Here is a slightly more philosophical question. I know this is a primarily political community but please do bear with me if you like. What would happen if we could arbitrarily and without hindrances travel back and forth in time, to whichever "point" in time we wanted, and change past and future events in a way that would prevent the occurrence of
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Of course there have been hundreds of such changes - never mind since the Donner party’s day, just since 1945 … But the expansion of government is the only one we can do anything about.
All of these changes have had the same effect: the emancipation of the individual appetite from restrictions imposed on it by limited resources, or religious dread, or community disapproval, or the risk of disease or personal catastophe.
(p. 202-3)
Words fail me; links not much better. The Donner party? Where did all these people go?
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Frum is not thinking about what he’s saying. Because what he is saying more or less instantaneously implies an indefinitely large cloud of things he really - really, really - doesn’t think.
We are at this point very near the heart of what Frum styles his ‘conservative philosophy’. But at the heart of it is a sort of proto-cognitive itch; a sensibility, or feeling, or subconscious reflex.
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We all like watching movies about rugged tough guys (well, most of us: I do). But - write this on a 3 x 5 card and consult as necessary - it is absurd to advocate that the government intentionally impose hardship on the people, against their will, for the sake of toughening them up.
Holbo goes on to examine how monstrous this “logic” really would be if you took it seriously.
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