“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister’d vertue, unexercis’d & unbreath’d, that never sallies out and sees her adversary.”
--John Milton, Aeropagitica (1644)
We don’t, we must not, settle for the status quo.
“Society consists of individuals and a national state, while the mediating institutions — family, community, church, unions, and others — fade and falter.”
--Yuval Levin, The Fractured Republic
The status quo in 2016 are big state -- or the Brussels (EU) superstate -- bureaucracies believing their knowledge entitles them to rule.
“The environment, women’s rights, children’s rights, equality, all of this,”
--Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
So San Francisco's Boxer says, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
And not, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“As the Democrats have locked up most of the software, design, entertainment, media and financial oligarchy, they have [lost] virtually all of Appalachia, and could also [have begun] to weaken . . . even among union members. [There’s] a growing rift between greens, and their oligarchic and public sector allies and traditional construction and industrial unions. . .green San Francisco elites and Hollywood stars enjoy lives of almost absurdly conspicuous consumption, while urging everyone else to cut back their carbon. . .” [emphasis added]
--Joel Kotkin, Orange County Register
It’s still before the fall. Maybe the people are not yet sovereign, but it’s coming.
those on top don’t get it,
“simplistic idiocies win elections”
--Charles Murray, National Review
“This election. . . has boiled down to a coin toss between a consistent, calculating liar and an inconsistent, compulsive liar.”
--Heather Wilhelm, “RealClearPolitics”
Conservatives Murray and Wilhelm are like Trump. They see this election personalized in an individual, overlooking the angry, Brexit-type seismic wave Trump is riding.
Listen to John Allen Gay, writing in the National Interest:
“conservatism . . . is skeptical that the intellectual’s tool—individual reason—is best suited for answering complex political questions. . . individuals, short of information, limited in experience, prone to prejudice, often err; wisdom manifests in society, which on net has more information and more experience.”
Conservatives trust cultural norms, distrust the intellectual leader.
it’s time to “be humble”.
A message for all commentators, including me.
“Today, our politics reside in an intellectual cul-de-sac. People only want to hear themselves pontificate, or listen to those who confirm, affirm, and validate. Proof? How many Democrats regularly listen to Fox News? How many Republicans frequently tune into MSNBC?”
--Frank Luntz, TIME
“Opinion columnists who spend any time at all interacting with their readers are well aware of how pitifully rarely we manage to change anyone’s mind about anything. I’m not saying that it never happens, because it does. But mostly, folks read us because they agree with us, and they enjoy having us agree with them.”
--Megan McArdle, “Bloomberg”
Didn't Shakespeare teach “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"?
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