Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Sunday, December 30. 2012

Best American speech of 2012 - George Will

So claims Peggy Noonan, and I think it's darn good and enjoyable too: George Will on Religion in Politics at Washington U on Dec 4. (You have to click the link to video playlist for the speech, on the right)


"Do 'natural rights' presuppose religious faith?"


Will is not a man of faith and he is an old-fashioned Liberal. It's not a political speech; it's a wonderful historical-philosophical survey from the Greeks to Woodrow Wilson and the notion of progress, and it goes a long way towards explaining the historical underpinnings of the Maggie's chronically anti-statist and revolutionary view of the world.


Every 6th-grader to high school kid in America should know this basic stuff, but I bet many do not. "Should the State have a monopoly on social and civil authority?"


The Q&A after is excellent too. Family disintegration.  Do not skip it. He speaks slowly and methodically, but it still deserves two listenings. George Will, like us, is a Madison and de Toqueville fan. Those guys were smarter and wiser than all of us. Those who think they know better need to beware of hubris: they were wary of all power.


America has indeed been exceptional in world history, and, we hope, will stick with it. I hate the idea of people voting without knowing their history.


 

Posted by Bird Dog in Best Essays of the Year, Our Essays, Politics at 06:13 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Those who think they know better need to beware of hubris: they were wary of all power.

Something modern Progressives & Liberals have forgotten utterly, if they ever knew. They are wary of their rival's power, but when it's held in their name they trust it comprehensively; take its every declared position at face value and have full faith and confidence that power can achieve every purpose.

They will deny this; they have often claimed they are critics of power. But acts trump posturing, and they will and have expanded state power every chance they have gotten. Because they trust it, and imagine they are smart and wise enough to control it, that power won't master them.

They are critics of power, but because they are connoisseurs. It's an appreciation.
#1 T.K. Tortch on 2012-12-30 10:55 (Reply)
I think conservatives are comfortable with the power one individual can get over another by virtue of being stronger, smarter, richer, or luckier. We assume that no one individual will get too powerful -- not even a group of individuals acting as a multinational corporation -- and that checks and balances will ameliorate the problem. Liberals are so focused on this danger, however, that they see conservatives as heartless bigwigs who trample on the common man, and they see government as their champion in this unequal battle. I've never known a liberal who believed he was more trusting of power than a conservative is. Liberals just fear a different kind of power.
#2 Texan99 (Link) on 2012-12-30 17:29 (Reply)
Eh. I wrote a longer response but lost it.

In short: yes, I agree that conservatives are more comfortable with individual power.

I think liberals exaggerate the threat of individual / private power and underestimate the potential malignancy of strong central government.

So, of course you never met a liberal who believed he was more trusting in power than a conservative is, otherwise he wouldn't work to support and strengthen government power, the kind of power that is most difficult to constrain and diminish.

Liberals trust that once the apparatus of state power has been enlarged at the expense of private society they or - somebody - perfect technocrats, or philosopher kings - will always be around to act as wise and competent stewards of that apparatus.

Liberals trust that the greater power won't be abused; the founding fathers - even the Federalists - weren't so trusting.
#2.1 T.K. Tortch on 2012-12-31 09:56 (Reply)
I agree -- liberals seem to me to be focused on a negligible threat and oblivious to the real one. They see me the same way, I supposed, but the difference is that I'm right. :-) At least conservatives acknowledge power where it exists and have arguments that I find convincing about how it's going to be reined in. Usually the counterargument I get from liberals, when I warn of the power of the government, is that it's all OK because we vote for whatever government does. If I point to the danger of a tyranny of the majority, they shrug and say that's the social contract. I imagine they are equally frustrated when they try to get me worked up about the dangerous power of Walmart: I shrug and say that's why there's competition, so go buy from someone else.
#2.1.1 Texan99 (Link) on 2013-01-01 15:39 (Reply)
Best speech? Best yammerhead? Best bingo caller?

How about best "action" of 2012?
#3 Fred Z on 2012-12-31 01:06 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.