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Entry: Douthat: Rhymes with Oakeshott? Link: http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/douthat_rhymes_with_oakeshott#29464 Post contents: It seems to me that conservatives everywhere defend a particular, known way of life. That conservatism has a particular meaning in the Christian West. It has an even more particular and more freedom-oriented meaning in the American context. But men of the right usually have these substantive commitments in common whether in America or elsewhere: skepticism of change, concern for law and order, respect for hierarchy, belief in the importance of internal and external control of the appetites, defense of property as a mark of self-reliance, a defense of guns as a mark of self-reliance, hatred of government social engineering to un-do any of these abiding practices, respect for religion and the transcendent, a belief in national sovereignty in preference to international power, and a belief in localism and state sovereignty in prefernce to federal power, an anti-individualist regard for preserving the family as the primary constituent part of society, a pro-individualist regard for human beings as moral agents in preference to deterministic accounts based on poverty or social forces, and finally, whether bellicose or isolationist, a view of foreign policy based on American interests in basic things like preserving sovereignty and access to raw materials and foreign markets from foreign threats. Sent at: 2009 01 08