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Entry: The Pragmatism of Russell Kirk Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_pragmatism_of_russell_kirk#3662 Post contents: "Sid, if you can conceive of no other way to remedy violations of voting rights except through the destruction of the U.S. Constitution and the massive centralization of power, then I’m afraid you have a rather limited imagination" Other than my not having an imagination (indeed my enemies think it all to vivid!), and other than this being a paradigmatic case of the false dilemma fallacy, Mr. Richert is quite correct. I am NOT in favor of destroying the Constitution. Is Mr. Richert suggesting amending it? Or is he saying that an interpretation of the Equal Protection clause be enough to get rid of the absurd Jim Crow "Grandfather Clause" and supposed "illiteracy" tests? (maybe it would be). Or would to do so be "destruction"? And just how much centralization we're to have is made clear in the 9th, 10th and 14th amendments of the very Constitution Mr. Richert and I wish to preserve from destruction. Or perhaps I've just misunderstood Mr. Richert: Does he favor Jim Crow with respect to voting? Or favors something else so much more that he allow it? "Which of those European thinkers you listed [...] thought that the violation of voting rights was of such fundamental importance that he would have violated his principles to end it?" Voting rights WERE among the fundamental principles of those listed, and ranked high in their list of principles. Certainly Burke, for starters, and very loudly throughout his career. (I'll be glad to provide citations). And all the French Conservatives, all of whom opposed Absolutism, and all of the German with respect to local town councils (Moser), to the Reichsaufloesung (die Romantiker), and then to right to vote in the successive German Diets of the pre-1871 Bund. Friedrich William IV though that God Himself alone should have the vote as to who should be Kaiser, and told the Frankfurter Versammlung so in 1849. The Ritterstand made it very clear that any constitutional solution, be it in the Reich or in the Laender, should have one chamber of the legislative authority where they alone should vote. Windthorst, not a conservative, made it very clear in the Kulturkampf that Catholic rights were not to be violated. As for Adenauer on voting rights, his position is clear. Among the thinkers not mentioned would be the entire Whig Tradition and Hume with respect to Charles I's 10 year suspension of Parliament (and thus no voting), and the entire Tory and Hume Tradition to Cromwell's doing the same. Both Whig and Tory, Catholicphobic one and all, thought James II had the same one tap (they were wrong. I am unaware of the conservative Peel's views on Catholic emancipation and the Great Reform Bill. Yet it was the conservative Disraeli who granted the general franchise, to Carlyle's (no conservative) consternation. Then there's an unmentioned American named Tom Jefferson, who, in a work called _The Declaration of Independence_ said that governments could be altered and utterly abolished when rights (including voting rights regarding taxes) were not secure. All the above were in favor of voting rights in principle; none were Absolutists or Bonapartists. Need more? By the way, Anderson's biography of Windthorst is so far good; I'm about 100 pages into it. Sent at: 2008 11 21