Bullet Point Conservatism

by David Frum

Here's more from the young blogger Alex Knepper whom the folks at NewsRealBlog published for months ... but fired as a sex pervert and all-around lying maniac after he offered a post criticizing Ann Coulter. You can see just the kind of dangerous fiend he is too ...

Russell Kirk aptly described ideology as a drug. Meditate on that. Ideology, in the classical conservative worldview, is something that provides a person with a comfortable, affixed set of dogma that serves itself, rather than the interests of the individual and his community. Traditional conservatives, skeptical that anyone can really remake society from on high, want to pierce through these absolute claims, not come up with their own. Those who want to examine their beliefs ought to act as Socrates did, asking questions even about those beliefs that are taken as axiomatic.

Edmund Burke lambasted Thomas Paine’s incredible pretensions that we can “start the world anew.” We can’t make the world anew. We can’t remake society from on high. We can’t fix the troubles of the human condition with a bullet-point agenda.

Knepper makes a favorable reference to an old essay of mine about Russell Kirk. Those interested can read that essay on the New Criterion site, here.