What we call classical liberalism most certainly was. At the time of the Revolution, those Enlightened ideas were just taking hold so you see documents like the Declaration and Bill of Rights still address the rights of the people even while such thinkers as Jefferson mused the rights of the people were just the sum of the rights of individuals.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
Libertarianism is founded on the Enlightened principles of individualism and equality, thus the libertarian side of conservatism is infused with it. What's odd is conservatives like Russell Kirk who despises libertarians of libertines in his Concise Guide to Conservatism embraces a moderate form of individualism, just warns it's not the selfish sort of Ayn Rand and not the mischaracterization modern liberals make of it. And that liberal criticism of individualism, too, is odd because individualism is embraced by thinkers from Rousseau to Marx which form the basis of most modern liberal ideology. There are only a few American conservatives who reject individual for communities, the little platoons of society Burke wrote of, though many European conservatives reject it altogether.
What do you think some of the so-called conservatives are arguing with me every time I reject their ideology of individualism?
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
The aim of modern liberalism, say from Rousseau through Marx on, is to eliminate social customs, traditions, norms, institutions by perfecting society in the individual, as Marx put it, thereby leaving a void between the abstracted, isolated, atomized individual and the state. It is very much individualistic in ideology. Equality is the key to the process, equalizing, flattening, leveling society though equality, equality before the law, equality in opportunity, equality in outcome.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
If "the normalization of homosexual relationships" is an agenda, what is the demonizing of such relationships, and the effort to minimize and dismiss them?
Funny how the other guy's plans and priorities are always an "agenda" - with a negative or derogatory connotation always attached to that word.
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
Very few of us (any of us?) "demonize" or "minimize" those relationships. The problem is that virtually every objection to gay activism is labeled "demonization" or "oppression" or "bigotry" or whatever by...well people like you who have a weird emotional investment in this crusade for gay "rights".
No one has a heterosexual agenda. There is quite obviously a gay agenda and you know there is. For example, I don't think you're naive or stupid enough to believe gay activists just happen to select Christian owned bakeries for their "wedding" cakes. Obviously, those bakeries are deliberately chosen. Why? Well, you know why.
Last edited by Mister D; 06-18-2019 at 02:42 PM.
Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.
~Alain de Benoist
The gay agenda is flying its flag in CA now: http://thepoliticalforums.com/thread...80%99s-Capitol. No one flies a straight flag, there is none to be flown.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler