The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

Rob’s off on vacation, but Peter’s back from the Promised Land! Thankfully you won’t have to wait until his next episode of Uncommon Knowledge is released to hear from Yoram Hazony, author of Conservatism: A RediscoveryYoram has revisited the past in the hopes of finding something new that conservatives will desperately need in order to offer something other than a another variant of liberalism. He answers his many critics and considers a plausible path of resistance against the progressive threat.

Later, Peter describes his faith-strengthening visit to Israel and James recounts the excitement of his chance to meet Ricochet members in New York. Plus, what’s the deal with Humphrey Bogart!?

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  1. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    LukeWVa (View Comment):

    I find it hilarious that Peter Robinson would suggest that someone else talks too much.

     

    • #31
  2. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    LukeWVa (View Comment):

    I find it hilarious that Peter Robinson would suggest that someone else talks too much.

    What might be even funnier would be if John Podhoretz said the same thing.

    • #32
  3. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    I 99% like everything like it is and was. I can never relate to any of this criticism.

    • #33
  4. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Halzony writes better then he talks. I’ll read the book sometime this summer before I comment on his views. I will say that with the nationalism book, he staked out a view at the beginning that he wasn’t willing to defend when applied to the modern USA. So if he talks like he’s holding back, he may be weighing his words very carefully.

    • #34
  5. Alex Rosenwald Inactive
    Alex Rosenwald
    @alex

    Rightfromthestart (View Comment):

    Alex Rosenwald (View Comment):

    Rightfromthestart (View Comment):

    My grown daughter knows nothing of Ricochet but when I was explaining the meet up she said ‘Wait, what? You were with Rob Long from Gutfeld?’ Mightily impressed.

    This is great to hear!! We have more upcoming meet ups. Stay tuned ! Where is your daughter located ? Maybe we can get a meet up in her neck of the woods !

    She’s 20 minutes from me, we’re all on Long Island.

    Got it — hopeful we can do another event in NY soon! :) Thx you (and your daughter) for your continued support. Is she by chance a college student ? 

    • #35
  6. Rightfromthestart Coolidge
    Rightfromthestart
    @Rightfromthestart

    Alex Rosenwald (View Comment):

    Rightfromthestart (View Comment):

    Alex Rosenwald (View Comment):

    Rightfromthestart (View Comment):

    My grown daughter knows nothing of Ricochet but when I was explaining the meet up she said ‘Wait, what? You were with Rob Long from Gutfeld?’ Mightily impressed.

    This is great to hear!! We have more upcoming meet ups. Stay tuned ! Where is your daughter located ? Maybe we can get a meet up in her neck of the woods !

    She’s 20 minutes from me, we’re all on Long Island.

    Got it — hopeful we can do another event in NY soon! :) Thx you (and your daughter) for your continued support. Is she by chance a college student ?

    Ha ha, no a married mother of four, two of them teenagers. ER nurse. 

     

    • #36
  7. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    kedavis (View Comment):

    LukeWVa (View Comment):

    I find it hilarious that Peter Robinson would suggest that someone else talks too much.

    What might be even funnier would be if John Podhoretz said the same thing.

    The funniest line ever on the GLOP podcast was shortly after Jackie Mason died, and Jpod was talking about what he (Mason) was like off-stage, which was that he wasn’t funny, “he was just an old Jewish guy yelling at you”, and Rob said  “Huh, I wonder what that’s like” softly enough that I don’t think JPod heard it because he didn’t react.

    • #37
  8. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    LukeWVa (View Comment):

    I find it hilarious that Peter Robinson would suggest that someone else talks too much.

    What might be even funnier would be if John Podhoretz said the same thing.

    The funniest line ever on the GLOP podcast was shortly after Jackie Mason died, and Jpod was talking about what he (Mason) was like off-stage, which was that he wasn’t funny, “he was just an old Jewish guy yelling at you”, and Rob said “Huh, I wonder what that’s like” softly enough that I don’t think JPod heard it because he didn’t react.

    I think I remember hearing that, let’s see if I can find it…

    • #38
  9. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    It’s the 7/28/21 episode, starting about 34:25.

    • #39
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Meanwhile, another Jackie Mason joke contained herein:

     

    • #40
  11. ericB Lincoln
    ericB
    @ericB

    MDHahn (View Comment):
    John Adams was explicit that the US was made for a good and virtuous people.

    John Adams: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

    John Adams: “Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.”

     

    Hazony claimed the founders trusted reason (alone?) would lead everyone to the same conclusions.  Actually, they knew reason could be biased.

    John Adams: “Nature and truth, or rather truth and right, are invariably the same in all times and in all places. And reason, your unbiased reason, perceives them alike in all times and in all places. But passion, prejudice, interest, custom, and fancy are infinitely precarious. If therefore we suffer our understandings to be blinded or perverted by any of these, the chance is that of millions to one that we shall embrace error. And hence arises that endless variety of opinions entertained by mankind.”

    John Adams: “Human reason and human conscience, though I believe there are such things, are not a match for human passions, human imaginations, and human enthusiasm.”

    “Our passions, ambition, avarice, love, resentments, etc. possess so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence, that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience and covet both to their party. And I may be deceived as much as any of them when I say that power must never be trusted without a check.”

    • #41
  12. ericB Lincoln
    ericB
    @ericB

    Stina (View Comment):

    MDHahn (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):

    ericB (View Comment):

    I was disappointed by the guest. He seems to be making a few fundamental mistakes.

    He repeatedly suggests that (classical) liberalism has “failed” and that it lacks “conservation and transmission”. If he means that liberalism/freedom on its own is good (the forms “have all sorts of things going for them”) but insufficient, that much was already understood by the founders.

    … Guinness describes these qualities and their relationship to Liberty as The Golden Triangle of Freedom.

    Freedom requires virtue, which requires faith, which requires freedom.
    And so on. All three are needed.

    Article: The Forgotten Triangle of Freedom?

    Video (<4 minutes) of Os Guinness – The Golden Triangle: Virtue, Faith, and Freedom

    Local governments should have more say so than the federal does. That is people being able to freely associate to secure what they wish – like zoning loss to prevent strip clubs in neighborhoods. That is perfectly within the rights of a community to push for.

    if another community doesn’t care, that is also in their right.

    In terms of zoning and other police powers, you’re right. But even at the local level government power is restricted when it comes to matters of religion and conscience. The problem the Hazony is getting at is cultural, not political.

    At the founding, states had the right to establish an official religion. Many states did establish churches.

    Yes, that did happen.

    Nevertheless, the founders saw from European history what happens whenever coercive government power is used to establish one religion.  That leads to fighting over who controls the power to coerce.

    Establishing a nontheistic religion does the same (eg imposed indoctrination into wokism, cultural Marxism, trans ideology, etc).

    Classical liberalism is the only stable solution: Use government power to secure human rights (including life and freedoms of conscience, speech, religion, and assembly) without forcing one belief system.

    Hazony seemingly supposes that better laws can be the engine for the “conservation and transmission” of essential virtues, but laws are at most a caboose.  The engine has always been voluntary associations.

    • #42
  13. Theodoric of Freiberg Inactive
    Theodoric of Freiberg
    @TheodoricofFreiberg

    I agree 100% with Peter Robinson on The Big Sleep—it is unwatchable. I even tried the pre-release version, which is supposed to be much more coherent. No dice!

    If you want a black and white film noir, you can’t beat The Third Man.

    As far as Bogart movies go, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, To Have and Have Not, Key Largo, and African Queen are all great films.

    • #43
  14. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Theodoric of Freiberg (View Comment):

    I agree 100% with Peter Robinson on The Big Sleep—it is unwatchable. I even tried the pre-release version, which is supposed to be much more coherent. No dice!

    If you want a black and white film noir, you can’t beat The Third Man.

    As far as Bogart movies go, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, To Have and Have Not, Key Largo, and African Queen are all great films.

    Out of the Past (1947) directed by Jacques Tourneur, with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas; memorable for its contrast between the dark, dank city and the sunblasted countryside.  

    A still from the film with doomed protagonist Mitchum and shady lady Greer was on the cover of a noir encyclopedia.

    • #44
  15. James Hageman Coolidge
    James Hageman
    @JamesHageman

    Oh, Bosh. Or Bosch. Yes, the new season is pared down, even the writing. Perhaps the ending of the season portends a return with Bosch: Redemption. We can hope.

    • #45
  16. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    James Hageman (View Comment):

    Oh, Bosh. Or Bosch. Yes, the new season is pared down, even the writing. Perhaps the ending of the season portends a return with Bosch: Redemption. We can hope.

    Or Bosch:  Afterlife which depicts him in Hell (art direction based on his cousin Hieronymous).

    • #46
  17. James Hageman Coolidge
    James Hageman
    @JamesHageman

    Taras (View Comment):

    James Hageman (View Comment):

    Oh, Bosh. Or Bosch. Yes, the new season is pared down, even the writing. Perhaps the ending of the season portends a return with Bosch: Redemption. We can hope.

    Or Bosch: Afterlife which depicts him in Hell (art direction based on his cousin Hieronymous).

    Sounds like a garden of earthly delights.

    • #47
  18. AMD Texas Coolidge
    AMD Texas
    @DarinJohnson

    Taras (View Comment):

    James Hageman (View Comment):

    Oh, Bosh. Or Bosch. Yes, the new season is pared down, even the writing. Perhaps the ending of the season portends a return with Bosch: Redemption. We can hope.

    Or Bosch: Afterlife which depicts him in Hell (art direction based on his cousin Hieronymous).

    Bosch goes by Harry but his first name is Hieronymous

     

    • #48
  19. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    AMD Texas (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    James Hageman (View Comment):

    Oh, Bosh. Or Bosch. Yes, the new season is pared down, even the writing. Perhaps the ending of the season portends a return with Bosch: Redemption. We can hope.

    Or Bosch: Afterlife which depicts him in Hell (art direction based on his cousin Hieronymous).

    Bosch goes by Harry but his first name is Hieronymous

     

    An amazing coincidence!

    • #49
  20. ericB Lincoln
    ericB
    @ericB

    ericB (View Comment):
    It isn’t the job of government to “conserve” and “transmit” that virtue.  That can only be done willingly in voluntary association.  Government power should secure the basic human rights of life, liberty, etc, but other work must be done by other associations of free people that instill in them the “habits of the heart”.

     

    Robert A. Sirico is co-founder and president of The Acton Institute, and is now the author of The Economics of the Parables (Hardcover from Acton) (NOOK eBook) (Audiobook).

    In a recent interview of Sirico, they discuss threats to classical liberalism from the temptations to turn to coercive government power (e.g. to control the economy and/or culture).

    Sirico: “I think, if we can point out, that what they’re doing is trying to avoid the hard work of building culture.”

    Q: “Are there practical things that can be done that can help with the habits of the heart of America?”

    As one illustration, Sirico discussed a private school that he took over when it had just 68 kids.  They refounded it as a classical academy.  It has grown to 400 students, all being equipped with and grounded in a more complete education.  Part of their activity is to help those in need in the community.

    Later, Sirico adds: “And that goes to the question we talked about earlier, that people don’t want to take the time to build the culture.  And that’s what you need.  We need to rebuild those institutions, and the spirit that animates those institutions.”

     

    Even before hearing that interview, I had been continuing to think about our discussion here.  Education is very important to these concerns about culture, but government is entangled with education.

    Given that the government must not establish any religion…

    1. At a minimum, government funded public schools must not establish any secular religion (eg woke ideology, cultural Marxism).
    2. It could help to have more school choice mechanisms (eg tax credits) that could promote nongovernment education that is free to instruct in virtue and in the spiritual foundations of virtue.
    • #50
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