Mike Tennant archives

Semantic quibbles #3: Conservatism from Rad Geek @ Rad Geek People's Daily 29 Feb 2008 5:36 pm

[politics] [ Smash the State] [ Language] [ Dialectic] [ conservatives] [ William F. Buckley] [ LewRockwell.com] [ Jacob Heilbrunn] [ Mike Tennant]

Here’s Mike Tennant at LewRockwell.com Blog, quasi-approvingly quoting Jacob Heilbrunn’s summary of Bill Buckley:

Jacob Heilbrunn writes: Buckley wasn’t a radical conservative. He didn’t believe in trying to destroy the Eastern Establishment; instead, he wanted to reform it. Therein lies the entire problem.

Hold up. I’m lost.

In what possible sense of the word conservative is it a genuine conservative’s goal either to smash or to reform the ancien régime?

Maybe this political debate is really about something other than what Tennant, or Heilbrunn, or for that matter Buckley, thinks it is about.

Further reading:

posted 5:36 pm at Rad Geek People's Daily