Here is something from the
Heritage Foundation website:
The central idea of The Conservative Mind, upon which American conservatism is essentially based, is ordered liberty. It is a blending of the sometimes contending requirements of the community and the individual, of individual freedom and individual responsibility, of limited government and unlimited markets.
Kirk described six basic "canons" or principles of conservatism:
- A divine intent, as well as personal conscience, rules society;
- Traditional life is filled with variety and mystery while most radical systems are characterized by a narrowing uniformity;
- Civilized society requires orders and classes;
- Property and freedom are inseparably connected;
- Man must control his will and his appetite, knowing that he is governed more by emotion than by reason; and
- Society must alter slowly.
The Conservative Mind was an impressive feat of scholarship--a synthesis of the ideas of the leading conservative Anglo-American thinkers and political leaders of the late 18th century through the early 20th century. The work established convincingly that there was a tradition of American conservatism that had existed since the Founding of the Republic. With one book, Russell Kirk made conservatism intellectually acceptable in America. Indeed, he gave the conservative movement its name.
What's wrong with this picture? First of all a "synthesis" of ideas made conservatism intellectually acceptable. Basically Hegelian thinking, thesis + antithesis = synthesis. It's BS, a parlor trick. Order + Liberty = Conservatism. We do not have a bill of order, we have a friggin bill of rights. Nowhere in the constitution does it state otherwise.
The first point totally wipes out the separation of church and state.
The second point is more Hegelian BS a little trick to posit traditional life being constantly tugged at by some imagined force called radical systems. Traditional life could very well be a radical system, anything that this bonehead happens to have it out for could in fact be viewed as a radical system. This second point basically states: the world is flat.
The third point again posits ordered, class based society vs. an anarchic classless society and arrives at a phony utupia called civilized society that requires order and classes. This is just total out there whacked out reasoning that makes no sense in the least. This is intellectual? The constitution of this country does not mandate that we be civilized. Only that we protect the bill of rights. If Marx wrote this would it surprise you?
Point four is guaranteed by the constitution and the bill of rights. We don't need a movement to establish that we have the right to keep the fruits of our labor it is the law of this land.
Point 5 is again more of the same out and out rubbish. Man is said to be controlled by emotion more than reason. Hogwash. And, the kicker of course, the phony synthesis: what we need is "control."
Point 6 is the big kick in the pants: Society must alter slowly. This is almost too out there and lame to even try to debunk. Society alters at the blink of an eye, the stock market crash of 1933 comes to mind. The events of 9-11 seem to have altered us. We now talk about a post 9-11 world. Society is often altered overnight by technology.
Basically what home boy is saying is that we need people to stay in their place, stop having so much ambition, upward mobility has no part in Civilization and, that this is God's will and if you disagree you are a radical, ruled by your emotions, basically a barbarian who cannot control yourself. The implication is that the government should somehow protect others from you and indeed protect you from yourself since "Society must alter slowly."
One can easily see how we arrive at stupid shit like the "war" on drugs, terror, and crime, even a general distrust for art, and freedom of expression. I am surprised we don't already have an official "war" on homosexuality. Maybe we do. They just call it football or a frat party, constant little wars to convince ourselves we aren't a bunch of queens.
This is more frightening than Soviet Totalitarianism; Indeed, it is born out of the same philosophical tradition of Hegel. An endless reduction of truth that jumps from falsehood to falsehood through the faulty math of blending and synthesis. 2+2=4; However, in this equation 2 is just some mumbo jumbo, and the four is a justification for wiping the bill of rights, the US constitution, and the separation of church and state off the face of the planet in the name of a "movement." Stalin would be pleased with this bit of Conservative "scholarship."