The Movement You Need…

I consider my personal brand of Conservatism to be descended from that of Edmund Burke and informed in large part by Russell Kirk. Like James Madison, I have a rather dim view of my fellow man when his actions are not voluntarily shackled by moral imperative backed by law.

What is government but the greatest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on the government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. — James Madison, The Federalist No. 51

For quite some time I’ve been wondering how post-Reagan Revolution Conservatism has morphed into “big government Conservatism.” Yesterday, a column by George will pointed to a potential answer that I need to think on a bit.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: George Will :: Yes, Reagan was great, but it’s time to move on

If the defining doctrine of the Republican Party is limited government, the party must move up from nostalgia and leaven its reverence for Reagan with respect for Madison. As Diggins says, Reaganism tells people comforting and flattering things that they want to hear; the Madisonian persuasion tells them sobering truths that they need to know.

I think it is important to note that at Reagan’s time, this nation was suffering from dual malignancies brought on by the corruptions of Watergate and destruction of faith in American exceptionalism fomented by Jimmy Carter’s milquetoast platitudes that projected his personal malaise upon us all. Carter proved not only to be a literal peanut farmer but an idealogical one, too. This nation needed Reagan’s optimism in 1980. Perhaps his place, his time and his ideology was Providential; but, we are not at that time and place today. A different set of guiding principles are probably needed for today’s Conservatism: Older ones.

If there was ever a time in which we need a reality check about who we are and who they are, it is today. My distrust in the core of my fellow man is, I think, most prudent considering the threats that confront us. It is becoming my political dogma that multiculturalism, diversity and political correctness endanger us because they all blind us to the more base potentialities of human nature.

I was doing a bit of Googling on these topics and ran across this:

We need to learn some lessons from the tolerance-fomented decline of Lebanon. I wonder whether or not our current PC indoctrination will let us. Will we break free from socially-Marxist constraints in time to save ourselves from the fate that looms?

My pessimism about human nature conflicts with my optimism about Americanism on this.