{"id":139278,"date":"2021-05-11T17:33:44","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T01:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=139278"},"modified":"2021-05-12T08:38:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T16:38:41","slug":"what-are-the-paleoconservatives-conserving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=139278","title":{"rendered":"What Are the Paleoconservatives Conserving?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Anton writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There is less dividing Paul Gottfried and me than I would have expected, which is good. For when the orc hordes\u2014at Sauron\u2019s urging\u2014come for both of us, they aren\u2019t going to discern, much less care about, any academic differences over this or that statement from the American founding era. They are going to see us identically as enemies to be exterminated. <\/p>\n

I also welcome this chance to reiterate some points that bear repeating. To those bored with the repetition, I can only say that what I learned in politics apparently applies to intellectual debates as well: if you want your message to break through, you can\u2019t repeat it often enough. This exchange also gives me the opportunity to take a few more whacks at Cracker Jack Claremontism, which can\u2019t be beaten often enough. <\/p>\n

The Claremont-Hillsdale School does indeed hold that all human beings \u201chave inalienable rights to life and liberty.\u201d Gottfried continues from here that this \u201cdid not mean that for the founders \u2018all men\u2019 were equally entitled to citizenship or that all human beings were equally fit to exercise that right.\u201d And he\u2019s absolutely right. Only Cracker Jack Claremontism holds to that silly view. Anyone who\u2019s actually studied the founders (and if we\u2019ve done nothing else, we\u2019ve certainly done that) knows that it\u2019s false. <\/p>\n

A Separate and Equal Station
\nAmong the Powers of the Earth<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take these two issues separately. The first is membership in the political community. We may say that, for the American founders, their government\u2019s exclusivity as a political community internationally mirrors the principle of freedom of association at the domestic level. Just government originates in the social compact\u2014that is, a compact in which men freely choose to form a government for their mutual protection and benefit. At the founding of such a government, agreement on membership must be unanimous, and in both directions. That is, no one who doesn\u2019t want to be in the compact can be forced to join, but also no one whom others don\u2019t want to take in can be allowed to join either. The social compact is invitation only. <\/p>\n

It remains so in perpetuity for newcomers. Children born to members of the existing compact are automatically made members but may, if they later choose, renounce that membership via emigration. No one from outside the compact, however, may join it without the consent of its existing members. As Gouverneur Morris, the man who actually wrote the U.S. Constitution, put it: \u201cevery society, from a great nation down to a club, has the right of declaring the conditions on which new members shall be admitted.\u201d <\/p>\n

In other words, in recognizing the universal ground of individual rights, and in choosing to rest the legitimacy of their new government thereon, the founders were not saying or implying that Americans had any obligation to extend the enjoyment of such rights to the rest of mankind. Much less were they making any attempt to do so. They were simply explaining the ground of their revolution and the basis for their new government.<\/p>\n

The Declaration of Independence is quite clear on this point. In splitting off from Britain, the American people \u201cassume[d] among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature\u2019s God entitle them.\u201d \u201cSeparate\u201d means just that. We\u2019re a nation. You can\u2019t join our nation unless we, collectively, invite you. You may have, by nature, the same rights as we have, but our government secures only our own rights, not yours. <\/p>\n

COMMENTS:<\/p>\n

* This piece is very inside-baseball, addressing political-philosophical conflicts between traditional conservatives (which Gottfried (one of their prime representatives) and Anton both refer to as paleocons), and Straussians (a term Anton interestingly avoids), who historically have often associated with\/been lumped in with neocons, though they’re not identical with other neocons and have in fact been getting better of late.<\/p>\n

Straussians heavily emphasize the Lockean-liberal-inspired opening language of the D of I, especially as interpreted\/magnified by Lincoln. This is the orientation of the 1776 Commission. Traditional conservatives are leery of this, seeing such language as too ideological and actually helping to drive modern liberalism. They don’t see a definitive American “Founding” occurring at a particular point in time, but a British tradition that was shaped by American experience and eventually resulted in the Constitution adopted in 1789.<\/p>\n

The most pertinent underlying question is whether emphasizing the D of I helps or hurts conservative efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Anton writes: There is less dividing Paul Gottfried and me than I would have expected, which is good. For when the orc hordes\u2014at Sauron\u2019s urging\u2014come for both of us, they aren\u2019t going to discern, much less care about, any … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42806,29610],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-michael-anton","category-paul-gottfried"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t