tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post2370910068028917109..comments2023-12-14T20:02:51.470-06:00Comments on The Heavy Anglophile Orthodox: No, Christian democracy can’t save AmericaMatthew Franklin Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15233216128641267240noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-1135053247941656522018-04-11T16:32:12.827-05:002018-04-11T16:32:12.827-05:00Wish there opportunity to sit and hear you at leng...Wish there opportunity to sit and hear you at length on (as I gather) putting these doubts somewhat aside and becoming active in the ASP, as far as endurance allowed you — seeing that something like the possibility of a conservative turn like the Guardian writers call for there is precisely what the ASP appears to aim at fostering.<br /><br />Hadn’t seen the Guardian thing before reading you here, interestingly. Very much with you in reaction to it, I think, and appreciate your giving it a fairly thorough response (I mean, for a popular paper op-ed). But I believe what I’d like to hold on to in it is just the idea that so many Americans who regard themselves with perfect sincerity as Christians concerned for public good — the kind of people I come from — need showing, as a basic step, that coherent alternatives sans market-libertarian-absolutist conclusions aren’t merely hypotheses but developed, working multi-generation projects in societies not much removed from our own, and need not be ignored just because, e.g., ‘This is America, we’re different.’ Terrible to think that we need such a first step, yes. But we really do.paul bowmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17409615610994443652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-8891542955019264872018-04-10T12:34:08.351-05:002018-04-10T12:34:08.351-05:00While in saying this, I am simplifying radically, ...While in saying this, I am simplifying radically, I am doing so purposefully, cognizant of the vast bloodshed that that American-led postwar liberal internationalist order has perpetrated, from the open veins of Latin America to the irradiated deserts of the Middle East - probably between 20-30 million since WWII, and between 3 and 5 since 2001: any political movement, of any character, of any ideological valence, anywhere in the world, which makes any compromise, alliance with, or allegiance to, the American Empire, is either already corrupted or will be corrupted in time by that association. Contemporary case in point: the Kurds, so desperate for independence, or even regional autonomy, that they allied with the US, Israel, and the Gulfies, and - yes - fought ISIS quite valiantly, but ultimately took territory that was never Kurdish, and antagonized - and were being used to antagonize - most of their neighbours. <br /><br />Whatever one might say about any power with which the US has grievances, about any faction which in a given theater opposes a faction backed by the US, everything and everyone touched by the Empire has communicated to it/them some of the Empire's corruption, malice, treachery, and vileness. This is not altered in the slightest by the fact that the US readily - with alacrity, even - betrays its allies and associates whenever such betrayal becomes advantageous. <br /><br />I am far from being a good Christian. My political thought, whatever ambitions I might once have had towards a systematic articulation, is anything but. Of this one thing I am confident, though: that the American-led liberal internationalist order, the Washington Consensus, the End of History - whatever one chooses to call it - ought to be rejected as a totality. If that means that I will forever lack a comprehensively articulated alternative, so be it: better no answer than any corrupting complicity with this rough beast that, from its foundation in 1945, has done nothing but shed innocent blood and practice every form of depredation and rapine, forever working the lusts of the father of lies. <br /><br />- Jeff MartinMaximoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10567066185775678231noreply@blogger.com