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What Remains of Conservatism?
The Imagitive Conservative ^ | 04-04-2021 | Bradley J. Birzer

Posted on 04/11/2021 3:57:51 PM PDT by em2vn

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To: NobleFree

Burnham held that Managerial revolution would occur. He influenced Buckley and many others.I have not seen anyone in Republican or Democrat parties speak against the idea. McCain Feingold and Citizen’s United enabled it IMO. Would love corrections or thoughts.


21 posted on 04/11/2021 5:28:47 PM PDT by amihow (Postmodernism kills the real. )
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To: em2vn
Forget about being "conservative" and just develop a good old American hatred for all things government. Somewhere along the way conservative talkers and politicians started liking government just as much as leftists. Government is not the answer, pretty much ever. We need to be the party of NO, HELL NO and OVER OUR DEAD BODIES BUT YOU FIRST NO.

Quit worrying about being nice and sounding like a statesmen and start saying no and stepping on necks. We need to gut government not cut it. We need so little government absolutely no one is interested in holding office. Understand that government like Botox is actually a deadly poison and it's only beneficial if strictly controlled in very limited amounts. It's Gotox. Government Toxin.

22 posted on 04/11/2021 5:31:06 PM PDT by precisionshootist
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To: em2vn
"“In Him, we move and live and have our being,” the Stoics and St. Paul assured us."

Since when di the Stoics talk about 'Him', and when did the Stoics and St. Paul agree?

23 posted on 04/11/2021 5:34:02 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: ConservativeInPA
The "imaginative" conservative is more like a hallucinatory conservative. Conservatives have tried to "dialog" with the left. They have tried to share their voices in a supposedly "pluralistic" culture. How has that worked out for them?

About as well as the War in Iraq worked out for the neocons.

National Populism, i.e. America First is where it is at. No more watered down "civic nationalism", i.e. the worship of the founding documents. No more Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk and his TPUSA, Sebastian "GOPe" Gorkas, RINOs, etc.

The guy who impresses me the most right now besides Trump is Nick Fuentes. Everyone else seems to be following the same policies that have failed in the past.

The Left played nice when they were on the rise. Now that they are in control they are no longer playing nice. For conservatives to think that continuing to play nice and cry "Constitution! Constitution!" or "Original Intent! Original Intent!" or "These truths we find self-evident!" over and over again to the deaf ears of moderates, liberals, and leftists is more hallucinatory than imaginative.

24 posted on 04/11/2021 5:41:18 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: amihow
It is Holy Writ on this site that McCain/Feingold was a bad thing. That was at a time when we were misguided into thinking that corporations were the last bastion of conservatism among the major institutions of US society.

We now see that corporations are woke and that since McCain/Feingold was repealed they have gone on a spending spree to undermine all conservative and even moderate values.

What we seem to have now is a reverse-fascism, i.e. a fascism not where some tinpot dictator tells corporations what to do, but where the corporations tell some tinplate government what to do.

We cheered the "conservative" Supreme Court for knocking down McCain/Feingold when it was actually a corporate-whore Supreme Court that did the bidding of their pimps.

25 posted on 04/11/2021 5:47:29 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: NobleFree
"Can a small, limited government conserve our national culture?"

Nope.

The only thing more utopian than Communism is libertarianism. At least the communists realized that you had to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat in order to train the people to be good communists.

Libertarians have this airy-fairy belief that people will just naturally all become high-functioning entrepreneurs as soon as the "shackles of big government" are removed.

(And I still haven't received my unicorn from the leprechaun I contacted at the Ayn Rand Institute.)

26 posted on 04/11/2021 5:50:47 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: amihow
Was James Burnham responsible for the Managerial Revolution or did he just correctly predict it?

Schumpeter said similar things. Is he a villain as well?

27 posted on 04/11/2021 5:52:46 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

I am not sure of the answer, although George Orwell wrote an essay (online) worth reading, “ Second Thoughts on James Burnham”.
The question is did “conservatives” promote it.


28 posted on 04/11/2021 6:03:12 PM PDT by amihow (Postmodernism kills the real. )
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To: amihow
Burnham also wrote a book called "The Machiavellians" which detailed who would get to the top and how they would get there, and (spoiler alert) its not good Christian small-government conservatives.

My take is that conservatives have generally discouraged their kin and fellow conservatives from joining any of the major institutions of the US (academia, journalism, government, unions, etc.) except for corporations. Conservatives (myself included) had the naive belief that so long as corporations remained conservative they could counterbalance all of the other US institutions. This was a grand miscalculation.

Another theory I heard a while ago, and sorry but I can't remember the source, is quite interesting. He blamed everything on the demise of primogeniture, i.e. rich established members of society giving the vast majority of their wealth to the eldest son.

The theory went like this: if most of the wealth was given to a single son, then the remaining siblings would have to struggle in various other occupations in order to try and attain the same level of status they once had as sons to a rich man. In the past this would mean that the generally conservative sons of the wealthy would struggle their way up the hierarchy of law, politics, church, academia, journalism, etc. They wouldn't all just be various members of the board of their father's company or part owners of his lands.

Obviously primogeniture is not coming back anytime soon, but it's interesting to think that once again favoring equality over opportunity may have helped to destroy the US that once was.

29 posted on 04/11/2021 6:27:37 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Burnham said power and money would flow away from capitalists into hands of the Managerial class. Seems so.


30 posted on 04/11/2021 6:31:45 PM PDT by amihow (Postmodernism kills the real. )
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

‘Libertarians have this airy-fairy belief that people will just naturally all become high-functioning entrepreneurs as soon as the “shackles of big government” are removed.’

I call BS; link?


31 posted on 04/11/2021 6:37:04 PM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: precisionshootist

Excellent observation.


32 posted on 04/11/2021 6:37:33 PM PDT by em2vn
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

CEOs gather to speak out against voting law changes
By The Associated Press


33 posted on 04/11/2021 6:44:31 PM PDT by amihow (Postmodernism kills the real. )
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To: em2vn
n politics, we witnessed a nearly overwhelming wave of populism—always with its authoritarian and cult of personality leanings—on the left and on the right.

Really? both sides are populists. They all do it. This is crap.

34 posted on 04/11/2021 7:27:56 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Freee-dame
And the voters gave Republicans the House, the Senate and the presidency. That’s when we found out they were fake

Worth shouting

35 posted on 04/11/2021 7:30:04 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: ConservativeInPA

If you are not for import tariffs then you are not a nationalist or patriot for that matter.


36 posted on 04/11/2021 7:31:19 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: TLI
Sort of a joke...but pretty true

Having already downed a few power drinks, she turned around, faced me, looked me straight in the eye and said

"Listen here. I will screw anybody, anytime, anywhere, their place, my place, in the car, front door, back door, on the ground, standing up, sitting down, naked or with clothes on... It doesn't matter to me I just love it."

With my eyes now wide with interest I responded....

"No kidding... I'm in Government too. Are you State or Federal?"

37 posted on 04/11/2021 7:45:10 PM PDT by Osage Orange
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To: em2vn

“Traditional conservatism” was associated with traditional rural societies. If you live in a city or suburb, traditional conservatism may not have gotten very far.


38 posted on 04/11/2021 8:00:14 PM PDT by x
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
"No more watered down "civic nationalism", i.e. the worship of the founding documents."

This is exactly why there's distrust. When some claim that "nationalism" is nothing more than big government statism cloaked in nicer sounding goals, everybody gets all offended and bet out of shape that nationalism can't possibly be big government.

Yet here you are, ready to throw the Founding documents overboard which really are the only thing that holds small government in place.

You know, the phrase "worship of the founding documents" is a statement rooted purely in progressivism. Yes, I can prove that. (here) If you're drifting toward progressivism, just say so.

Besides that the real ultimate kicker is that you're upset that there's been "worship of the founding documents" when there hasn't ever been such as thing in our lifetimes - not among the GOP anyways.(save a handful of key people; Reagan, Schlafly, etc.) It's only been conservatives and conservatives alone who have had respect for the Founding.

You're ready to punish us conservatives for that which we didn't do. We're innocent, the GOP did this to us just as much as they did it to you.

39 posted on 04/11/2021 8:24:51 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (Public meetings are superior to newspapers)
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To: amihow

I appreciate how you’re bringing up the book Managerial Revolution.

I have a copy of that. The day it goes public domain I’m recording it as an audiobook. Really what I will likely do is begin the recording somewhere in the year prior and release it into the public domain that year.

But I’m curious, you realize that he issued that book as a dire warning, right? It’s not Burnham’s great blueprint for the future.


40 posted on 04/11/2021 8:29:41 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (Public meetings are superior to newspapers)
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