“The Vatican’s recent proposals urging governments to ban medical intervention in human reproduction,” writes the [New York] Times’s Marcia Chambers, “raise serious constitutional issues that could soon emerge in state legislatures and the courts, legal scholars say. The experts say that if laws supporting the Vatican’s position are adopted, challenges to them would center on two legal doctrines: the right to privacy in decisions controlling a human’s body and church and state separation under the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

There is a lot of unmediated though in that paragraph. Presumably if the Vatican came out against racial discrimination in 1854, the U.S. Supreme Court would nevertheless have felt free to wait until 1954 to prohibit Jim Crow. But the silly business apart – the suggestion that a codification by the American democratic process of ideas that originated with a church somehow makes those laws fragile – we really ought to acknowledge (within reason) the role of the professional moralist.

There are moral quandaries, and we need guidance. And those who believe that the Judeo-Chirstian narrative is God’s narrative should give special attention to the personal relevance of a body of men whose lifelong concern is the study of right and wrong, and how to tell the difference between the two.

In this space we’ve argued about right and wrong before, but the point is that when it comes to politics, leaving a creative space for people with conflicting views of “good” to work towards their vision is both the most moral and efficient way to determine the best arrangements. Whether those arrangements are moral, economic, or social, they transcend the political realm. For libertarians, most things are too important to leave to politics.

I must quibble with Buckley on one point, however. I would not call men or women of the cloth “professional” moralists. Speaking generally, such people feel called to remove themselves from life, to abjure the trappings of this world, to live a life distinct and apart from their parishioners. It seems reasonable to call such people academic, rather than professional, moralists. They study morality, but are prevented from routinely engaging in the substantive interpersonal transactions or relationships where morality may be found, or found wanting. A history professor studies history, but is rarely studied himself.

Rare clip of James Baldwin debating William Buckley on “The American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro” at Cambridge University in 1965. (Among other things, Baldwin draws parallels between South Africa, Algeria and the United States.)

Via We Who Are About To Die.

Shoshana Bryen

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Laura Rozen of Politico named names: “Rahm Emanuel has met twice with a group of rabbis, the NSC’s Dennis Ross has gone up to the Hill to talk to House Democrats and Senate Dems in recent weeks, the NSC’s Dan Shapiro and Ross both spoke at the ADL conference last week, Hillary Clinton keynoted the AJC conference earlier this month, National Security Advisor Jim Jones addressed the Washington Institute for Near East Policy last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates held an honor guard for visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Obama hosted Elie Wiesel… Later this month, Obama and the First Lady host a Jewish Heritage event for the first time at the White House… (and) Obama met with some 37 House and Senate Jewish Democrats at the Old Executive Office Building yesterday.”

Why?

In parts deliberate and ideological, and in parts amateurish and unintended, friends of Israel have reason to believe the Obama Administration’s push for “reformed” relations with Arab and Muslim-dominated countries bodes ill for Israeli security and for the advancement of tolerance and democratic norms in the Middle East. Under the policies of the Obama Administration:

• Palestinian-Israeli relations have regressed 17 years back to “proximity talks”;

• Iran has advanced on multiple fronts;

• Turkey has moved away from the West and closer to Iran and Russia;

• Syria (with North Korean assistance) has progressed militarily and (with Iranian assistance) reestablished hegemony in Lebanon;

• Hezbollah (with Syrian and Iranian assistance) has moved closer to governing Lebanon;

• Lebanon has bowed to Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah ascendance;

• Iraq has found itself without American political support for the political reconciliation it needs;

• The Gulf States believe they face Iran alone;

• Egyptians believe democracy doesn’t matter; and

• Al Qaeda has advanced in Yemen, Algeria and Somalia and other parts of Africa.

In addition, the Obama Administration has rejoined the UN Human Rights Commission (and didn’t object to Iran holding a seat on the UN Committee on the Status of Women) and rejoined the UN Alliance of Civilizations, an openly anti-Israel body that claimed in 2006 that global tensions were driven primarily by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and, relating to the September 11th attacks, referred to “a perception among Muslim societies of unjust aggression stemming from the West.”

The President’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism opined that Hezbollah “is a very interesting organization” evolving from “purely a terrorist organization” to an organization interested in governing. Where has he been for the past couple of decades? Hezbollah (which until 9-11 had killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization, including 241 Marines, Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, Marine Colonel Rich Higgins and CIA station chief William Buckley) was never purely a terrorist organization. It, like Hamas, provides social services, jobs and education while at the same time killing people and hiding its military assets amid civilian populations. Think KKK with a nursery school and a job bank. 

The same official, by the way, gushed, “In Saudi Arabia, I saw how our Saudi partners fulfilled their duty as custodians of the two holy mosques at Mecca and Medina. [To which the estimable Andrew McCarthy wrote, 'The main way they fulfill it is by banning non-Muslims from entering, so I'm wondering how Brennan managed to see it.'] I marveled at the majesty of the Hajj and the devotion of those who fulfilled their duty as Muslims by making that pilgrimage. And, in all my travels,the city I have come to love most is al-Quds, Jerusalem.”

The list of growing threats to regional and global security does not only affect Jews. And not only Jews worry about Israel and the broader region. And it is inconceivable that non-Jewish Americans are happy with the administration’s Middle East policy mess. 

So why court Jews? We suspect the real answer is that they want to keep Jews and Democrats (they assume those are the same) on the reservation in an election year.

The only question that remains is whether Jews, or any community courted so assiduously by any administration, will be able to maintain its perspective.
 
Stay tuned.

*

Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.  Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member.

Oh no he didn’t!

In a piece written for the uber-conservative World News Daily [sic it's WorldNetDaily], Pat Buchanan, MSNBC’s resident crazy uncle, writes in opposition to the nomination of Elena Kagan to serve on the Supreme Court-

Indeed, of the last seven justices nominated by Democrats JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, one was black, [Thurgood] Marshall; one was Puerto Rican, Sonia Sotomayor. The other five were Jews: Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats.

Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity?

Via World News[sic] Daily

Original DVD cover

Considering that this is coming from the mouth of a man with a history of defending Nazi’s while revealing more than a little in the way of anti-semitic tendencies (even the father of modern conservatism, William Buckley, suggested Buchanan’s anti-semitic streak), one wonders how MSNBC can continue to allow this guy to sit at the microphone while ‘conservative but reasonable’ host Joe Scarborough treats him as one of the boys and Chris Matthews fawns over Buchanan like the Eminence Grise of the liberal news network.

Buchanan, a staunch Catholic, bases his Kagan concerns on the fact that the religious composition of the Court should be more representative of the population as a whole. However, he doesn’t appear to have a problem with every one of the remaining six seats on the court being held by…Catholics.

Despite the fact that only 22% to 24% of the nation’s population is Catholic, Buchanan remains untroubled that Catholic Justices represent 66% of the Court while deeply concerned by the disparity in the number of Jews relative to the population as a whole.

Does anyone recall Buchanan complaining when Chief Justice [John] Roberts, a Catholic, was appointed to the bench? How about Justice [Samuel] Alito who is also a Catholic?

It doesn’t really matter how much Pat Buchanan smiles and appears to be one of the MSNBC good guys. He is who he always has been – and any news outlet that gives him a microphone and a pay check should keep in mind just who it is they are supporting.

• NATO’s Afghan Civilian Killings More than Doubled in Early 2010 | Antiwar.com 16 April 2010
• The “Other” Terrorism: Militarism and Violence Against Women by Lucinda Marshall | truthout 16 April 2010
• McChrystal Backtracks on Troop Veto for Kandahar Shuras | truthout 16 April 2010
• Prison-Based Gerrymandering Creates Phantom Voters | truthout 16 April 2010
• Banksters Rally Round Fed To Keep Bailout Trillions Secret 16 April 2010
• Kucinich: White House Assassination Policy Is Extrajudicial by Jeremy Scahill | The Nation 16 April 2010
• Is something happening here? | Norman G. Finkelstein 16 April 2010
• US military expansion 16 April 2010
• 7 Deadliest Sins Causing The American Empire Collapse 16 April 2010 proponnent
• Murray Rothbard on the Decline of the Old Right 16 April 2010
• Israel: An outpost of empire | SocialistWorker.org 16 April 2010
• Hizbollah’s silence over Scuds speaks volumes to Israel by Robert Fisk | The Independent 16 April 2010
• Monsanto Faces Rising Grassroots Opposition in South Africa | CommonDreams.org 16 April 2010
• An Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People From Military Members | CommonDreams.org 16 April 2010
• Sudan’s president set to win reelection | LA Times 16 April 2010
• Thai police botch attempt to capture protest leader | LA Ttimes 16 April 2010
• Q&A: Treatment of New York Detainee Is “Legalised Torture” | IPS 16 April 2010
• Is the U.S. Going Soft on Israeli, Indian & Pakistani Nukes? by Thalif Deen | IPS 16 April 2010
• Clemency Sought for Imprisoned UBS Whistle-Blower | CommonDreams.org 16 April 2010
• Cop charged after beating of man caught on tape | Raw Story 16 April 2010
• Olmert faces more bribery charges over giant Jerusalem property deal | Times Online 16 April 2010
• America watches video of police beating student celebrating basketball win | Times Online 16 April 2010
• China tries to sterilise 10,000 parents over one-child rule | Times Online 16 April 2010
• Report: Afghans in secret jail ‘made to dance’ to use bathroom | Raw Story 16 April 2010
• Former N.S.A. Official Is Indicted on Charges of Leaking Secrets | NY Times 16 April 2010
• C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes | NY Times 16 April 2010
• U.N. investigators blame Musharraf government, security lapses for Bhutto death | WaPo 16 April 2010
• The ‘Muslims Want to Conquer the World’ Myth by Scott Horton | Stress 16 April 2010
• Civilian Toll Soaring in Southern Afghanistan | Antiwar.com 16 April 2010
• Obama: US Can’t Be in Afghanistan ‘in Perpetuity’ | Antiwar.com 16 April 2010
• America and the Dictators by Tom Engelhardt | Antiwar.com 16 April 2010
• US charges Goldman Sachs with fraud | Raw Story 16 April 2010
• Glenn Beck and Cato-ite’s on Defense Department Cuts – Video | Fox News 16 April 2010
• Was Joe Stack a Terrorist? (Video) | Little Alex in Wonderland 16 April 2010
• Why Workplace Autonomy Is the Way of the Future | AlterNet 16 April 2010
• Israel Accusation About to Lead to Preemptive Strike on Syria? | Little Alex in Wonderland 16 April 2010
• Iraq Vet Denouncing War Crimes: ‘We Fired on Buses Full of Civilians’ | Little Alex in Wonderland 15 April 2010
• Optimal Education Requires ‘Opening the Source’ | Little Alex in Wonderland 15 April 2010

Hearing the name “Buckley” conjures up the saying “Buckley’s and none”, “Buckley’s” or “Buckley’s chance” (meaning no or very little chance), which is considered to be the basis for the saying. Although this is disputed, with suggestions the saying comes from the name of a Melbourne company called Buckley & Nunn (1851-1982).  I personally think the saying comes from the extraordinary tale of William Buckley.

The documentary, which screens for about 45 minutes, is good and explores one of the classic stories from Australia’s days of invasion.  With the narrative coming from the white and Indigenous perspectives, it appears balanced and insightful.  There was, reportedly, considerable efforts to replicate Indigenous artifacts from the era for the documentary.  The documentary includes Wathaurung language, which is reportedly the first time it has been heard on TV. There is little exploration, however, of the actual peoples Buckley spent 32 years with, which is disappointing.  However, the producers were right to point out that these stories have to be told and made more accessible for Australians to appreciate the interconnectedness of white and black histories of Australia.

The documentary will be aired on Sunday (11th April) at 7:30pm on ABC1

Russell Kirk is considered one of the pioneers of modern Conservatism His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the conservative movement, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism.

The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal is a nonprofit educational institute based in Mecosta, Michigan, home of the American writer and thinker Russell Kirk (1918–1994).

Ten Conservative Principles

by Russell Kirk

Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles.

Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.
The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.

In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy “change is the means of our preservation.”) A people’s historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers. But of course there is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.

It is not possible to draw up a neat catalogue of conservatives’ convictions; nevertheless, I offer you, summarily, ten general principles; it seems safe to say that most conservatives would subscribe to most of these maxims. In various editions of my book The Conservative Mind I have listed certain canons of conservative thought—the list differing somewhat from edition to edition; in my anthology The Portable Conservative Reader I offer variations upon this theme. Now I present to you a summary of conservative assumptions differing somewhat from my canons in those two books of mine. In fine, the diversity of ways in which conservative views may find expression is itself proof that conservatism is no fixed ideology. What particular principles conservatives emphasize during any given time will vary with the circumstances and necessities of that era. The following ten articles of belief reflect the emphases of conservatives in America nowadays.

First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.

This word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul, and the outer order of the commonwealth. Twenty-five centuries ago, Plato taught this doctrine, but even the educated nowadays find it difficult to understand. The problem of order has been a principal concern of conservatives ever since conservative became a term of politics.

Our twentieth-century world has experienced the hideous consequences of the collapse of belief in a moral order. Like the atrocities and disasters of Greece in the fifth century before Christ, the ruin of great nations in our century shows us the pit into which fall societies that mistake clever self-interest, or ingenious social controls, for pleasing alternatives to an oldfangled moral order.

It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.

Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions. Continuity is the means of linking generation to generation; it matters as much for society as it does for the individual; without it, life is meaningless. When successful revolutionaries have effaced old customs, derided old conventions, and broken the continuity of social institutions—why, presently they discover the necessity of establishing fresh customs, conventions, and continuity; but that process is painful and slow; and the new social order that eventually emerges may be much inferior to the old order that radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.

Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. Order and justice and freedom, they believe, are the artificial products of a long social experience, the result of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice. Thus the body social is a kind of spiritual corporation, comparable to the church; it may even be called a community of souls. Human society is no machine, to be treated mechanically. The continuity, the life-blood, of a society must not be interrupted. Burke’s reminder of the necessity for prudent change is in the mind of the conservative. But necessary change, conservatives argue, ought to he gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once.

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. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. Similarly, our morals are prescriptive in great part. Conservatives argue that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. 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.

Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.

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. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.
Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.

Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk.

By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell.

Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.

Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property: “Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act.

To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.

Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger. Whatever is beneficent and prudent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction—why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity.

For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed. A central administration, or a corps of select managers and civil servants, however well intentioned and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and tranquility upon a mass of men and women deprived of their old responsibilities. That experiment has been made before; and it has been disastrous. It is the performance of our duties in community that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity.

Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic. When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy. Anarchy never lasts long, being intolerable for everyone, and contrary to the ineluctable fact that some persons are more strong and more clever than their neighbors. To anarchy there succeeds tyranny or oligarchy, in which power is monopolized by a very few.

The conservative endeavors to so limit and balance political power that anarchy or tyranny may not arise. In every age, nevertheless, men and women are tempted to overthrow the limitations upon power, for the sake of some fancied temporary advantage. It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of power as a force for good—so long as the power falls into his hands. In the name of liberty, the French and Russian revolutionaries abolished the old restraints upon power; but power cannot be abolished; it always finds its way into someone’s hands. That power which the revolutionaries had thought oppressive in the hands of the old regime became many times as tyrannical in the hands of the radical new masters of the state.

Knowing human nature for a mixture of good and evil, the conservative does not put his trust in mere benevolence. Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite—these the conservative approves as instruments of freedom and order. A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.

Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.

Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.

Such, then, are ten principles that have loomed large during the two centuries of modern conservative thought. Other principles of equal importance might have been discussed here: the conservative understanding of justice, for one, or the conservative view of education. But such subjects, time running on, I must leave to your private investigation.

The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.

Adapted from The Politics of Prudence (ISI Books, 1993). Copyright © 1993 by Russell Kirk.

Additional reading from Russell Kirk

via Noam Chomsky is a Dead Head ~ Notoriously Conservative.

1)      When I was ten, I was in jazz, and our dance recital song was the B-52s “Rock Lobster”.  The red crushed velvet shorts were baggy, but I am such a great dancer that I managed to do a triple pirouette while holding my shorts up.

2)      One time I met George Lucas at the Skywalker Ranch(thanks Yahtzii, you are the wind beneath my drunken wings).  I walked straight up to him and told him that the plot holes that were created in the newer 3 episodes were too much to bear.  He then started crying.  I then stole the purple light saber, the only redeeming aspect of “The Phantom Menace”.

3)      You know how if a shark goes near you, you’re supposed to punch it in the nose?  Scientists know this because some bitch ass great white tried to mess with me when I was five.  I showed him what’s what.

4)      Mariah Carey’s number one hit “Obsessed” is about me.  Not like that, Mariah is so obsessed with me.

5)      That 3 pointer that Derek Fisher pulled right before the buzzer in game 4 that sent the game into overtime, he might have said it was for all of the Lakers fans, but it was for specifically me.

6)      William Buckley onetime said that every generation thinks that they created fucking.  Well no, not exactly, but sex as you know it now is a creation of mine.  You’re welcome.

7)      I onetime saw all of the Deadspin Ninja Squadron at a bar.  They started saying dumb, unfunny, grammatically incorrect yo mama jokes.  So I kicked all of their asses and made them buy me drinks.

8)      The next day I took my midterm for sociology hung over.  I got the highest grade in the class.

9)      I told Josh Schwartz that Chuck and Blair should be in a sexual relationship on Gossip Girl.

10)  A town in California is named after me.

11)  I’ve been told that my singing voice is reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt, but with less crack cocaine.

12)  It’s because of me that regular season football is doing better in the ratings than postseason baseball.

13)  The former Jezebel commenter Tscheese isn’t real, she is a social experiment I created.

14)  I can have two vodka shots, three mixed drinks, and two beers in one night and not feel it the next day.

15)  I understood The Matrix the first time I saw it.

16)  I drew up the blueprints for the George Foreman Grill.

17)  I can play multiple instruments….all at once.

18)  I designed footy kits just to turn you on.

19)  I told celebrities to get on MySpace in order to make Twitter popular.

20)  I did all of this while being a 21 year old full time Psychology major in Southern California.  I will likely be writing about sports, fashion, and whatever else I think is rad.

So with that, I welcome you to get all up in my Lady Business.

In that spirit, and because brevity is the soul of wit, some important points are made below by the well-polished words of others.

“A general dissolution of… manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.”

-Samuel Adams

“I’d rather be governed by the first 400 people in the Boston telephone book than the whole faculty of Harvard University.”

-William F. Buckley, Jr.

“Our country: in her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”

-Steven Decatur

“Out of every hundred new ideas, ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace.”

-Will & Ariel Durant

“It is not strange to mistake change for progress.”

-Millard Fillmore

“I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”

-Benjamin Franklin

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

-George Orwell

“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence.”

-George Washington

"Words to live by."

The past year or more there have been many musing over the legacy that was William F. Buckley. The visions have ranged from conservative thinker to gentleman intellectual extraordinaire. In my humble opinion both assumptions are very true but there was a side of Buckley many forget. For all his cavalier and patrician, the man had a set of brass balls.

Take for instance his 1968 exchange with Gore Vidal, in which Vidal called him a “crytpo-nazi.” Whatever the hell that is. Buckley’s response gets his point across.

Only Buckley could make calling someone a “queer” and then threatening them with physical violence sound poetic.

Aaaah, the good old days.

Useless Information: Gore Vidal’s first name was actually Eugene, but he decided to honor his maternal grandfather, Thomas Gore, by being called Gore. He is a distant relative of both former President Jimmy Carter and former Vice President, Al Gore.

From today’s kos poll:

Here’s another amazing finding from our poll showing that less than half of Republicans and southerners believe Barack Obama was born in the United States: 7 in 10 Americans who don’t believe Barack Obama was born in the U.S. live in the south, which has 30% of the U.S. population. Nearly 6 in 10 are Republicans, who compromise just 22% of the population.

This is incredibly discouraging, yet not real surprising.  The Conservatives have come a long way since William Buckley.  This manufactured story has been ongoing for well over a year.  The facts are right there for anyone who wants them. 

The reality? These fucking idiots choose to believe this.  No amount of logic or evidence will change their minds.  This speaks to the success of such media outlets as Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc.  The truth doesn’t matter. People like the ”Birthers” only want to hear rhetoric that reinforces their ideology – bigotry and xenophobia included.  Facts are often inconvenient and subsequently dismissed, or used selectively.  Thus, constructive debate concerning important issues is impossible.  Well done.

Here are some noteworthy selections from the list, compiled by such intellectual conservative heavyweights as Richard John Neuhaus, David Brooks, George Gilder, John Keegan, and Mary Ann Glendon.  This would be a great list to give a young, developing mind, particularly if the youngster could converse with an older, wiser, godly thinker.  Read the whole thing.

21. The Great Terror, Robert Conquest
Herman: “Documented for the first time the real record of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. A genuine monument of historical research and reconstruction, a true epic of evil.”

31. Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton
O’Sullivan: “How to look at the Christian tradition with fresh eyes.”

42. The Age of Reform, Richard Hofstadter
Herman: “The single best book on American history in this century, bar none.”

44. God & Man at Yale, William F. Buckley Jr.
Gilder: “Still correct and prophetic. It defines the conservative revolt against socialism and atheism on campus and in the culture, and reconciles the alleged conflict between capitalist and religious conservatives.”

73. R. E. Lee, Douglas Southall Freeman
Conquest: “The finest work on the Civil War.”

89. Essays of E. B. White, E. B. White
Gelernter: “White is the apotheosis of the American liberal now spurned and detested by the Left (and the cultural mainstream). His mesmerized devotion to the objects of his affection-his family, the female sex, his farm, the English language, Manhattan, the sea, America, Maine, and freedom, in descending order-is movingly absolute.”