Notes and asides:
Someone in the FPR camp is going to have to respond to James’s inquiries, brilliantly rendered, in his Saturday post, Deconstructing Lifestyle . The response will do much to lay the argument open for examination. And, Ralph Hancock has weighed in with some rather pithy observations in his post, A Modest Meditation . . . , that also requires a response.
Carl Scott has rather bluntly probed the soft underbelly of the FPR position, though we should keep in mind that all philosophical positions have certain intrinsic weaknesses and not make too much of Carl’s successes while acknowledging that he has drawn blood.
The left wing of the FPR camp, e.g. Fox, Medaille, and Daly, though Daly has been absent from the fight so far, may be FPR’s weakness given the recent legislative activity in Washington where the radical Democrats have passed cap and trade which threatens our entire economic system. It is yet to be determined if PoMoCons intend to tie the socialist element of FPR to the radical Obama/Democrat regime. If they do, look for another round of blood letting, with sharp words, the occasional derisive comment, and high snark!
While the FPRs and the PoMoCons have legitimate criticism to level at each other the reality is that both sides represent respectable elements of the traditional conservative movement. Lawler, Poulos, et al need to detail their position regarding the Bush regime, (the 800lb. Gorilla in the room) both historically and politically, in order to clear the air and establish the ground. What we will fine, I think, is just how close both sides actually are. The unification of both the FPR and PoMoCons represent our best hope at presenting a substantive resistance to the Obama Democrats, considering the utter collapse of the Republican coalition.
Neither side has commented on the possibility that we are coming to the natural (historical) end of the originating system, the constitutional democracy (republic), where its strength was interpreted as “the eschatological tension left over from the Puritan Revolution.” The very great advantage to this “system” was that society was organized on a classical and Christian tradition that understood the tension of human existence, in right order, as a function of Plato’s metaxy, e.g. the movement of consciousness between immanence and transcendence. The need to recapture the moral and ethical high ground has never been so urgent in American history and no groups are more qualified and capable of achieving that goal then the FPRs and PoMoCons.
A successful conclusion to this debate may result in a substantive resistance to the Obama/Democrat regime, which is working tirelessly to render the United States a third world country operating under an authoritarian government.
