Massachusetts Republicanism

The four Massachusetts institutions that were "Principal Sources of that Wisdom in Council, and that skill and Bravery in War, which have produced the American Revolution"

1. Towns
2. Churches
3. Schools
4. Militia

John Adams to the Abbé de Mably (1783)https://t.co/p7ImiPpjql pic.twitter.com/4AUfmhOD3z

— Pavlos Papadopoulos (@pleonidasp) June 22, 2021

Myth of American Individualism

My print copy is all marked up and worn out, so I am glad that one of the very best small-c conservative books on the American Founding, Barry Shain's MYTH OF AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM, is finally out in a Kindle edition today: https://t.co/TRh77hyGVV

— Helen Andrews (@herandrews) February 9, 2021

修身齊家治國平天下

If there is to be a contemporary American application of this Confucian saying, it won't be by "conservatives," who have surrendered to feminism, but by red-pilled "deplorable" men who exercise true leadership over themselves and their families and make no apologies for it.

Tools of Statism

Weigel and Murray are both wrapped up in statist civic nationalist myths and hence ignorant of what is truly required for upholding community and culture. A failure in politike 101.

To the contrary. Murray knew that the United States was an idea or “proposition” nation: a polity built, not on the old foundations of blood and soil, but on the foundations of a common commitment to certain truths—truths that he, a good natural law man, believed were inscribed into the world and into us; truths that we could know by the exercise of reason; truths that, known, disclosed our duties as individuals and as citizens. But Murray also knew that a nation “so conceived and so dedicated” would not long endure, if the moral and intellectual foundations that make self-governance for the common good possible were to collapse; if the “truths” on which the American democratic experiment relied for its tensile strength were no longer held.

Father John Courtney Murray, S.J. was one of the first to sound the alarm bells regarding the decoupling of democracy and moral truth, for he believed that reducing democracy to simply a set of functions would be damaging to its very foundation. https://t.co/HeFPDyVtoh

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) November 22, 2020

Law and Liberty


Does he reign over the heterodox associated with the USCCB?

The Solemnity of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI on December 11, 1925 with the encyclical Quas primas. When our nation is beset by civic unrest, racial tension, and a pandemic, we do well to turn to Our Lord, who reigns over every people and nation. pic.twitter.com/WqEB6HdyHS

— U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) November 22, 2020

The Cabildo

Thinking that the “Cabildo,” the ancient form of Spanish town government implanted by Spain in America from the earliest days of the Empire and existing with variations to this day, is the oldest continuously functioning representative institution in the Western Hemisphere.

— Rafael de Arízaga (@RafaeldeArizaga) November 19, 2020

I must confess that I'm deep in Tocqueville and Kirk Fatigue

(mainly because of milquetoast conservatives' over-reliance on them) though this essay does acknowledge Tocqueville's recognition of ethnic (and therefore cultural) solidarity as a necessary foundation for republican (not "democratic") government.

Tocqueville on America’s Colonial Experience & the Seeds of Democracy (essay by Bradley J. Birzer) https://t.co/ZdFwEVruvq

— ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) November 5, 2020

Imaginative Conservative

Emile Doak Reviews They're Not Listening

My review of @RyanGirdusky & @Harlan's important book up today @amconmag.

Nat'l populism is a necessary corrective to the failures of globalist neoliberalism.

But it must be tempered by the best of the classical, conservative, and Christian tradition.https://t.co/G200T5Mr29

— Emile Doak (@EADoak) September 11, 2020

AmConMag

[N]ational populism needs to be tempered by the best of the classical, conservative, and Christian tradition. The national populist revolution represents a necessary and overdue corrective to the decades of globalist neoliberalism that have plagued Western politics. It moves the political paradigm back towards the realm of limits, solidarity, community, and place. But without the tempering forces of virtue, it may over-swing into the more troubling territory of naked tribalism. In other words, the national populists need the social conservatives. 

Girdusky and Hill, two political consultants, conclude They’re Not Listening on a strikingly apolitical note, echoing shades of Rod Dreher’s “apolitical politics” in The Benedict Option: “If national populists really believe that nations are families rather than the neoliberal premise that they’re marketplaces, then they’re going to have to start acting like it,” they write, “They’re going to have to create physical communities centered around local institutions, faith-based organizations and small businesses.” There’s an irony here: Physical communities are necessarily rooted in a specific, local place, and organizations and businesses develop inherent hierarchies—or, one might say, aristocracies. So perhaps herein lies the synthesis: a national populism, lived out with a healthy respect for the local and the aristocratic. 

Get the scale right and aristocracies won't be wrongly centered on "organizations and business" but on the political community itself. Organizations and businesses in thesmselves have no relation to  political rule. (Different ends.) Aristocracies are discovered within the political community themselves and sanctioned by them.

Alas, Tocqueville and not

readings that would have transmitted a proper tradition of understanding the Constitution and American republicanism.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Tocqueville was part of every educated man's mental arsenal. That his ideas reflected that shouldn't surprise.

It's a shame we've gotten away from core readings.

— @KevinGutzman (@KevinGutzman) September 5, 2020

Uh Huh

"It might be appropriate to revise the Haivry/Hazony binary thesis just a bit - starting with Thomas Jefferson." https://t.co/iyNWiw7VwA

— The American Conservative (@amconmag) August 31, 2020

Robert Merry

Tory Anarchism

McCarthy is right about the attractiveness of decentralization but wrong to use the word "anarchy" to describe what is "localism." The state is no "modern republic" and true political community (which is properly scaled) is not "anarchic."

If the only escape from Leviathan is radical decentralization, will conservatives become Tory anarchists? https://t.co/JahdXgVXVC

— Modern Age (@ModAgeJournal) August 31, 2020

Modern Age

Political Liberty Requires Economic Liberty

And republicanism requires agrarianism.

Not having fun is antithetical to the new Christian polity. Not having fun is for libs.
Catholic economics is about enjoying work. https://t.co/sN4J2460Oy

— New Polity (@PostliberalTho1) August 22, 2020

Civic Muscle

Scott Roulier considers how we might grow “civic muscle,” which “describes a citizen-centered democracy, where citizens themselves, viewed as agents of change and not mere voters, assume much of the responsibility for the quality of our public life.”https://t.co/ZulbUY2Vkl pic.twitter.com/bYjj3xQgZq

— Front Porch Republic (@FrontPorchRepub) July 31, 2020

Academic Fantasy Continue During Collapse

Conservatives interested in education reform ought to study the Italian Renaissance, which saw independent schools dedicated to the study of humane letters spring up independent of the calcified institutions of the medieval university, which only feinted at liberal education 1/8

— John Peterson (@thejohnpeterson) June 21, 2020

Reminds me of Hankins' book.

...classical schools. Do not narrow your focus or specialize but study the human things--including Greek and Latin-- and pass them on. When this republic crumbles, which could happen anytime, there will be many centers of power, and many opportunities for the truly educated 5/8

— John Peterson (@thejohnpeterson) June 21, 2020

And then there is the nod to modern egalitarian sensibilities.

But more likely the collapse of American imperium will magnify, not diminish, the opportunity for men and women of true learning to be more fully human in the classical sense, to participate in the life of the city, to rule and be ruled in turn. A mere six centuries separates 7/8

— John Peterson (@thejohnpeterson) June 21, 2020

No Solutions

AmConMag: Why Statecraft Is Still Soulcraft by Andy Smarick
Without personal character development, good self-government becomes impossible.

I wrote a long essay for @amconmag on character, virtue, and public life. https://t.co/kJgXIJGsai @RSI

— Andy Smarick (@smarick) June 6, 2020

State leaders should consider how best to formally integrate character education—especially moral and civic character—into policy issues. Civics is a natural place to begin. A 2016 study found that while most states have some kind of assessment for civics, only 15 make demonstrated proficiency on such tests a condition of high school graduation, and only 17 include civics and social studies in their accountability systems. And of course, the extent to which moral or civic character is reflected in these assessments varies.

1. The state has no interest in real republicanism and political liberty. The virtue it wants can't even be called obedience, since obedience must be rightly ordered to valid laws and legitimate authority and the common good. What it wants is servitude.
2. American public education, in form or content, has very little to do with classical paideia or the proper education of citizens into virtue, which is a responsibility not only of teh family or clan, but of the community as a whole.
3. The author of course doesn't bring up feminism and false egalitarianism and how that distorts our notions of citizenship. There can be no addressing of the problem of the state without addressing its weaponized ideology of feminism.

Understating the Scope of the Problem

Does classical liberalism, that is a liberal political (dis-)order, create conditions that undermine it? A thorough answer would have to address the role of the oligarchs and the elites and other causes that are destructive of culture, community, and identity. The Anti-Federalists were correct in their intuitions, though perhaps they were not cognizant of the severity of the problems of interpretation with regards to that particular document, the Constitution, and the difficulty of preserving a common republican and federalist tradition.

Azerrad's essay is good in so far as it questions liberalism, but he doesn't name names, and the history he provides is too short, focusing only on the Boomers for the decline, and he doesn't seem to recognize this.

Liberalism’s Genetic Predisposition by David Azerrad

“If the founding was so great, then why is America in such a mess? That, crudely stated, is the central question behind the never-ending liberalism wars.” - David Azerrad of The @Heritage Foundation explains. https://t.co/V0RxyzSFUP

— The American Mind (@theammind) May 27, 2020

G&G Up, and Train

Everything we do or allow echos in the future. pic.twitter.com/XREl0vpYUO

— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) May 25, 2020

"Strength grows in the moments when you think you can't go on but you keep going anyway." #MondayMotivation
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A U.S. Army Soldier assigned to 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) ascends a riverbank while conducting mountain warfare training. pic.twitter.com/PmKqKD17lD

— US Spec Ops Europe (@US_SOCEUR) May 18, 2020

What Is Needed for the Development of Republican Virtue

A decent essay on what is actually required for republican virtue -- and in a system that doesn't allow for the full development of all 4 aspects is something that must be worked around. Find your tribe.

Imaginative Conservative: A Jeffersonian Model of Citizenship by Ralph Ketcham

America's Revolutionary Mind

America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson

"Thompson says, mocking critical reviewer Brian Smith, 'Presumably he wants an America that is based on intense religious belief and Christian sacrifice and love.' An America based on intense religious belief and Christian sacrifice and love. How awful!" https://t.co/SJefJUKXqV

— The American Conservative (@amconmag) May 20, 2020

“Thompson ... wishes to restate that, ‘America’s revolutionary mind is virtually synonymous with John Locke’s mind.’ It’s as if Thompson is trying to get today’s younger right-wingers to reject the inheritance of the Founding Fathers ...” https://t.co/tisGotQvwc

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 20, 2020

JMP lecture with video









https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

American Catholics Discussing American Republicanism

Catholic Herald: The US Church and liberalism: a failed friendship? Two writers discuss - James Patterson and Brandon McGinley

If non-Catholic Americans, especially paleocons, were to read this exchange, what would they make of it?

"Step Up to the Firing Line"

or be left behind with the women.

Seriously, all these academics, "conservative" or "integralist" or whatever label they prefer... show us how much you care about republican virtue, political liberty, the common good... all of this talk is meaningless if you don't have skin in the game, when you are living under the protection of your employer, sheltered from unemployment because you have tenure or some other form of financial security thanks to your employer.