“The American project, distilled to its essence, was, and the conservative project is, to demonstrate that a government constructed on the assumptions of natural rights must be limited government.”
The natural rights theory is that individuals in the state of nature possess rights that pre-exist government; that government is created for the limited purpose of securing those rights; and that the individual surrenders some sovereignty to government on the basis of a rational calculation that government secure more sovereignty than it requires to be surrendered.
-George Will (The Conservative Sensibility)
Frankly, I’ve parted ways a bit from George as he continues to go Never Trumper and it is creeping into other areas of his discourse. He does, like many of the Old Guard, wish to return to the “lower taxes, muscular military” enclave country club and wail that no one is listening to them. That doesn’t mean, even as he isn’t totally convinced that by controlling the Culture, the Left is changing the foundation that gave Reagan Conservativism’ thrust such that it is no longer adequate – the Culture is directly assaulting that country club’s doors and windows.
What he says is true UNLESS you don’t believe in natural Rights – and the Left doesn’t. WE do, they don’t, and that should mean major rethinking on how to battle the Left’s new ideologies (like the Greek mythological Hydra with multiple heads, so is the Democrat Party’s philosophies: LGBTQRSTUV on sexuality, BLM on the interface between races, and Critical Race Theory on Equity instead of Equality (e.g., mandated equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity) that are called by many things but result in a Group or Collective herding politics instead of the Individual.
E.g., Socialism leading to Communism. Sure, if you looked at the “constitutions” of Socialist States, they seem benign until you REALLY start reading the words and then gaming them out to see what the tactics must be to make those “Positive Rights” happen. And then you realize they are totally unworkable and doomed to failure from the start (e.g., Venezuela and Cuba come to mind).
Will is right – without the realization AND acceptance of a Power higher than Man, and the embracement of natural Rights that limit Government, there is no American Experiment. There will be, unfortunately, no America left to be as the Democrats are determined to emulate countries in which Government was or is EVERYTHING.
And see themselves at the top of that Government and we far, FAR below.
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
