I quit reading before the first paragraph ended: "And what an individual is is determined by the individual, and whatever he or she decides for him- or herself is dignified and deserves our respect." What is this MLA, left-wing PC Newspeak? "whatever he or she decides"? What nonsense. Russell Kirk denounced this Trotskyite rhetoric as unbefitting of a gentleman, and he was right. It's trash. As any southern gentleman, I first learn grammar from Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar, but refined it with Fowler's _The King's English_. Peter Augustine's low-brow PC English is beneath me, or any thinking man who takes pride in Western Civilization. But what can you expect with someone with a proletarian degree such as "political science"?

To begin with the obvious, the view being summarized there is neither mine nor Manent's, and is being gently mocked by both of us.

Hmm...what would a bourgeois degree look like? A Ph.D. is Really Dead Languages?

Russell Kirk in opposition to miscegenation: “We have no right to tamper recklessly with human nature or with the delicate fabric of our civil social order."

Russell Kirk in favor of segregation: “It would be reckless indeed to tamper with an institution as ancient as segregation.”

Richard M Weaver in support of segregation: “some of the means, for example the Ku Klux Klan, were irregular, but essentially it was the political genius of Jefferson, of Washington, of Madison, and of Pinckney expressing itself in times of trouble and oppression.”

Unlike all the good little Trotskyite neocons on here toeing the PC line, I'm glad to see someone unafraid actually to express some conservative thought. Imagine that. Conservative thought on a neocon sight. Well, not for long. I imagine they'll delete them. Can't have conservative thought on a neocon site. After all, the real enemy for Strauss et all is "the ancestral," which is why the neocons have declared a war of sorts on Western civilization, seeking not to destroy it per se, but rather, using revisionist history, to remove it from memory. We can't show any real pride in Western man and his traditions. Good little Trotskyites, let's be and superimpose upon it neocon abstractions. Long live revisionism!

Hey y'all...stop blab blab blab blabbin' about conservative this and conservative that and READ the freakin' review! Or lay off and be contemptuously aloof like a real Kirkian gentleman would. The review's way more Lawler than Manent, in truth, but it rocks the house on the problem of individualism.

Maybe, just maybe, it's what Kirk would want you to do in 2007, instead of belly-aching about bygone segregation. Oh, how we do miss those happy days of saying the Golden Rule is true EXCEPT for situations and persons y, x, and q.

But y'all give me hope...just when I begin to think that all the looniness in the world has migrated to the left...you redeem the truth about the universal snarkiness of the human soul!

Real conservatives are anti-sock-puppetry. This site is rife with it. Hence, you people are not REAL conservatives!

A little NLT humor.

Looks like a good book. I'll add it to my to-read list.

I'm now convinced Real Conservative (aka True Conservative, Mr. Anti-PC, etc., etc., et al infinitum) is actually a lefty on a mission to instigate some sort of third-party revolt amongst the GOP as we gear up for the 2008 elections. That or one of those Roswell/JFK/Loch Ness Monster-types.

I tend to agree with you, Andrew. It would not surprise me if RC was also "Mr. Anti-PC", which is clearly another puppet for somebody.

No, I am a real conservative (aka paleoconservative), which is why I don't take many of the neocon / left-wing cliches very seriously on this neocon / left-wing blog. loquor vera et antiqua, ut conservam hominem occidentalem venio.

Well, then, stop acting like a moby (a nice term, I like it). Instead of dropping in and spewing venom, drop in and MAKE ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHY YOU THINK THESE FOLKS ARE WRONG. Real arguments, not appeals to authority, not labels or jagon...reasoned arguments. As it is, you are actually discrediting paleoconservativism. You're making everyone think that such people are all lunatic-fringe zealots (and this is from someone who shares a little of your suppposed agenda).

Read your book review, Peter. Nice. Of course, what Manent is describing is libertarianism -- the final flowering of the Enlightenment -- the nesting of ultimate authority in the individual. Of course, since authority by its very nature is social rather than psychological, this reformulation of authority qua individual is fatally flawed. It inevitably leads to the breakdown of society.

Now, if I could get some of you NLT folks to understand that nested hierarchy/authority also includes ethnicities and tribal sensibilities (at least on a par with religion), then I might be able to turn some of you into useful intellectuals. ;)

Dain, I actually enjoyed (i.e., smiled at your ending and agreed with what you said about authority in in the first paragraph of) your post. Nice tone, effective comment. Thanks.

I agree with dain. Don't use labels or jagon. Use reasoned arguments like he does. For example, call everyone "libertards" who must be "re-educated or purged."

Real Conservative

Why do you post on many different sites using many different names? Is that the kind of thing which real conservatives do? Why do you post on this site using different names?

I think we all know that "moby?" is actually John Moser:)

Paul: Before your love fest with Dain gets carried away :-)....Could you post a link to your review in "Society"?

I think we all know that "moby?" is actually John Moser:)

I'll assume that the ":)" means that you're joking.

Gary, unfortunately Society doesn't post content on the web, thus there's nothing to link to.

I will admit to sinning upon occasion...I really don't like Libertarians, it's true (wolves in sheep's clothing, in my view). Nonetheless, I do contribute real arguments most of the time...I do not specialize in "drive-by" craziness.