Comments on: C’mon Do the Pomocomotion With Me

By: Front Porch Republic » Blog Archive » Pomo’s vs. Fropo’s Revisited

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:23:48 +0000

[...] the ends of nation’s desires has been catastrophic, maybe not for the state, but for faith. And when Caleb Stegall described himself as “an anarcho-capitalist, a localist-agrarian, a [...]

By: Caleb Stegall

Caleb Stegall — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:04:22 +0000

Carl, I am in basic agreement with your point of pragmatic politics. You will likely find this of interest, in which I railed against the same kind of paralysis from seeing through all false choices that you critique.

By: Carl Scott

Carl Scott — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:53:08 +0000

Caleb, I’m the one throwin’ around the word moderate. But since I understand there are different flavors of “moderate,” and that the usual one is tends to be wimpy, Gergen-like, incoherent, and of suspect motives, I half-celebrate your saying that your “views tend to run further to the right and further to the left of anyone’s.”
Half-celebrate, b/c I worry you might teeter a bit towards the side of celebrating your own independent-mindedness at the expense of strong-mindedness. What I mean especially is that in this particular post, your politics seem almost entirely parochial to you, your community, and your admirable spirited defense of the latter (that is so central, do note, to who YOU are). But you deal with folks, some constituents, some politicians, who whatever their fondness for your unique stand, do define themselves as conservatives in a more conventional way, and do have provisional but strong allegiance to the present Republican platform. Ditto for those of your constituents and fellow politicians you work with who are Democrats. So, WHAT THE PARTIES ARE matters to you, HAS to matter to you.
I simply want both parties to develop in ways that are more friendly to FPR concerns, and want FPRers to consider their role in pursuing that hope. THAT is what I mean by FPR being a potential moderater and bridge-builder. Not to pursue this at all in the name of purity is a political act as much as any other. You could convince me that a localist representative has to limit himself so that those concerns do not take up limited mental and emotional attention, but again, people as they are have these national identifications…that is an important part of what your community is. The parties matter, big-time.

And P.S., while I firmly believe Lawler is a thinker of major import, and am not ashamed to count myself a Lawlerian, I do agree with you that at times the heavily theoretical manner of arguing that he and others at Pomocon do, has real limitations in a discussion like this one. I’ve tried to focus on the more practical and readily-understandable side of things.

VMG, you’re so right on Randolph’s portrait! …fascinating guy…as or more interesting/important/lamentable than Calhoun. I too love Guizot, especially his critique of state-of-nature theory, but don’t be too quick to assign him the royalist tag. He has a rightful claim to the liberal title; i.e., in his constitutional monarchism, the accent was always on the adjective, much like the English example. Like some FPRers, he had a way of being too first-principles-focused and insufficiently prudential in his thinking about the political landscape, esp. vis-a-vis democratic populism, and hence, the disaster of 1848. And since you enjoy flirting with Tsarism…I hope you’ve read Solzhenitsyn’s Novemeber 1916–chapter 25 has the greatest set of pro-Tsarism arguments ever, given however not by Solzhenitsyn himself, but by a character of his.

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:23:37 +0000

Josh, FC is yet to be fully appreciated, I think! I just picked up Faulker’s “As I Lay Dying.”

VMG, Yes, JR had his personal problems, being a little light in the loafers may have been one of them, according to Brother Kauffman’s account…”not that there’s anything wrong with that.” But, my, my he understood human nature, the proclivities of the libido dominandi and the inherent dangers of the centralized regime…he was a purest, a true American, when others faltered, he soldiered on! I read Kirk’s biography of JR years ago, it’s excellent.

By: V. Maro Grammaticus

V. Maro Grammaticus — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:43:36 +0000

John Randolph’s portrait looks too much like Macaulay Culkin. It creeps me out.

By: Josh Cooney

Josh Cooney — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:22:12 +0000

“Though not as hard as a good president.” Very funny and very true.

Bob,

You might be interested in knowing that some readers (though I doubt they got beyond the title) of Flannery O’Connor sent her letters offering to fix up Ms. O’Connor with a “good man,” apparently thinking that she was complaining about her lack of relationship success. It must require a great sense of humour to be a writer in America.

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:03:03 +0000

VMG, I haven’t progressed beyond the limited gov’t of the wacked out John Randolph whose plantation was aptly named Bizzare or something, and whose pals were Tertium Quids and who brilliantly remarked that once you give the people power ‘to vote themselves largesse’ well, all was lost….and how prescient that was.
The problem in gov’t reflects the problem of the individual,the old libido dominandi via St. Augustine, the inheritance, the humility…so we should spend out time trying to recapture/restore the lost Nous/Logos…but maybe I’m wrong?

By: V. Maro Grammaticus

V. Maro Grammaticus — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:23:54 +0000

I have great fondness for limited monarchy. Also, when it comes to Russian matters, I am a Tsarist. But, like Aquinas, I believe that in the abstract the best form of government combines democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy in similar measures (which our Republic did for some time but does no longer). There is really a strong monarchist intellectual tradition that ought to be considered in the works of De Maistre, Guizot, Bonald, Jaubert, Johnson, von Gentz, Metternich, and others. These theorists are ignored as coming from a “dark place” in European history, the conservatism of “throne and alter.” But I confess a great amount of respect for them.

Yours, &c,

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:55:19 +0000

VMG, Unlike Arben I do understand your predilection toward, “semi-monarchist”, a good king his hard to beat and as Flannery once said, “…hard to find.” Though not as hard to find as a good president.

By: Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:59:10 +0000

quasi-distributist-pseudo-localist-semi-monarchist-old-fashioned-traditionalist independent with populist tendencies and elitist bearings

I don’t get the “semi-monarchist” bit, V., but the rest I can definitely swing with.

By: V. Maro Grammaticus

V. Maro Grammaticus — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:21:53 +0000

Not that any of you will find this interesting, but I used to define myself as a Christian, conservative, right-wing Republican, straight, white American male. Though, as far as I can tell, I am still Christian, conservative, straight, white, American and male, I have dropped “right-wing Republican” in favor of the more illuminating (and by illuminating I mean precisely the opposite) “quasi-distributist-pseudo-localist-semi-monarchist-old-fashioned-traditionalist independent with populist tendencies and elitist bearings.”

Yours, &c,

By: Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:32:00 +0000

Authentic notes on a porch.

I think that’s where they filmed Texas Chainsaw Massacre, isn’t it? Be careful, Mizze.

I love the splenetic expansiveness of Caleb’s self-description; like Kenneth, I usually have to define myself through caveats and exceptions (a Red Tory, but a populist and democratic one; a social democrat, but a conservative Christian one; a communitarian, but a liberal one; etc.). Far better, rhetorically at least, to be able to forthrightly affirm something you are, rather than conditionally explain what you are not! None of us have managed the pithiness of Henry Adam’s Conservative Christian Anarchist yet, but we keep trying.

By: Patrick Deneen

Patrick Deneen — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:43:56 +0000

Mizze,
That’s kind of creepy. I think all of us locked in battle can agree to that.

By: PomoCon’s In The Basement, Mixing Up The Medicine, Front Porch’s On The Pavement, Thinking About The Government « Around The Sphere

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:40:16 +0000

[...] Caleb Stegall [...]

By: mizze

mizze — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:10:40 +0000

Buda, Texas. Authentic notes on a porch.

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:55:54 +0000

McIntyre,
Add this fine little quote to your Groucholexicon:

It comes from a woman visitor to Palazzo Groucho and it goes something like this :

“When the lights go out in Groucho’s house, it’s every woman for herself”.

Seems Mr. Marx was rumored to be an anarcho-lothario. I too am in the psychotic netherworld of the permanent opposition, finding a certain pleasant harbor amongst the anarcho-capitalist libertarians but dismayed at their refusal to admit the uneconomic wages of the Cult of External Costs and their steadfast support of things Walmart. Not that the formidable and estimable Sam Walton with his chaste metal desk and spartan office set out to do bad and vandalize small towns with a flood of chinese manufactured goods, it simply happened that way. Ignoring the fact don’t make it go away. Financing this six months load of goods with sales of the same goods six months down the line creates a six month time horizon that makes the future about as charming as the Quarterly Shipping Manifest Schedule for the Port of Los Angeles

At some point, we might be able to listen on our portable devices to Bach in an Alvar Aalto informed Morphosis designed modern concert hall , played by Chinese synthesizers while drinking Raw Milk and smoking an even rawer hand rolled Cuban cigar and then the definitions will fail to merit any note at all because the emphasis will be on the real instead of the dreamed. This, of course, could also be pleasant while pruning apple trees. Authenticity would seem to be the operative term. That, and a certain widespread custodial-curatorial spirit where moderation is not a punishment but a proper celebration of the uniquely pleasant.