On Conservatism III

Reading what follows, I think of people that are attempting to change things now. They devalue tradition, natural law, and the vision of those before us. What men or women do we have now that show vision as far and deep as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams. Going back further to Moses (true law, law for living rightly and justly, not proscriptions on behavior and thought created by other men that desire power and violate their own laws), Solomon, David, Paul. Can you imaging listening to these? Now we listen to Oprah and Dr Phil. Now we have politicians writing law that have a lesser understanding of it than I. We are indeed dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. These giants recognized God as the Great and Eternal Mover, the Creator. Now the dwarfs refuse to recognize that, and defy God's creation and natural law, and think of themselves as the eternal movers; that natural law doesn't apply to them, that what has been proven to be true, and what works for society and humankind for thousands of years of human history, is no longer true. "I know that whatever God does, It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him." --Ecclesiastes 3:14.

"Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. Similarly, our morals are prescriptive in great part. Conservatives argue that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. It is perilous to weigh every passing issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality. The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man's petty private rationality." Russell Kirk

When I read the line "...that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste", I'm reminded again of Ecclesiastes, verse 9, " That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun".