Kyle Rittenhouse Trial

[Dill]

(11-05-2021, 09:45 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I see what you're saying, here, but we also must keep in mind that modern conservatism has moved far from the idea of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism rests on the idea of individual liberty and is more akin to the libertarian values of today. I tend to view this all through the lens of the original and modern dilemmas. The original dilemma being freedom v. societal order, and the modern being freedom v. equality.

Classical liberalism, or libertarianism of today, tends to fall in the freedom category for both. They oppose government intervention to promote either order or equality. Conservatism, though, favors government intervention to promote societal order. This is where my statement that gun control is inherently a conservative ideal comes into play. Gun control is about control, about order. One the other end, though, modern liberalism favors government intervention to promote equality, but not order. We know that gun control policies are not equitable, so the modern liberal take should not be in favor of these measures.

Bels, I’ve been thinking some more about whether gun control is conservative because it is about “about order.”

I think you may be trading on two different senses of “order,” here, one politically neutral, the other not. Same for your deployment of the terms “conservative” and “progressive.”

Social contract theorists from Hobbes to Rousseau have argued that “freedom” for persons in a so-called natural state is pretty limited--“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” as Hobbes put it. So, as the contractarians believed, people readily give up the freedom of that natural state for the security government brings, and the apparently greater freedom and opportunities which come with its social order, as well as the security.

If most of the freedoms we value are conditioned by some form/degree of order, then original dilemma cannot be a rigid binary, though many of our right wing friends operate it that way—i.e., where government order is, freedom is not.  Either/or. "Keep your damn masks!"

Basically, ALL forms of government promote social order, and even the more sophisticated anarchists do not imagine absence of government to be absence of order. So “order,” in itself, as an abstraction, is neither right nor left, and can be as enabling, a foundation of free action, as it can be restricting. In theory and practice, however, it tends to be very specific, as in, say, de Maistre's essay on constitutions--an ORGANIC, hierarchical, and sacred order. Or in the "profane" and wholly material order of the classical liberals and Marx.

If both “conservative” or “progressive” laws promote social order, then one cannot define specific laws as the former simply because they "promote order." Whether they are one, the other, or something else altogether, can only be decided by the kind of order promoted or envisioned. How to characterize conservative, liberal or progressive ends/order in the context of gun laws would be my next move, but before I go there, I’d like to hear what you make of this so far. Have I misunderstood your point? Am I actually addressing your argument, or have I substituted something else for your terms/claims? Don’t want to move forward unless I am clear about that.