Imperial Benevolence

No thanks.

As it should be - what a lovely sight https://t.co/STCYAym2am

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) August 26, 2021

“It is not acceptable for a wealthy country to frame immigration policy exclusively in terms of ‘what benefits us.’ The wealth of the world has been given to the whole human race, and we owe the needy a share in it.”
—@sancrucensis https://t.co/2VTXA56bDC

— Plough Quarterly (@Plough) August 26, 2021

What if Modern Democratic Ideology Was Always a Mask Though?

A tool of the oligarchs?

A culture that has decayed into the protection and production of oligarchs produces and protects oligarchs - this risks the being fundamental expression of modern democratic ideology https://t.co/n4Xz7DbZIN

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) August 19, 2021

Milbank the Imperialist

I don’t believe in the nation state. I think it’s too liberal and Whig. Individualism writ large. ‘Imperium’ integrating different cultures round a more universal one is inherently more communitarian. Britain has been such an imperium for hundreds of years.

— john milbank (@johnmilbank3) July 13, 2021

A Consequence of the Fear of Death and Sin

The more history of the nation state & of empire that I read the less convinced I am that there was ever really a nation state as we commonly understand it. The vast majority of nation states are themselves imperial amalgamations - Empire is the predominant history of mankind

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) July 3, 2021

Can't agree with the rest of his reflections:

Paradoxically it is imperialism in the sense of extending rule across different peoples and administrating a multiplicity that gives us a genuine possibility of multiculturalism and peaceful diversity

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) July 3, 2021

To complicate matters one has had especially in the modern period imperial nationalisms which are particularly brutal - but violence seems to accompany all formulations of empire - it’s just that Empire does also engender peace.

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) July 3, 2021

Scale Does Matter

Someone didn't analyze enough variables...

Size doesn't matter for #devolution or reform, writes our Principal Research Consultant, Mark Morrinhttps://t.co/dSKf1SYEeO

— ResPublica (@res_publica) October 21, 2020

NEW REPORT | Size doesn't matter: The arguments for place-based #devolution | Local government in England, regardless of type or scale, rarely corresponds with the footprint and jurisdiction for real economies or wider public services. https://t.co/bKWYRR9vp3 1/11

— ResPublica (@res_publica) October 21, 2020

Our new report that argues in essence that there is no one size that fits all - I personally believe that we need unitary local governance everywhere but that this can be either large or small - we need unified governance to deal with all the externalities that fuel disadvantage https://t.co/8Ft8AOidak

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) October 21, 2020

Another Disappointment

Apparently he doesn't really know what the common good is. Being subject to the same state power and having that as the only commonality is not a foundation for the common good or having a common identity. Given the psychologically conditioning imposed on UKers with respect to guns, of course he would respond this way and not only that, think the UK is more civilized. What happened to the free peoples of the UK?

And the citizens shall have the right to bear arms - not against the state - but against the each other - truly rights do not secure the common good https://t.co/SCUFOVBi3D

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) August 26, 2020

Post-Liberalism?

Recording now available | The future of #postliberalism; an international seminar | Speakers: @Phillip_Blond @PatrickDeneen @NJ_Timothy @Vermeullarmine and Ryszard Legutko. Expertly chaired by @moveincircles https://t.co/6QCrLMf2ta

— ResPublica (@res_publica) July 17, 2020

The Future of Post-Liberalism

ONLINE EVENT | The future of post-liberalism; an international seminar | 16th July, 15:00 | Join @Phillip_Blond @PatrickDeneen @Vermeullarmine Ryszard Legutko and @NJ_Timothy in our event chaired by Mary Harrington @moveincircles | Register here: https://t.co/uyj05chqQg

— ResPublica (@res_publica) June 24, 2020

10 Years Later

From 2010:

"The Left harbors a deep and abiding hatred of fixity and tradition, a loathing of anything settled." https://t.co/eIlzMrXgV1

— The American Conservative (@amconmag) June 12, 2020

Protesters ask Police “where the fuck where you last week” #londonprotests pic.twitter.com/TIUMslCFDp

— Politicalite #AllLivesMatter (@politicalite) June 13, 2020

Ex Servicemen gives police a rousting: “You’re cowards! Every one of you! You’re a disgrace! You ran away and you’re smirking at me! You letting them burn my flag! Which is your flag!” #Whitehall pic.twitter.com/bSCNsWaTso

— Ministry of Truth (@BanTheBBC) June 13, 2020

“You’re not English anymore...” pic.twitter.com/Yemc8GOdU7

— Will Metcalfe (@thewillmetcalfe) June 13, 2020

No Mention of Identity Politics

Too afraid to talk about the "benefits of diversity"?

A video of the celebrants of a mass in Co Armagh performing an Irish dance has gone viral. Like churches across Ireland, St Peter's in Lurgan has been streaming masses online. Last Saturday, those tuning in got quite a surprise. | Read more: https://t.co/pBgjAU7GVQ pic.twitter.com/W1c5pT9zhW

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) May 26, 2020

Milbank Said Something Recently Too

America is a mixture between a third world and a first world entity - it’s a hybrid of the most advanced and the most primitive behaviour - it’s elite live like nobody else in the modern world and it’s poor are treated worse than almost any other nation https://t.co/YSiORacqQb

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) May 31, 2020

Beneficiaries of a long-lived empire and its wealth really shouldn't be making judgments about other empires that haven't done as well, especially when that empire has a larger population that is also more ethnically diverse.

There Is No Other Kind

Let's pretend that there are acceptable forms of feminism so that we don't alienate women.

The remorseless logic of liberal feminism https://t.co/yaGiDIBBpk

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) May 24, 2020

There Is No Human Solution to Sin

Reductive nationalism can only be tamed by linking it to a universal that does not attack the natural human solidarity of place & people. If liberalism is allowed to be the only universal then it will win - paradoxically nationalism needs a non-ethnic internationalism of the good

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) May 16, 2020

Nationalism is not the primary problem; the primary problem is still the state. But even if the state were to fragment into republics organized on a human scale, there would always be the tendency for some to attempt to consolidate and centralize again because of disordered self-love and pride, whether it be in the name of ethnic unity or defense from outsiders or the "common good." At best we can achieve an international order based on mutual respect, or at least the desire not to get entangled with the affairs of others, and that is only if everyone is converted to Christ. Until then, there will be strife and no non-ethnic internationalism is going to prevent that without accumulating power to the few.

A Defense of Orban

A great comparison of Hungary's emergency law to other EU countries. Bottom line: don't believe the hype.https://t.co/Yyt4mCxHa5

— Melissa O'Sullivan (@MelissaOSulliv4) April 21, 2020

Phillip Blond is still around, and so is ResPublica UK. ResPublica US didn't get off the ground. What has Blond done lately?

Hungary is arguably among the most successful European states in tackling poverty and inequality - which is not something one often hears - and part of that success is their family support system https://t.co/TiQJoTrdS3

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) April 21, 2020

Men and Women are Essentially Different | Phillip Blond

Phillip Blond Is Still Around

"I Fear For Europe's Future"

Videos from a ResPublica UK Event

More videos...

P. Blond on the NHS

Despite some initial enthusiasm for a BBC show that had ratings as high as Downton Abbey,
after scanning through an episode or two of Call the Midwife, but quickly lost interest because I thought it was just feel-good propaganda promoting the NHS. The last hurrah by a system that is bound for failure?

Big Society in a Big Country?

Cantirino on the Blond/Cameron Split

Blond v. Cameron; Or: How Do You Turn Localism Into a Governing Agenda? by Matthew Cantirino

But I also wonder what, if anything, this says about the ability of this kind of deep traditionalism to impact politics at the national level (and vice versa). “Red Toryism” and the “Big Society,” broke new (or, more accurately, long-untilled) ground when they first emerged. They offered a genuinely interesting way of articulating conservative principles that looked set to finally push the conversation past the now-several decades old tropes of regulation v. the invisible hand and individualism v. collectivism. More than that, the reclamation of communal language and localist emphases allowed a party not often identified with compassion the public mind to speak authentically and convincingly about its concern for the poor without sounding like it had simply flip-flopped or paid for an image-improvement campaign. While some dismissed the rise of the Red Tories as little more than convenient rhetorical facade to cover for planned austerity, or as wholly insincere, in truth they represented an authentic attempt to rethink what had become regnant political orthodoxy along the lines of older (and still ostensibly functioning) principles–a kind of radical traditionalism, if such a term can make sense.

Managerialism...

The Sixties Regime in Power: The Dangerous Shortcomings of the Managerial Class by James Kalb

P. Blond, David Cameron has lost his chance to redefine the Tories
He has abandoned the vision of one-nation conservatism that so inspired me, and retoxified his party