Some Good Reads

All of my writing time for the past couple of weeks has been occupied with material for publication elsewhere. I anticipate this will be the case for a couple of more weeks as well.

In the meantime I have some reading recommendations.

Mark Moncrieff of the blog "Upon Hope" has posted an essay entitled "Homosexuality and Conservatism" which I highly recommend. In a succinct manner, he discusses the radical change in public attitudes towards homosexuality, how this has come about, how the past status quo has been misrepresented as have the consequences of the revolution, and what the appropriate conservative attitude towards all this is.

The "Alt-Right" has received much media attention lately, thanks to Hillary Clinton's attack on them earlier this week. There have been several excellent responses to this from the Alt-Right itself, an online assortment of right-wingers who, as their label would suggest, present an alternative to mainstream conservatism - or cuckservatism - that is actually right wing. The blog Alt-Right has posted a video entitled "We Are the Alt-Right" with a descriptive paragraph that I will reproduce in full here:

Equality is bullshit. Hierarchy is essential. The races are different. The sexes are different. Morality matters and degeneracy is real. All cultures are not equal and we are not obligated to think they are. Man is a fallen creature and there is more to life than hollow materialism. Finally, the white race matters, and civilisation is precious. This is the Alt-Right.

That seems to pretty much sum up what the Alt-Right - or at least the Christian segment of it - stands for and while progressives, liberals, and neoconservatives will no doubt be aghast that in the Current Year anyone would dare express, let alone hold, such beliefs, they seem to be pretty basic truths to me. Of course, to all of that I would add the even more important point that royal monarchy is the best form of government and that government by elected politicians ought only to be allowed when, as in the Westminster parliamentary system, the position the politicians are elected into is that of a servant - the literal meaning of the word "Minister" - of a royal master. The position of servant to a royal master is humbling, which elected politicians need the most. The position of servant of the people or the public, brings out all of their natural hubris.

Which leads me to my final recommendation. The royalist sentiments in my last paragraph are those of a Canadian High Tory, and while I am a representative of the right-wing of that species, there is a left-wing too. The best representative of it is Professor Ron Dart of the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbottsford, British Columbia. My essay, "High Tories, Left and Right" a couple of years ago was a review of an older book of his entitled The Canadian High Tory Tradition. The American Anglican Press has just released his The North American High Tory Tradition . I have reviewed this new volume for the upcoming issue of the Anglican Tradition and you can order the book which, despite its left-of-centre leanings at times is still well worth reading, directly from the publisher here.