Most of your comments are off target.
Firstly, you seem to have overlooked the remark in my opening post: "The most political Buddhist text of all —the Mahasupina Jataka— reads almost like a manifesto of classical western conservatism (though not of what goes by the name of 'conservatism' in contemporary Britain or America)."
"Classical western conservatism" is generally understood as referring to Burke and his followers in the Anglo-Saxon world, and to the likes of Joseph de Maistre on the Continent. So your bringing up the policies of the so-called Neo-cons etc. is a bit beside the point.
Secondly, what Kirk refers to as the imprudent ideologies of "liberals and radicals" (in his book, The Politics of Prudence) are the rationalism of the French philosophes, the moral skepticism of Hume and Rousseau, the utilitarianism of Bentham, the positivism of Auguste Comte's school, and the collectivistic materialism of Marx and other socialists. In other words, he was taking a rather longer historical view than you seemed to be supposing in your reply.
I would say that it's ultimately unworkable, but that hasn't been an impediment to its being adopted by non-conservatives, either across the board (as, for example by Marxists and Nazis) or in an issue-specific fashion (as, for example, with the feminist support for abortion).Jechbi wrote:So what if we state the converse? As in:
The non-conservative believes that no enduring moral order exists. There is no order made for man, and man is not made for any order. Human nature is inconstant, and moral truths are impermanent. ...
Which seems like an unworkable premise in politics in any context.
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu