Conservative is what I used to call myself, and then again later. But conservative isn’t the opposite of liberal. It’s just a descriptor of the kind of liberal who is sentimental and unprincipled.
Between those times “Libertarian” seemed like a good thing. It wasn’t. Potheads, usurers, sodomites, and a boatload of layabouts make terrible company, and worse government. For awhile now I’ve politically been ____________. “Something the opposite of Liberal.”
I’m not the only one. Do you ever wonder why many who are against Post-Modernism, Feminism, Cultural Marxism, Progressivism, Perversion, etc. call themselves and others who defiantly speak the truth: Conservatives, Traditionalists, Reactionaries, Revolutionaries, Barbarians, Deplorables, and even Shitlords?
Ever wonder why, at just the moment they should coalesce into a group, they instead disperse into atomized bits of powerless snark?
Because they hate the opposite of Liberal, the word itself. That word is authoritarian. Nasty thing! We hates it, my precccccioussss!
Well, Cane: Get over it, cupcake.
Things that We have Heard and Known 
“IT BURNS! IT BURNS US! It freezes! Nasty Elves twisted it. TAKE IT OFF US!” ~ Smeagol
With freedom, as with everything, there are degrees. In engineering, a degree of freedom represents a constraint that could be applied to a system. The application of a constraint restricts the absolute freedom of a member to move but focuses its movement toward the purpose of the member. Excessive freedom for any member means the destruction of the machine.
My children who chafe under my restrictions are reminded that they are more free now that they are able to drive and not yet married than they ever will be again. Any more freedom (e.g., own place, own car) means less freedom (rent, insurance, groceries, lights, etc.).
‘Because they hate the opposite of Liberal, the word itself. That word is authoritarian.’
You need to qualify ‘authoritarian’ or replace it altogether. China is authoritarian, but it’s also evil. Pol Pot was an authoritarian, also evil.
I’m prone to say or type: ‘All politics is progressive liberal and evil without God as the lawgiver. The world needs to run according to Jehovah’s laws and commands, that’s all we need’.
Jehovan Theocracy. We need to focus matters back on God and His laws and statutes, and away from Christ (no offence to the Lord). The fact we are saved will not rescue the world from its malaise, but remnants obeying God’s law will do (see Leviticus 26).
Are you really the opposite of liberal, though? The liberal principle of individual rights, for example, springs from the truth that each person is made in the image of God. Wouldn’t being the opposite of liberal mean rejecting it’s core principles, and therefore, rejecting a key piece of Christian anthropology?
> The liberal principle of individual rights, for example, springs from the truth that each person is made in the image of God.
Liberals don’t have a monopoly on rights.
Rights are tied to responsibilities, and as far as the authoritarian is concerned about correctly assigned responsibilities, rights will be received as well.
Take a master-slave relationship. The master is responsible for the slave, meaning the slave has the right to food/shelter from the master. Likewise, the master has the right to demand certain things of his slave, and the slave is responsible to fill those demands.
Both individuals have rights under this arrangement.
I would understand the labels as this: the liberal wants to loosen the responsibilities/demands, while the anti-liberal wants to tighten responsibilities/demands.
The equilibrium level of rights an individual actually enjoys is not tied to the directions, but the balance of those opposing forces … and our society has an imbalance of liberalism, leading to the massive insanity of rights without responsibilities.
@glosoli
I think I won’t.
@Ryder
I am not, but I am trying.
No, it doesn’t. There could be a principle of individual rights that spring from the truth that each person is made in the image of God…but it wouldn’t be liberal. It would be authoritarian.
In reality, what we have is a liberal principle of individual rights sprung from the notion that we should assume man in his “natural state” as a reasoning animal; the Enlightenment view. (I changed this text from “Locke’s view” as he is just one part of the larger worldview.)
Yes. They don’t make sense. I am not a reasoning animal in a natural state. I am a soul made in God’s image–yet with an animal body–, but I desire to use my freedom to sin. That’s messed up, i.e., not natural in the sense that to desire sin is to not be in God’s image.
What key piece? What part of “You do wrong. Repent, and have faith in Me.” is liberal?
Touché.
I think I’m muddling things up by giving liberalism credit for things it carried over from other philosophies, e.g., respect for the individual, the rule of law, etc.
Can you expand on this? I wasn’t aware of the discussion at Zippy’s linked above, so you may have already done so. But off the cuff, it sounds like begging the question.
@Ryder
I’m away from my laptop, but here’s a short example. I am talking about the difference between authorized to carry a firearm, and the freedom to carry a firearm. The word Authorized carries with it rights and responsibilities both when a firearm is carried, and when it is not. The word Freedom implies only choice.
Zippy has rubbed off on you too, Cane?
Me as well.
@Cane
Okay, I’m up to speed now. Thank you.
In that case, it’s unfortunate that the word authoritarian has already been appropriated by (or applied to) a school of thought, resting on different principles than those I understand you to be espousing. For the purposes of organizing your own thoughts, it doesn’t matter, but for the purposes of uniting the anti-liberal factions, it does.
@ Cane
“The word Freedom implies only choice.”
Only in the modern interpretation of the word. Freedom – more correctly, liberty – is not the ability to do whatever one wants, which is what most people today think it is.
The ability to do whatever one wants is not liberty, it’s hedonism. Hedonism is what “liberals” want. They don’t actually want liberty.
Liberty is the ability to govern oneself. The implication being that one who does not govern himself must be governed by others.
To paraphrase Federalist 55, when men possess insufficient virtue to govern themselves, nothing short of the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.
Also, as John Adams stated:
“Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Our people are becoming increasingly immoral and irreligious, so our Constitution is becoming increasingly inadequate.
I don’t mean to imply that I disagree with your overall point. I just don’t want to surrender words like “freedom” and “liberty” to hedonists. Although, maybe it’s too late for that.
You’re right. Authority flows from God down. The one in authority can govern “a moral and religious people” with a much lighter hand than he would a licentious people, just as I govern my more-obedient children with a lighter hand than my more-rebellious ones. That’s liberty.
It’s taken me five years or so to understand this, so I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind with one blog post.
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The problem isn’t elites or the lack thereof. The problem is that our elites suck.
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