The Conservative Sensibility, George Will

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/a-defense-of-conservatism-that-veers-toward-liberalism/2019/06/21/b6467a36-8d3e-11e9-adf3-f70f78c156e8_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b981243bf2e6

I enjoyed this book because I'm an iconoclastic tweak with a pseudo intellectual bent. I nearly worshipped WF Buckley, and must confess oft felt envy of his intellect, erudition, and elite station in life. At times I had similar thoughts of Will.

As I've aged and life has shown me more and more that "elite" in this mortal coil is eternally problematic, my objective has moved to being a disciple of Jesus Christ -- so pride in anything but Christ is at best counterproductive if not eternally fatal.

The biggest message of this book for me is that when you don't believe that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, you will quickly find new gods. For Will, his gods are the American Founders. His bible, the Constitution. I completely agree that the founders are admirable, and the nation returning to following the Constitution is likely imperative if further slippage into tyranny is to be avoided.

The book tries to make the case that this can be done in a secular and rational manner ... yet as he harkens back to the founders, what he seems to admire most is their creation of a REPUBLIC that LIMITED government.  He makes a good case that the "egg" of that creation has been thoroughly  scrambled by progressivism ... he clearly wishes to see it unscrambled. however unscrambling an egg is a task not likely to be accomlished by even the most fervent of wishes.

I highly recommend the Deneen review. Rather than reading this book, read "Why Liberalism Failed"!