Posted on 03/27/2013 2:22:08 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
"Most modern liberals, at their most consistent, want a situation in which as many individuals as possible can realize as many of their ends as possible, without assessment of the value of these ends as such, save in so far as they may frustrate the purposes of others. They wish the frontiers between individuals or groups of men to be drawn solely with a view to preventing collisions between human purposes, all of which must be considered to be equally ultimate, uncriticizable ends in themselves." — Isaiah Berlin
I've written a lot lately about how conservatives lost the culture war. Some of my socially conservative friends were upset when I argued that at least part of the reason for this was that "pro-family" activist groups aren't as effective as fiscally conservative groups. I still believe that to be true, but I also believe that the culture war wasn't a fair fight. It has always been rigged.
Social conservatives are greatly outnumbered (a byproduct of having lost the culture war argument). We hear a lot about the supposed "three-legged-stool" of the conservative movement, but in fighting the culture war, social conservatives are on their own. In fact, it's wrong to think of this in terms of a left versus right paradigm. It would be better understood as part of the continuing struggle between virtue (as social conservatives define it) and liberty (defined by our modern secular society to mean the freedom to do whatever we want). In that light, liberty is murdering virtue.
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
The problem is a progressive infection that made it the norm for government to try to tell people what to do that the progressives took and bashed us over the head with it.
Liberty isn’t murdering virtue. Virtue is ESSENTIAL to liberty. It’s the loss of virtue that’s creating the corresponding loss in liberty. Yeah, folks. It’s all about morality or the lack thereof. We are losing liberty because we, ourselves cannot generally behave in socially responsible, aka moral, ways.
Nowadays we are a very different country, composed of people who grew up in the affluent post-war world.
To be sure, there's a lot of struggling going on now, but a different generation reacts differently to stress and adversity.
It's only a struggle if you think virtue must be enforced at the point of a gun. Under a government restricted to protecting individual liberty, anyone who chooses to live virtuously is free to do so.
The problem (sorry, but this is a problem with democracy unbounded by religion) is that most people don’t have the time and energy to fight a constant culture war, so the fringe activists will always be able to wear people down to lower and lower levels. Most people live their own lives conservatively. Most liberals will not let their children smoke medical marijuana or play midnight basketball or give them a condom and leave them to their own devices. It is easy to let society degenerate as long as you hold your own, especially since the tactic of the left is to make examples of people who speak up and defend their values.
Perfect, and worth repeating in its entirety! This isn't about enforcing morality at the point of a gun, as a later poster suggests. Isn't it curious to claim we cannot legislate morality, but we manage to do a very good job legislating immorality, or decreeing it from the bench. I am for legislating neither, but with a caveat that is much to long to express here.
You cannot legislate morality but it is said you CAN legislate morally, meaning Character matters. Those who vote and those who make/enforce laws need core values.
I’ve tried to prove Tom Wolfe (”Bonfire of the Vanities” author) wrong since I heard him say ‘We lost this country when the 10 Commandments were removed from the town square.’ I think he may be right. We drift further into chaos.
Yes, I agree and this is part of my caveat.
Cultural Marxism is not liberty. It is the use of license to destroy the culture and allow for communism. Any ersatz libertarian promoting cultural Marxism is either profoundly ignorant, or unthinking.
This isn't liberty. It is cultural marxism.
The culture war has been lost because the right has failed to stand up for our principles of ordered liberty. It has been lost because we allow the left to control the commanding heights of culture. With the collapse of marriage, there is a rising cultural and economic cost, which we cannot bear. Intellectually vacuous libertarians may gave gone libertine and gotten in bed with cultural marxists, but regardless of the cultural syphilis infecting their prefrontal cortex, they cannot ignore welfare statistics.
Good article and very true.
~It would be better understood as part of the continuing struggle between virtue (as social conservatives define it) and liberty (defined by our modern secular society to mean the freedom to do whatever we want). In that light, liberty is murdering virtue.~
That's not liberty - it is libertinism. Big difference! He then says:
~In fact, Norquist has dubbed conservatism the "leave us alone" coalition.~
That is not conservatism - it is libertarianism. Again, big difference! He goes on:
~More and more, Americans — including many conservatives — now believe that individuals should do whatever they want so long as it isn't hurting anybody else.~
Again, this is libertarianism, not conservatism. Conservatism believes in a civil society limited by minimal laws strictly enforced, along with the teaching of a strong moral code against libertinism. He then uses a quotation that makes as little sense as his own reasoning:
~As Dr. Benjamin Wiker writes in his new book, Worshipping The State, "For liberalism to make sense, we would have to live in a world without ends — to put it in technical philosophical terms, in a non-teleological universe (telos means "goal" or "end in Greek), where, since there are no ends written into nature (including human nature) by God, we are free to create them ourselves."~
Again, this is not liberalism, either contemporary or classical. Contemporary liberalism is just as limiting as conservatism, just through other means - arbitrary bureaucratic regulation and political correctness instead of law and morals. He then quotes Wiker again:
~Historically, Liberalism (true to its name) seeks to liberate society from the moral burdens of Christianity, so that we may be free to enjoy this world without guilt or obstruction — without worrying about the demands of virtue.~
One more time - this is a description of libertinism, not liberalism. Libertinism can be an offshoot of liberalism, but it is separate, nonetheless.
Matt Lewis has seemed to learned well from Benjamin Wiker. Unfortunately, Wiker isn't a very good teacher.
It would be better understood as part of the continuing struggle between virtue (as social conservatives define it) and liberty (defined by our modern secular society to mean the freedom to do whatever we want). In that light, liberty is murdering virtue.
Again, this is libertarianism, not conservatism. Conservatism believes in a civil society limited by minimal laws strictly enforced
"so long as it isn't hurting anybody else" sounds to me like minimal laws - did you have something less "minimal" in mind?
We've been losing liberty at least since FDR - what irresponsible/immoral behaviors were we exhibiting then?
Well, that’s an excellent question. For one, people voted for wealth redistribution a long, long time ago. It’s fundamentally immoral to demand property that is not for public use from your fellow citizens. So previous generations were pretty selfish in that regard. That’s immoral. They also voted for leaders who spent far more than what government took in. Borrowing money without the intent to repay it is also immoral. I could go on, but previous generations weren’t paragons of virtue. However, I claim the downward slide is accelerating rapidly, and immorality is even more common these days.
Expecting the government to solve problems. Most of our lost liberties stem from that.
Yeah, the part you left out:
"along with the teaching of a strong moral code against libertinism."
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