American Conservatism's Core Contradiction And The Pretense Of Free Markets

No solution to any problem without radicalism

COOPER: Conservatives' defense of economic liberty risks incoherence. "Though ordinary people rarely talk about it in this way, property is underpinned by exactly the same kind of coercion that bolsters civil rights or tax laws, as is the entire superstructure of what we refer to as the free market system — that is, by government coercion. Therefore, conservatives can't be principled anti-coercion advocates unless they are willing to throw out private property, which they obviously aren't. Coercion can't be bad when it supports things you don't like and good when it supports things you do — no matter what some conservatives maintain." The Week

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On "Too Pure Principles" And The Collapse Of Conservatism

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/02/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-on-too.html

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts: 

What's Wrong With American Conservatism?

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/04/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-whats.html

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  

"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton

More Merton Quotes

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-best-imposed-as-norm-becomes.html

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   "Naive trust in those wielding economic power"
   Pope Francis
8. "The Golden Calf"
   Wikipedia
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_calf

9. "Pope Francis Links"

   http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/11/pope-francis-links.html