Hey terrans. Greetings from Oz. Only not though. It's nothing like Oz here, and I'm pretty sure the dwarves wouldn't like being compared to munchkins. Also, there's no emerald city. One thing we do have is manure. Everything poops. And you think you know that, but no one knows it as well as those who've put in hours at the menagerie. It's a poop factory, I tell you. Glad that's not my job.
My job gives me time for the dumpster fire known as twitter. I saw that your Musk figure bought most of it up, and things already seem to be improving. For example, someone (@takethewhitepil) even tweeted, “After becoming an anarchist I've somehow become more conservative.” See?
Well, I kid. One tweet is not necessarily part of a trend. (But maybe?) The tweet did remind me of an article I read long ago (Why True Conservatism Means Anarchy by Alexander William Salter). The article ended with this line: “[T]he state is constitutionally hostile to conservatism. For the sake of preserving ordered liberty and protecting inherited faith and folkways, conservatives should reject the state’s legitimacy. Failure to do so is fighting a war on the enemy’s terms.” Just where is this Salter guy coming from? Glad you asked.
First, Salter sees conservativeness as more of a preservation orientation than a creed. This frees him up to sort inherited wheat from chaff. Secondly, he makes two points regarding the modern state: (1) that it is relatively new and (2) that conservatives, in defending the state, concede something to the left of yore- something that they should instead be drawing from. He explains: “The polylegal system of the High Middle Ages, in which the authority of kings, local nobility, trade guilds, free cities, and the Roman Catholic Church competed and often checked the abuses of each other, is an important example and one that should be of obvious interest to conservatives.”
So, to Salter, institutions of governance need not include a monopoly of so-called legitimate force. He argues convincingly that such a monopoly makes the state particularly useful to anti-conservatives. If a small group of people different from the whole found persuasive influence too difficult, they might prefer the state for forcing their influence. And, well, there's more in the article: Why True Conservatism Means Anarchy over at theamericanconservative.com.
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired. It's been a long day. I visited another realm, and the local bard (much better than the one here) wasn't feeling too well. He's on the mend though. After his situation improves, maybe an apprenticeship between the two can be worked out. Hmm.
Well, thanks for reading. Take care, terrans.
-Pen