After the frogs, the locusts:
I’m an old Tory. I don’t want anyone telling me how to live, and I think society will keep its shape well enough if we all cleave to some common, traditional understandings, support a strong executive leadership on the rare occasions it’s called for, give over our minds to communal religious observances for an hour or two per month, and mind our own businesses the rest of the time. I don’t want anything to do with the law, unless I get mugged and need to stand witness, or my neighbor starts dumping his garbage in my yard. I think Congress should sit no more than ten days a year, 15 max. Leave us alone, for Pete’s sake. The purpose of law is (a) to suppress private feuds, and (b) to identify and punish criminals. It’s not to tell me how or where to live, or when to die. Let me figure that stuff out for myself. Otherwise, leave me alone. This used to be bedrock Americanism. Nowadays it’s come to sound eccentric.
Yep, that’s John Derbyshire, the constant object of my ire. Yes, what he means by “common, traditional understandings” is not what I mean. And I’m not going to take back my criticisms of some of his more prejudiced harrumphs. But at some deep level, we agree about politics’ role, and disdain for religious zeal in politics. He was as horrified as I was by the Schiavo hysteria. Maybe it’s our common English roots (although I have a very hefty dose of Irish genes). But I’m glad to see that not everyone at NRO has been drinking the big moral government Kool-Aid.
The Dish 