I may one day get around to reading through all of this. But suffice it to say, the moment you start to get as much as a wiff of rhetoric coming from the purported next majority about more grandios ideas that hold no real mandate from the American people, and coming from the federal level, the writing on the wall is that republicans will show us once again, just like the democrats, of how little they have learned, even under the most extreme circumstances. The only real mandate they have now is the same thing that has already been said for well over 30 years--Leave Us Alone.
An embrace of Christianity doesn’t mean “bustin’ heads for Jesus”, but Feser does correctly see the fundamental fault of liberalism: Its deontological universalism.
Since the essence of the state is the progressive removal of all mediating institutions between its power and the individual citizen, the legitimacy of its claim must rest upon a dogmatic universalism.
Case in point: The hysterical outrage expressed against the Polish “LGBT-free zone” resolutions. By early 2020, the southeastern third of the country had enacted such resolutions, as an expression of the popular disgust with that lifestyle, not as an infringement on the rights of such people (which would have been contrary to Polish law). The EU Parliament voted 463 to 107 to condemn the resolutions, and it threatened to withhold various funds. Under such pressure, by the end of 2023, almost all of the resolutions had been cancelled.
Since the first principles of liberals are supposedly tolerance and freedom of speech, shouldn’t they have simply shrugged and laughed off those benighted, hayseed Poles? But no. The “proof” of every liberal principle is in its assumed universality – even if it means intimidation and the initiation of violence to enforce it. Even one dissenting voice from its first principles, even in some remote rural village, must be silenced, since that voice undermines its universalist claims.
Rejection of this liberal universalist pretense is the genius of Alasdair (ahem, correctly spelled here) MacIntyre.
Gentile's quotes could well have been Hegel's. Here's a Hegelian sampler by Karl Popper, from his _The Open Society and its Enemies_:
‘The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth … We must therefore worship the State as the manifestation of the Divine on earth [...] The State is the march of God through the world … The State must be comprehended as an organism … To the complete State belongs, essentially, consciousness and thought. The State knows what it wills [...] The State … exists for its own sake … The State is the actually existing, realized moral life.’ [unbracketed ellipses in the original]
ah...revolutionary Dreamer yet dreams of the secular state & society...with it Own secular morals and Deity! ["and you're not the only one"] a brief look at history gives us a good dose of the legions of tyranny it spawns. Yet Patrick Henry was right...as was Burke & millions who loved the classical roots of liberty.
“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
I may one day get around to reading through all of this. But suffice it to say, the moment you start to get as much as a wiff of rhetoric coming from the purported next majority about more grandios ideas that hold no real mandate from the American people, and coming from the federal level, the writing on the wall is that republicans will show us once again, just like the democrats, of how little they have learned, even under the most extreme circumstances. The only real mandate they have now is the same thing that has already been said for well over 30 years--Leave Us Alone.
An embrace of Christianity doesn’t mean “bustin’ heads for Jesus”, but Feser does correctly see the fundamental fault of liberalism: Its deontological universalism.
Since the essence of the state is the progressive removal of all mediating institutions between its power and the individual citizen, the legitimacy of its claim must rest upon a dogmatic universalism.
Case in point: The hysterical outrage expressed against the Polish “LGBT-free zone” resolutions. By early 2020, the southeastern third of the country had enacted such resolutions, as an expression of the popular disgust with that lifestyle, not as an infringement on the rights of such people (which would have been contrary to Polish law). The EU Parliament voted 463 to 107 to condemn the resolutions, and it threatened to withhold various funds. Under such pressure, by the end of 2023, almost all of the resolutions had been cancelled.
Since the first principles of liberals are supposedly tolerance and freedom of speech, shouldn’t they have simply shrugged and laughed off those benighted, hayseed Poles? But no. The “proof” of every liberal principle is in its assumed universality – even if it means intimidation and the initiation of violence to enforce it. Even one dissenting voice from its first principles, even in some remote rural village, must be silenced, since that voice undermines its universalist claims.
Rejection of this liberal universalist pretense is the genius of Alasdair (ahem, correctly spelled here) MacIntyre.
Gentile's quotes could well have been Hegel's. Here's a Hegelian sampler by Karl Popper, from his _The Open Society and its Enemies_:
‘The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth … We must therefore worship the State as the manifestation of the Divine on earth [...] The State is the march of God through the world … The State must be comprehended as an organism … To the complete State belongs, essentially, consciousness and thought. The State knows what it wills [...] The State … exists for its own sake … The State is the actually existing, realized moral life.’ [unbracketed ellipses in the original]
ah...revolutionary Dreamer yet dreams of the secular state & society...with it Own secular morals and Deity! ["and you're not the only one"] a brief look at history gives us a good dose of the legions of tyranny it spawns. Yet Patrick Henry was right...as was Burke & millions who loved the classical roots of liberty.
“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
Patrick Henry