[betty boop]

Though these two groups [i.e., the "Anglican" and the "Gallican"] are now commonly lumped together as ancestors of modern liberalism, there is hardly a greater contrast imaginable than that between their respective conceptions of the evolution and functioning of a social order and the role played in it by liberty. The difference is directly traceable to the predominance of an essentially empiricist view of the world in England and a rationalist approach in France. The main contrast in the practical conclusions to which these approaches led has recently been put, as follows: “One finds the essence of freedom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion, the other believes it to be realized only in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective purpose”, and “one stands for organic, slow, half-conscious growth, the other for doctrinaire deliberativeness; one for trail and error procedure, the other for an enforced solely valid pattern.” It is the second view, as J. L. Talmon has shown in an important book from which this description is taken, that has become the origin of totalitarian democracy.

Hey KC!!! Great to see you! Thank you ever so much for this splendid excerpt from Hayek, so directly on-point WRT this discussion.

Thank you!!!

[KC Burke]

I couldn’t resist the parallel applicability of Chapter Four to your article. (I know people get tired of me dredging it up, but it is one of the touchstones of conservative thought for me.)

I think it was you that first pushed me ten years ago to breakdown and read some Voegelin, Dumb_Ox pushed me to read Chesterton, Cornelis got me to subscribe to Modern Age and by the time a decade has gone by I am much more well read as opposed to well versed.

We can’t deal with Obama today without reference to how Burke saw the Committee on Public Safety. Until we understand Adams (Sam and John) we can’t understand Pelosi. Without seeing the weakness of Paine, we can’t see the threat of Ayers.

I want to vote and get others to vote. But eyes of our countrymen must be opened for good and that requires a visit to the 18th century for the noise and smoke of today to clear away.