People are getting tired….

Expressing an opinion can be daunting for some! People are constantly on my FB page posing as a conservative only to turn and write perverse things …so for time to time i have to Jab back and stick something on my page that lets them know up front “I will not tollerate your BS”

I do, I feel better, and then I go back to my discussions in a civil manner.

It is going to happen…I do not fight it any longer after coming face to face with Cloward -Piven strategists, and race baiters on the ground in the hospitals…no less!

Never tell em again that subversion cannot happen.

I sill love ya cause I know your heart is in the right place….and you want what we want…you will get into some ugly discussions to make your point…

Me I just do not and will not engage a left wing nut….impossible to discuss anything…so I delete them from my life!
.-= Tamara´s last blog ..Our own congress is the threat to our ecomomy! =-.

I’m not really responding to you, you’re an obvious troll. But more respectable people may have questions about the nature of political science, and an actual interest in its origins.

I was at a point where I thought ‘expanding the base’ was a terrible idea for the Republican party, but now I’m starting to wonder just what the base is.

I would caution against using a definition of conservatism that gives us a monopoly on ideas, i.e. “there are ideas that migrate throughout time without diminution.” Strictly speaking, that what would show up in Socratic thought as the “beings,” more than likely (Pangle says the investigation of “what is” can yield some answers more appropriate for particular times).

No one has a monopoly on wisdom, and we’re talking about political conservatism here – this is something far more practical, far more immediate. In fact, I’m thinking the general tenor of my remarks is: let’s just not define conservatism. It’s an appeal to tradition, with an emphasis on changing slowly if need be – that’s more a description of what conservatives do, not quite definitive of what they are.

In terms of judgment residing outside oneself, I mean for all the complaints I have about liberals, it’s because of liberals I have citizenship and can vote. Conservatism is always going to have a “reactionary” tendency; if I try to define it as appreciation/preservation of the good, I’ve confused piety with philosophy, which some Socratic disciples did (notably: Hermogenes in Xenophon’s Apology and Symposium, to some degree Crito. Oh yeah, there isn’t a translation I recommend). I realize I emphasize the darker side of philosophy often, but I think it definitely gets a serious claim to the most radical notion of the good (i.e. there is no form of the good, inasmuch as the good is why one is evaluating “forms”/”beings” in the first place) one that piety can’t claim, because piety has to be obedient to some sort of convention when all is said and done. And let’s not get into the ability of piety to tell us what each separate being is, one from another.

Epstein’s a really good writer – he has some very sharp comments in a number of things he’s written. I’m picking on him because if I start going through National Review, The Weekly Standard, The New Criterion, Commentary, First Things, Crisis and the rest of them, I mean, I think at this point it’s safe to say people are here because they’re hungry for knowledge, not just more media, and I kinda am ticked off that some places like those are countenancing the more radical elements of the Right currently.

Here’s a question for Ashok, though: I understand the danger of believing that there is already an “answer” for everything, but are there not ideas that can migrate throughout time without diminution, without becoming obsolete? I always thought that conservatism was the recognition that judgment might reside outside of the individual, that acknowledging others was what was important – especially in the current political clime.

And couldn’t this just be bad eulogizing? Surely Kristol isn’t to be remembered mostly for what he had to say about modern art – although the person delivering that eulogy might reflect some larger pathology within conservatism, so I give you credit for that.

BTW – I got that e-mail, and I will work on it soon.

In case anyone is interested in what ECM is talking about:

http://www.kejda.net/2009/09/22/the-other-%e2%80%9cother-mccain%e2%80%9d/

Roughly speaking: a large part of the Right online, when not openly advocating revolution or secession or bring guns to tea parties, isn’t exactly shy about racism and giving material support to fringe groups that are prone to violence.

This has to stop, and I thank you for not reading or visiting any longer.