A good article by Roger Scruton.

It's a bit long to post here, but well-written.

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/feb03/burke.htm

<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Good article!!! But I pose a question does being Conservative mean voting for a party with conservative in its name? or liberal voting for a party that is traditionally had liberal goals or liberal in its name? Because in my experience parties are just that, names, and names that often hide there true agendas. Mind you parties are also made up of men and women which also contain a few rats but lately the rats seem to be overwhelming the men and women in the parties. He himself seemed to have fled a hoard of rats, not civilized men and wemon who had the best intentions of society at heart.</font>

[ 03-11-2005, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

Not at all Pritchke, vote on all the factors that matter to you, if you're pro-life vote for pro-life cadidates like RevRuby does regardless of party, towing the party line is as much intellectual and societal suicide as never questioning religion, or looking deeper into issues than you see on the news headlines, read the scriptures around those quoted, see if the political candidates beliefs (and records) match your own, if a topic seems particularly biased and nasty (the roadblock one comes to mind immediately) go google it and see what other factors can be dug up.

A lot of people vote along party lines, A lot of people never look farther than the listed party affiliation, but being conservative doesn't mean you have to approve of what is being done by conservatives, or even that you should give them your vote if they differ from your opinion on articles that are important to you.

Why I became conservative:
http://pictures.dehavilland.co.uk/Live/Photo1591.jpg

LMFAO :D

I finally read it. It's an interesting read, and I was happy to note that he and I agreed on something that I see at the heart of so many political divisions: it's cultural, and it's arbitrary. Our rationalizations are so often made after the fact of our gut reactions, even if in an effort to understand that reaction.

Our reactions to that observation are what differ, as I see that he links the rationalization of social life somehow to the problems in society and a worldwide unhappiness. I prefer to take a social science approach to social problems, and I've never read about any that resulted from thinking abstractly lol.

So other than his willingness to paint broadly with arbitrarity on actual social matters, which I think is linked to his philosophical approach, it's an honest and compelling piece. Thanks for posting it.