gander

It was always just landowners--the junkers of Prussia, lords of Britain, gentry of Virginia--who held back the left Being rooted to the soil thanks to their homes and fortunes, they thought in centuries and abhorred entropy Paternalism was a reality of life, for they spent most days amongst the folk of the country, rather than in the sweltering stew of urban life, with its multitudes and abstractions. Unlike the grasping nouveau elite, which tending to push the working class towards leftism through its unnecessary exactions, they struck a balance between property rights on one hand and the duties attendant to privilege on the other. Most workers' rights legislation from the period where it was needed came out of the Lords for this reason. The Fitzwilliams are my favorite example of this being put into practice in a grand way over the long term And, with their sports being blood sports rather than sanitized forms of fun (foxhunting rather than golf), they were comfortable with doing what it took to impose order, whether in the Metropol or the colonies. Blood is just a part of life, they knew This came them an outlook that produced a workable society. Property was to be always defended--by force if necessary--as was tradition, including relgious tradition. That kept leftism, with its levelling and entropy, at bay. But also, they weren't just extractors in the way the plutocrats were. They wanted stability, wanted a workable society, and compromised when doing so was right and necessary so as to avoid the threat of Red Revolution That was the best way to reject leftism for the long term, and worked quite well But they were battered to bits. The Southern Gentry was killed at Appomattox, and didn't really come other than for the Byrd Machine in Virginia, which was a pale (though effective) imitation of what had once existed. Manchester Free Trade ideology destroyed the Lords, as did jealous plutocrats, who pushed along the People's Budget and Parliament Bill out of short-sighted envy. The Junkers perished in the calamity of the World Wars Since then, we have seen only ever-increasing abstraction, and ever-increasing leftism. Mitt Romney types do not a bulwark against leftism make, particularly in comparison to the Iron Duke