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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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Which and whose traditionalism?

Everyone's.

Then they shouldn't have used the word "inalienable," which means "can't be taken or given away."

But they can't be given or taken away, only violated. Locke is very explicit about this. The man who is trampled by the tyrant still has his right. Because the right itself is a metaphysical construct of logic.

I don't know what you mean by "disproven" here

Fascism is so radical in its claims of the primacy of the State (which to a fascist is a metaphysical entity, not an administrative government) that the mere observation of one's individual will suffices to disprove it in my opinion. The Fascist has to dismiss such a conception as mental illness or renounce the more radical parts of his doctrine, which are the parts that interest us in this conversation anyway.

I just don't think that those "rights" are anything other than fragile current social consensuses that need to be handled with care

Then you don't believe in rights. You believe in traditions. Which is as I expected but has its own specific shortcomings which I point out. You are missing the metaphysical point that Liberalism has against such traditions which allowed it to destroy them so effectively.

We can very well defend the Liberal conception of Rights as a tradition instead of a metaphysical doctrine, indeed that is how they originated, as the traditions of Englishmen. But those are fit only for Englishman not for Man.