Posted on 02/16/2009 1:10:03 PM PST by jessduntno
Ten Conservative Principles (Abbreviated)
First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it.
Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably.
Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time.
Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues.
Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems.
Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster: we are not made for perfect things.
Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all.
Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. They are conspicuous for a successful spirit of community.
Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and human Passions. A state in which an individual or small group is able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is despotism, whether it is monarchical or democratic.
Tenth, the thinking conservative favors reasoned and temperate progress, opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.
(Excerpt) Read more at kirkcenter.org ...
“Cobbling the two together is yet another creeping collectivist abomination.”
a little strong, methinks. But, I respect your opinion and wish you a good patriotic observance...
One can’t post too much Russell Kirk. Next to my screen-name namesake I have found few others as worth reading.
If one wants to get the true breadth of conservative thought and a real insight into its history, Kirk is where I recommend they start.
We have too much of “I think I am conservative, there fore I am.”
I have found the most difficult one to explain is his priciple of prescription.
We have such large number of conservatives that fall back on the lazy “rights” arguements that the distinctions that Sowell and Burke taught are often overlooked.
“One can’t post too much Russell Kirk. Next to my screen-name namesake I have found few others as worth reading.”
One for the road, then;
“Mere unthinking negative opposition to the current of events, clutching in despair at what we still retain, will not suffice in this age. A conservatism of instinct must be reinforced by a conservatism of thought and imagination.”
—Russell Kirk
I guess we can’t just keep clinging to our guns and religion, eh? How about some reinforcement by FreePAC?
save
1) The amnesty didn't apply indiscriminately to all illegals. Certain requirements (involving residence, health, and criminal history) had to be met.
2) It didn't automatically grant citizenship, green cards, or permanent residence to illegals. Instead, it gave them "admission for temporary residence."
3) It wasn't a freebie. The illegals were required to pay a fee for their temporary legalization.
4) The word "amnesty" actually doesn't appear anywhere in the law (a.k.a. the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, further a.k.a. the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill).
And, perhaps most importantly of all, Ronald the Original Nice Guy believed the Congressional Dems who promised (after holding up the bill until de facto amnesty was granted to the then 2 million or more resident illegals) that this would be a one-off deal -- never, ever to be repeated.
After the Hero of Chappaquiddick (author of the 1965 open-borders bill that started the whole ball rolling) watered down the enforcement part of the bill, which was aimed at employers of illegals and included securing the southern border, RWR was heard to speculate that signing the damned thing might have been a mistake. NSS.
1) The amnesty didn't apply indiscriminately to all illegals. Certain requirements (involving residence, health, and criminal history) had to be met.
2) It didn't automatically grant citizenship, green cards, or permanent residence to illegals. Instead, it gave them "admission for temporary residence."
3) It wasn't a freebie. The illegals were required to pay a fee for their temporary legalization.
4) The word "amnesty" actually doesn't appear anywhere in the law (a.k.a. the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, further a.k.a. the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill).
And, perhaps most importantly of all, Ronald the Original Nice Guy believed the Congressional Dems who promised (after holding up the bill until de facto amnesty was granted to the then 2 million or more resident illegals) that this would be a one-off deal -- never, ever to be repeated.
After the Hero of Chappaquiddick (author of the 1965 open-borders bill that started the whole ball rolling) watered down the enforcement part of the bill, which was aimed at employers of illegals and included securing the southern border, RWR was heard to speculate that signing the damned thing might have been a mistake. NSS.
maybe it’s printed on that bracelet he wears.
“I have found the most difficult one to explain is his priciple of prescription. We have such large number of conservatives that fall back on the lazy “rights” arguements that the distinctions that Sowell and Burke taught are often overlooked.”
Could you say more about this???
“maybe it’s printed on that bracelet he wears.”
Possible...quite possible...
Just off hand without formulating an essay, it is my recollection that Kirk held certain tenants to be beyond issues of individual “rights” or rights that might be debated philosphically. Chiefly amongst them were tenants on Property.
He was saying that there are beliefs in rights held for so long that “minds runneth not to the contrary”
Soweel touches on this when he says that conservatives don’t think a “right” is a “right” unless it can be held and exercised — it isn’t a logical construct.
Our founders in the Colonial Rebellion kept using the phrase “rights of englishmen”. They weren’t talking about a bunch of theories of John Locke, but instead, a collection of liberties held AND EXERCISED by their fathers, their grand-fathers and so on back in time to the extent that it did not matter where they origininated.
I have taken Kirk’s usage of an older form of Prescription to be in the sense that these liberties cannot be prescribed or removed by logic or law as long as we exercise them and hold them dear.
Much of our problems today are in the area of “rights” competition. Grade school level Benthanite utilitarianism pits one right against another and then the childish “greater good” comes into play.
It is by these arguements that all the ill effects of guns and arms are talked up to the point where personal safety, surely something individual and in the spirit of “life, liberty and the persuit of happiness” begins to be pit against my ownership of a gun.
Prescription is the concept that there are items in the civilized state that should not be legislated away, ajudicated away, or prescribed by a government in any form.
“Just off hand without formulating an essay, it is my recollection that Kirk held certain tenants to be beyond issues of individual “rights” or rights that might be debated philosphically. Chiefly amongst them were tenants on Property.”
I see. Ironically, Kirk nods to Burke in his summarization of prescription in the following passage;
It is perilous to weigh every passing issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality. The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man’s petty private rationality.”
My reading was that he was alluding to the collective wisdom of “western man” in an almost Jungian sense of collective consciousness or a tidal belonging that endowed us (in addition to that of the creator) with more than inalienable rights, but the “oceanic belonging” of humanity as experienced by our tribe...which transferred immutably to the “passions” of the collective wisdom rather than the ipetousness of the individual?
But the events of the last four weeks have persuaded me that the days of diplomatic pastel tones are long gone, and that this year's battles will be fought in vivid saturated primary colors, matching the hues of the prevailing Official Art-gitprop. Might as well suit up.
A good patriotic observance to you, too, apropos which: "His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man."
-- Thomas Jefferson, of course, on our man of the day
“The whole thing was wonderful. Thank you for posting this.”
Definitely my pleasure...he is one of my heroes...
“But the events of the last four weeks have persuaded me that the days of diplomatic pastel tones are long gone, and that this year’s battles will be fought in vivid saturated primary colors, matching the hues of the prevailing Official Art-gitprop. Might as well suit up.”
Absolutely. Speaking of Art-gitprop, how wonderful was it that the fool Fairey (most likely an appropriately appellated FOURTEEN time loser) was arrested recently? I am relishing being defined by my enemies;
PS on Fairy;
The arrest of Fairey — who cites linguistic theorist Noam Chomsky with a poster that reads, “I lived with the system and took no offence/until Chomsky lent me the necessary sense” — helped maintain his counterculture reputation.
“I wouldn’t say it’s cool he was arrested, but I think it shows he has integrity,” said Bill Galligan, a graphic designer. Some in the crowd last night speculated the incident may have been a publicity stunt.
Ginny Delany, a 27-year-old graduate student from Cambridge, said, “It makes him even more of a hero to me.
“The fact that he is arrested for his art shows that it is meaningful to him and he cares about what he is doing.”
David Rosen, a 19-year-old from Allston, said last night that he was disappointed with the arrest, but “I understand that his art requires him to take risks.”
You can probably bet, if they think this idot is “cool” and building his “counterculture reputation” they all have life size posters of the murderous thug Che on their walls...
I believe Hayek would hold that rational examination or looking for rational arguements to explain why Private Property and Freedom are intertwined is not understanding the million empiracal tests, trials and experiments that man and his governments have gone through in keeping Private Property as defended by governments.
Mark invented, yes invented, the term "capitalism" in order to marginalize traditional concepts of government since he could say that the "capitalists" are merely defenders of great seats of wealth. He had to have a bad guy to foist a giant scheme on his readers.
I am not certain that is conservatism.
How about:
1. Don’t spend money you don’t have.
2. Govern as little as possible.
3. Push goverance to the lowest, most local, practical level possible.
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