Friday, August 7, 2009

Review of "Liberty and Tyranny" pt 4

I'll post excerpts almost daily from "The work of generations", a review by Andrew C. McCarthy, of "On Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark R. Levin. Hopefully, you will be inspired to buy the book and read it this summer:

"By contrast, the conservative’s objective is simply life: faith, family, community, and country. His imperative is to preserve. The conservative does not have a project; for him, the personal is not the political—which is why the statist finds him an easy foil. The conservative resists change, but is open to reform, for the latter addresses meritorious grievances by improving civil society’s time-tested institutions without radically altering their character. Contrary to conventional (i.e. statist) lore, the conservative cannot be dogmatically wedded to the status quo; as Levin points out, the status quo “may well be a condition created by the statist and destructive of the civil society—such as 1960s cultural degradations.” The conservative accepts that inequality is the natural condition of mankind because each individual is uniquely endowed by our Creator. For the conservative, equality means enjoying the same opportunity as the next person to live free and flourish, coupled with impartial treatment before a just law. The conservative is alert to injustice but does not see it in each and every iniquity."

(to be continued)
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-work-of-generations-4086

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