Discussing Roger Scruton's "How to be a Conservative"

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We are live now on the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris. We have a discussion today on a book called how to be a conservative by Roger Scruton and This is a book that I read well

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I actually listened to on audiobooks the first time around a few years ago and it was

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I think the second or third Maybe a second book. I had read from Roger Scruton. I also watched his documentary

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I think I was the first introduction. I had was his documentary. I Think it's called why beauty matters and Roger Scruton is a philosopher he knows a lot about political philosophy and writes about it, but I think he's probably more prominently known as a

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I don't even know what the word would be like someone who knows about beauty and And architecture and those kinds of things aesthetic

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I don't know if it aestheticist is the word for it, but that's the branch of philosophy that he's into aesthetics more than anything else

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But he's become He's not around anymore. He died a few years ago, but he's become somewhat of a major figure on the right and He's he has a broad appeal.

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So people who even consider themselves neo -conservative some of them even like Roger Scruton But I think he's more often categorized

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Among more old right paleo conservative types, although he's British So the politics is a little different in Great Britain than it is in the

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United States but he's very smart very honored today in conservative circles and I've heard someone

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I don't remember who described him as a modern Edmund Burke Like if Edmund Burke was around today he would probably sound somewhat like Roger Scruton and of course

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Edmund Burke by is considered by many to be the father of Political and and maybe even cultural conservatism.

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So that's his importance. He was also a Christian. He was an Anglican I thought he was a Catholic but I looked it up before the interview just because I wanted to make sure or the or the discussion and he was a member of the

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Church of England and Actually wrote books about the Church of England and that does come through a little bit in this particular book

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So it's one of many books it has like any book It has some weaknesses, but it has a lot of strengths and for me

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I'll just speak for myself first the strength that I thought that I that was in it and the reason that I wanted to discuss it is because The chapters

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I'll just read for you. The chapters proceed this way. He gives a personal story

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His kind of political journey, but then he starts off with Chapter two starting from home talks about home being the basic political unit and then

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The next chapters are the truth in nationalism the truth in socialism the truth in capitalism the truth in liberalism the truth of multiculturalism the truth in environmentalism the truth in internationalism the truth in conservatism and then he's got three chapters to close the book that prescribe in more detail what he would recommend for society, so What you'll notice in those chapters is he takes a lot of ideologies and social movements and some of them aren't even associated with conservatism or conservative thinking and he says there's actually some truth in this and this helped me see something that I was already coming to understand but that a

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Lot of the isms out there and an ideology would probably a better word a lot of the ideologies out there that are very rigid that Really don't adapt to circumstance that well that boil everything down into basic premises and very basic principles and don't see the whole picture

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We would call those ideologies that each one of those things generally gets something right somewhere along the line they're tapping into a truth, but they dismiss a whole lot of other things and and So I think

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Scruton helped me understand that actually the conservative instinct can look at something even something like environmentalism and see that there's actually

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Even in that there's a truth Really, we would call it conservation probably in the

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United States, but there's a truth Implicit in or a good motive that some people might have in that movement to want to preserve

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Nature to preserve their communities and the pollution that they see happening but the problem is they make it into an ideology and they want to force it upon everyone and they want to make it they want everything to be related to this and they want the government and international governments in the case of Climate change and those issues to make decisions and force them upon everyone else

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So he gets into the problems with modern environmentalism, but to pick that just one example he shows that there's actually something there and so Conservatives today.

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I'll be brief here to say I think most quote -unquote people on the right and conservatism in the modern sense tend to also be ideological whether that's in a libertarian way where they look at free markets and individual choice and and the liberal society as the as really the high point and the thing we should all strive for and it doesn't matter if Local communities are out of step with that.

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We just need to force them to conform or there tends to be a if it's not libertarianism you can have even kind of a

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Soft, I guess the only word I can think of is like socialism It's a soft socialism or slash fascism that exists in certain quarters of the right that has the same problem where?

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It will take perhaps the people or the state and make them inflate them to a

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Level of importance that doesn't really belong to them and so it ends up doing the same thing and Squashing traditions and local communities that have taken time to develop and to develop some true and valuable things and so Christianity obviously plays a part in all of this as it's developed in the

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United States and in England our common laws and The really the social mores by which we operate and of course, the church has also played a very prominent part in society and These other ideologies don't seem to have a place for the church

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And so this is a book that helped me understand in its fullness What conservatives what conservatism or is how it's an instinct and the importance of place.

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So anyway, that's my Little intro to why this is important to me and what I think that maybe you can glean from it and we'll discuss it

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As we go on so to join me. I have my father Scott Harris. He's a pastor in upstate

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New York, and then I have my brother David who is a ESL teacher in Tennessee and they

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This is the third one, I think right we've discussed two other books if I'm not mistaken trying to remember now Oh, I have you on mute.

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I'm sorry. Hold on. I Was wondering why I couldn't hear what'd you say David? We did the ideas have consequences and then we did the

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Christian and civil government. Oh The Pierre Baret, I was forgetting about that one. That's right. All right, so this is the third one so I guess

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I'll just ask you both for your general impressions and then we can talk about maybe specific things that Were eye -opening and Applicable to people in the

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United States today who are Christians. So why don't we go with you first David? Sure So I'm gonna tell a story really quick that kind of highlights

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The impact that a book like this had on me and this is directly related to ideas of consequences.

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So So I'm a teacher. I still am a full -time teacher doing a lot of extra things on the side, but when

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I started my career full -time teaching when I was 22 I taught history government and economics and I was teaching for a private school in New York and I had a lot of Chinese students that were coming over to do like the foreign exchange program

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Only one way I've actually never seen an American student go to China for that, but it only works in one direction but these

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Chinese students were over here and There was one student I had that was really interested in Economics and government and I was teaching

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You know, I I was on a steady drip of Ben Shapiro at the time. I listened to Ben Shapiro every single day

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I was reading a lot of Thomas Sowell, which you know still love Thomas Sowell, but you know

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I was getting a very very sort of I guess normal conservative kind of I was reading the things that I was hearing on Ben Shapiro and just kind of That's where I was getting a lot of my perspective when

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I was teaching economics and government and this particular Student, he was actually the son of an undersecretary for a provincial governor and one of the larger provinces of China so his dad was kind of a big deal in China and He sort of came to a place where he had made a profession of faith in Christ and He was we had a lot of conversations.

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We got to go on a trip to Washington DC Together and at the time I was teaching him economics

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So he was in my economics class and so we were kind of talking about communism and capitalism and at the time

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I had been using a lot of libertarian sources for my teaching because Libertarian libertarians produce really high quality like John Stossel, you know, they the the libertarian

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YouTube channels and stuff they produce a lot of high quality content that are really easy to use in the classroom

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So that's kind of what my students were getting influence with and the student told me he said, you know

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Mr. Harris, I Think that capitalism works better in China Because the government can just make it happen better and I kind of looked at him like confused and I was like, no

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No, no that's not what I That's not where I wanted you to go with this like I wanted you to believe in personal responsibility and free market system

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And you know kind of go through the you know and constitutionality and all these things and that was the first time where I realized

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That our two different cultures meant that we were going to come to different Places and assessing these economic theories and so when

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I read ideas have consequences that was kind of the first It was around the same time and that was like, oh, all right

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So clearly economics is not all there is like everything does not just boil down to economics like culture is important, too

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So this book and I know we're gonna get into the specifics, but this book when I read it, I was like, oh

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This is the big this is what I was missing. This was the missing piece. This is why culture matters

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This is why people matter and why politics is about people not about systems merely so I know how systems serve people not just people serving the system, so yeah, yeah one person said what's good for the market isn't always good for the people and Yeah, so So dad, what is was your overall impression?

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Well, I read it last year and then I've read it again in the last week and I I took quite a few notes here so Well, you may not

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Don't expect we'll get through all of it The first read through I was confused. I Agree with you that I like the how it is approached to say here's a truth and then demonstrating how it was taken

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Beyond that or twisted or perverted by Some other group into something that it's not and he does that with every chapter that part.

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I really like I Did notice right at the beginning. Okay, he's Anglican His father was in the

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Liberal Party until he ended up having to defend some things as local hometown labor.

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Yeah Alright. Yeah Labor Party. I'm sorry and He was born in 1944 So he ends up being influenced by liberals in college, but there was that home aspect that got him to move towards conservatism

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And even more so I I got more is that right at the beginning? He says he is going to be focused throughout the book on the empirical manifestation of conservatism

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And he's not going to deal with the metaphysical aspects though. He mentions a lot of that actually throughout the book

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And definitely is an Anglican that doesn't necessarily believe scripture So, I don't know if that's high

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Anglican or exactly where he is But I found his comments usually ended up going against what we would conservative

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Christians in America are Especially more in the fundamental

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Direction Evangelical would understand Christianity to be and I found it kind of undercut him in quite a few places in his argument because he ends up with a different foundation even

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You know We'll get to the end of the book that he ends up with a conclusion that I find as it actually isn't very conservative

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So I will probably have some critique throughout of it But it's my critique is going to keep going back to there's a better foundation than what

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I think he was trying to lay And so it definitely shows the influence he had from His education philosophy and other things

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Interesting he had mentioned that he had gone and studied for bar and that's what actually gave him a real good understanding and a love

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For English common law, which he talks about throughout the book too, and it's important So there's a lot

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I think you can't pick up from them But like any book I think you need to be a little careful in discerning see where the strengths and weaknesses are

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But I would overall agree with your your initial assessment Yeah, I didn't pick up where he had said he didn't believe in Scripture.

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He uses a lot of biblical imagery and stuff. Yeah and Yeah, and I mean

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I caught were in the preface. He said he talks about Or is it the preface or maybe it's the first chapter

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I think where he he says he kind of alludes to maybe Christianity is not necessary For he says actually it no way depends how it's on page 17 having said that I Acknowledge that the conservative philosophy that I summarize in what follows in no way depends on the

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Christian faith The relation between them is subtler and more personal than that implies But the thing like if you read what he says before that though He he's arguing that his conservative philosophy is rooted in Christian teaching

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So yeah, whether it's Christianity or not, he and he admits this at multiple points later in the book and and it seems to me to that He's contrasting with Islam because if the context at the time is you have a lot of these

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Muslim immigrants coming in and so he's got to deal with this somehow and Contrast what makes us different than the

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Sharia law? and and so It's worth giving him a little bit of grace just because he died in 2018.

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So he didn't get to see the 2014 book was written. Yeah So yeah,

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I wonder if it would have been a little different had he written it now But he certainly there was a point later in the book to it towards the end where he laments how

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Christianity leaving the scene is going to create all these problems and disrupt our communities and So clearly he thinks

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Christianity is necessary in some way even though he says That it doesn't depend on the

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Christian faith. I Wondered whether he worded that poorly and maybe he meant that it's it's more than It so it's not just the

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Christian faith as like in this way you would think of Islamic Sharia law where it's just a top -down

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Everyone's forced into conformity where where this is more broad prudential judgments that are made on a local level and the law is then

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Distilled and applied through culture right that he a Christian Right the end the book in his conclusions

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He'll make a case that his understanding of Christianity is that it actually will submit itself to secular law to the state and View that as higher.

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So his understanding there is definitely skewed by the Anglicanism And I agree with you

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He's definitely reacting to Islam that keeps popping up of what he sees when he talks about religious

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It is a it's Islam and the Sharia law that he has seen that that's negative He definitely was affected he went to Czechoslovakia in 1979 and That affected his understanding of communism because he saw it firsthand and the oppression so I Again, I'll say there's a lot.

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I think you can glean from this but Be discerning and and careful like any book well, we'll go through it sequentially then and Start with maybe chapter 2 since his personal story while somewhat interesting isn't really his argument

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The first chapter. Well, I guess I'll ask this first What was your favorite chapter and where did you think he made the best case?

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And then where did you think he made the worst case? Like what was was your least favorite chapter? Chapter 2 is my favorite.

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So my favorite chapter at least the one that kind of hit me the hardest Was the environmentalism one?

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chapters chapter Actually Possibly my least favorite Yeah, I have the most highlighted there.

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I have the most circled I think because I was thinking a lot about that when I was reading

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Actually multiculturalism was my least favorite. So Environmentalism though, what was not my was it wasn't up there in my mind

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But yeah, my least favorite was the one where he was talking about when he was doing kind of comparative Islam and Christianity I thought it was kind of confusing but Yeah Environmentalism, you know, it only speaks to people in Michigan in our country really probably we don't have the the

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Islam that is so prevalent now where I think it was Last month

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Westminster Abbey actually flew an Islamic flag in celebration of Ramadan Yeah, so I was in London.

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I've been to London once and I I Was only there for eight hours I took a train into Paddington station, which is right in the center of London and I got out and I walked

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I just picked a direction. I like I like to travel without plans So I just walked in one direction and I within about 15 minutes

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I felt like I was somewhere in the Middle East. It was just a chilly version of the Middle East. Everybody was wearing you know

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Islamic garb and It was really really weird. So I walked the other direction Until I got to roughly

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Buckingham Palace around that area and it was very different but and that was over 10 years ago So it's only it's it's increased tons since that tons since he died like England is way more

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Muslim now than it was before he passed away Yeah So, all right.

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Well dad, what was your if you have a favorite and a least favorite chat? I'd probably like chapter 2 giving that Kind of blend together the understanding of the importance defending your home.

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He makes that statement early on of Everybody's conservative when it comes to something they know that's what they want they want to preserve what they know and It could be liberal on other things but they've preserved their own home even if they won't let anybody else preserve theirs

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So I think it made a good case. I thought his One on internationalism was probably the weakest

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Yeah Yeah, that was that was another one. It it seemed to get a little weaker as you went like That yeah, this chapter 6 seemed like his last best chapter and then they're all good but yes if they get a little weaker all right, well starting from home then is the second chapter, but it's the first one where he makes his argument and he says on Page 20 the error of reducing political order to the operations of the market parallels the error of revolutionary socialism.

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I thought that was fairly provocative, especially if you were to walk into the blaze or the Daily Wire or Salem Network any of the large conservative talk radio or media companies and you were to say this they would probably look at you funny because You know even listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for years.

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How often do you hear the term? free market and that being the main Dividing line between liberals and conservatives and what he's saying here is actually if you make the market

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If you treat it like a god and make its operations the whole point and purpose of the political order, then you're really not much different than revolutionary socialism, so I don't know if any of you want to expand on that, but I think that's kind of a red pill or a

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Forth for the younger people, but it's it's a eye -opening moment Yeah, I have this highlighted because that that was this was the first place in the book where I was like, oh, okay

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That yeah, that makes direction. It actually makes sense and it kind of fills in that Even going back to when

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I was teaching there was something about teaching economics that felt so incredibly Indifferent Just everything comes down to market forces every assessment of somebody's worth is on their market value and I mean,

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I I still believe in free markets. I think it's a good it's a good system. It's it's it's just natural It's kind of the way that God made us and I do think that it's it's the only system that really uses man's evil in a for good, but I Hadn't really ever heard.

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I guess that's why scrutiny is is kind of special in my mind because he's Like you can read most conservative

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You know any pop conservative book that's coming out today you won't get this like you're not gonna hear this you're gonna hear well

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Here's why the you're just gonna get a series of systemic arguments. Here's why this system is better than that system

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That's about it And this is kind of where he's getting to know it's actually about people and he says that in the same paragraph

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Burke saw society as an association of the dead the living and the unborn So and and that you know, it's like how do you make the argument for why you shouldn't rip down a monument?

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Based on just market forces, you know Because well, this isn't gonna be good for the market in the long run.

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So yeah, I think this is a really strong I think that's why Nikki Haley actually took if you want to Put the genesis of the monument craze ripping them down in her lap, which

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I think you can you can't like 2003 when she took down the flag over the

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Confederate monument in South Carolina Statehouse and that was her reasoning if I remember correctly that was that we want investors and People from the north and people from other parts of the world to invest money in South Carolina And this is a detriment to that that was at least what she said as I remember at the time

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And so she used a market argument and of course you can use you if you apply the free market to social issues like marriage then or Sexuality in general then you come up with what we're facing now, right?

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So there has to be a limitation somewhere or a moral conscience. So I don't want to do all that speaking though What did you well, that's why

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I thought that chapter 2 is probably one of his best chapters because he explains that I like his character homo -economic us

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Yeah, all right, we'll give this guy a name Because from that he's just going to keep going through and through the rest of book

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He's going to keep hitting this is that this idea of free market you do whatever you want, whatever the market bears

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How are you make your decisions of the idea that it is maximizing your own utility regardless?

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The cost the rest is poor and so the statement he makes about it's those in the past Those were dead and those unborn your decisions have to include those but that means there has to be societal traditions that you were following there has to be a

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Something that ties the past Nikki Haley's decision was made because she's not a southerner. She has no idea the history

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She rejects all that stuff because that's not who she is. That isn't something that belongs to her

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So she rejects the history of the South but also then cuts it off from those who are coming in the future the unborn

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So she makes an economic decision of something she thinks good for a state and loses the culture and That too many of the things that people who claim to be conservatives

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They missed that part of it because they're not tied to something stronger and I think he makes a very good case throughout that whole chapter

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One of the things he states he'll deal with this later conservatives about making oikos the home the family

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That is the foundation of society that's a keen insight he'll bring that out later and makes it really stronger he talks about social contracts the paradigms of Obligations that we have which really should be the basis of law and he'll make that case later, too

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Which means I am a member and I have relationships within a group and then that extends to the future generations as well so I really do think this is probably the strongest chapter which

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You keep springing up and a lot of the other stuff. I think he brings up in the book emphasizes Coming back to these basic principles

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He says on page 25 that in contrast to homo economicus

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We must love the best our love and desire and things to which we assign an intrinsic rather than an instrumental value

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So that the pursuit of means can come to rest for us in the place of ends That is what we meant that mean by settlement putting the oikos back in oikonomia and that is what conservatism is about So he's essentially saying

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That economy the word economy comes from oikonomia and the oikos means home and that Conservatives are invested in putting the home at the center of the economy and the economy exists to serve a

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Place and and that's the end It's it's a means to an end that's what the economy is it's not an end in and of itself and that's the mistake

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I think more libertarian ideologies that place the market a supreme make when they they say that The free market can is the solution for everything or they want to apply free market solutions to every problem and there's some problems that do not have free market solutions because people choose evil and people don't value the right things and And so I I think too it's important maybe to create some parallels that I don't think he does

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It wasn't his purpose, but he doesn't do it with what Scripture says about these things

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I When I read Scripture, I think it's assumes this that It doesn't assume an economic system.

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It talks about private property being important, but The commands that are given to different relationships within the home seem to assume the unit the basic unit of a family and the importance of Preserving that and making that successful and so I think this is right in line with what the

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Bible would assume and What traditional cultures have really always assumed until about five seconds ago,

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I suppose But it'd be nice if all the libertarians would read at least this chapter Yeah If you want to skip the whole book and just want one sentence, it's basically libertarianism is really stupid

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No, it's not. No, it's not really stupid. It's just got it. It lost its foundation Libertarianism.

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Yeah Stupid and I was stupid when I was a libertarian The third chapter is called the truth and nationalism and This one the title

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I suppose would be controversial in some circles because nationalism now is viewed as Well, especially

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I'm thinking Christian nationalism in Christian circles is viewed as a dividing thing a Terrible movement by some and then a great thing by others

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But he obviously lived before that became the debate in the American context

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Is this is this where cuz on the first page of this chapter, right?

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He says You know post -war post -world war to a kind of consensus emerging

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Among a new political class. Is that did he coin that term? I Don't know if he coined it.

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I think most people Get it from a book called the return of the strong gods by Reno Because he talks a lot about the post -war consensus, but that book

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Yeah, this book predates that so I Tend to think that this was a just a known thing that there was a new establishment after the war or a new understanding

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That nationalism was a bad thing, but to be honest with you We say post -war consensus and You think

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World War two, but really this goes back to Wilsonian League of Nations stuff that it's been with us for a while I suppose so But yeah,

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I caught that too that you know on Twitter Especially now people talk about the post -war consensus all the time and and scrutiny is accurately describing what they're talking about here

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But I guess that does kind of bring us into what nationalism is to Roger Scruton he's talking about a

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System or a it's not a system. I shouldn't say that but it's really a more of a natural outgrowth of the way that people

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Associate with each other they tend to do so in groups and one of those larger groups is nations and That nations are actually a part of he doesn't say it this way

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Is one of this is what the thing I think is missing from us much of the book if I had to add something The natural order really is because what he's saying

31:16

Exactly that way it's page 32 a couple quotes there One what nationalism he says as an ideology is dangerous in just the way that ideology dangers it

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Occupies a space vacated by religion. So there's that tie back you recognize it, but then going down the same paragraph for ordinary people, that's you and me and Living in free association with their neighbors the nation means simply the historical and the continuing allegiance that unites them in a body politic right

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He says on the next page He kind of defines the nation -state because he says as we now can see that the is the nation -state is the byproduct of human

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Neighborliness shaped by an invisible hand from the countless agreements between people who speak the same language and live side -by -side, which

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I Highlighted that because like you said John I am an ESL teacher.

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So I teach English as a second language and It's chaotic when you take a bunch of people who don't speak the same language and just insert them

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Into a culture in society and just say well, you know, this will work Doesn't work and languages

32:33

I think language is the most important thing probably binding thing if you don't have communication You really don't have anything, right?

32:40

Yeah, he definitely emphasizes language and region in the whole book. He trends to Try to he like Lenny.

32:50

He doesn't use the word lineage I don't think anywhere in the book and when he talks about race, he just says that that's not equivalent to nation which

32:59

Yeah, go ahead. So and yeah, he does do that. That's later in the book in this case. He says, let's see page 34

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He talked about ethnic religious minorities from in this territory they have adjusted to the nation -state so he's even though he's writing from Europe he's writing about the

33:19

US and what has happened here. Well, he says in the beginning of the book in the prologue He says I'm writing this primarily for the

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English -speaking world So this whole he says this whole argument is for English speakers, yeah

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Yeah, a lot of it seems like it's it's geared toward the United States, but I guess it fits England as well

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Same 34 unless that and until people identify themselves with the country its territory and its cultural inheritance

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And something like the way of people identify themselves with the family the politics of compromise will not emerge and that politics of compromise is what he's going to keep arguing is

33:54

What's necessary for conservatives to function Which maybe at the end we can talk about whether that actually is still a viable yeah,

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I have my doubts a little bit but That's that's the mechanism he wants.

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So I was just gonna say on the race thing though that I think this is probably where I I don't know if I'm where he is exactly or not as far as Like I always viewed and I use the word lineage on purpose because I think of it as what he said in chapter 2 that you have a bond with the past and the future and That only comes from some kind of a lineage that has like he uses the

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Constitution We the people he says what people and it's obviously ourselves in our posterity It's the people who are gonna come after us and you can immigrants can come in and be part of that As long as they adopt he says later in the book the sacrifices or the the cost the social cost

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They're not just you know, get given free rides, which is what's happening in the United States So, I mean,

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I like that word and I consider that to be part. I suppose of a culture like you could have

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Two people two groups of people living side by side that share the same genetics by and large But they they might speak different languages or they might be part of different lineages and that like one uncle went one way and you know a lot in Abraham and so the lineage to me is the important part and I was just gonna say that I think

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The debates online right now about they're not really debates, but they're the freakouts that people have over quote -unquote kin ism this is kind of what

35:32

I would want to say to them something that scrutiny is saying where he's saying that It's more complicated than that it's not you can't just take a genetic test to find out if you're like someone but Because because there's language and there's region and there's these other factors a religion really too

35:48

I mean he kind of alludes to it, but doesn't want to say it But but I would put lineage in that category so when he does talk about religion usually his critique is a

36:01

A Sect of religion that everything has about of that sect and that it would be a well that was a problem

36:07

England You know here. Yeah, the Puritans are a negative example to him well, because it's the same time you had those still pushing

36:16

Roman Catholicism like Charles the third and stuff that was driving the Puritans and the

36:22

Presbyterian doubt Right in the 1600. So there's a negative there He sees a negative

36:27

Islam of this but at the same time if you don't have a national identity of religion

36:33

You've already lost something your culture England was able to move forth as it had a national identity as a

36:39

Christian nation America did the same thing in the u .s. As a Christian nation now that that's being lost part of our culture identity is lost

36:48

Who are you as a people? So there's some of that you're talking about lineage, but a lineage can also be from the spiritual standpoint.

36:55

I have Adopted into it in in Christianity, of course, that's being adopted in the body of Christ, but in Nationalism in America, it would be as Emmerich comes in and adopts in But then of a kind not just what's currently here but adopting the history of saying yes,

37:12

George Washington was a great man and I'd like to emulate him and you know I'll name my children after him.

37:18

He'll name him George. Well, he does talk about that the The myths in 38 the importance of man

37:24

He says the myth of sacrifice has given way to the myth of emancipation and the history books rewritten yet again

37:30

But he talks about the importance of these myths and so before Great Britain would especially during colonial times took a lot of Inspiration from these myths these stories of courage.

37:43

I mean and it doesn't mean it's not true. It just means these are Important stories that were supposed to point to something higher and And then he says and it same things happen in the

37:55

United States now it's the myth of emancipation and it's and he says Britain now this history of Britain begins with the

38:00

Emancipation of the slaves and moves the emancipation of the workers and so this is the myth that's keeping them

38:07

Somewhat I suppose stable and joined to each other and he doesn't argue this but I would argue and they probably would agree with Me that that's actually a much weaker

38:17

National myth. Actually, he does argue this. I don't know if it's in a chapter though, but he does argue that Yeah, that that's sort of that's a negative

38:27

These are negative examples and you can't draw the same kind of inspiration that you do from positives Training and your nice steak for a mess of pottage

38:37

Corkage something like that Pottage pottage. Well We let's do another chapter and then

38:46

I'll take questions If you are in the comments, feel free to leave a comment put a question mark on it if it's a question so I can

38:56

See that it's a question and then we also have some people in the video chat. We'll get to you after the next chapter

39:02

Well before we leave this chapter, I'm gonna critique him again page 35 He made a statement when

39:07

God makes the laws the laws become as mysterious as God is. Oh That's not a true statement.

39:15

I think he's really acting there to Islam And I there is he's

39:21

Anglican but he's also secular Well, I think in the concessions for changing of the moral values within that nation whereas If there's a stable religion it it gives you a foundation that is

39:38

Stable there is a moral aspect of our culture that doesn't change And you boys have certainly seen that change so rapidly in your own lifetime.

39:48

I Think what he's talking about is His example is Islam because he's a

39:54

Sharia in the preceding section, but I think he's talking about Laws from God that are that don't have an explanation other than God says do this and that he's saying the basis for The the common law were situations that arose between people and then they would discover the truth and Apply it so it was it was from like the whole book.

40:20

He keeps talking about Conservatism is from the ground up instead of from the top down so I I don't think he's saying because he can't be saying and again, maybe this is his own sloppiness or You know, maybe maybe he's just wrong but it but I I have a doubt that he's saying that there isn't some kind of a

40:42

Transcendent law that we must order ourselves by because that's in the first section of the book and the last section he begins and ends

40:48

With loving your neighbor So that's one of the areas where it's he's confusing because he makes statements on both sides of it

40:54

And this is one of those it's it was sloppy in this This standpoint even if he meant the other

41:02

There there's a foundation that from the ground up it means that that culture being affected by a religion becomes part of the culture these are the

41:10

The moral values that we have because it arose out of that not from uncertain statements God has said but actually certain statements that he said a very clear one a

41:19

British common law had a foundation in Old Testament law That's what they understand.

41:26

These things are true and therefore a common law gets developed out of all that it wasn't a

41:33

Mystical we took it from the trees around this and rocks of our country it came from a source

41:38

Well, I think what's often missing in The Sharia though and what he's thinking is that there's a lack of prudence there

41:46

That prudential element. It doesn't really matter if it's good or bad for your society It's just what God says to you implement it.

41:52

Whereas in Christianity, there's a lot more latitude for a for example,

41:58

I think of We've developed something in British cultures where we don't approve of polygamy and That's actually not if you think about like just applying what the

42:09

Old Testament law says then we would actually have certain allowances for it Yeah, good except New Testament goes on that the qualification of an elder is one woman when the church

42:19

Within the church, so the church affects the Christianity. So it's not just from Old Testament.

42:24

It's taking from all of it Sharia law Allah is an arbitrary God. He changes his mind constantly

42:30

And so yeah, that would be a true statement if that's exactly what he's meaning is just out of Sharia that seems me to context but this seems to keep coming up throughout it that You know

42:44

Democracy doesn't need boundaries and it can't just be laws of land. Those laws have to come from some source that has something more

42:53

Stable than just well, that's what we believe now, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah,

42:59

I would agree that he's it's It applies to or it's understandable to maybe a more academic class who?

43:10

Who maybe can get lost in some of the nuances and there that's why having this discussion is important to find some of the applications

43:19

I think it was Charles Heywood when he was on the podcast said That he calls it scrutinism, but he said scrutin is is

43:27

Scrutinism is when you sit in an Anglican Chapel and you just muse about how beautiful it is

43:33

Meanwhile, you know, there's there's Muslims that have Immigrated there's no one attending the chapel and the

43:41

Muslim Muslims are coming in and ruining things and they're gonna convert it to a mosque And stuff but you're just sitting there musing on how great what your ancestors built was

43:50

And so so so I think that's that's a good critique in a way to think about yeah,

43:55

Roger screw he finds all these valuable things, but they're just being lost and you can't just Perhaps maybe we'll get to this at the end

44:04

We should but perhaps maybe a bottom -up Organic approach to it as much as I would want to do that in gradual steps, which is what he wants to do

44:12

Very careful Maybe that's not the way Maybe that's not possible at this like things are too far gone for that It might have been it might have been a while ago, but it might have been it might have even been when he was living but So the truth is in socialism

44:28

That's enough to give conservatives in the United States hives, you know What truth is there socialism, but he says in page 42 and the third or third paragraph down He said in my view that in my view is the truth in socialism the truth of our mutual

44:43

Dependence and of the need to do what we can do to spread the benefits of social membership to those

44:50

Whose own efforts do not suffice to obtain them Then he goes on he critiques the welfare state for the most of the rest of the chapter but he recognizes though that there is a community that we're born into with obligations and claims on us and That really flies in the face of this autonomous individual view that We can do whatever we want and there should be nothing that limits us like like Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, for example, like Society has no claim on him when he's at Walden Pond supposedly

45:25

So he says that's not true that we are born into Responsibilities and even to care for those who are

45:35

Handicapped and That kind of thing so he rejects socialism

45:40

But he acknowledges that there is something that's even socialists are recognizing there. They're making it into an ideology but there is this kind of truth of some kind they're tapping into well we could didn't we kind of feel like that's something that we kind of realized over the course of the kovat saga because You know,

45:57

I remember being in college with all the Occupy Wall Street kids you know, they're like going out to occupy and then they come back into the college and You know and they're saying things like these these corporations are all about money and you can't trust big, you know

46:10

Big farm and all these companies. I'm like, please thinking hippies man the smelly hippie dippy protesters and then like Fast forward a couple of years and I'm standing next to them like outside the hospital like because the wife's to go out to get

46:24

Fired for not getting vaccinated and like they're and I'm like and and they're but they're not even there

46:30

They're they're over there walking into the hospital, you know completely blind to most of it. So I'm like, how did we bring them out?

46:36

You know wearing masks. So It's just it's interesting that Like that was like sort of my wake up like reading.

46:44

This was going through like how did I get to this place? Where you know, I used to used to argue with my wife about like well listen, you know, big farm is not really a thing it's about profit motive and it makes sense to you know, it only makes sense that you would be producing drugs that help people because You know because it's it's not good business to peddle things that hurt people

47:05

You know turns out it is sometimes If you assume people are are like taking responsibility for their health and they're smart enough to figure out what's good and bad for them, but if they're not then

47:19

And you can apply the same thing you could even buy the same thing to like Wall Street because you remember I don't remember if it was last year the year before when they that whole

47:26

GameStop thing went on when basically That company inserted themselves into the mix and said like what look guys

47:33

Come on, you can't all just buy shares for this one corporation And and then I thought back to all those those

47:38

Wall Street protesters again, just be like, you know They're just out to get money. I'm kind of like yeah, I guess so I guess you guys were right, you know

47:46

Yeah, so It makes a good case, but it's it's cases actually arising out of what scripture teaches so there's were culturally coming in England from Anglicanism and Understanding we have a moral responsibility to those around us and every society

48:02

It's going to have an understanding of that to some degree Yes but it's gonna vary a lot depending on what it's founded on as we move away from any of that you're finding in What happens with socialism is a demand for those things or as he puts it to?

48:19

two problems is that You create a new class of dependents as Each new group it gets added to well you deserve this that's going to go into a later chapter where it's a demand instead of something you do voluntarily and So a free market is

48:38

I freely give because I have a cultural Obligation and a personal responsibility to help those in need

48:46

But when it becomes socialist It's a demand that it takes it out of my pocket to give it to somebody that I don't know and I don't know they

48:54

Have a real need so I have all these dependents and then the welfare system ends up with what ends up in an open budget

49:01

So he points those out as the political defects of it instead of it being a an obligation

49:10

I have because of Gratitude for what I've received that comes right out of Ephesians Anyways, I worked they might have the ability to help those in need

49:22

Let me play the devil's advocate a little bit because I don't know if he mentions The problem that the government's taking from you.

49:30

Maybe he does but he the two that I noted was the first is

49:37

The doctrine that the welfare state manages the social product as a common asset

49:43

So redistributing wealth so as to ensure that all have the share to which they are entitled so So it assumes that it like instead of you earning money and it belongs to you

49:57

The assumption is that actually whatever money you earn belongs to the state. So he says that's the first problem

50:02

That's socialism. And then the second problem is that Let's see, oh, yeah, actually he mentions three the real perversion on page 46 is a peculiar fallacy that sees life in society as One in which every success is someone else's failure.

50:19

Mm -hmm so that there's a zero -sum game He says that's a wrong assumption and then earlier on page 44.

50:25

This is the third one I suppose he talks about how at the top of the page the wars of the 20th century brought home the

50:31

Fundamental truth that people will fight for their country and unite in its defense but will seldom fight for their class even when the intellectuals are egging them on so that so he's saying it's not really part of The natural order that God hasn't

50:43

Designed this place for us to find allegiance in our class We find it more in our countries and our families.

50:51

That's just the ordering that we live in So I guess the devil's advocate is if you're in an emergency situation like Florida has a hurricane

50:59

Mm -hmm near the governor and there there's real hurting people right there in the moment they have budgets for that at least they should if they're not relying on FEMA too much the state governments and the local governments have a budget to help

51:16

Handle that and to provide food and water and maybe temporary shelter I don't really see a problem with that and maybe some more libertarian types would say that is socialism like Right, but I don't

51:29

I don't see that. It's buying into any of these assumptions that Roger Scruton is saying No, it'd be a proper function of government to provide such needs.

51:39

I think you'd find that in scripture as well as Emergency services just like you'd have military or there are an ambulance firemen

51:50

You're contrasting you're contrasting that with The current state of government which is basically a welfare state for people who don't live here

51:58

So well, if you're not from here if you're 35 years old and want to come live in Manhattan Yeah, you know we'll give you 6 ,000 on like that's that's the system that we're actually in Yeah, well he pointed us point something out

52:14

I'd like to on page 45 that I thought was a very insightful thing is What is the poverty line?

52:22

So a socialist illusion keeps putting it as a percentage of income rather than an absolute of do you have food shelter?

52:29

What do you need to actually live exist? And so the poverty line will never disappear No matter how much

52:38

Increase, you know if we compare the person supposedly in poverty now to what your grandfather grew up in They're all fabulously wealthy or in deep credit card debt

52:52

They might be more than him, but the effects aren't taking their course. They're not there the government provides

52:59

Whatever you need you get section 8 housing you get temporary shelter they'll give you money for your health care now and anything else and You know because it just becomes a percentage.

53:12

Well, what's the median income with percentage median income? I just thought it was a very insightful thing for him to point out of this is an illusion of socialism

53:20

That we have people in poverty no matter how well you do economically as a nation that there's people in poverty and yet They're fat and I mean fat

53:31

Well, this might this might be a good segue into the chapter on capitalism, but he says in the beginning of that chapter

53:36

Okay, I wanted to go to some questions. Maybe before we get to that because people have been waiting We'll go to Matt first and then

53:43

David so get ready David Matt how you doing? Good doing doing pretty well

53:50

Yeah, good to see you. Um, yeah the the thing that I Wrestled with you know throughout a lot of my life because I used to be very very libertarian in my in my economics is what

54:03

I've come to realize is that there's a lot of side effects of like unrestrained

54:11

Global free trade and economic freedom and I saw I saw it actually happened in my home state when when

54:17

You know the technology happened so that the manufacturing base of Michigan you know went to went to other countries and it really destroyed a lot of the communities there and used to be a just a

54:29

You could always get a good wage. You could always get a good It was just a very family -friendly area.

54:34

But now that that left the jobs left and the community kind of declined and Yeah, I also see it in in other places and it just seems like Like like you were talking about Scott that that if you if you if you don't have scriptural backing to a lot of these these ideas

54:55

And I think that's the that's the difference between you know people like the daily wires that this is the ultimate goal or When I was listening to Rush Limbaugh that the ultimate goal is to have the rising tide lift all boats

55:06

There's more to life and there's more to society than those things and it's like You lose a lot when when freedom becomes unrestrained

55:17

That's that's the one thing that I that I see It's almost like you you have it I don't know who said this but you have a train if you have a train the train wants to be free but there's it has to stay on the tracks and if and if it doesn't stay on the tracks, then it derails the entire train and I kind of see that's that's what's going on with our country now is is we've we've made the decision collectively

55:41

That we have to have prosperity for everybody no matter what their circumstances and and economics

55:48

It and is the is the goal we have to do this but that's a very secular mindset and it's eroding a lot of the

55:54

The communities and the traditions that that everybody's enjoyed up until this point and we wonder what happened to it

56:02

I think I think abandoning God is a lot of it and the moral foundations to these societies so you could have

56:09

Free markets, but you still had the train was still in its tracks Yeah, and you're in Georgia now, but you were in Michigan, right?

56:19

Correct? And I know someone in Alabama who Told me that in their town.

56:26

They're in Where's the big University there Auburn, yeah, they're in Auburn.

56:33

Thanks. So is it was he I think it was in Auburn But they had a guy from it was

56:39

Michigan who came down and he was conservative but it was That conservatism that favors the market and so he wanted to put in all these, you know shopping malls and infrastructure and allow development in places that the community was not comfortable with because And he didn't give me the reasons but I'm assuming it's similar to Roger Scruton's example in the book where he talks about a shopping

57:04

Mall and or not shopping mall Sorry, I think was a trailer park actually and they put it in a community and it brings all the property values down and the

57:12

Community didn't really want it there. But hey, it's like better for the market to have this here. This is this is a good thing and So anyway,

57:21

I all that to say like both both the conservatives in Auburn and the conservatives in wherever from Michigan this guy was from maybe it was from a more

57:32

Metropolitan area, I don't know. They're both voting Republican, but they have different priorities and Yeah, I see that all the time in small towns

57:41

Like you have people that come that they might be concerned about are by their name But their values aren't in keeping with the local values

57:50

So, I don't know they don't they just don't know anything about the look like what the locals value.

57:55

It's just Well, but that's part of Scruton's argument is you have this Quest it both in his discussion the free market discussion either if you've removed it from the culture

58:05

You're going to shift away to something. That's not what that culture is You guys know

58:13

I'm talking about Mike had moved down to North Carolina. I was down there for a wedding and At the reception

58:20

Mike was telling me how much all the North Carolinians should be So happy that all these people from New York and New Jersey and New England moved down there because look at all the economic activity

58:30

That was going on now and new places were going in. I just look at like Mike They don't want those things.

58:36

They'd like you to go home You're you're being a carpetbagger on them. They don't have way that we

58:44

Values those aren't important to them. So you think you're conservative coming down here But what you are giving to them is anything but conservative

58:53

It's not conserving their culture because we've messed up this idea of conservatism tying it into thinking it's just economics and it's not and Scruton I think makes a good case throughout this that Conservatism is not just about economics.

59:08

There's an echo. There's a conservative economic system But the conservatism isn't about economics and services about your culture

59:15

It's about preserving what you've received and passing it down to your children and I'll make a comment and David I'll just say

59:23

I did finally read your article about You know red state reset and people moving and stuff excellent article in a true script.

59:31

So there's there's my plugs for true script But how many people have moved south for economic reasons rather than for cultural ones?

59:41

Yeah, I mean that's I mean I'm doing it that's all across the South because I mean,

59:47

Tennessee I mean Matt Matt, you know because Atlanta is is is a Megapolis now, it's two and a half hours to cross the city

59:55

Yeah, yeah, and the percentage of people, you know, we got Tom Rush. He's from Side of Atlanta, but how many people like Tom Rush are even left in that area, you know, or are just completely just deluded by the amount of People from just every corner of the country now every corner of the world, which you know, there's

01:00:18

I guess there's upsides It's convenient. I mean, it's convenient for me to live somewhat close to Atlanta. You could fly anywhere in the world

01:00:24

Like really really quickly. It's kind of cool. It was kind of cool living close to New York City, I guess in a way, but the even with the red set relocation just there's a

01:00:35

There's a lack sometimes even among red. I think Red voters,

01:00:40

I guess to kind of ask. Well, what was here before I got here? And how what like what what could

01:00:46

I do? What changes could I make even in my own life? to Not try and fit in so much but like try to make it clear that I value what was here and what is here you know, but it's hard when

01:01:00

You're on a steady drip of kind of neocon political theory, you know coming at you, you know from Fox News It doesn't have to be north -south either because in the

01:01:10

Hudson Valley right now, we're experiencing this Thing coming from New York City, and there's a lot of resentment among some especially in my county in the more

01:01:22

I'd say rural areas where people have been priced out of their own homes and now you know

01:01:27

The volunteer fire departments cannot even sustain themselves They don't have volunteers anymore and they have more houses and more there's there's a bigger job

01:01:38

But less people to do it and the people who are coming the weekenders from the city aren't gonna be volunteering for that so there's a huge disruption that's taking place and my

01:01:48

My wife's siblings are caught in the middle of this They're coming of age at a time when there's no way to get a job that will actually

01:01:56

Give them the ability to pay for a down payment on a house in this area there It's and I know it's bad everywhere.

01:02:02

It's much worse though Under the conditions that they're in and so so I suppose, you know, what what's the conservative solution for all this?

01:02:11

I mean I I can tell you what one town is doing. They are requiring this is

01:02:17

Next to her Hansen. I'm trying to what town it is, but they're requiring Rochester I think is the name of it.

01:02:23

Not the other Rochester, but it's a smaller town They're requiring that anyone who buys a home in that area must buy

01:02:32

That they can't subdivide it. It has to be at least five acres So, what does that preserve that preserves the open space?

01:02:42

In my area where I live right now There was a nasty I say nasty, but it was I mean,

01:02:47

I understand why people did it But it was this habit of buying town of buying houses and renting them out as Airbnbs and people from New Jersey and New York City who had the money would do that and then when they wanted a vacation they could just come up here and use it themselves well, they created regulations now that you have to get all kinds of inspections, which

01:03:07

I don't appreciate as much but You also have to live in the house for at least I think it's

01:03:13

Something like 90 days of the year and that way I get it like that way you're actually taking some personal responsibility

01:03:20

In that property and you're not just gonna have parties every weekend that disrupt the neighbors. I That's actually trying to Try to love literal neighbor.

01:03:37

Yeah, but that's that's heresy to libertarians and to I know

01:03:42

I mean That's what that's where I think that's where the train got derailed is is we just grew up as you know

01:03:51

Like rush babies thinking that this is this is gospel and it's not and we're reaping the whirlwind

01:03:58

Matt you're talking to three Harris's. We're fine with heresy Well, I don't want to I don't want to rain on I don't want to rain on Your parade the two of us, but Matt and I we live in the south.

01:04:08

So Just reminder in New York You can you can put all those those restrictions in but if somebody just wants to stay in your

01:04:16

Airbnb perpetually There's nothing you can do about it Yeah Your neighbors

01:04:23

That's why you set the price at a certain point where it precludes certain demographics from renting

01:04:30

But anyway, well, thanks Matt. It's good to see you. Good to see you So another thing he brought up about socialism that because as a chapter goes on he starts dealing with Socialism the facts on like education

01:04:43

David could probably do a lot with that one But how it ends up it it ends up attacking those who are

01:04:53

Doing well It'll penalize that class in order to subsidize the other class

01:04:59

This is this quest for an equity instead of equality. Well, yeah

01:05:07

It's It's a perversion of a Christian principle of us.

01:05:13

We're helping the poor But we don't help the poor except at our own decision to help them not to Have someone steal it out of her wallet to give to somebody else to elevate them over us at this point

01:05:27

The middle class is getting shut out that if you're not poor enough you you can't make ends meet

01:05:32

So if you're poor enough you get your Obama phone or all these other things and subsidize

01:05:38

And if you're rich you can afford if you're middle -class You move from New York to Tennessee or Or Florida or North Carolina, right?

01:05:49

It's a fleeing an economic But if you're not going to join in the culture where you're going to go and that's whether it's

01:05:55

New York City coming up here the Hudson Valley or if it's You know, even when I came out here from California to the

01:06:01

Hudson Valley I had to understand the culture here not to change the culture to change it

01:06:07

But to apply biblical principles as a pastor to help them understand what God wants from them and let them change the culture

01:06:13

Yeah, not to take supposed, California values and shove it in on them And today no one wants to shove,

01:06:20

California values on anyone Alright, so we got David another David. Hey, David can if you turn your mic on it looks like it's on mute

01:06:29

There we go. There you go Yeah, this is very very pertinent to me

01:06:34

I Moved from Altoona, Pennsylvania Central Pennsylvania to Texas in the mid 70s

01:06:43

And we were the first wave of all the Yankees coming down we moved to Texas for economic freedom to get away from the the mills and the mines and the unions that that stifled everything in Central Pennsylvania and I promise you in 1980 you went to a

01:07:00

Michigan Ohio State Penn State game You couldn't find a sports bar that wouldn't have 50 million people in we were and we were all we actually

01:07:08

I lived in the neighborhood in Arlington it was called transplants Because we all moved there and we all had that same cultural values to get away from the stifling things that the

01:07:20

The Northeast was doing to us. So, you know what I'm story and you know What's funny is that the

01:07:26

Mexicans and I say Mexicans because if you call them Hispanics, they'll punch your lights out They they're proud to be

01:07:33

Mexican and they came up and I would you know, they they came with a very family orientated work ethic

01:07:41

Cultural norm that we all had we shared all this but when the Katrina victims moved into Houston That was a different problem when the

01:07:51

Californians moved into Texas different problem So what you had what you see what I'm saying

01:07:56

Texas would be a microcosm of what we're talking about now if you wanted to really write a great book on it yeah,

01:08:04

I wouldn't know where to start doing a book like that, but It's interesting because I was just in Mississippi and and there were some relatives telling me about critique

01:08:13

Katrina and they even have a term I did I'd never heard this but Katrina babies for I Guess all the women who apparently got pregnant

01:08:20

During that time and and they have kids now all around the same age From various fathers and it's created a quite the problem because they didn't go back to New Orleans.

01:08:30

They stayed wherever they were The I don't not deported but transported I guess too

01:08:36

So yeah, so so yeah, you had you had over the years that I lived in Texas from 76 to just recently

01:08:44

You know, I saw all that and that would be a cultural microcosm in of itself, you know in fact, you know when

01:08:50

I first moved to Texas, of course, you know Ron Paul was from Pennsylvania tip.

01:08:57

Oh, I don't know that. Oh, yeah, Ron Paul graduated from Gettysburg Seminary a Lutheran seminary that I was supposed to go to yeah, and he was a

01:09:07

Representative from South Texas and I agreed with the Libertarian Party. I was you know, Rush baby and everything

01:09:12

I I sold school books for 20 years and I saw in the public education system that the indoctrination and everything

01:09:21

I I thought I love to be at the public school conferences with right next to the

01:09:27

Ian Rand Institute and seeing the the the hatred

01:09:32

Well, you know Yeah, we have we used to have those arguments

01:09:38

I mean, obviously I think the main problem is that you know How libertarian do we get and I put in the comments, you know,

01:09:45

David Platt was a big and before him You know when I was in Bible College one of the big books was

01:09:52

His predecessor and I can't think of the name Rich Christians in an age of hunger Ron Sider Ron Sider.

01:09:59

He was David Platt's mentor That's right. And actually we there was a book called productive Christians in an age of guilt manipulators

01:10:06

David Chilton Yeah, yeah, which was the exact opposite and that's when we moved from the

01:10:11

Carter Give me era and we started to move toward a wait a minute. We can't do this we can't sustain this and I like when

01:10:21

I was in I made a Speech the other night in in church. We're talking about this this we we were we we were right our church used the truth project as As a

01:10:34

Wednesday night sermon and we're talking about all these these Things about society and one of the things

01:10:41

I said is one of the things that it's a fundamental principle to me is when you Get on an airplane and it starts to go down.

01:10:47

It says put your air mask on first Before you can help somebody else.

01:10:54

That's right. Yeah now it's a is that a conservative principle then? What do you think?

01:11:01

I think so. Yeah Make sure anyway, you're taking responsibility for the ones close to you including and yourself is the start of that, right?

01:11:08

Yeah, so that's just my two cents and I hope it makes them. Well, thank you David. I appreciate it.

01:11:14

Thank you for the support so Not you David the other David So I support you.

01:11:22

I support you in my own way Yeah, you said 1970s the first wave I was gonna ask

01:11:27

I think the first wave of Yankees was that was 1870 1860

01:11:33

I don't want to ask how old David was but Anyway The first wave was 1861

01:11:42

Well in Texas specifically though that would have been well it took a little longer to get down 70s, yeah

01:11:56

Well, the truth in capitalism is the fifth chapter here and this one

01:12:01

I think everyone can say yay He says that he talks about Austrian economics

01:12:11

Mises and Hayek and That's still pretty popular Although I think there are people abandoning the for reasons we've already discussed kind of the ideological

01:12:26

Spirit that some of those people have but he says on page 54 that the Austrian response

01:12:32

Let's see Basically, there's three crucial areas in which they were right first economic activity depends upon knowledge of other people's wants needs and resources

01:12:41

Second this knowledge is dispersed through society and is not the property of any individual Third in the free exchange of goods and services the price mechanism provides access to this knowledge not as theoretical statement

01:12:53

But as a signal to action prices in a free economy offer a solution to countless similarly Simultaneous equations mapping individual demand against an available supply.

01:13:03

So to boil that down. He's saying that supply and demand That it they just exist you can't really fight them it's like trying to fight the weather it's coming it's there

01:13:13

But he does say that there's a caution on page 57 He does he says that although Hayek may be right in believing that the free market and traditional morality are both forms of spontaneous

01:13:23

Order and both can be justified epistemically It does not follow that the two will not conflict and he gives some examples of that sexual morality is one of them

01:13:34

Right, and he says that the things that are sacred in society do not have a price And so I I thought that was profound and true and and maybe that's the problem that we have in Our culture more than anything else is that too many things have been put on the market

01:13:52

Mm -hmm. And and now I just remember when we traveled the country

01:13:58

Even when you and I did David which was 20 2013 13, I don't remember seeing anything for marijuana until I think we got to California Now when

01:14:08

I travel the country doesn't matter what state I'm in. I could be in Wisconsin. I will see billboards for weed and It's like every people's the opiate of the people's yeah, the devil's lettuce so that's just one example the availability of drugs the

01:14:28

Our vice president just said last week that no one should ever be Prosecuted for using or owning marijuana

01:14:37

So they're not even going to defend the federal laws that are on the books about this and you might think that's small but you know, this accompanies pornography and prostitution and Gambling that's become even in our own state.

01:14:50

I say our own New York. It's become pretty big and now there's Casinos that weren't there before and so, you know

01:15:00

That that seems to be That's my summation of what he says and I would agree with him on that Well, he goes on he furthers that argument

01:15:13

As he's dealing with Capitalism instead of taking ownership and paying the cost that are part of producing your product is kicking the can down the road and Having someone else pay for the actual cost of that and marijuana is a good example of that They legalize marijuana, but they don't stiffen the penalties about what happens when someone's influenced by it and does something and harm somebody else instead the cost is supposed to be borne by that person's insurance because they got harmed or the cost is borne by the family that has to go bury someone because somebody on It was stoned and that causing an accident or it's a family that can't

01:15:58

Function anymore because the stoned person can't work. It's just kicking the cost down the road because people want to have a

01:16:07

Whatever relief they think they're getting from it so there's a free market without a moral component and that again,

01:16:16

I think he could have made a much stronger case about the necessity of a

01:16:22

Foundation for that morality in the culture and that that in England and United States had been

01:16:27

Christianity The reason we're seeing these things happen the way they are is because we're losing that moral component

01:16:34

Christianity is declining very rapidly even with those going to church. They're not hearing the scripture anymore. You're hearing somebody's

01:16:41

Pop whatever it is It has nothing to do with truth anymore. And so the moral component keeps changing even when the church

01:16:48

The acceptance of what were considered and actually are abominations or at least

01:16:57

Immoralities It starts changing what's going on so that the society can can use to decline even even something as simple as replacement of Your population with Free hookup culture people aren't getting married.

01:17:17

They're not having children They'll abort them if it's too early and they want to keep playing around and so the average age for first child is

01:17:32

What 26 27 now? First marriage is eight later. You have unstable homes for the children.

01:17:38

The replacement rate isn't even being met for population All sorts for applications and all that has to do with a lack of interesting you bring up marriage

01:17:47

And I want to say one thing about the marijuana thing because I don't I'd someone might call us out on it I do think there are penalties if you do get into an accident just like if you're on inebriated but the loss of work

01:18:00

And there's incalculable like costs the things that you can't even measure perhaps economically that are tied to these drugs

01:18:07

People aren't they don't have the motivation to go to school and to go to work and to start families and that really impacts your society but I was gonna say about marriage someone recently told me talking about his own daughter sadly that She said, you know people like you ought to be not not to be allowed to get married because of how irresponsible she is with his his grandchildren her children and You know,

01:18:32

I thought at first, you know, that's a really That's a terrible thing to say and maybe that is but if you think about it though We actually already have laws.

01:18:42

We have laws about when you can get married It used to be in some states.

01:18:47

You could get married at 13 years old now It's I think across the board you have to be 18 to get married and parental permission with parental maybe

01:18:58

If you're younger maybe with then but even then that's a that's a circumstance

01:19:03

Where does that come from? That's not from the market. That's from tradition. We have collectively made the decision that It's not wise.

01:19:11

It's a prudential decision for someone without parental authority to make this decision we do the same thing with cars and with boating and drinking and Those are all

01:19:21

Decisions that are not market -driven. Those are decisions that are more wisdom driven and I would say that's a conservative instinct actually to try to put a limitation in to Prevent irresponsibility that will end up costing the rest of the society.

01:19:40

So So a lot of other I don't know what other things out there are like this

01:19:45

But sometimes when someone wants to bring in a regulation, I'm generally and naturally against regulations Because they're there's so many of them and they're so abused and they're wielded by the elite class for their own power

01:19:56

But we already actually have some common -sense Regulations on these things and I think most conservatives like what conservative is going to say or even libertarian a six -year -old should be able to make a decision about whether or not she wants to or he wants to participate in in sexual encounters with adults

01:20:17

Everyone's going to say that's wrong. But why? It's not a that's not a free market thing. That's something else in you.

01:20:23

That's saying. Yeah, but what will they say in 20 years? That's true they might

01:20:28

I mean, yeah if you go back 20 years ago, you wouldn't have had any of these people advocating for homosexual marriage or Transgenderism or the same six -year -old to have a transgender

01:20:39

Surgery or something the first the first state to legal legalize gay marriage was Massachusetts and it was exactly 20 years ago

01:20:45

Yeah by court order And the governor didn't fight it

01:20:52

Governor Mitt Romney, I think right. Yep. Yep Yeah so,

01:20:58

I guess yeah the truth in capitalism Basically, the assumption is free beings are responsible beings.

01:21:04

He also says the right of property is also a duty and So, I don't know if there's anything any you want to add to that one

01:21:12

There's one quote that I thought was maybe the scariest quote in the entire book in one way

01:21:18

At least as it relates to economics, but this is on page 59. He says it's just it's just like an offhanded thing

01:21:24

It's not he wasn't like making a gradual point, but I was it just kind of hit me like oh, that's kind of scary

01:21:31

He was saying So much of the modern economy seems to depend upon intricate financial instruments deployed in ways for which there's little or no precedent so it's kind of like because there's a lot of talk about we were just talking about how the housing market has kind of become horrible all over the country, but Speculators, it's it's very hard.

01:21:52

This is this is the thing even like from teaching economics. I Don't really know what the rules are anymore.

01:21:59

I'm not sure Nothing real the economy doesn't make sense to me the way that things kind of like we're definitely not in a free market system

01:22:08

But we're not in a fully socialist system because we're in this weird international Corporatism we're in a corporatist.

01:22:14

That's what it feels like it feels like international corporatism But There's no precedent for it like there's

01:22:22

The system that we're in right now there's really no way to know where it's gonna go or how it's gonna end up like there's a lot of Speculation there's gonna be a collapse.

01:22:30

There's gonna be a I don't know I mean, I think it could just keep grinding on because they'll just be maybe

01:22:36

I mean I kind of hope not to be honest, but They can't keep grinding on it may go. It's got a lot farther than I think anybody would have thought it would

01:22:44

But you as you keep pumping trillions of dollars in the economy by fiat you're increasing inflation

01:22:52

The markets going to demand the payment right now that payment is an inflation

01:22:58

Well, he says on the page before he says no market economy can function properly without the support of legal and moral sanctions designed to hold individual agents to their bargains and to return the cost of misbehavior to the one who causes it and the situation that we're in now is

01:23:12

That doesn't exist there is not responsibility and the whole the whole economic system is set up basically on interest where you are you are does the whole design is for you to get in a series of extremely high interest loans for the for the rest of your life and then you pass that debt on to your children, and that's how that's basically the

01:23:33

You know, that's what keeps the economy going. It seems so I mean,

01:23:38

I guess all that to say is There's there's no like we're so far away from whatever the traditional

01:23:45

Underpinnings of the economic system were there's there's there's no There's no purpose to it.

01:23:52

It's just it's an engine grinding forward for its own benefit yeah, and they have the lobbying strength and the influence to be able to Give exceptions to themselves and to squash any competition that would rise up and that's part of the problem, too

01:24:10

And so there's not really an easy solution and I don't think he it seems like you'd have to be top -down I don't

01:24:16

I'm not sure. Yeah, what would you know? I like what Josh abattoir is is with with Ridge runner and that kind of thing and and I guess to some extent

01:24:24

Moscow and trying to create these sort of organic I'm not trying to Moscow Not Putin, right?

01:24:32

Yeah. Yeah, I know Moscow, Idaho that's very different than Ridge runner, but Intentional community.

01:24:38

It's just the idea of like forging intentional communities. I guess that's sort of a grassroot solution I mean, that's something that that I'm interested for my family because we have to make these individual decisions

01:24:48

About how we want our families to be able to to live and thrive and prosper But like on a on a macro sense,

01:24:55

I don't know. How do you deal with? With with an economic system like this except from top -down.

01:25:03

I don't know Of what I currently have yeah, well Problem is it is top -down.

01:25:11

Well What are we what chapter okay, we're still in all right,

01:25:17

I guess you can talk about this because it is top -down Well when you decide who's the winner and who's the loser

01:25:26

Because you have a government position. Nothing else can make sense. So he does talk about a corporatism where it is

01:25:32

They don't own they don't own the actual cost. They keep pushing it on to Somebody else somebody else has to bear those costs.

01:25:40

It's just whatever Whatever is going to give us the highest return

01:25:48

That's it. So it they're disconnected from a moral foundation being disconnected moral foundation they're going to whatever is the the quickest profit

01:26:01

We've seen that in corporations as they've gotten larger whatever gives the highest return on their stock

01:26:07

Rather than what keeps the company viable You boys were young but IBM did that and IBM used to be everywhere on Dutchess County There's it's a shell of a corporation of what it used to be

01:26:18

Same thing because they're after a quick profit when the government gets involved with it. Now, it's government deciding

01:26:25

What it is and he's gonna deal with that in another chapter, but yeah, well now instead of us working together as Part of the same cultures trying to see that culture continue on it becomes

01:26:39

We're all in our little factions fighting each other to get our cut from what's above Yeah, that's the stage that we're in now the looting the

01:26:47

Treasury. We're just trying to everyone get what they can That's exactly where we're at now So I think this was a good chapter where he deals with this well, we got to move along quicker and I think it'll be easier to do because these chapters are

01:27:01

I Think most of them are a little shorter and they're not quite as fundamental. The truth in liberalism is chapter 6 and in that chapter he talks about The I'm trying to find the quote that I wrote down talks about the common law quite a bit

01:27:19

I don't know if anyone else had the quote where he talks about what the truth and liberalism is. I can't seem to find it Well, he

01:27:31

Yeah Classical he said here it is. It's on page 70. It is Paragraph down it is at this point.

01:27:39

However that the truth and liberalism slides almost unnoticeably into falsehood Well, maybe this will help us find out what the truth is for the search for Liberty has gone hand -in -hand with a countervailing search for empowerment

01:27:51

The negative freedoms offered by traditional theories of natural rights such as locks do not compensate for the inequalities of power and opportunity in human societies

01:27:58

So he's talking there He contrasts the Declaration of Independence with the UN Declaration of Human Rights and he gives a stamp of approval to the

01:28:06

Declaration of Independence Because he says that the liberalism and I don't have the exact quote, but I remember the argument he said that what happens is people are able to be

01:28:20

Introduced to a society and as long as they Agree to make the sacrifices necessary to become part of the culture then liberalism works and and so you can even be it basically it stretches the

01:28:42

Tent it makes it wider so that Different kinds of people can be included in the same political society so long as they share certain things

01:28:51

But the problem he says, of course is that liberalism ends up leading to or has led to this idea of positive rights and of these victim groups trying to make a claim for themselves over and against the greater good of the community and That's the problem with liberalism so That's what

01:29:16

I that's my summary of the chapter It's a good summary. I don't like this chapter to be honest with you.

01:29:23

Yeah, I wasn't it wasn't well You have to keep in mind. He defines live Liberalism the beginning one way, but then he has to function with what it is now and it's something completely different So, you know in the beginning liberalism was had more to do with you had the freedom to make your decisions

01:29:42

And other people couldn't coerce you I just don't know if he was alive today if he would write this chapter the same way because I look at live

01:29:50

I've been very critical of liberalism and I will be critical in Wisconsin in a few weeks and I think that there's a temptation

01:30:02

So I guess I use the analogy of a tent that it spreads so wide you can include all these different peoples But now we have the tent is so wide.

01:30:09

We think we can include people who really share almost nothing in common with us They're not citizens.

01:30:15

They don't speak our language They don't know anything about our religion our stories or our traditions

01:30:21

Some of them actively hate us and want to destroy them Some of them in Michigan right now.

01:30:27

I think it was Michigan where they were chanting Death to America. Sorry, that's

01:30:33

New York City's colleges. Well, that's All over the country.

01:30:38

Yeah. Yeah Passover. They closed down. I've got which school it was down there

01:30:45

Columbia they closed it down for fear of the anti -semitism of Attacking Jews on campus like like in our country's history

01:30:54

I could see why someone would think that like you think initially well, maybe this works because hey

01:31:00

We're bringing in more Irish people now and I mean there was a lot of barriers the Irish face, too but a lot of people didn't think that was possible because so many of them are

01:31:07

Catholic but you can kind of see that over time they start to What's the word not they they become?

01:31:15

Americans, but they Let's assimilate they assimilate, you know, you can see that with with various groups that were

01:31:23

European More so that maybe it kind of worked. You could have Germans in the

01:31:29

Midwest and they seem to be okay over there but Like, you know,

01:31:35

I you know, I wonder whether or not even some of the prophecies that this would be bad for us should have been taken more seriously but if we if we do this too quick in too large of numbers, we're going to lose our character and now it's like let's just open the floodgates to the most different kind of people imaginable and then give them money and Well, like I saw in Los Angeles the you know billboard where we can get you

01:32:00

Social Security cards people don't think that's happening it's right on a billboard with a Social Security card, so that's that's a little that's like a bleep compared to the many steps that we were taking that maybe could have been justified but I Don't think it's working

01:32:17

So maybe I'm not as optimistic as Roger Scruton is about liberalism being a way to sort of get around the demands of religion because he seems to think that you can have different religions and And he doesn't really specify how wide but but you can have you know in our country it was originally well

01:32:36

You could have different denominations like that's as far as the net goes and Then this whole chapter

01:32:53

He's still there. Can he oh Okay, you just got fuzzy for a minute Okay, the truth of multiculturalism the

01:33:01

Enlightenment proposed a universal human nature governed by a universal moral law from which the state emerges through the consent of the governed

01:33:10

The process was henceforth to be shaped by the free choice of individuals It was all beautiful and logical inspiring

01:33:16

But it made no sense without the cultural inheritance of the nation -state and forms of social life that had taken root in it

01:33:23

So here he seems to be saying that actually there's a problem with multiculturalism but He says the truth of multiculturalism on page 81 is that thanks to civic culture

01:33:39

That has grown in the post -enlightenment West social membership has been freed from religious affiliation from racial ethnic and kinship ties from the rites of passage whereby communities lay claim to the souls of their members by guarding them against the pollution of other customs and other tribes

01:33:53

But he claims also on the same page Second paragraph this pre -political membership has proved permeable to the liberal individualist view of the citizen

01:34:05

So my summary I suppose of this chapter would be that he thinks that And I and I did write

01:34:12

I put a note that this is his weakest chapter that You don't need things that certain things that have traditionally kept societies together

01:34:24

And and he even makes a distinction between race and culture along these lines But you know, you can you can kind of take religion put it over here race put it over here

01:34:34

All these I don't know what else but you could you could take these other these characteristics put them over there and if you just have culture and Then you'll be okay and and you can kind of get along and I I don't know like to be especially religion

01:34:48

I'm just like that's kind of and I you know race is different but like lineage I think like lineage and culture are kind of you at least need a core of that Even if you have other people who come that are different, that's fine

01:35:00

But you need a core and a recognition that hey, we're in America like we're Anglo Protestant that's where our laws and our customs come from and if you lose that then you lose

01:35:09

America, so I Just I don't maybe you don't get it I'm not

01:35:15

I'm not this is I love the book, but this is the one chapter. I was kind of like, yeah Well because I'm not into it you're exactly right he missed

01:35:24

This is what it was confusing why is he saying these things when it's contrary to the things he said before This is his it's page 81.

01:35:32

This is what he says I maintain this is what I maintain is the truth in multicultural and thank to civic culture

01:35:38

That's grown in the post Enlightenment West social membership has been freed from religious affiliation.

01:35:43

That's what I just read. Yeah, right racial ethnic kinship ties How do you do that Okay, even rites of passage community clay claim the souls remember that's gone during This doesn't make any sense at all

01:36:01

This is this is removing us from the pluralist unum to the opposite Well, he keeps saying that neighbor love so important to his conception of conservatism

01:36:13

Which I would agree which begs the question who is my neighbor and he wants to even in the section on internationalism he wants to say that this is like this is our hospitality and our love in extending a welcome to others who might be different as long as they're willing to bear some of the cost and Recognize the important things that they're willing to join us in preserving them.

01:36:40

I don't know how you'd say that to someone from You know Sudan though. I Could see how it could happen someone could you know really tries hard to assimilate

01:36:50

But at the end of the day if you import even with the best of intentions if everyone from Sudan that you import

01:36:57

Let's say I'm just picking that as a random country. It could have been any country could be Canada frankly, but you you import, you know millions of people like that even if they have the best of intentions you're changing your national character and You're just creating subnations within the one.

01:37:16

Yeah, they're going to congregate together. They're not naturally. They're just not going to be able to in great

01:37:23

Involve themselves use now as Balkanization. Yeah, they're gonna Balkan eyes, right?

01:37:29

Yeah, which is already which is our Which is already the case Yeah, it is what we have already and it's been around for a long time.

01:37:38

It's it it's just been accelerated with bite and it's It's on It's a jet going down It's a

01:37:48

Boeing So the truth in environmentalism, I thought was a good chapter Do you want to talk about that David since you like so much?

01:37:56

So this one kind of hit me because But I read this last summer when

01:38:02

I was still fairly new to well I guess I still am to Tennessee and I was trying just really hard to understand

01:38:09

Appalachia and The history and just kind of what makes it what it is because you know growing up We spent a lot of time in Mississippi, but living here.

01:38:18

I kind of quickly realized like this is not This is not the Deep South. This is Appalachia's its own thing and Just trying to educate myself on like the coal mining

01:38:31

Hold the whole coal mining saga in Eastern, Kentucky in West Virginia and And the the logging the mass logging that went on Appalachia's like Topography the topography is actually changed, but the forest has changed incredibly and just by way of example in the

01:38:49

Prior to the 1920s the overwhelming majority of trees in Appalachia. So from Pennsylvania all the way down into Georgia Was dominated by the chestnut tree one guy brought in a

01:39:03

Asian chestnut tree and it had a blight on it and All the chestnuts are gone and the chestnut basically was the character of the

01:39:12

Appalachian forest was this tree it dropped a nut that bears Bears deer

01:39:19

I think coyotes to rabbits like most of the four the the animals that were Living in that ecosystem subsisted on this this nut and then that meant that's what the

01:39:28

Indians hunted that's These trees were huge three trees could completely shade a football field.

01:39:35

That's how big they were and They were they were all over the place the wood was dense it was great for building

01:39:41

So they're all gone now So when you look at that when you go to Smoky Mountain National Park and you look at the woods It doesn't look like it would have only a hundred years ago

01:39:51

So that's just one example of like a change in environmental You know habitat that humans also

01:39:58

Benefited from so like when you're reading about Davy Crockett and he says that he shot a hundred bears in one day Who knows if he actually did that but there were that there were tons of bears running around because they were eating this nut

01:40:09

So that's just one example, but kind of what struck me with this chapter is There was a time

01:40:15

I guess where I would have just thought well, you know, that's I mean, hey, there's coal in the mountains Hey, there's there's wood in the forest.

01:40:22

Like that's what the economy demands That's what the that's what kind of is required for progress

01:40:27

And what I think he lays out really well in this and I think his the best example is he says he describes the

01:40:32

English countryside, right so and he describes it when he was young he's on a train and he's driving and it's just absolutely pristine and he says the reason why

01:40:41

Is because whenever you would whenever you needed milk or a drink you had a glass bottle

01:40:47

But you never cast that glass bottle away because you needed to refill it in order to get whatever it is

01:40:54

You need it again. So you need to milk again. You'd have to save your bottle So with the development of plastics and the mass production of them now the

01:41:01

English countryside is littered with trash, right? Because it just became easy so that was the that might have been the economic the best economic solution that might have been the best like that was the way that the

01:41:14

That that the market was going that was a way that the culture was going but was it actually good for the people who occupied

01:41:20

That land people who had lived there And then this kind of key also kind of it gets into the whole thing with beauty

01:41:25

Which I'm sure I know you've read other works by him about beauty but I guess the long and the short of it is

01:41:33

This this chapter turned me into more of a conservationist than I think I was before So now like I had an appreciation, you know

01:41:40

You know dad raised us to be to love the wilderness and love be outdoors and to love like you know green spaces and stuff, but Now I kind of see this chapter helped me see that that's a conservative value that is not

01:41:55

Though that like conservation does not belong to the left. It belongs to the right again, the

01:42:03

Underpinning of it though. I think he missed a little bit the underpinning of that is a moral character of the individual

01:42:09

I trained you guys that way even to pick up someone else's trash Because we should value the people coming behind us

01:42:16

I don't put throw trash away because I value those who are coming behind me. That's a moral issue

01:42:22

He seemed to want to Blame it on corporations because they're making a better profit and he says they're pushing the cost along I think he missed it.

01:42:30

The cost there is everyone who is purchasing and doing that it's passing the cost along The the glass bottles are great, but And he he gets his little thing about packaging and all that kind of stuff and supermarkets are bad

01:42:49

Supermarkets succeed because of cost of the economy you can buy things cheaper. Why are things packaged?

01:42:55

It's because the consumer wants it packaged. Do you want to go in? Have I ever taken you guys in well

01:43:01

David you have in South Africa butcher shop an actual butcher shop But we don't have them anymore no, we don't have them but didn't you go to some of them

01:43:09

Yeah, yeah, South Africa butcher shops are still you see corner butcher shops are normal Okay, so you go in the butcher shop.

01:43:15

How long does it take you to get the meat? Okay If you want a custom piece of meat you have to ask for it, okay

01:43:24

But he probably it's still like that in the South like I've taken you to Ben's bacon If you want a particular thing you have to ask them you have to wait for it.

01:43:32

Okay, otherwise it's sitting there It's already packaged. Why? Convenience, it's convenient.

01:43:38

So who's to blame the corporation or the customer? Well, I mean you could well you could blame that you could

01:43:45

I don't know he talks about like Now the reason I'm bringing this up is just as it's a critique of what he's saying

01:43:52

It's like he wants to go to the corporation But it has everybody has to take an ownership of these things if I am what does say that there are

01:44:00

Infrastructure things that to be fair. They are going to build a road a public roads mall, but they won't to your butcher shop

01:44:10

Well, I don't think that's fair either I don't know of any place that they build a specific road to the mall

01:44:18

As opposed to the malls built along a road that's there already planned and then you can buy a property or have it there already

01:44:27

Probably what he's talking about is infrastructure where the communities moved out from the center of town and to outskirts

01:44:35

Because you couldn't build a supermarket right in the middle of the town So you'd have small markets so it moved it out

01:44:42

But it was scaled economy that pushed that Walmart's a good example that but before that was Kmart and other ones

01:44:49

That's all they have a lobbying power though that the butcher shop just doesn't have they might get concessions on Sewage or water or something else coming in there?

01:45:00

But you you could compete against it if you could do the same kind of scale economy, but you can't but he got on the

01:45:07

Packaging stuff like that. The packaging is something Now I think

01:45:12

I've taken you guys into stores where you have open bins and you can get whatever you want out these open bins

01:45:20

There's a few places still do like bakery products you could get a you get your own little bag and you fill it with your cookies or Get beans and things like that.

01:45:30

Yeah, Danielle goes to a dispensary where she didn't get flour and all these things in her own jars Yeah, yeah, there's there's very few of those things part is where crunchy the

01:45:40

The wrapping the packaging ends up giving you a security that no one's tampered with it It also comes with a label so, you know exactly what you're getting or at least you're supposed to how much you're getting

01:45:51

So there it's a convenience so I think What David said earlier is it's a good chapter to kind of waken to you is

01:45:59

I should think about this because this is actually A conservative value, but that value means I'm not gonna throw my trash in an appropriate place

01:46:06

I'm not gonna recycle because the government forces me. I'll recycle because I think it's just better for the environment

01:46:12

Here I understand what you're saying Because I think if you go to certain beaches, they'll be trashed if you go to other ones

01:46:18

They'll be clean and it's not because of corporations. It's because of the people that went there and their culture and they decided

01:46:25

I won't say who or what and I'll be in danger of being accused of Not liking a certain group or something, but there are groups of people

01:46:33

There are trash are messier than other groups of people and I think they're called New Yorkers They tend to be

01:46:45

Certain waterfalls in Connecticut Uh -huh. Well, I I want to I don't want to just muse on the personal stories because we don't have

01:46:52

We're almost going two hours Well well as Remember, we took you to the beach

01:47:01

Memorial Day Memorial Day went there and it's just absolute what happened, right?

01:47:06

But here's my share our value. Here's the point though Screwed the point that scrutiny brings up is how in the world do you or the problem he brings up is

01:47:15

When you have people like that, whether it's the people or the corporations or a combination How do you preserve your environment?

01:47:23

And if people aren't gonna make responsible decisions, that means that if you have to make them for them

01:47:29

Well, actually, yeah Actually sometimes. Yes, you have to have stiff penalties for littering.

01:47:36

I mean, that's one way that states have tried to I don't know if those work or not, but that's one way or You have to have incentives to recycle that's another way places have tried to deal with these things

01:47:48

Or you ban. I don't like this one, but you ban straws and bags and you know plastic products because you know

01:47:56

And maybe it's not all maybe the people who did that aren't as concerned about pollution as they are

01:48:03

Well, I don't know what they're concerned about because the straw thing really gets me but this is this is can

01:48:09

I just throw in a white pill really quick On this because this this I think this particular issue is like one of the winning issues for the right right now because post -kovat

01:48:20

So many people are awake in this particular area because they want to know what is in my medicine

01:48:25

What is in my food what like and I'm I wasn't thinking this way at all prior to really the kovat saga

01:48:32

So, you know, I I want to go to a place where I don't want to see plastic really

01:48:38

I want to talk to a butcher shake is the other day I went to a butcher shop and the guy said hey, you know, what's your name?

01:48:44

My name's shook my hand, right? I ordered the meat that I wanted He grabbed it out of a cooler and he put it in a bag and gave it to me

01:48:51

So like I I want that and I think there's a there's a hunger especially sort of on the right for For this kind of thing on like a personal level, you know,

01:49:02

I I for Living more sustainably, I guess but for the purpose of your family for the purpose of what's going into our bodies for the purpose of health

01:49:11

You know, I I think this is a winning issue Yeah. Yeah, I agree Do point out here in this chapter.

01:49:18

He does make a good critique of those of the extremists environmentalists who end up worshipping the environment and And instead of respecting it they worship it and they are the ones who go into extremes that are not sustainable

01:49:37

Yeah, they forgot who they're the purpose of why they like we want to conserve because we want something for an inheritance for children for generations to come to be able to enjoy the same things and they're thinking mankind is some kind of a blight and like I Think some of these environmentalists would be fine if mankind was eliminated so that some but they won't volunteer

01:50:02

Yeah All right. We got a Global warming and stuff.

01:50:08

There is that it becomes a false science That they think they're gonna sustain everything by doing something that's contrary to what actual science does.

01:50:16

So yeah truth internationalism I'll read one thing from one of 106 the truth in internationalism is that sovereign states are legal persons and should deal with each other in through a system of rights duties liabilities and responsibilities and then he says

01:50:33

Paragraph down it is not what internationalism now amounts to once again A fundamental truth has been captured by people with an agenda and so turned to a falsehood this transformation of the internationalist idea has influenced not only the

01:50:45

UN but more concretely the EU and the European Court of Human Rights and so I Think really actually this could be this could be the truth in nationalism part two because what he's really saying is that the truth in Internationalism is that nations exist and deal with each other the way that people deal with each other so I Think that's where it kind of begins and ends.

01:51:08

I don't see much more worth expanding on in this But well, he has a decent discussion of the value of the

01:51:15

UN when it was first created for nations get together and actually work things out as Legal entities we're gonna come up with treaties and to what it's become now where it is an overarching

01:51:28

Central authority or at least that's what it's trying to do. And that's what we're yeah the face. He has a good discussion

01:51:33

That's worth reading. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good the purpose is shifted from yeah

01:51:39

It gives a example of the European Union of the problem that that's generated as well

01:51:46

National boundaries are no longer acceptable. That's why brexit We just want to maintain control of our own boundary

01:51:54

So it it starts from moving nationalism Well the next chapter and I'll combine these three and you can say whatever you want

01:52:04

I'll just read this one quote because this is where he kind of lands the plane and In the next three chapters, but the truth in conservatism page 124

01:52:13

He says on the bottom the truth in conservatism is that civil society can be killed from above but it grows from below it grows through the associative impulse of human beings who create

01:52:25

Associations that are not purpose -driven enterprises, but places of freely sustained order Politicians often try to oppress these associations into alien molds making them into instruments for external purposes that may be in conflict

01:52:38

With their inner character. This is not what happened to any gives an example of this with state schools becoming places to produce equality instead of education

01:52:48

So that's what he really boils this down to if I could pick a sentence I suppose that that's what conservatism is and if I would put it in my own words

01:52:56

He's saying that there's a natural order in a way God's wired people to associate with each other and work through problems and meet threats and That these kinds of things are built through trust over time the home being the first association where we learn these skills and that these ideologies

01:53:16

Though there might be a truth in some of them somewhere. So some kernel of truth they when they become everything and they

01:53:24

They are totalizing ideologies. They end up enforcing from above a

01:53:33

Vision that actually crushes kind of like an agricultural analogy it's like it takes plants a while it takes plants some time to grow and to be healthy and they need sunlight and they need rain and if you were just to overwhelm them and you know flood them or You know stomp on them you would just you would ruin the whole process the process takes time and you need patience and These ideologies are kind of shortcuts to trying to figure out what the key to all human

01:54:02

Interaction is and how how can we produce the best possible outcome and he says you can't and that's what conservatives recognize so that's my summation really of the the next few chapters and You have any quotes or any observations

01:54:17

Of any of the rest of the book then go for it. Yeah, I have a couple I think he does a good job of the positive aspects of conservatism, but he continues to show the weaknesses that Because he's not founding this in the universal truths of God's Word.

01:54:33

There's a lack of depth and stability to his arguments Because there's no absolute truth

01:54:41

He makes a comment And it seems to be running through the book that he thinks these things have all developed from the

01:54:48

Enlightenment it's like did you not read about the Reformation and its importance and what has

01:54:55

Became what he would be called. I guess conservatism that didn't rise out of the

01:55:00

Enlightenment. It rose out of Reformation That would definitely be a comment

01:55:07

I Think that would be a primary weakness. I did find in in the book that Value because he has a whole chapter dealing with that is somehow

01:55:20

He wants to make it determined by the culture of what men value But what really counts what really has value is what

01:55:28

God? Determines has value life has value because God had said it has value Your moral character has value because God has said it has value

01:55:38

You utilitarian aspects of that Are beneficial we glad we have it, but the value actually isn't based because man came up with something

01:55:50

I Could go on that. I just overall I think he he could have made a stronger case if he actually had some absolutes to Anchor he assumes some he does assume some assume somebody he cuts himself short

01:56:06

It's also a work of political theory and not yeah, well he said that's beginning he's not what evangelicals are used to reading which

01:56:16

We I think we expect Bible verses all over the place and I don't expect Bible verses I expected a foundation a little stronger when he kept popping to the

01:56:25

Enlightenment as the source for these things and leaving out the Reformation. It's like Yeah, he's missing something historical that should have been there

01:56:37

Well in some ways it's a commentary on the dearth of actual resources or or a scholarship that actually is done from a more

01:56:44

Fundamentalist perspective on he he didn't want to be called. He didn't want to be called the name

01:56:49

Stephen Wolfe was being called So he left that out. Yeah The final chapter is

01:56:59

Maybe that's actually the worst one the final chapter really You're talking about the validation forbidding mourning but admitting loss.

01:57:12

Oh Oh, yeah, it's just a it ends on a down note. That's just like you have no hope lived in England.

01:57:18

I mean How would you feel? He well, he talks about the Christian religion quite a bit.

01:57:24

Let's go and he just laments Christianity's being lost here You know But yeah, it's basically like everything's not going our way

01:57:33

If I yeah, there's no hope yeah, where is that that's scrutinism

01:57:39

So I think yeah, what you said earlier is right. It's In the end is he's defeatist and that's not good.

01:57:47

I he needs a If he was alive, I'd ask him. Please rewrite your last chapter the thing to understand too about Scruton is he

01:57:55

He did live in England obviously, which is farther down the track on Progressivism than we are and he was an academic he was he's a

01:58:04

Lord actually, I believe he's I think I believe he was knighted I think it's our sir. Roger Scruton rather not Lord but he

01:58:10

He was on the government. I think it was whatever their administration for assessing

01:58:19

Aesthetics in architecture is they have some kind of a so he was on the board for that and then he was booted for you

01:58:26

Guessed it. It was I think it was racism. I remember correctly you know and which is a little shocking when you read this because he goes to great pains to make it very clear that he believes you race and culture are distinct and that you can

01:58:43

You can bring people of different races into England and that doesn't affect the culture He still gets canned for being quote -unquote racist.

01:58:51

And so, you know, I wonder sometimes when people who are in those positions write books Are there things maybe they would have said that?

01:58:59

Like About even sexuality that they're just not gonna say because they still want to maintain some kind of an audience.

01:59:06

I don't know but that possibility exists 2014 I mean

01:59:12

Yeah, I mean they I think they already had gay marriage and stuff in England at that time Yeah, if I'm not mistaken

01:59:19

So he says he says I mean this is in the last chapter and then I I will attempt to put a positive spin

01:59:25

So he says my father favored a rather dynamic conception according to which history is an aspect of the present a living thing

01:59:34

Influencing our projects and also changing under their influence the past for him was not a book to be read but a book to be written in and You know that just kind of well,

01:59:43

I mean dad it kind of reminded me of you in a way You know you kept the past alive for us and I think for us

01:59:51

You know history is something that is tangible it's real and You know,

01:59:57

I would I would say to anybody who's you know, if you want to reach I read the book and then like What do you do?

02:00:03

Well, one thing would be wherever you live go and visit the historical areas in your area learn about Where you you know

02:00:10

Even if you recently moved there like try to learn to love the place that you're in and it's people, you know

02:00:17

And that made that make that could be transplants. It could be locals. It could be a combination of the two it might be hard if you're an outsider, but you know a takeaway for this is like one of the foundational like Practical things about being a conservative if that's what you're endeavoring to be is to loving the people in the place that you're in and That starts with getting to know it, you know

02:00:42

So and that's something that is just extraordinarily rare. Most people don't really know much of even if they're from somewhere they don't know a lot you have to kind of search hard and really like you only tend to find people who know when you

02:00:53

Go way out in the middle of nowhere to a little town somewhere and find somebody who's over the age of 50 then they can

02:00:58

Tell you about their their place. So, you know go and find them go to the diner and talk to them go to the

02:01:04

V VFW Hall and You know have a coffee with them and you know start there.

02:01:10

That's a good a good starting place Yeah, that's good. I was looking there's a

02:01:15

I Can't find the exact section. So I'll just skip it, but I could recommend it.

02:01:21

There's a article in Chronicles I think it might be the last issue or no January.

02:01:26

So it's actually a few issues It was called the three conceptions of conservatism. Yeah, I Paul Gottfried.

02:01:31

He talks about this And he you know Kirk Russell Kirk principles

02:01:37

Edmund Burke tradition and Machiavelli power and you know, Scruton would be in the Burke side of things with tradition is conservative and and I think there's actually probably elements of conservatism, you know in and Godfrey makes the argument in all three of these things, but but here's the thing so Someone just asked whether or just said rather like hey, you're using a lot of qualifiers here

02:02:02

Are you recommending this or she says I assume you're recommending it? and yes, I am and I think especially for evangelical

02:02:10

Christians if you're have a steady diet of good Expository preaching and that's that's what you're getting.

02:02:19

That's what you listen to which is great. And I totally recommend that I Think it's good to step outside of that once in a while and read a book like this because it challenges

02:02:31

What what I found is what happens is People have certain assumptions that aren't always challenged by modern exegetical preaching or expository preaching

02:02:41

On just our assumptions of the liberal order. I found that out in the last few years probably more than anything else people just assume

02:02:48

That what we live in what assumptions that we've had for a long time that these are this is just the way it is and This is biblical or something like that and I think

02:02:57

Reading books like Roger Scruton's books and this is just one of them Help you kind of transcend the context you live in and be able to see it

02:03:08

From an outside view almost it's like what seals Lewis said about reading books from the past it's like reading books from another country or culture or world and you get to You get to challenge some of the assumptions of your own world that have developed and think through them and that's really what

02:03:23

I think the strength is of this you get to think through things that you're not normally going to be thinking through and If you listen to talk radio and expository preaching and that's it you're probably not going to be asking questions you know like like like the

02:03:41

Was that the third chapter, you know about the the truth in in socialism or the truth in nationalism or the

02:03:53

With some of the other ones that we went over truthing well capitalism not so much but the truth in liberalism You're not going to be faced with Critiques of free market capitalism coming from the right you're just going to assume that that's what we live in and there are some

02:04:12

Some critiques of and when I say free market capitalism I'm not talking about I should probably make this very clear because someone who's only influenced by those sources is going to Think wrong about this, but I'm not saying that the free markets bad

02:04:24

I'm saying though that it's not all there is and that's what we discussed earlier that there's there's some components that must go along with it for it to be beneficial and So so this helps

02:04:34

I think people understand how our how society works people who have observed it who have seen the traditions and Through experience recognize how humans behave it can really for me

02:04:47

Shed light on even some of the Bible's teaching or rather it helps me Better way to put it is it helps me see how the

02:04:53

Bible's teaching actually sheds light on our own human experience Because a lot of the assumptions that are even in a book like this

02:05:00

I see in Scripture that this yeah This is the way people behave or yeah, this is the way God wired people

02:05:06

Why do people kind of congregate into similar groups and they can't really be motivated along classroom lines

02:05:11

And they tend to be motivated towards their nation though. I mean he's observing these things but these things are

02:05:18

Baked into the fabric of creation and they're assumed in this the text of Scripture, but they go undetected because they don't conform necessarily with many of the

02:05:28

Common assumptions of our day in our in the liberal order that we inhabit so that's why I say I recommend it and I try to pick books like that to go over that will maybe

02:05:38

Challenge and maybe come up with some good applications. So for me personal applications from this

02:05:44

I think what David said is very true and I've already been doing that going to historical sites and that kind of thing, but I Think that it may it opens me up for political solutions that I would not have been fond of ten years ago, let's say and I'm more willing to Give you one example real quick is my last thing

02:06:06

I'll say someone the other day talked about these endowments that these universities have you know, we all complain about left -wing universities, right?

02:06:14

How terrible they are and this and that well I think it was our in McIntyre said like why don't we just tax the heck out of their endowments?

02:06:24

what like what's prohibiting us from doing that and And like all these warning bells went off in my head like these instinctual warning bells like that's tampering, right?

02:06:34

But then the more I thought about it, I'm like, they're the enemy like or at least they're working for them

02:06:39

Like they're literally teaching They're filling students who influence our society

02:06:45

With ideas that men can be women and maybe should be women and crazy stuff.

02:06:52

It's there are ruining our culture Why not? I mean if this is a culture war then let's treat it that way and and so that that's a solution ten years

02:07:01

Ago, I just would have said no way But because I've been challenged by some things like like scrutin

02:07:08

I start thinking and scrutin is not probably for that solution but Because I read more broadly

02:07:15

I am thinking I'm considering other options and I don't think that's outside of conservatism.

02:07:22

Actually, that might be a conservative move I'm open to it at least that that could be a conservative thing to take out these organizations that are completely destroying your your society you know, so That's my pitch and that's why

02:07:35

I say these are good things to read So I'll leave you two can give the last word and then we'll end

02:07:41

Well, I'll piggyback on that. I mean it it's it's it's incredible that this would actually be a controversial statement

02:07:48

But it would be at the heart of the biblical mandate of government the government exists for the benefit of its people not the benefit of other governments other people's other

02:07:59

Alliances other whatever it is other no matter, you know, no matter the the

02:08:06

The importance to the people to subgroups within your nation your government's responsibility is the people of that nation so that's something that Strangely is controversial now, but that is a good takeaway.

02:08:21

I think I Would agree with you Jonathan I would recommend reading it and I'd recommend reading things outside your your normal I thought it was a good challenge for me try

02:08:33

Sometimes I have to read some of these things twice to really get what they're talking about This was certainly a case this book

02:08:39

I'd liked his approach and trying to find a positive thing and then seeing where it went off That I think that was very insightful.

02:08:47

There's several things I found in here that were very insightful As far as my critiques,

02:08:53

I think that's something you should do with any book you read Even if it's when your favorite author think carefully about the pros the cons in it.

02:09:02

It's good to discuss it with other people I I know this whole thing got started just Jonathan kind of wanted to say yes.

02:09:12

Here's here's how the Harris has kind of worked You know, we had these discussions around our dinner table growing up all the time about everything and everything

02:09:19

And I think that's a good thing for everybody You get challenged don't don't live in an echo chamber read things that are going to stretch you to think deeply about About things and then try to apply.

02:09:35

What does the scripture say about these things so that you're thinking more critically? If I can understand what other people are saying

02:09:41

I have a better opportunity to be able to communicate clearly to them the truths of God's words, too. So I agree.

02:09:47

I appreciate you assigning this book to us and And giving me time to digest it

02:09:54

Yeah, lots of time. I think it was before October because it was it a year Wow well, we had

02:10:04

I Remember thinking like last October, but then we had a death and then we had another death.

02:10:10

And so but for the next book, I Am willing to take recommendations from people.

02:10:16

So let me know and now, you know my parameters I do try to pick books that are somewhat challenging and I don't mind if they're provocative

02:10:25

So It's probably you know, not that I'm against ordinary books that most evangelicals are used to reading a few people have recommended doing

02:10:34

Francis Schaeffer stuff I'm not against it, but I figure most people that are evangelical have probably heard of Francis Schaeffer Many in this audience have probably read

02:10:43

Francis Schaeffer. So I would say I'm that's gonna be the book end You know, that's as far as I'm willing to go towards the normal in evangelical terms

02:10:55

So if you have anything, let me know. I have some ideas. We'll go from there. So I'll make one plug for Chronicles You gave me a subscription to that that yeah, if you think you're conservative

02:11:10

They're academic sometimes like I have no idea what they're talking about But It is a good challenge

02:11:18

And I really appreciate trying to read through some of these guides and thinking through in a way that I never would have before So just to piggyback on what

02:11:26

I said before so whatever book we have next I'm looking forward to it Yeah, I was thinking well,

02:11:34

I Know David would want this book. Oh, yeah, but that book is a cost hundreds of dollars now

02:11:42

I have a copy you have a copy Yeah, I have a few ideas but all right, well, thank you have a good night.