E at the Dave points us toward a new group blog by conservative (and possibly libertarian) philosophers, Right Reason, growing from the ashes of The Conservative Philosopher, which had apparently been mired in a controversy over the founder's non-philosophical argumentation and deletion of critical comments. (I see that The Conservative Philosopher is still going, but seems to have lost credibility with many. In the interests of full disclosure I should note that I've recently come to terms with my own libertarianism and found Keith Burgess-Jackson's support of Robert Locke's 'Marxism of the Right' --a weak critique of libertarianism-- less than encouraging.)
Right Reason has just launched today with only a welcome message but they've got quite a large roster of contributors. And I found this interesting and timely: contributor Roger Scruton wrote a book in 1987 called A Land Held Hostage: Lebanon and the West:
Written in response to the events of the eighties, this brief guide to the history of Lebanon and its present martyrdom caused a stir when it first appeared, since it laid the blame for the destruction of the only democracy in the Arab world firmly on the Syrian President, Hafiz al-Assad. Incisively written, it offers a succinct and moving account of a tragic political experiment, the lesson of which we still need to learn.
'There can be few parts of the world which have dominated our television screens in such a confusing and depressing way as the Lebanon over the past five years. Amidst this sectarian muddle the analysis of Dr Scruton is both welcome and lucid.
Scruton documents the sad decline of the Lebanon from being a free country allied to the west to suffering occupation from Syria - a totalitarian surrogate of the Soviet Union. When under the rule of the Christians, before the Syrian occupation, the Lebanon was unique in the Arab world holding democratic elections, maintaining a rule of law and allowing religious and press freedom. Syrian President Assad found the customs of this type of independent country on his doorstep unbearable and has set about building the 'greater Syria'. Many western journalist have been duped into misrepresenting events, others have been intimidated by the Syrians - after the death of French writer Michel Seurat this is understandable'. - Portrait Magazine
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Comments
Extremely interesting. Conservative. Conservative. Conservative. Conservative. Conservative philosophers. Thought-provoking in the extreme. Extremely profound. Extremely Right. From Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk. Richard Weaver. Eric Voegelin. Leo Strauss. Frank Strauss Meyer. James Burnham. Willmoore Kendall. Whittaker Chambers. Ayn Rand. E. Merrill Root. Thomas Molnar. Alain de Benoist. Oswald Spengler. Peter Viereck. Don Juan Donoso Cortes. Friedrich Nietzsche. Admiral Ben Moreel. General Edwin Anderson Walker. General James Mattoon Scott. General Jack D. Rrrripper. General Horemheb. The styles of the Starboard side of a spectrum!
What meaneth it unto me, unto thee, to be a Conservative? Hmmm.... Analyzing the styles of many Conservatives in this post here in Up With Beauty, I arrived at the conclusion that Conservative thought is a synthesis of Individual Freedom with Divine Order, the eternal tension that has always been a central leitmotif of our Western civilization. The Ego striving for the Infinite.
Right now, I am in the process of re-reading that great Conservative classic, The Key to Peace: A Formula for the Perpetuation of Real Americanism by Clarence E. Manion. I believe this is the first Conservative book I ever read, back in my first year in high school, when I was still a socialist. His style! Mmmmmmmmanion! I often think of America as "Ammmmaniona".
Conservative. Conservative. Conservative. Conservative. I so love that word "Conservative". As I've said before, the styles of the titles of your posts! The only one that matches this one is something I saw in the Gay Patriot the other day, "Wild Lesbians Run Amok". To me, Conservative and Lesbian mean the same thing. "Conservative". I love the look and sound and style of that word. So Encircling, so Captive and Captivating, so Queenly, so quintessentially Eternally Feminine. Whenever I see that word "Conservative" I always think of holy Dawn and her holy Negro wife Norma. Conservative Lesbian Individualist Theology....
"Americanism senses that the great error of Communism is not committed at the murderous end of its brutal and bloody road but at its very beginning. In its organization and purpose Communism makes the only fundamental mistake that it is possible for any political and social system to commit. It comes up at the outset with the wrong answers to the controlling questions presented to every political syatem by the very nature of the human beings with whom it proposes to deal:
"1 -- Does the system exist for the individual man or does the individual man exist for the system?
"2 -- Is the social order more important than the people it embraces, or is it the other way around?
"3 -- Does John Doe have personal individual rights which the system is bound to respect and if so, can he force the system to protect them, or is John Doe an indistinguishable part of a 'mass,' 'class,' or 'group' of the total Society?
"Communism, along with Fascism, Nazism, Socialism, and every form of Statism, answers:
"1 -- Man exists fo the system.
"2 -- The social order is all important.
"3 -- The individual John Doe has no rights that the system is bound to respect.
"Thus, in Communism, as in despotism generally, the individual as a person is completely lost in the government. His very life's blood is transfused into the government body for the exclusive use and purpose of that body. Communism frankly admits that it is a completely materialistic conception. It insists that man is merely matter, oil in the engines or cogs on the wheels. The entity is the machine and the machine is the dictatorship."
-Clarence E. Manion, The Key to Peace: A Formula for the Perpetuation of Real Americanism (1950)
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Extremely interesting. Conservative. Conservative. Conservative. Conservative. Conservative philosophers. Thought-provoking in the extreme. Extremely profound. Extremely Right. From Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk. Richard Weaver. Eric Voegelin. Leo Strauss. Frank Strauss Meyer. James Burnham. Willmoore Kendall. Whittaker Chambers. Ayn Rand. E. Merrill Root. Thomas Molnar. Alain de Benoist. Oswald Spengler. Peter Viereck. Don Juan Donoso Cortes. Friedrich Nietzsche. Admiral Ben Moreel. General Edwin Anderson Walker. General James Mattoon Scott. General Jack D. Rrrripper. General Horemheb. The styles of the Starboard side of a spectrum!
What meaneth it unto me, unto thee, to be a Conservative? Hmmm.... Analyzing the styles of many Conservatives in this post here in Up With Beauty, I arrived at the conclusion that Conservative thought is a synthesis of Individual Freedom with Divine Order, the eternal tension that has always been a central leitmotif of our Western civilization. The Ego striving for the Infinite.
Right now, I am in the process of re-reading that great Conservative classic, The Key to Peace: A Formula for the Perpetuation of Real Americanism by Clarence E. Manion. I believe this is the first Conservative book I ever read, back in my first year in high school, when I was still a socialist. His style! Mmmmmmmmanion! I often think of America as "Ammmmaniona".
Conservative. Conservative. Conservative. Conservative. I so love that word "Conservative". As I've said before, the styles of the titles of your posts! The only one that matches this one is something I saw in the Gay Patriot the other day, "Wild Lesbians Run Amok". To me, Conservative and Lesbian mean the same thing. "Conservative". I love the look and sound and style of that word. So Encircling, so Captive and Captivating, so Queenly, so quintessentially Eternally Feminine. Whenever I see that word "Conservative" I always think of holy Dawn and her holy Negro wife Norma. Conservative Lesbian Individualist Theology....