If we worship God we can feed the poor and help the sick ourselves and through the church, so to glorify Him. But the substitute of the state for the work of Christian or Jewish charity is first and foremost an attack against the church.

We need to reclaim the church. As Edward Norman has written, to do this we might first rid ourselves of the notion that relief of whatever ails us is not the basis of Christian morality–it’s just a formula for self-worship.

As we ponder conservatism’s core we forget that Lincoln and Douglas both wanted to rid this country of slavery, and lets allow for the moment that Douglas’s plan would have worked. Yet Lincoln saw even the temporary tolerance of slavery as knocking out the foundation of our freedom–that all men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. What makes those rights inalienable is that they were given to us by God and not the state. That idea has to inform our every notion of freedom.

If I could have looked into the future and read the comments on this blog even five years ago I couldn’t imagine what would lead us to this discussion. The discussion was long overdue, but it required a terrible crisis to bring it about. But I look at this discussion as reason for great hope.

~ John Adams

I believe there should be serious concern over “our capacity for self-government” and in the overall thinking (and re-birth) of conservative theory in principle.

My personal affinity for conservative politics has always been attached to a moral foundation and fervent belief in the virtues and applied benefits of freedom.

However, for conservatism to succeed, it will have to divorce itself from greed and avarice, or as John Adams so cautioned us (in the above and other quotes), that government, and its democratic system will ultimately be unsustainable – as we’ve witnessed with dot.com bubble, mortgage crisis, Wall Street, etc.

Until the moral fabric of society (especially as it pertains to business and prosperity ethics) starts to wax strong vs. continuing to wane, we will forever be caught up in the apparent need for a movement to regulate vs. the ideology of self-regulation debate.

Until freedom (and its opportunity) brings forth a more universal Charity, versus self-service and a short-term-gain focused business mentality, I believe conservatives (even within their own party) will have a tough time getting a majority to throw their entire weight against de-regulation in the midst of the sub-tangible, albeit, perhaps only psychological security benefits of big government. Liberal thinking (in my humble opinion), simply tries to inorganically fabricate Charity in a void – in the spirit of good intentions and with complete cognizance that given our freedom, “we the people” have not elected to distribute Charity ourselves (in adequate quantity).

So yes, I agree with this article’s viewpoint, and I concur that we are in yet “another epic struggle, a battle for America’s soul, a battle that will determine whether free government will survive.”

But it’s not “another” (or some form of new) struggle, it’s an continuation of an ongoing struggle with morality and self-restraint as we continue to grapple with the definition of, and methods of achieving prosperity in a free-market system.

I believe we have to look at the struggle as an opportunity – not just to make a decision to think and vote on behalf of freedom, but in action – to BE “a moral and religious people”, and understand the full meaning of that responsibility.

Truthfully, I think conservatives are in an uphill battle. Question: Is the heart of the neo-conservative movement (as a functioning, not ideological whole), and its motives in pursuit of maximizing freedom in the right place? In other words, if we are fighting for fiscal conservative policy for prosperity’s sake, OR on the flip-side, is this is only based on social-moral values without the support of virtuous principles applied in economic terms, then the conservative movement will simply defeat itself – eventually. Granted, “defeat” will mostly likely be in the form of settling on fundamentally middle or even low ground.

Not good.

twomastersmedia.com

Discussing a return to the rhetoric of the Framers as a means of resurrecting a Conservative government while we are so globally militarized, States Rights such an anachronism and economic activity so centralized is downright loopy. Any mention of the term “conservative” within the context of our current politics is akin to using the term “aesthetics” while viewing a Graffiti Exhibit in a Chelsea Gallery.

Great Kesler piece. Let us say that several times before going into our usual worries about the damage done by modernity/democracy to the American soul, ect.

This is just absolutely correct.
As Americans we have lost the meaning of the ground of existence and the question is how is it recovered when our opponent (statism, liberalism, socialism, Marxism) is irrationally grounded in the State, where the libido, the ‘comprehended collectivity of urges,’ feeds the justification for the ‘state’ as the ultimate in the immanent ‘hierarchy of being.’
Under Obama we may actually see people begin to worship the ‘state,’-perhaps we already have-and then, finally, we will understand the issue has always been a spiritual conflict.
Ultimately, man is a theomorphic being created in an openness to the transcendent which indicates that, given the historical failures of statism, we will face either a horrific period of chaos or a reordering of the people toward a love for God.

“I believe that conservatism does have a true challenge ahead of it. I wonder whether “We the People” have chosen a fork in the road towards statism and “serfdom” in a very Hayekian sense. It seems ee are travelling ever faster down that road, especially as demography changes our national character. To return to Constitutionalism would appear to require that we stop the present movement, back it up, and choose an alternative path.

I am skeptical that “conservatism” wins the war through appeals to the Founder’s. “We the People” have, overall, chosen our own yoke over the course of several generations.

That said, is it not “conservatism’s” responsibility to break the yoke and once more offer freedom as a choice? At the moment, notwithstanding all the Townhalls, health care debates, etc., we are decidedly not free and not free, overall by choices made long ago and in the process of being made now.

It is immaterial whether we were “conned” and lied to by modern Liberalism on the way to our present condition. The choice is made and being made and a different one must be made or we are destined to atrophy into European obsolescence and irresponsible adolescence. Meanwhile, the World won’t sit idly by and wait for us to sort things out. It will move and others will seek their glory as assuredly as history illustrates.”

It will take a herculean effort to accomplish this. Not only must conservatives “stand athwart history, yelling stop”, we must make a cogent case that will drive people to choose a different path than the one that has been travelled since, perhaps, the New Deal and certainly since the 1960s.

How do we do this? Are “We, the People” capable?

As Leo Strauss says in Natural Right and History, “Virtue presupposes free society, and free society presupposes virtue…”

What of free society when virtue is no longer immanent in the “People?”

This is not an idle question, but cuts to the core of the conservative response to modern Liberalism and its Progressive incarnation. Has the Aronian “Opium of the Intellectuals” become the new “Opium of the Masses?” Not in an overt, militant Marxist way, but a subversive, almost imperceptible way.

I fear that this is the true status we confront. The Age of Obama could well be the age where this becomes fully realized and conservatives must struggle with a truly grand question, an existential question. Can we “conserve” tradition? Or are we to resurrect tradition.

Modernity has cut us loose from appreciating the highest qualities of man and to reembrace this is a task that could well make Sisyphus blush at both the audacity, and though I pray not, the futility of its very conception.