Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
— Frank Wilhoit
I read a book called The Reactionary Mind, by Robin.
It’s thesis was that if you survey Western conservative writings from the French Revolution to today, the only consistent value is hierarchy. God, guns, small government, capitalism, and traditional family values may all be jettisoned, but never hierarchy.
I’ll point out that this week, Trump pitted gun rights vs. enforcement of the out-group and the American Right shuddered.
The same argument, from the opposite side, is made by Bob Altmeyer in “The Authoritarians”: there is a psychological profile defined by a desire to be, and have everyone else be, a cog in the machine - the purpose of which is entirely irrelevant.
Shuddered then fell into line.
The quote is incredibly apt but your average conservative is too dumb to understand it. Maybe if they read it 4 or 5 times, but knowing them they’d give up halfway through the first try.
And the smart ones would agree with it and insist you’d be insane to think otherwise.
They can’t, it’s longer than 14 words, they just resort to “the left can’t meme”.
He is also not the same Frank Wilhoit who wrote the Politics of Massive Resistance though the quote has been often misattributed to him. (Understandable given that one Frank Wilhoit was a political scinetist but the Frank Wilhoit who wrote the quote was a composer, though the quote was written far after the political scientists death and can be clearly attributed to the composer)
I’ve used this so many times. Now I need to employ Wilhoit’s composition as well.
Perhaps both, together.
Sick slam!
