It IS our word, and I find anti-liberal conservatives who are ready to surrender it almost as insufferable as progressive nationalists like Obama who claim it as their own. Good for you to defend it,Carl
For me, I have always found W. Wilson's view that democracy and socialism are identical in theory, (i.e., "men as communities are supreme over men as individuals") a helpful way to distinguish the false view of democracy from our own. (W. Wilson, "Socialism and Democracy")
Like Deneen and McWilliams, Wilson wants democracy uninfected by individual rights. But Wilson seems to get it: so long as democracy is understood as grounded in the rights of individuals, rights the Founders understood as protecting needs/activities that transcend "the city", the limitless communitarian nationalism progressives like Wilson associate with democracy will be resisted as long as there are human beings. ("The road to serfdom never leads to serfdom," Lawler's familiar refrain)
BTW, I think the proper way to read Lawler's last book, indeed all of his books, is as an attempt to provide evidence, in America's founding docs and subsequent behavior, pointing to these transpolitical needs, which he says are located in our limited and created existences as equal persons. Even if Jefferson's private, atheistic materialism prevented him from taking this foundation or these needs seriously -- and in grad school I watched Lawler argue precisely this point on an APSA panel with Tom West -- so what; he put it there, at least the acknowledgement, in the Declaration for all to see. Natural rights (or limited democracy) should still be taken seriously. So long as we preserve its truthful foundation, it need not be confused with Barnett's limitless libertarianism or as somehow leading to Rorty or Obama's progressive nationalism.
If you find any of that gibberish worth replying to Carl, please address it to Ric Flair. The Nature Boy took over my body when I posted that! Whoa! . .
It IS our word, and I find anti-liberal conservatives who are ready to surrender it almost as insufferable as progressive nationalists like Obama who claim it as their own. Good for you to defend it,Carl
For me, I have always found W. Wilson's view that democracy and socialism are identical in theory, (i.e., "men as communities are supreme over men as individuals") a helpful way to distinguish the false view of democracy from our own. (W. Wilson, "Socialism and Democracy")
Like Deneen and McWilliams, Wilson wants democracy uninfected by individual rights. But Wilson seems to get it: so long as democracy is understood as grounded in the rights of individuals, rights the Founders understood as protecting needs/activities that transcend "the city", the limitless communitarian nationalism progressives like Wilson associate with democracy will be resisted as long as there are human beings. ("The road to serfdom never leads to serfdom," Lawler's familiar refrain)
BTW, I think the proper way to read Lawler's last book, indeed all of his books, is as an attempt to provide evidence, in America's founding docs and subsequent behavior, pointing to these transpolitical needs, which he says are located in our limited and created existences as equal persons. Even if Jefferson's private, atheistic materialism prevented him from taking this foundation or these needs seriously -- and in grad school I watched Lawler argue precisely this point on an APSA panel with Tom West -- so what; he put it there, at least the acknowledgement, in the Declaration for all to see. Natural rights (or limited democracy) should still be taken seriously. So long as we preserve its truthful foundation, it need not be confused with Barnett's limitless libertarianism or as somehow leading to Rorty or Obama's progressive nationalism.
If you find any of that gibberish worth replying to Carl, please address it to Ric Flair. The Nature Boy took over my body when I posted that! Whoa! . .