#The State

Government by Other Means

In the libertarian imagination or, as Professor Hanley prefers, the libertarian psyche, the reduction in the power of government (or “government”) means an increase in power for each libertarian or for the individual, which latter, as individuality, is presented as an ideal, but which each individual knows exclusively and therefore universally only through and as him- or herself. The libertarians do not recognize popularly sovereign liberal-democratic government as an extension of themselves, or, put more precisely, of this self. They may exploit or even admire democratic impulses and particular constitutional traditions, but their views are in this sense profoundly anti-democratic and constitutionally anti-constitutional.

Posted in Featured, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Politics Tagged with: , , , ,

America agonistes

The exchange over the weekend between Rex and Fuster has helped me to organize some thoughts about American conservatism.  I hope to have something more hopeful or positive to say at a later time, but, in a way that I

Posted in International Relations, Politics, US History Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,