I had some impromptu rapport the other day with one of the trial attorneys at my office — actually, a trial supervisor. “Big Mike” wanted to follow up on a political discussion that he had with another fellow from my section, where I became tangentially involved in as an innocent bystander. Mr. RK, my brother-in-arms from the Administration Section, is a Democratic liberal for whom politics is an ongoing hobby. Mr. RK never ran for office, but he gets heavily involved in various local campaigns and rubs elbows with mayors, board members, assemblymen, campaign managers, etc. (but quietly, as not to violate any regulations against mixing government employment with political activism). Big Mike, by contrast, is more like me in that his political interests stem from philosophy and intellectual reflection, as opposed to actual involvement in turning out the vote.

The difference between myself and Big Mike is that he is quite sympathetic to the Republicans; and also that his philosophy is very conservative. So, you wouldn’t think that Mike and I would have had a very pleasant conversation, given my liberal sympathies. And yet, Mike is one of those Ayn Rand / Edmund Burke kinds of conservatives, the kind who has thought things through and has come to believe that law and order, minimum government redistribution, and maximum market freedom will lead to the best world possible, given the very imperfect world that we have to work with.

Mike is one of the classical conservatives, versus the political conservatives who adopt a variety of arguments and positions that are mostly knee-jerk  »  continue reading …