The Lost America

Burke's Corner on The Lost America. He reminds us of a more settled, ordered and peaceable polity prior to the runup to 1776, which was less aggressive and less populist than the tradition that ensued after the revolution.


The lynching of an American Tory
James Hall on a previous diatribe against present day American Tories, proves this point with this statement:

A real conservative is a revolutionary in the pursuit of individual rights and an advocate of constitutional protections and limited government.

In the American tradition, this anti-Burkean statement is probably on the mark as it relates to so many of today's "conservative" talk shows in the United States. The voice of Russell Kirk is of an older American tradition that doesn't see the country's starting point in the year 1776, but it is a small minority and cannot be heard under the thunderclap of Republican America.

We continuously hear what was gained by America on Independence Day. We rarely hear what was lost when about a quarter of the colonist population was persecuted for their American loyalist beliefs. But heh, Happy Independence Day all the same to our American (who represent the majority of our readers) friends.