The First Six Months' Wrap

This might be subtitled "An Enlightenment Liberal Blog," and probably the most representative post would be The Liberal Founding, which said, among other things,

In this blog the term ‘liberalism’ means Enlightenment liberalism. Liberalism is substantially different from the outlook of the left, and from Marxism, progressivism, libertarianism, and conservatism (as Historian Fritz Stern writes, “Extremists of the right and the left have long attacked liberalism as their greatest enemy.”)

The knotty problem of the definition of liberalism is addressed by various posts which attempt to suggest the dimensions of a political philosophy which underlies the modern world, and which may represent humankind's best effort so far to address the problem of achieving liberty and justice for all: Defining Liberalism: Randall Kennedy's 'My Race Problem—And Ours'; Defining Liberalism: Hayek, Habakkuk and More; Defining Liberalism: Published Arguments for Liberalism; Defining Liberalism: An Overview; and Defining Liberalism: "Passing".

An unfriendly definition related by Charles K. Rowley:

Charles K. Rowley: In 1993, in his book, Post-Liberalism, [John] Gray poked around among the rubble of classical liberal philosophy to determine what, if anything was left. He concluded that none of the four constitutive elements of doctrinal liberalism — universalism, individualism, egalitarianism and meliorism (or human flourishing) — could survive the ordeal by value pluralism and that liberalism, as a political philosophy, therefore was dead. www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_01_1_rowley.pdf

There has also been an ongoing concern with our intellectual heritage, and the state of the academic humanities, as expressed in The Two Realms, Intellectual Prudence, and Intellectual Prudence: MetaIntellectual Analysis of Intellectual Subculture.

A perhaps related post was a retelling of "Oedipus Rex," This Is The Son of Kings, which attempted a reinterpretation of classical literary criticism on the topic of the most famous play of the ancient world.

A germane concern was Conscience and Language: Orwell, which noted, “Even a single taboo can have an all-round crippling effect upon the mind. … If one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.”

There were a number of posts on the presidential election of 2012: How Fares The Republic: The Liberal View of The Market; How Fares The Republic: The Post Truth Candidate; and How Fares The Republic: Movement Conservatism Cruelty. Related were: Mendacious Debater Disgraces Self: Media Call Him Victor; and The Third Debate: Mendacious Candidate Disgraces Self Redux.

And a post by an honorable Republican: Mitt's Father Articulates Republican Principles Before Goldwater.

There were various perhaps memorable quotes, including: Snippets 7/27/12:

I drink to our ruined house, to the dolor of my life, to our loneliness together, and to you I raise my glass, to lying lips that have betrayed us, to dead-cold, pitiless eyes, and to the hard realities: that the world is brutal and coarse, that God in fact has not saved us.

- Anna Akhmatova, in Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith

Molly Ball, who wrote:

“A smart [GOP] party strategist” ... wrote, “Bain was a critical part of the Romney image that just couldn't sell to enough voters in Ohio. He came off as the guy who got rich by buying your Dad's employer, firing your Dad, stripping down the business, and making hundreds of millions and buying jet-skis and houses with car elevators and dancing horses while your Dad visits the food bank and is forced onto unemployment. The Romney team should have known this was going to be a problem.” (Emphasis added.)

There were two articles addressing a little-known aspect of the civil rights revolution of the mid-twentieth century: In Retrospect: The Supreme Court and The Disabled; and Followup: Courts and the Civil Rights of the Disabled. In the latter a prosecutor noted:

There's case law out there regarding people commenting and gesturing against race and religion. But ... there's nothing out there regarding disabilities.

An early post wondered who now believes "that all men are created equal": The Condition of Equality Today, which cited, among others:

 [Conservatives] feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.
 - Russell Kirk,  “Ten Conservative Principles” (Emphasis added)