The central thrust of today's post is to suggest that politically we are either a radical or a reactionary.
For many, that choice is being made for them by the steady, insidious march toward totalitarianism that passes for democratic thought today. The mechanism for state control and imposition of dogma is manifest in the pronouncements of many politicians, in the actions of idealogues and in increasing imposition of "green" theocracy at all levels of society.
It is reflected in the real world of politics in the erosion of free speech and independent thought. In today's Brave New World, even science must conform and reflect a prescribed political consensus. (Note this last post is satire: a style of humour once practiced to great effect by Swift but now, largely, a lost art).
The source of much of this angst is a lack of understanding and appreciation for political philosophy. As Feser points out in his excellent essay, we are all recipients of the legacy of John Locke and his conception of individual rights, government by consent, religious toleration, and scientific rationality. Sadly, our failure to understand and appreciate the true measure of Locke, has left the general public with the impression that those imposing increasing governance "in the name of freedom" are in fact practicing freedom -- when in fact their stasis is slowly, inexorably, eroding the very freedoms and individual liberties that Locke sought to establish as the basis for democracy and contemporary society.
To be a reactionary today is to endorse the very mechanism of state control that the radical alternatives of individual responsibility and liberty were established to supplant.
Its our choice.
