The quote:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
And apparently it originates from the comments of this blog post, not from the commonly attributed CIA stooge: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288
It’s pretty lib subject matter on the whole and I’m not holding out hope that Mr Wilhoit is a marxist, but it actually maps pretty well. I was just talking to a friend about how the NLRB rulings against starbucks are doing literally nothing to stop them from union-busting and penalizing union workers, and this popped into my head:
It’s almost like there’s a class who the law protects but does not bind, and a class who the law binds but does not protect or something
Mr. Wilhoit was onto something but it’s not celebrities or immigrants or whoever he meant it about, it’s the working class and the ruling class. Also I really want to eventually get called a tankie for quoting some liberal blog reply guy. I just think it would be funny
PS: check out his music, it’s not bad:
https://www.broadheath.com/mp3s.html https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgT0vSWjBh4gAtab6JZgVrA/videos
It’s a bit of reductive essentialism to think we can’t use a good political observation just because it came from a lib. Like James Carville is a lib and worked for countless ghouls, but “it’s the economy stupid” still applies for 99% of elections.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t use it, just that I find it more useful when applied to class than like, cancel culture.
To me, it ties into Corey Robin’s argument that conservatism is at its core, the view that market economies are hegemonic but that a special place needs to be carved out within that economy for the traditional hierarchy or hierarchies. The shape those hierarchies take varies depending on place and time, but there’s always a class element, implicit or explicit, in them.
In the global south, if a large US-NATO shareholder stands to lose, the CIA will facilitate sabotage, terrorism, all way up to coups.
There must be out-groups which the liberal rules-based international order binds but does not protect etc
It boils down to slavery. Just like capitalism. Hence conservatives loves it.
