Whos the Collectivist Here?
Buddy Larsen – Blanco, Texas The ironies abound. This conservatism, criticized for “cowboy individualism” by Europeans whose governments have no higher purpose than protecting their citizen-individuals in as risk-free an environment as possible, is in fact perfectly willing to let an individual be flattened by the turmoil and rigor of the creatively destructive marketplace, as a default to the health of the society of which he is only a part. So who are the individualists, and who are the collectivists? Transferred to foreign policy in this new hyperconnected global village, this sort of conservatism must, since it is self-driven by the concept of first principle, eventually lead itself to regard nations as individuals within a global society. The collectivist impulse will abide a Saddam, as it substitutes an imperative for a first principle, and it is imperative always to avoid risk in the very next unit of time. It is emotional rather than rational, and is the habit of mind of prey a
