
A lot of hot-button issues and trends in our society come to the fore in such a race: Same-sex marriage, cosmopolitanism, tech money, urban vs. rural, family, ideology, ideas, ‘values’ etc.
‘The great irony is that The New Republic is repudiating contrarian neoliberalism precisely when we need it most. Obama proposes in his State of the Union address to jack up the minimum wage to $9 an hour, and instead of surveying the vast skeptical academic literature, or asking (pace Charles Peters) whether such liberal gestures are “more about preserving their own gains than about helping those in need,” TNR columnist Timothy Noah declares, “Raise the Minimum Wage! And make it higher than what Obama just proposed.”
Will reviewed J. Harvie Wilkinson’s new book, as Wilkinson points out what may be increasingly lost during the ‘”living constitution” vs “originalism” battle:
‘One problem with originalism, Wilkinson argues, is that historical research concerning the original meaning of the Constitution’s text — how it was understood when ratified — often is inconclusive. This leaves judges no Plan B — other than to read their preferences into the historical fog.
Constitutional pragmatists advocate using judicial power to improve the functioning of the democratic process. But this, Wilkinson rightly warns, licenses judges to decide what a well-functioning democracy should look like and gives them vast discretion to engage in activism in defense of, for example, those it decides are “discrete and insular minorities.”’
‘For law students and citizens who are frustrated with the way that all the constitutional methodologies fail, in practice, to deliver on their promise of helping judges separate their political views and judicial decisions, Wilkinson’s primer offers a diagnosis of the problem and a self-effacing solution. As he suggests, the great proponents of restraint in the past, like Holmes and Brandeis, embodied a spirit of humility rather than a grand theory; they displayed “modesty” about their own views “and respect for the opinions and judgments of others.” For embodying the same sensibility, Wilkinson’s book is both unusual and inspiring’
And Will’s take on what is most important to safeguard:
The Constitution is a companion of the Declaration of Independence and should be construed as an implementation of the Declaration’s premises, which include: Government exists not to confer rights but to “secure” preexisting rights; the fundamental rights concern the liberty of individuals, not the prerogatives of the collectivity — least of all when it acts to the detriment of individual liberty’
A minor quibble, but “…soft as a Shenandoah breeze?”
This blog is staying agnostic about the war/peace divide, and instead eyes the Iran deal with measured skepticism. This is just as likely a deal that has traded sanctions for very little in return, and that has bought the Iranian regime time as it is the first tentative step towards thawing relations and bringing them into the international fold.
The ability of the current administration to follow through on its ideals, arrange a coalition of interests and allies ready to act, and properly meet American objectives remains in doubt, especially after Syria.
Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
McConnell wants to see Will play shrewd conservative peace advocate to the neo-conservative lobby’s grumblings
‘Wouldn’t it be nice to to see Will absorb something of their example, recognize that whether we have war or peace with Iran is of historic consequence for America and the world, and really join the battle?’
I keep putting up this quote, even though it’s hard to find middle-ground between a nuclear Iran and a very costly war:
“Although the professional soldier accepts the reality of never-ending and limited conflict, “the liberal tendency,” Huntington explained, is “to absolutize and dichotomize war and peace.” Liberals will most readily support a war if they can turn it into a crusade for advancing humanistic ideals. That is why, he wrote, liberals seek to reduce the defense budget even as they periodically demand an adventurous foreign policy.”
Exploring the libertarian/conservative divide. Will is always a pleasure, and as he terms it, a Henry Clay/Abraham Lincoln Whig from Illinois.
He puts his finger on a lot of things in the video, but this stuck out. The regulators and the regulated:
“We have produced an enormous number of people who think they’re entitled to rule, who are trained to rule, which is to say, trained to administer the regulatory State, and arguably, absent the New Deal, we wouldn’t have had the regulatory state, which gave rise to this class…“
I’m sure there can be philosophical disagreement, especially about that last part, but with an anemic 1-2% economic growth and many young people living at home, we’re pretty much arguing more about less at the moment.
This reminded me of Charles Kesler’s Four Waves Of Liberalism theory, a deep conservative political philosophy.
Addition: Another quote from Will, which highlights something I think many libertarians and conservatives can usually agree upon, and where the divide between libertarians/conservatives and liberals can be striking (he obviously doesn’t mean that percentage accurately):
“98% percent of the what the government does is for factions, or what the founders called factions, which are those who are not public-spirited, but private spirited, who are trying to bend public power to private advantage.”
The refrain I hear most often from frustrated libertarians/conservatives is that ideologically, progressives pursue aims which naturally lead to an enormous public sector and State. Individual “rights” are not there to be safeguarded, but rather conferred by membership in a group of activists and ‘community’ members, the better of whom will lead the government.
This puts progressive interests in charge of the public power while they pursue their private interests. There are good and smart people among them, of course, but this model came with many unelected czars, an army of rent-seeking bureaucrats (focusing on the environment, health-care & education especially), union cartels potentially free-riding on the public good and various other hangers-on looking for money, power, and influence.
Whatever your views on your moral obligations to others, and what kind of society you’d like to live in, this is a particularly inefficient and often corruptible way to go about it.
Considering the fact that we’ve had a steadily growing government for awhile now, with ever more questionable and complex legislation coming from both sides of the aisle, along with a public making conflicting and sometimes incompatible demands upon elected officials, it’s no wonder there’s such frustration all around.
Of course, we can all be guilty of overlooking our own interests and justifying our actions with noble purpose and lofty ideals. but that’s one of the beauties of our system: Many of our founders knew this all too well.
Addition: The American Conservative Blog isn’t convinced by Will’s libertarian bent:
If you substitute “pointy heads” for big government, Will’s intellectual evolution begins to make perfect sense. His newfound libertarianism isn’t theoretical so much as it’s personal. He’s basically the same George Will—just older and crankier.
Updated: Clink on this link to explore the ideas of David Friedman, and his brand of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism for yourself. Many of his positions are well-reasoned and should be considered on their merits. Few people make such a compelling and clear argument for private property: Youtube Via Libertarianism.Org-David Friedman: ‘The Machinery Of Freedom’.
Will reviewed J. Harvie Wilkinson’s new book, as Wilkinson points out what may be increasingly lost during the ‘”living constitution” vs “originalism” battle:
‘One problem with originalism, Wilkinson argues, is that historical research concerning the original meaning of the Constitution’s text — how it was understood when ratified — often is inconclusive. This leaves judges no Plan B — other than to read their preferences into the historical fog.
Constitutional pragmatists advocate using judicial power to improve the functioning of the democratic process. But this, Wilkinson rightly warns, licenses judges to decide what a well-functioning democracy should look like and gives them vast discretion to engage in activism in defense of, for example, those it decides are “discrete and insular minorities.”’
‘For law students and citizens who are frustrated with the way that all the constitutional methodologies fail, in practice, to deliver on their promise of helping judges separate their political views and judicial decisions, Wilkinson’s primer offers a diagnosis of the problem and a self-effacing solution. As he suggests, the great proponents of restraint in the past, like Holmes and Brandeis, embodied a spirit of humility rather than a grand theory; they displayed “modesty” about their own views “and respect for the opinions and judgments of others.” For embodying the same sensibility, Wilkinson’s book is both unusual and inspiring’
And Will’s take on what is most important to safeguard:
The Constitution is a companion of the Declaration of Independence and should be construed as an implementation of the Declaration’s premises, which include: Government exists not to confer rights but to “secure” preexisting rights; the fundamental rights concern the liberty of individuals, not the prerogatives of the collectivity — least of all when it acts to the detriment of individual liberty’
A minor quibble, but “…soft as a Shenandoah breeze?”
7:43 long. The title is ‘George Will on rationality, principles, and reality.’
The same reader who sent the link wonders if there are some people who pursue the argument of free market economics with a zealous rationalism (not necessarily materialistic, but rationalist)..and if there isn’t there some Empiricist/philosophcial/political tradition relatively free of this metaphysical debate?
I’m not sure. At the very end, Will states:
“It’s not the question of contradictions being true, but the questions of contradictions being real”
From a Leo Strauss quote on Edmund Burke earlier posted (Strauss thought Burke too, perhaps, was succumbing to his definition of historicism):
“What ever might have to be said about the propriety of Burke’s usage, it is here sufficient to note that, in judging the political leaders whom he opposed in the two most important actions of his life, he [sic Burke] traced their lack of prudence less to passion than to the intrusion of the spirit of theory into the field of politics.”
