Sons of Patriarchy

[Pomopu]

That and more. The political analysis is poor - hearing only from Classic Liberalism and seeing any form of Conservatism (including that of an Orthodox Jew!) as Christian Nationalism.

The only decent interview I've heard so far was the interview with the Marine.

The author is theologically inept and prefers to psychologize as to why Wilson and others are doing things rather than having a facility with theological issues and an ability to accurately and pointedly critique them.

I think every respectable Christian should be a classical liberal! I say this facetiously but also kinda unironically. It is rich and deep and good.

 

[retroGRAD3]

A perfect example of how "woke" the podcast is: it featured Thabiti Anyabwile in the last episode. It brings up white fragility, etc.

Again, it's not as if I agree with Wilson's views on slavery, etc but the critical theory language used throughout the series tells the crowd that would be attracted to Wilson to essentially ignore the podcast.

Wilson may actually use this content to support their platform. Thabiti is really bad news. If I didn't know about Wilson, seeing all these progressive "Christians" being interviewed would actually make me sympathetic to Wilson. People like Thabiti are no better and I would argue are actually far worse than Wilson with their liberation theology (which is my mind is the Galatian heresy). I would circle back to one of my original comments. These liberals should not be given a platform to speak their nonsense.

2 John 10-11: If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. (Liberalism is not Christianity).

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I think every respectable Christian should be a classical liberal! I say this facetiously but also kinda unironically. It is rich and deep and good.

Christianity doesn't argue for governing principles based on evident human reason.

The Economist is a poster child of where classical liberalism leads as the culture's notions of "evident human reason" shift. They support homosexual marriage and (more recently) physician-assisted suicide on the basis of personal liberty. Classical conservatism more closely accords with the Christian notion that some institutions and ideas need to be protected and conserved. The French Revolution is an example of where evident human reason takes a Nation.

 

[Pomopu]

Christianity doesn't argue for governing principles based on evident human reason.

The Economist is a poster child of where classical liberalism leads as the culture's notions of "evident human reason" shift. They support homosexual marriage and (more recently) physician-assisted suicide on the basis of personal liberty. Classical conservatism more closely accords with the Christian notion that some institutions and ideas need to be protected and conserved. The French Revolution is an example of where evident human reason takes a Nation.

Ha, I love the Economist. Got a cheap student discount. I take their positions I disagree with with a grain of salt. Perhaps on some social issues we would disagree. But their stance on much else is perfect, from global affairs, to sound economic reasoning, to principles of governance.

I recall reading their piece on England's decision concerning PASuicdide. Disappointing. But their analysis of most else makes up for it. It's my sole source of news.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Ha, I love the Economist. Got a cheap student discount. I take their positions I disagree with with a grain of salt. Perhaps on some social issues we would disagree. But their stance on much else is perfect, from global affairs, to sound economic reasoning, to principles of governance.

I recall reading their piece on England's decision concerning PASuicdide. Disappointing. But their analysis of most else makes up for it. It's my sole source of news.

I didn't state that the Economist gets everything wrong, but their "principled" stances on marriage and physician assisted suicide are consistent with how Classical Liberalism "flows" with the culture as what becomes "evident" to natural reason shifts with the currents of culture.

This is why Jefferson could, at the same time, articulate truths regarding human liberty but was wrong when he attempted to divorce laws and governance from the Christian religion. Many of his contemporaries figured this out, notably Patrick Henry.

 

[Pomopu]

I didn't state that the Economist gets everything wrong, but their "principled" stances on marriage and physical assisted suicide are consistent with how Classical Liberalism "flows" with the culture as what becomes "evident" to natural reason shifts with the currents of culture.

This is why Jefferson could, at the same time, articulate truths regarding human liberty but was wrong when he attempted to divorce laws and governance from the Christian religion. Many of his contemporaries figured this out, notably Patrick Henry.

Well said; insightful analysis. I don't see any better alternative, I think for a pluralistic, globalistic world, where Christians are the minority and can never hope to be the majority, a government of classical liberals is the best. Nothing might be better.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Well said; insightful analysis. I don't see any better alternative, I think for a pluralistic, globalistic world, where Christians are the minority and can never hope to be the majority, a government of classical liberals is the best. Nothing might be better.

 

[arapahoepark]

Well said; insightful analysis. I don't see any better alternative, I think for a pluralistic, globalistic world, where Christians are the minority and can never hope to be the majority, a government of classical liberals is the best. Nothing might be better.

I agree barring a massive revival. With our countries suffering God's wrath, in the political sphere and with our constitution, as well as an increasingly hostile environment, the best we can advocate for is that we, as Christians, are left alone. That, unfortunately, means others will be left alone as well. I am not sure if people are hearing that we want all these wicked lifestyles perpetuated but, that's certainly not the case. It just so happens this era's genie is out of the bottle and there isn't putting it back. Something will happen in the next era, I'm sure where they will long for this one (unless it's worldwide revival or the return of Christ).
And the analysis and analogy with the French Revolution is quite simplistic.

 

[Northern Crofter]

a pluralistic, globalistic world, where Christians are the minority and can never hope to be the majority

Some of us maintain such a hope.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

And the analysis and analogy with the French Revolution is quite simplistic.

It's not an analogy. It is historically accurate. It is where a certain conception of liberty leads when it is unchecked. The reason the American Experiment succeeded is because it did not advance along this conception.

Classical liberal democracy is not faring well in any Western Nation at this point.

The United States and other Nations have had competing ideas on government since its founding with the early divide between the Jefferson/Payne conception of liberty that was fully modeled by the French Revolution, where liberty was conceived purely along the lines of evident human reason and the excision of religious "interference" in the affairs of the government.

Thankfully, America followed a more Burkean track and did not conceive of overthrowing institutions nor religious involvement in the decisions of government. The early debates arguing against Jefferson as President focused on the concern regarding these views. It was the Supreme Court that curbed some of the excesses that Jefferson would have introduced.

I don't think America will necessarily and/or rapidly return to the kind of State and Federal legislation that once marked the Nation where Christian religious idea undergirded many (not all) legislative decisions about what was just and good.

Nevertheless, the idea that the 1990s are somehow centuries and a world away from America today is not accurate either. A Nation does not have to be thoroughly converted in order to agree that homosexual marriage is a charade and against nature or that it is giving rights to the mentally disturbed who claim another gender.

The classical liberal approach of "leave one another alone" means that the parent of the transgender child decides to mutilate the child or the mother decides to murder her unborn child. This maximizes liberty and is "evident" to human reason that the "gender" of the child needs to be affirmed and that the woman has a right over her own body. Evidently, human reason does not leave the right of religion alone because as human reason evolves, religion competes with other rights that become "evident" to human reason. Not only is it illegal to protest outside an abortion clinic but it is illegal to pray outside of an abortion clinic in the UK.

A nation does not have to use the guillotine to excise religion from the public square or to overthrow Church and civic institutions.

The answer does not require a revival to conserve liberties against the impulses of classic liberalism to curb the same as often as they evolve in their understanding. It doesn't even have to be uniquely Reformed or Christian to stem the tide against what is evident to the social imaginary. It requires engagement and not merely the hope that we'll be left alone.

 

[Pomopu]

It's not an analogy. It is historically accurate. It is where a certain conception of liberty leads when it is unchecked. The reason the American Experiment succeeded is because it did not advance along this conception.

Classical liberal democracy is not faring well in any Western Nation at this point.

The United States and other Nations have had competing ideas on government since its founding with the early divide between the Jefferson/Payne conception of liberty that was fully modeled by the French Revolution, where liberty was conceived purely along the lines of evident human reason and the excision of religious "interference" in the affairs of the government.

Thankfully, America followed a more Burkean track and did not conceive of overthrowing institutions nor religious involvement in the decisions of government. The early debates arguing against Jefferson as President focused on the concern regarding these views. It was the Supreme Court that curbed some of the excesses that Jefferson would have introduced.

I don't think America will necessarily and/or rapidly return to the kind of State and Federal legislation that once marked the Nation where Christian religious idea undergirded many (not all) legislative decisions about what was just and good.

Nevertheless, the idea that the 1990s are somehow centuries and a world away from America today is not accurate either. A Nation does not have to be thoroughly converted in order to agree that homosexual marriage is a charade and against nature or that it is giving rights to the mentally disturbed who claim another gender.

The classical liberal approach of "leave one another alone" means that the parent of the transgender child decides to mutilate the child or the mother decides to murder her unborn child. This maximizes liberty and is "evident" to human reason that the "gender" of the child needs to be affirmed and that the woman has a right over her own body. Evidently, human reason does not leave the right of religion alone because as human reason evolves, religion competes with other rights that become "evident" to human reason. Not only is it illegal to protest outside an abortion clinic but it is illegal to pray outside of an abortion clinic in the UK.

A nation does not have to use the guillotine to excise religion from the public square or to overthrow Church and civic institutions.

The answer does not require a revival to conserve liberties against the impulses of classic liberalism to curb the same as often as they evolve in their understanding. It doesn't even have to be uniquely Reformed or Christian to stem the tide against what is evident to the social imaginary. It requires engagement and not merely the hope that we'll be left alone.

A Christian thinker noted the following 8 principles of classical liberalism: (1) individual liberty, (2) religious liberty, (3) separation of powers, (4) protection for minorities, (5) property rights, (6) Protestant openness to cautious experimental change, (7) universal morality, and (8) religio-cultural virtue.

This is classical liberalism. I contest nothing here. It is all good. Anything else, "transgenderism," is a red herring, a libertine libertarian substitute for actual classical liberalism, or a result of its perversion.

 

[MarrowMan]

A Christian thinker noted the following 8 principles of classical liberalism: (1) individual liberty, (2) religious liberty, (3) separation of powers, (4) protection for minorities, (5) property rights, (6) Protestant openness to cautious experimental change, (7) universal morality, and (8) religio-cultural virtue.

This is classical liberalism. I contest nothing here. It is all good. Anything else, "transgenderism," is a red herring, a libertine libertarian substitute for actual classical liberalism, or a result of its perversion.

Yes, nothing bad could ever come from an excessive emphasis on individual autonomy. You know, the heart of classical liberalism.

 

[Pomopu]

Yes, nothing bad could ever come from an excessive emphasis on individual autonomy. You know, the heart of classical liberalism.

Nothing bad come ever came for putting power in the hands of few and seeking to establish one's own conception of the good onto others.

 

[No Other Name]

Nothing bad come ever came for putting power in the hands of few and seeking to establish one's own conception of the good onto others.

Genuine question: have you ever studied in any depth the Hundred Years' War, English Civil War, the debates surrounding the Federalist Papers, the differences between the American Revolution and the French Revolution?

 

[MarrowMan]

Nothing bad come ever came for putting power in the hands of few and seeking to establish one's own conception of the good onto others.

Yeah, classical liberalism doesn't preclude that from happening.

 

[Pomopu]

Genuine question: have you ever studied in any depth the Hundred Years' War, English Civil War, the debates surrounding the Federalist Papers, the differences between the American Revolution and the French Revolution?

Not as much as I might have, certainly. But I have read Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Tocqueville, Democracy in America, I've read Locke, Smith, etc.

Yeah, classical liberalism doesn't preclude that from happening.

Indeed. No perfect system. But better aim at not doing it than, literally, aiming to do it. And frankly, it has worked far better than any alternative.

 

[No Other Name]

than, literally, aiming to do it.

??

 

[Pomopu]

??

Aiming to assert one's vision of good upon others, through the means of centralized power.

 

[MarrowMan]

Not as much as I might have, certainly. But I have read Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Tocqueville, Democracy in America, I've read Locke, Smith, etc.


Indeed. No perfect system. But better aim at not doing it than, literally, aiming to do it. And frankly, it has worked far better than any alternative.

No. It hasn't, delusions notwithstanding.

 

[Pomopu]

No. It hasn't, delusions notwithstanding.

No worries, we can agree to disagree. I'll write a book about it within the decade. (d.v.)

 

[MarrowMan]

Aiming to assert one's vision of good upon others, through the means of centralized power.

Better a kind, benevolent monarch than an authoritarian, corrupt Republic.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

This is classical liberalism. I contest nothing here. It is all good. Anything else, "transgenderism," is a red herring, a libertine libertarian substitute for actual classical liberalism, or a result of its perversion.

There is nothing in Classical Liberalism that seeks to conserve the ideas that you say are perverted when self-identified Classic Liberals (e.g., The Economist) don't agree with those principles. Individual liberty and evident human reason always trump any fixed notions. A Christian thinker who proposes what Classical Liberalism "ought" to be is a wishful thinker.

Furthermore, classical conservatism In the form of the U.S. Consttution did not place liberty in the hands of the few but diffused power to guard against its abuse as well as guarding against the impulse of Classical Liberalism to seek ends that undermine Constitutional guarantees. Woodrow Wilson is an example of a Classical Liberal who sought to undermine Constitutional government because the checks and balances did not accord with what "evident human reason" necessitated for a Nation.

 

[RamistThomist]

Furthermore, classical conservatism In the form of the U.S. Consttution did not place liberty in the hands of the few but diffused power to guard against its abuse as well as guarding against the impulse of Classical Liberalism to seek ends that undermine Constitutional guarantees. Woodrow Wilson is an example of a Classical Liberal who sought to undermine Constitutional government because the checks and balances did not accord with what "evident human reason" necessitated for a Nation.

Hazony made me a fan of Alexander Hamilton. I used to dislike him.

 

[RamistThomist]

Rich recommended Hazony. I can't praise it highly enough. He has replaced Russell Kirk.

Conservatism: A Rediscovery (Yoram Hazony)

Hazony, Yoram. Conservatism: A Rediscovery. Regnery Gateway, 2022. Russell Kirk saved conservatism for our fathers and grandfathers. Yoram Hazony introduced it for us. While Kirk’…

tentsofshem.wordpress.com

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Rich recommended Hazony. I can't praise it highly enough. He has replaced Russell Kirk.

Conservatism: A Rediscovery (Yoram Hazony)

Hazony, Yoram. Conservatism: A Rediscovery. Regnery Gateway, 2022. Russell Kirk saved conservatism for our fathers and grandfathers. Yoram Hazony introduced it for us. While Kirk’…

tentsofshem.wordpress.com

Agreed. The book is fantastic.

This thread seems to be operating on the mistaken notion that the only alternative to Classical Liberalism is monarchy or power in the hands of a few. It is, ironically, Classical Liberalism that consistently devolves into this condition.

Religious liberty or freedom of speech? As long as it doesn't interfere with a newly constructed notion of sexual identity that takes on the form of an inalienable human right. The Classic Libeal must then "balance" rights because the rights were granted by the government to begin with in the promotion of individual liberty.

This book is also a very good read. It's vulgar at times, but the author discovered that, in the name of progress for women, the culture does not lead to the flourishing of women, but everywhere, it tears down what it is to be a woman. She rightly calls the current social imaginary on genre a type of religious orthodoxy that cannot be challenged.

Amazon.com

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Rich recommended Hazony. I can't praise it highly enough. He has replaced Russell Kirk.

Conservatism: A Rediscovery (Yoram Hazony)

Hazony, Yoram. Conservatism: A Rediscovery. Regnery Gateway, 2022. Russell Kirk saved conservatism for our fathers and grandfathers. Yoram Hazony introduced it for us. While Kirk’…

tentsofshem.wordpress.com

From the book:

As we have seen, the period between John Selden and Edmund Burke gave rise to two distinct and conflicting political traditions in England, conservative and liberal. In the next chapter, I will consider the nature and achievements of political conservatism in America, where it was taken up by the Federalist Party of Washington, Jay, Adams, Hamilton, and Morris. But before turning to the remarkable story of America’s nationalist conservatives, it is worth taking stock of what we’ve learned so far about the Anglo-American conservative tradition from studying its emergence in England.

We can summarize the principles of Anglo-American conservatism, as they appeared in the writings and deeds of the architects of this tradition, as follows:

Principle 1. Historical Empiricism. The authority of government derives from constitutional traditions known, through the long historical experience of a given nation, to offer stability, well-being, and freedom. These traditions are refined through trial and error over centuries, with repairs and improvements being introduced where necessary, to maintain the integrity of the inherited national edifice as a whole. Such historical empiricism entails a degree of skepticism regarding the divine right of the rulers, the universal rights of man, and all other abstract, universal systems. Written documents express and consolidate the constitutional tradition of the nation, but they neither capture nor define this political tradition in its entirety.

Principle 2. Nationalism. Human beings form national collectives characterized by bonds of mutual loyalty and unique inherited traditions. Nations will have different constitutional and religious traditions due to the diversity of national experience. The Anglo-American tradition is rooted in the ideal of a free and just national state, whose origin is in the Hebrew Bible. This ideal includes a conception of the nation as arising out of diverse tribes, its unity anchored in a common traditional language, law, and religion.60

Principle 3. Religion. The state upholds and honors God and the Bible, the congregation and the family, and the religious practices common to the nation. These are essential to the national heritage and indispensable for justice and public morals. At the same time, the state offers toleration to religious and social views that do not endanger the integrity and well-being of the nation as a whole.

Principle 4. Limited Executive Power. The executive powers of government are vested in a strong, unitary chief executive (that is, the king or president) by the traditional laws of the nation, which the chief executive neither determines nor adjudicates. The powers of the chief executive are limited by the representatives of the people, whose advice and consent he must obtain respecting the laws, taxation, and other crucial matters. The representatives of the people may remove a chief executive where his behavior manifestly endangers the integrity and well-being of the nation as a whole.

Principle 5. Individual Freedoms. The security of the individual’s life and property is mandated by God as the basis for a peaceful and prosperous society, and it is to be protected against arbitrary actions of the state. The ability of the nation to conduct sound policy depends on freedom of speech and debate. These and other fundamental rights and liberties are guaranteed by law, and may be infringed upon only by due process of law.

These principles can serve as a summary of the Anglo-American conservative tradition that informed the restoration of the English constitution in 1688, as well as the restoration enacted by the American Constitution of 1787. These same principles have continued to underpin subsequent conservative political tradition in Britain, America, and other nations down to our own time.

Consider now how these conservative principles diverge from those of liberalism. The crucial differences between the two traditions can be understood in the following way:

Enlightenment liberalism is a political doctrine based on the assumption that reason is everywhere the same, and accessible, in principle, to all individuals; and that one need only consult reason to arrive at the one form of government that is everywhere the best, for all mankind. It borrows certain principles from the earlier Anglo-American conservative tradition, including those limiting executive power and guaranteeing individual freedoms (Principles 4 and 5 above). But liberalism regards these principles as stand-alone entities, detachable from the broader conservative tradition out of which they arose. Liberals thus tend to have few, if any, qualms about discarding the national and religious foundations of traditional Anglo-American government (Principles 2 and 3) as unnecessary, if not simply contrary to universal reason.

In their effort to identify a form of government mandated by universal reason, liberals have thus confused certain historical-empirical principles of Anglo-American conservatism, painstakingly developed and inculcated over centuries (Principle 1), for universal truths that are accessible to all human beings, regardless of historical or cultural circumstances.61

As John Selden put it, they have been “taken in, to the point that the practices adopted by nations, based solely on custom… come to seem like natural and universal laws of mankind.”62

 

[Semper Fidelis]

More from Hazony:

Enlightenment liberalism is a political paradigm based on a rationalist theory of knowledge, whereas conservatism is based on an empiricist theory of knowledge. This is perhaps the most important difference between Enlightenment liberalism and conservative political theories. For this reason, it makes sense to begin a more careful examination of the conservative paradigm with what I have described as its last premise: These premises are derived from experience, and may be challenged and improved upon in light of experience.

Enlightenment liberalism is a poorly constructed framework for understanding political affairs, and the poor quality of this theory stems, first and foremost, from the fact that it is a sub-species of the failed philosophical enterprise of Cartesian rationalism. Descartes believed he had discovered the proper method for unfailingly ascertaining universal truth. This method begins with “clear and distinct ideas,” proceeds by means of infallible deductions, and attains unassailable conclusions.5 His magnum opus, The Principles of Philosophy (1644), claimed to have used this method to reach a final determination of the nature of all things in the physical universe. In its day, it was considered a masterpiece, and it was for decades the principal textbook of the school of Cartesian science. Kant followed this example with his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786), in which he claimed to have deduced Newton’s laws of motion using pure reason, without empirical evidence. He insisted that his a priori derivation of the laws of motion was infallible and therefore qualified as science, whereas Newton’s empirical derivation did not.6

But it was all folly. There is no way to reach a final determination of the nature of the physical universe by moving from self-evident premises through infallible deductions to unassailable conclusions. Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy is today regarded as such an embarrassment that it is not studied anywhere. The same is true of Kant’s a priori physics. In the physical sciences, the Cartesian method was swept away, after a prolonged struggle, by the empiricist method of Newton’s Principia (1687). Newton taught that in natural science, the premises of each system must be gathered from phenomena by induction. Such induction from experience does not produce universal truths and is not infallible.7 As Newton wrote in his Opticks, “Although the arguing from experiments and observations by induction be no demonstration of general conclusions, yet it is the best way of arguing which the nature of things admits of.”8

While physical science concluded that the method of Cartesian rationalism is worthless, political theorists embraced it and it remains the dominant view. Descartes’s method was adopted by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in England, and later imported back into France by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract and into Germany in the form of Kant’s political essays such as Perpetual Peace.9 A long line of empiricist political philosophers, including John Selden, Montesquieu, David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Edmund Burke, and John Stuart Mill, has sought to dislodge this discredited method from political theory, at times appealing explicitly to Newton’s empiricism for support.10 But so far, these efforts have not succeeded in dampening the enthusiasm for Cartesian rationalism in political theory. In our day, this rationalism is the accepted basis for most public discussions of political and moral matters, which tend to be conducted as though empiricist political theory had never existed.

 

[MarrowMan]

By looks of the most recent episode, looks like SoP is turning its sights on the OPC next.

 

[Pomopu]

By looks of the most recent episode, looks like SoP is turning its sights on the OPC next.

:0 I like the OPC. What's up with the OPC?

 

[MarrowMan]

:0 I like the OPC. What's up with the OPC?

No idea. I'm not inclined to listen to the episode given how poorly I think it's performed thus far. However, I thought it worth bringing up so our OPC brothers here could have a heads up.