25 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2023
  2. May 2022
    1. Frank Wilhot's: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/
  3. Dec 2021
    1. The central conservative truth is that culture matters most;

      This summarizes Brooks' argument, but he failed to demonstrate how culture is not important to the left. Politics cannot change culture, but reflects it.

    2. Conservatism is essentially an explanation of how communities produce wisdom and virtue.

      A kind of definition, but... mystic?

    3. about how we build institutions that produce good citizens

      Sounds like social engineering and top down control - what happened to "human nature"?

    4. “I think therefore I am”

      Decartes, not exactly a liberal icon.

    5. believe they have the ability to plan history:

      A shopping basket of disparate things and likening economic policy under Capitalism to autocratic movements. Also ignoring the fact that French and American revolutions spring from the same source.

    6. enable leaders to engineer society from the top down

      Another misrepresentation of liberalism as autocratic.

    7. the planners never really consulted the residents themselves. They disrespected the residents by turning them into unseen, passive spectators of their own lives.

      Yes. This is common, but "liberalism" isn't about imperious exercise of government authority over others. Many liberals would also criticize this type of planning that excludes communities. This criticism is about exclusion, rather the opposite of modern liberalism which tends to promote inclusion.

  4. Nov 2021
    1. it must be acknowledged that conservatism is never more respectable than in education, for nowhere are the risks of change greater.

      —Charles W. Eliot

      And here I thought I was original in thinking this... :)

  5. Sep 2021
    1. The willingness to trade other peoples' fundamental rights for preferential tax treatment fits neatly into all three of these, as does the delusion that somehow this can be resolved with sufficient "personal responsibility."

      We know enough about psychology and behavioral economics to know that "personal responsibility" is not going to save us.

      This is in even higher relief when we see laws applied in unclosed systems or where other loopholes exist to help the privileged. Frank Wilhot's idea sums things up fairly well:

      "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

  6. Aug 2021
  7. Jul 2021
    1. If you want to understand why I’ve made these arguments, you first need to recognize that for decades, right-wing thinkers and judges have argued that policies that lead to racial inequities are “not racist” or are “race neutral.” That was the position of the conservative Supreme Court justices who recently upheld Arizona’s voting-restriction policies. Those who wish to conserve racial inequity want us to focus on intent—which is hard to prove—rather than the outcome of inequity, which is rather easy to prove.
  8. Apr 2021
  9. Mar 2021
    1. Even liberal media fed up with Biden administration over lack of access to border crisis

      ugh Fox you terrible pieces of shit. the only conservative media concerns there have ever been is that we aren't sufficiently horrible to people at the border. Liberals, unlike Conservatives, are happy to do own-side criticism. We want good. We want progress. We want to be decent to our fellow humans, who we recognize as worthy & good. Of course we're distressed at this bad situation. We don't shield our leaders from criticism, we expect active Democratic engagement.

      You could not better show yourselves for who you are with this headline, you useless evil villians.

  10. Jan 2021
  11. Dec 2020
    1. conservatives

      Conservatives stand for honesty, integrity, morality, and steely-eyed realism. We hold our opinions because we are confident that they are correct, we have the confidence in them to encourage free and open debate, and if our opinions are shown to be wrong we gratefully accept the correction of our errors.

      Modern liberalism (not to be confused with classical liberalism) is the opposite. It is characterized by dishonesty and immorality (both typically excused with the platitude that "everybody does it"), self-delusion, and a reflexive resort to censorship and worse. ("Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out." -David Horowitz)

      You see that in the climate debates, where leftists (climate activists) have repeatedly been caught manipulating, withholding, exaggerating, or even fabricating evidence, flouting the law, blackballing skeptics, and censoring contrary viewpoints, to promote the CAGW scare. The major blogs, publications, and institutions which climate activists control are ruthlessly censored, to suppress dissent.

      In stark contrast, the most prominent conservative (climate realist) blogs and institutions actively encourage open discussion and dissent. That's why, for example, WUWT is so obviously and strikingly superior to any of the leftists' climate blogs.

      Unfortunately, some people who call themselves "conservative" don't act like it. I'm tired of self-identified conservatives, like Michael Shannon, raging about Republicans' lack of conservatism, while they, themselves, behave like liberals.

      If Mr. Shannon were really a conservative, he wouldn't censor his blog, to suppress expression of opinions different from his own. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he does. That's why you don't see the following comment in the comments section, on this article:

      · ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍

      Your comment is awaiting moderation.

      1.If conservatives can’t win Republican primaries, they certainly cannot hope to win as third-party candidates running against both Republicans and Democrats.

      2.If so-called “conservatives” don’t care about anything but money, they’re no more conservative than the country clubbers whose Republican identity is based entirely on their desire for low taxes.

      There’s something very, very wrong with a 785-word rant accusing Republicans of being “morally corrupt,” which talks almost exclusively about… money. In 785 words you devoted a grand total of three words to a passing mention of moral issues.

      One in four American babies die by “choice,” but you never mentioned it.

      The courts have spent the last eighty years brazenly lying to impose progressive agendas, and trampling the nation’s fifty-one constitutions in the process, yet now, for the first time in eight decades, honest jurors might actually have a slender majority on the SCOTUS, but you never mentioned it.

      The American family is in tatters, with 39.6% of babies born out of wedlock in 2018, but you used the word “family” just once, and never mentioned illegitimacy.

      The academy has been mostly taken over by far-left crackpots and atheists, who do everything in their power to crush all dissent, who enforce values antithetical to Christian morality, and who have created entire disciplines dedicated to promoting leftist lunacy, but you never mentioned it.

      Academics expose corruption in Grievance Studies

      Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera

      The misallocation of federal monies is a real problem, but it is far from the only problem, it is far from our most important problem, and it is only peripherally a moral issue. If you’re going to editorialize about moral corruption, you should talk about morality, not just money.

  12. Oct 2020
    1. Only the protest of the world, Miss Verinder–on a very small scale–against anything that is new

      This critique on English conservatism summarizes the tension between the native and the foreign present through the entire book. It's a critique on the narrow-mindedness of those who conform to social norms without question, and therefore fail to consider perspectives or possibilities which lie outside traditional thought. The missteps in deduction that occur in this book are largely due to arguments on false premises rather than logical fallacies.

  13. Aug 2020
  14. Jul 2020
  15. Jun 2020
  16. Jul 2019
    1. Liberals say that social order emerges spontaneously from individuals acting freely, but conservatives believe social order comes first, creating the conditions for freedom. It looks to the authority of family, church, tradition and local associations to control change, and slow it down. You sweep away institutions at your peril. Yet just such a demolition is happening to conservatism itself—and it is coming from the right.