Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Conservatism

  • Anti-Chessism not Confined to Muslim Lands and Why Competition is Good

    It is not just crazed Islamists who condemn chess. Grandmaster Larry Evans, in his column "Evans on Chess" (Chess Life, September 2005, pp. 46-47), reproduces a letter from an anonymous high school science teacher from Northwest Louisiana. It seems that this fellow introduced his students to chess and that they responded enthusiastically. The administration, however,…

  • If I’m a Racist, then You’re a Tribalist!

    The following entry is from November, 2013.  One reason to repost it is because a couple of neo-reactionary conservatives have, to my surprise, asked me what is wrong with being a tribalist.  I had naively assumed that among philosophers at least  tribalism would be deemed a Bad Thing.  So I want to give them the…

  • Defining My Kind of Conservatism Against the Neo-Reactionary Variety

    My brand of conservatism takes on board what  I consider to be good in the old liberal tradition.  I like to think that it blends the best of conservatism with the best of liberalism.  A couple of  sharp young philosophers have surfaced to challenge me, however.  Their brand of conservatism looks askance at paleo-liberalism and…

  • The Left’s Hatred of Conservative Talk Radio

    At the moment the MavPhil commentariat includes a couple of sharp young philosophers whose views are to the Right of mine.  My brand of conservatism takes on board what  I consider to be good in the old liberal tradition.  Their brand looks askance at paleo-liberalism and sees it as leading inevitably to the hard leftism…

  • A Case for Open Immigration?

    The events of the day, and the presence of some sharp commenters, prompt me to repost the following entry which first appeared in these pages on 3 July 2010. ……………. Spencer Case sent me a link to a short op-ed piece by Michael Huemer who teaches philosophy at the University of Colorado.  Huemer's thesis is…

  • Jack Cashill

    I saw him on C-Span the other night.  

  • Why Not Privatize Marriage?

    Being a conservative, I advocate limited government.  Big government leads to big trouble as we fight endlessly, acrimoniously, and fruitlessly over all sorts of issues that we really ought not be fighting over.  As one of my slogans has it, "The bigger the government, the more to fight over."  The final clause of the First Amendment…

  • Same-Sex Marriage: No Surprise Conservatives Lost

    Four reasons off the top of my head. 1. Conservatives don't know how to argue and persuade.  In the main, conservatives are not at home on the plane of ideas and abstractions where one must do battle with leftist obfuscation.   Conservatives are often non-intellectual when they are not anti-intellectual.  I am talking about conservatives…

  • Waiting for St. Benedict. Various Withdrawal Options

    Alasdair MacIntyre's 1981 After Virtue ends on this ominous and prescient note: It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between one historical period and another; and among the most misleading of such parallels are those which have been drawn between our own age in Europe and North America and the epoch in which…

  • ‘Structural Racism’ and Conservative Cluelessness

    I caught a segment of Sean Hannity's show the other night during which a 'conversation' transpired over the recent spike in violence in Baltimore in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. At 2:06, Adam Jackson, activist and CEO of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, begins a rap replete with…

  • The Left’s Hatred of Conservative Talk Radio

    This entry from over five years ago stands up well and is worth re-posting.  Slightly improved, typos removed, infelicities smoothed.  It originally saw the light of the 'sphere on 24 March 2010.  As usual the MavPhil doctrine of abrogation is in effect:  later posts abrogate earlier ones. …………….. The qualifier 'conservative' borders on pleonasm: there…

  • Is Man Basically Good?

    Conservatives answer in the negative, liberals in the affirmative.  This may be the most important difference between the warring parties.  Dennis Prager explains the difference very clearly here. Liberals will object to the 'radioactive' Man in the above title borrowed from Prager.  They think it excludes women.  It does not.  It only excludes women if…

  • Barry Goldwater on Conservatism

    What follows is taken verbatim from Keith Burgess-Jackson's weblog.  It is so good, so right, and so important that it deserves to be disseminated widely.  Barry M. Goldwater (1909-1998) on Conservatism I have been much concerned that so many people today with Conservative instincts feel compelled to apologize for them. Or if not to apologize…

  • The Conservative Speaks

    Innovations are guilty until proven innocent.  There is a defeasible presumption in favor of traditional beliefs, usages, institutions, arrangements, techniques, and whatnot, provided they work.  By all means allow the defeat of the defeasible: in with the new if the novel is better.  But the burden of proof is on the would-be innovator:  if it…

  • Residual Political Correctness Among Conservatives

    Over at NRO, I found this in an otherwise very good column by Charles C. W. Cooke: I daresay that if I had been in any of the situations that DeBoer describes, I would have walked happily out of the class. Why? Well, because there is simply nothing to be gained from arguing with people…