When you have delegitimized the opposition so severely, and when you are think your power is permanent you create powers that will easily be used against you. Burning the Reichstag was not an act of fascism, the reaction of squelching freedom of the press and other civil liberties clearly was.
Read MoreThe success of the American experiment is largely due IMO to the fortunate combination of dispersed political power being elegantly synchronous to the dispersed knowledge of the free market.
Read More“But the Founding Fathers did not foresee that tyranny by government might be superseded by another sort of problem altogether, namely, the corporate state, which through television now controls the flow of public discourse in America. “
Read More“Calling it progressive to send children of color the message that achievement is white is an irony lost on the woke. “
Read More“What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate.”
Read More“Fascism took root in Europe only in nations where democratic government was relatively new, often scarcely older than the peace treaty that ended WWI. But where democracies had deeper roots and could count on popular legitimacy — as in England and France — fascist movements never emerged from the fringe.”
Read More“Conservatives have long understood that our choice is not between a bundle of prejudices and enlightened scientific management but between a bundle of prejudices and a different bundle of prejudices.”
Read More“The first is that all personal problems and all moral or intellectual matters have become political; that there is no human misfortune not amenable to political solution. The second is that, since everything can be known and changed, there is a perfect fit between action, knowledge, and morality.”
Read More“..we still cannot cut down the rules that protect the Devil without cutting down the rules that protect the saints.”
Read More“For the politician, jobs are not a means to some end — Cadillacs, bales of cotton, iPhones — but an end in and of themselves.”
Read MoreOur government attempted to bring the best features of a monarchy, and aristocracy and and democracy together without the faults; an ambitious project. Our representatives are not just reflections of a majority will; but executors of judgment with an eye towards more that the next election. This means that sometimes they must say “no” to the populist majority. The Constitution makes this easy on some issues but not all.
Read More“Fear instead of reason—fear of losing a job in the next Twitter eruption, fear of being knifed by ideologically obsessed colleagues—determines what you can see, hear or be taught in certain of our institutions. “
Read MoreWhat distinguishes a republic from a democracy is recognition of the need to say ‘no’ to the majority every now and then.
Read More“Above all, we must at all times remember what intellectuals habitually forget: that people matter more than concepts and must come first. The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.”
Read More“True conservatives tend to have a particular understanding of the fragility of things. They understand that every human institution is, in its way, built on sand.”
Read MoreThe world of ideas tempered by a realistic notion of human nature, moral considerations, and actual experiences is illuminating and useful. Attempting to bend human reality to theories in isolation is the definition of fanaticism.
Read MoreThe left that so opposed the Electoral College in 2016 should appreciate its genius today. They should also appreciate the nature of federalism with state and local governments that are not beholden to the president. The framers had a realistic view of human nature that they should not be trusted with concentrated power. It was as if they understood the possibility that just occurred.
Read More“But we must not imitate and escalate what we repudiate. Our duty is to govern for the public good. The United States Senate has a higher calling than an endless spiral of partisan vengeance.”
Read More“We all like being told not merely that our opinions are reasonable but also that we’re the only group left standing between America and an imminent socialist or fascist hellscape.”
Read MoreThis is the narcissism of minor differences. We will react more strongly to disagreement within our tribe than a greater threat from outside the tribe. Sunnis and Shiites; Catholics and Protestants.
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