John Locke and Liberals and Conservatives

 

John Locke and Liberals and Conservatives

 Revisiting John Locke takes us back to the founding philosophy of our country, and in this particular instance, to the separation of church and state.

 If one traces the genesis of both modern conservatism and liberalism, John Locke has to appear prominently in both columns, Locke was the epitome of enlightenment thought that motivated the founding fathers to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the founding of our country, all before political parties emerged.

 Quoting from the article, “Locke’s wise and generous approach toward religious belief is embedded in our constitutional order — in the separation of church and state, in the First Amendment protections of religious liberty, and in the Constitution’s prohibition against religious tests for public office. But Lockean liberalism also inspired an ethos of freedom, pluralism, and equal justice. “I will not undertake to represent how happy and how great would be the fruit, both in church and state, if the pulpits everywhere sounded with this doctrine of peace and toleration,” he wrote.”

 https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/john-locke-and-the-fight-over-judge-barretts-catholicism/

 For the record, here are lists, with references, of some of the historical figures who have influenced our conservative and liberal thinking through the years.

 Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense. Conservatives believe the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals. Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems.

 Liberals believe in government action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all. It is the duty of the government to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights. Liberals believe that the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need. Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve problems.

Both modern liberals and conservatives can trace their early beginnings back to thinkers like Aristotle and Machiavelli, and thence to 17^th century thinkers John Locke of England and Adam Smith of Scotland, and to 18^th century thinker Charles de Montesquieu of France.  Without overcomplicating, the path toward modern conservatism tracks though Aristotle, Machiavelli John Locke, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, John, John Quincy, Henry and Brooks Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Alexis de Tocqueville, Auguste Comte, Benjamin Disraeli, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Mark Twain (Samuel Taylor Coleridge), Irving Babbitt, Martin Buber, Milton Friedman, Friedrich A. Hayek, Paul Elmer More, George Santayana, C.S. Lewis, Ayn Rand, Thomas Stearns Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, Warren Harding, Dwight Eisenhower, Margaret Thatcher, Russel Kirk, William H. Buckley, Whitaker Chambers, Phyllis Schlafly, Thomas Sowell, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, George Will, Victor Davis Hanson, Dinesh, D’Souza, Sean Hannity and many others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_conservatives

  Modern liberals track through John Locke, Adam Smith, Charles de Montesquieu. Erasmus, Thomas Hobbes, David Ricardo, Spinoza, Rousseau, Voltaire, Maximilien Robespierre, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, James and John Stuart Mill, to Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Thomas Paine.  More recent notables are Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Karl Popper, Noam Chomsky, John Maynard Keynes, John Dewey, William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, John, Robert and Ted Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Barrack Obama, Joe Biden, most of our present mainstream media and many others 

https://justawordfromtheleft.wordpress.com/modern-liberal-thinkers-and-leaders-in-the-united-states/

Ray Gruszecki

October 11, 2020