After walking quite a distance, my wife and I sat to rest in a large tent where someone was serving Turkish coffee. We both sat on little stools and the terminology “classic liberal” came into the conversation. After someone else commented, I was asked by a hippie-looking younger man what I thought liberal was.
I said that I relate conservative and liberal to the U. S. Constitution when it comes to a political definition. The liberal takes what many call a “loose construction” of the constitution. With that approach, the liberal can conform the meaning of the words to what he wants. The constitution is malleable.
You have heard progressive applied to liberals. The Constitution is an evolving document. According to liberals., it can progress in its meaning.
Related to a loose construction of the constitution is a view of government that says man gets his rights from democratic government. Man gives and takes away rights. They can change. Meaning changes, because it is subjective. Taking it to an extreme, a man can self-identify as a woman and vice-versa.
Since power comes through human construct, forms of power are human constructs, using language. This can change using language through deconstruction. Some would say by synthesizing an antitheses with a thesis, forming a new thesis.
On the other hand, a conservative takes a strict construction of the U. S. Constitution. His goal to to find what the authors meant by what they said. This is sometimes called originalism. The conservative looks for author’s intent. The constitution is objective in its meaning. It can’t change in what it means. The goal is to find out what they meant, not read into it something that he wants it to mean.
I continued by saying that this approach to reality and truth affects everything. An engineer building a bridge or an airplane must follow the laws of physics. He can’t read whatever he wants to natural laws. This was a good hopping off point into evangelism.
Our rights are not given by government, but by God. Meaning is objective because it proceeds from God. Natural rights from God are self-evident truths.
Theological conservatism or liberalism are not much different, except that instead of the constitution, someone interprets scripture according to either a strict or loose construction. Someone can look into the text of scripture and see what he wants, everyone having his own take, his own opinion. Or, he interprets the text of scripture according to original intent, what God and His human authors intended, what they meant by what they said.
You must be in a pretty thick bubble to buy that
Argued like a liberal. High on insult, little substance.
You need to do a study of what classical liberalism is. You don’t get to make up definitions and your discussion shows that you don’t really know what you are talking about.
Seriously, look it up. You might actually learn something.
*looks left* *looks right* (Actually, classical liberals are still liberals).
Of course they are. By definition. And today’s conservatives generally hold to classical liberal doctrine or at least claim to. Any kind of coherent political theory went out the window with Trump of course, but previous to that at least, what I just said is correct.
Dear Fred,
Bro Bro Brandenburg’s post did not say a classical liberal believed like a modern liberal. He used that as a jumping off point, in my understanding.
Dear Tim,
The people who created the US Constitution were classical liberals. What “liberal” and “conservative” mean differ radically if one is in the 21st century USA, the 18th century USA, modern Saudi Arabia, France during the Terror, the reign of Edward VI in England, etc.
Thomas,
“My principles are only those that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal.”
Julius Evola… I would love to know why we are now quoting Julius Evola.
In case you actually agree with this nonsense, Tim, what are the chances that you would’ve been a “well born” person rather than a peasant if you lived before the French revolution?
We are quoting Julius Evola because the sentiment which he expresses upon that point is most pertinent and correct. While Evola himself may have had a great many problems, in his criticisms and scepticism of democracy and democratic institutions, he was entirely correct. Indeed, he is quite right in identifying the French Revolution (though indeed, the entire zeitgeist of the late 18th century) as a watershed inflection point in human history. It was through the revolutionism of the late 18th century that the ungodly spirit of anti-authority became systematically institutionalised in the Western world and has led us to where we are now. This spirit is quite literally luciferian and the fruits of democracy that follow upon it are devilish indeed.
The studied, historical monarchy advocated by men such as Hooker, Davenant, and Johnstone is much superior as a form of government. Monarchy naturally breeds order and respect for authority. Democracy breeds disorder and disrespect for authority. Monarchy is the exemplar of Christian government. Democracy is that which overthrows God’s order and replaces it with “every man did that which is right in his own eyes.”
I cannot help but think of how the translators of the King James Bible addressed their king in its preface,
“Great and manifold were the blessings, O most dread Sovereign, which Almighty GOD, the Father of all Mercies, bestowed upon us the people England, when first he sent your Majesty’s Royal person to rule and reign over us.”
These were men who understood the role of God in blessing nations with just monarchs.
Hello Tim!
God set up a republic in Israel, not a monarchy (He alone was king). Israel sinned when they wanted a king and rejected the Hebrew republic. Republics are better than monarchies, 1 Samuel 8, cf. https://faithsaves.net/politics/.
The men you mentioned are wrong in wanting state churches, persecution of Baptists, and the inferior form of government, monarchy, although if one lives in a monarchy he lives quietly and peacefully, Romans 13.
Hi Thomas,
I think you may be reading a lot of Americanism into pre-monarchy Israel. It’s probably sufficient simply to point out that God actually *instituted* the Davidic monarchy. Saul’s monarchy was not wrong because it was monarchy, but because it was done outside of God’s specific will. The Davidic monarchy, on the other hand, was instituted specifically within God’s will. Indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ is the culmination of that monarchy – and it’s quite apparent that the government God chose as the exemplar under His Son is an absolute, theocratic monarchy.
Hi,
Everyone in the tent knew I was distinguishing between a liberal and a conservative and I was using it as a jumping off point. At the same time, not all the founding fathers were identical to classical liberal. Classical liberal did not take the same trajectory as conservative. That’s why it is John Locke and such that associate with classical liberal. Nevertheless, I want to distinguish between liberal and conservative, which is in my title. Mike and Fred are usually just hateful and I couldn’t count on either of them to come here and say something nice.
KB
KB