tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post8263176958086581326..comments2024-03-25T19:48:24.624+11:00Comments on Oz Conservative: Hitchens & conservative rightsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-49851918005663148262009-06-24T14:09:27.988+10:002009-06-24T14:09:27.988+10:00I'm not sure it makes sense to speak of a clas...I'm not sure it makes sense to speak of a classical liberal posiiton on freedom, or anything else. Classical liberalism was quite heterogeneous. It included both Locke and Burke. It even arguably included Marx, whose theories were based in large part on Lockes ideas.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-28860264483518263222009-06-24T14:02:55.784+10:002009-06-24T14:02:55.784+10:00There are multiple different conceptions of what f...There are multiple different conceptions of what freedom is, even within the West.<br /><br />From David Fischer's book Albions' Seed:<br /><br />The East Anglian Puritans who populated New England used the word "liberty" in at least three ways. There was publick liberty, a collective notion perfectly consistent with close restraint on individuals. Then there were liberties a person might be entitled to: "understood as specific exemptions from conditions of prior restraint … The General Court [of Massachusetts], for example, enacted laws which extended 'liberties and privileges of fishing and fowling' to certain inhabitants, and thereby denied them to everyone else." Then there was soul liberty, which seems to have meant "freedom to order one's acts in a godly way — but not in any other."<br /><br />The "distressed cavaliers," mainly from England's West Country, who populated the Tidewater South, practiced hegemonic liberty, which, as Fischer says, Burke understood very well, as it was the common conception of 18th-century English gentlemen. Notions of pride, rank, and genealogy were to the fore here; and obviously this style of liberty cohabited quite comfortably with race slavery <br /><br />The Quakers from the English North Midlands who settled the Delaware valley looked to reciprocal liberty. This embraced all of humanity. Its central idea was freedom of the individual conscience. William Penn: "Conscience is God's throne in man, and the power of it his prerogative."<br /><br />The Scotch-Irish — border Scots and their Ulster relatives — cherished natural liberty, and took this to the colonial back-country they populated in the middle two quarters of the 18th century. Fischer quotes an observer: "They shun everything which appears to demand of them law and order, and anything that preaches constraint … They hate the name of a justice, and yet they are not transgressors. Their object is merely wild. Altogether, natural freedom … is what pleases them."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-14908180383743464912009-05-13T08:28:00.000+10:002009-05-13T08:28:00.000+10:00The inevitability theory of classical liberalism i...The inevitability theory of classical liberalism is a lie to cover the perversions brought upon it by the usual culprits.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-37757407970978499332009-04-26T15:39:00.000+10:002009-04-26T15:39:00.000+10:00A terrific restatement by Mr. Richardson of the tr...A terrific restatement by Mr. Richardson of the traditionalist versus the classic liberal position. As Mr. Richardson shows, not only is the classic liberal position of negative rights and restrictions on state power inadequate in itself to a proper understanding of the human, but it leads <I>inevitably</I> over time to a system of positive rights and unlimited state power directed at making everyone equal. <br /><br />The basic flaw of classical liberalism is that it has no sense of the "larger wholes" which form us, of which we are a part, and in which, to a significant and indispensable degree, we find ourselves. Rights being the only operative principle of classical liberalism, the rights inevitably keep growing and demanding more and more, and instead of just wanting to be left alone want to be made equal. While there are various self-described classical liberals in the U.S. today (two examples being S.T. Karnick and Ilana Mercer) who argue that classical liberalism is not anti-national but affirms national identity and national sovereignty, the fact is that classical liberalism does not contain <I>within itself</I> the means to stop its own tendency to move leftward. ONLY traditionalism can do that. ONLY traditionalism can contain the inherent ills of liberalism and thus assure that what is good about liberalism does not turn into its own opposite.<br /><br />I would add this. The American Founding is often described as the quintessence of classical, Lockean liberalism. But this is not correct. Americans in the Founding period believed in a uniquely American amalgam of Lockean liberalism and <I>traditionalism</I>: in Protestant Christianity, in traditional morality, in distinctive English-American ways of life, in English-American ways of governance, in a powerful and jealous sense of nationhood, and in a powerful sense of identity with their respective individual states of the Union, which they guarded against the power of the national government. They spoke and believed in the Lockean principles of the universal and natural rights of man, but they understood them and applied them within the context of a specific political and cultural order that was not universal but particular and contained many inequalities. Their liberalism was a part of a cultural order that was not itself liberal—which happens to be my formula for non-destructive liberalism. But, because they failed to produce a sufficient articulation of the non-liberal aspects of their political society, the liberal parts kept expanding and over time drove out the traditional parts.Lawrence Austerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10849202044663080776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-91308614413491962752009-04-23T14:42:00.000+10:002009-04-23T14:42:00.000+10:00Its interesting how a liberal judiciary still con...Its interesting how a liberal judiciary still considers the notion of 'treason' against the state a capital crime and yet expects no fidelity from mothers to their families.<br /><br />The supranatural entity of the state seems to be more real than the natural family unit.<br /><br />If an officer of a corporation commits an 'unlawful' act against the corporation (legal person)he can be dismissed summarily without remuneration. Yet the same contractual responsibilities are not existent between marriage partners. <br /><br />Atomization of humans cannot be achieved without diminishing legal responsibilities to the family unit.<br /><br />The states lifeline its ability to usurp the responsibilities of the family unit. <br /><br />http://www.fisheaters.com/garbagegeneration.htmlNikohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18088922267969063262noreply@blogger.com