Good post.
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Of course... only one faction was demanding that everyone who did not comply with their views be purged from this site. Based off the post you responded to, I see they are still upset that they couldn't "ZOT" people, but had to argue their candidate based on merit. Strangely enough, though, they have removed themselves to their own fantasy land instead of doing so.
This inability to persuasively argue the merits of their candidate, their desire to silence debate, their hounding of posters with innuendo and personal attacks, their destructive wish to 'blow up the GOP', and their use of propaganda (fortunately noted and publicized for all to see) from outright hate sites is, to me, a betrayal of every single principle of conservatism as espoused since Buckley came on the scene.
In essence, this looks like the 1930's era conservatism of Charles Lindbergh.
I see that a segment of GOP primary voters prefer that over Buckley's version. And frankly, it's a horrifying sight to see.
Good post.
I admire elegance.
Whether that elegance be casual and unintended but inwardly born, whether it's the breathtaking delicate elegance of Gershwin's
più mosso piano solo about two minutes onto his Rhapsody in Blue, or the elegance of thought succinctly delivered with effortless clarity and economy by the likes of Buckley and Friedman.
Fred Astaire.
Duke Ellington.
It was the elegance and logic of conservative thinking that made me a conservative. It's what I believe to be the essence of conservatism; an ideology based on logic, not visceral reactions.
There is no real elegance in politics today, not since Reagan. Talks of a better place, a shining city on a hill are gone. Today's politics, this cycle anyway, are vulgar and mean-spirited, driven by anger, resentment and fear. Not hope, but rather hopelessness.Trump and Hillary are two sides of the same coin. Inelegant stirrers of base emotions, there are no shining cities in their minds. Nothing shines more than they do.
There are no Gershwins or Buckleys or Friedmans or Astaires or Ellingtons left in America.
It's a sad, inelegant nation.
It's my nation, and I cry for her, but it is a sorrowful shadow of its better days, and we own that.
No one individual will ever bring that back.