The Company the Pauls Keep

Shucks, you’re right! To re-phrase, how about you RINOS go the way with Specter and take little Trey with you?

I think that you're misinformed as to ansel's posting history.

He doesn't much like Ron Paul; but he's a fairly strong opponent of Mitt Romney's faction of the GOP as well, of which Trey Grayson is a favorite son. He's said on several threads that given the two choices in this race, he much prefers Rand Paul to Trey Grayson.

I think you might not have read his posts very closely.

No. I think it’s terrible that kids are being misled about Natural Law and the Constitution by a pseudo-historian who has an amateur’s grasp of the subjects he purports to be teaching coupled with a near-religious affection for Straussian occultism.

conimbricenses, would you kindly share with the rest of the class exactly what you think is wrong with the “Hillsdale” conception of natural law. That would, of course, require you to explain both their position and yours, and to render an academically sound proof that yours is the correct, “non-amateur,” version. And as the self-professed “professional” among us with respect to natural law theory, I fully expect your explanation to be completely free of ad hominem content. I wait with bated breath.

The "problem" with Hillsdale comes from the rapid growth of Straussian occultists there in recent decades. The current president, Larry Arnn, is a follower of this branch of thought and has regrettably populated the political science and philosophy faculties with many of his fellow travelers.

I call the Straussian variety they practice there "amateur" because it simply does not have what it takes to compete on a scholarly level at any place beyond the echo chamber of its own adherents. The stuff they peddle does poorly in the academic peer review process. It is justifiably shredded to pieces by scholars outside of the narrow Straussian occult whenever it pops its head over into the mainstream (witness this recent example, involving a very well known Straussian Hillsdale prof: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/31.1/winger.html ) It doesn't perform well in other universities - even sympathetic conservative ones - outside of an exceedingly small list of completely Straussian departments that are known for promoting their own from inside (Hillsdale and Claremont being the two prime examples). And in the practical sense, it tends to breed the very worst types of "conservative" government - the George W. Bush-style big spending neoconservative naively idealist "democracy building" variety that ruined the conservative brand name in the 2000's and gave us our present state of affairs with Obama.

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