Libertarian or Conservative?

Vox Day calls himself a libertarian. And he objects to being called a conservative.

I agree with 99% of Vox Day's opinions, which is why I check him out daily.

But he is wrong on this issue.

Mr. Day is a conservative. Conservatism is an acknowledgement of man's actual condition. Humans are physical beings with intellectual and spiritual dimensions. Our loyalties belong to our people, our traditions, our communities, our heritage.

Contrast that with the leftists, who denounce and despise bonds arising from the traditional and physical. Our minds make us what we are, claim these ideologues. It is our thinking that defines who and what we are. Thus, re-education is the key to creating paradise on earth.

Egalitarianism, then, is central to leftist ideology. It's all just a matter of correct thinking. Open borders? Check. Women in the military? Check. Same-sex "marriage"? Double-check.

Conservatives take opposing stances on those and many other issues because they see historical wisdom as the accumulated experience of their particular society. Our true natures, thus, have been revealed over many centuries. Conservatives therefore take their heritage as a standard for their own personal development. The physical is as important as the spiritual, so both the body and mind must be developed to make a whole man. (I believe Vox keeps his body as well tuned as his mind.)

Libertarianism, on the other hand, is just another ideology, an artificial way of living cooked up by those who imagine reason - or should I say, "Reason" - is sovereign.

Contrast Vox Day with Roderick Long, who's the Bizarro world image of Vox Day. Long is a "libertarian anarchist" who, like Vox Day, is into sci-fi, philosophy, and blogging. But unlike Day, Long's rigid egalitarianism, atheism, and disdain for traditional loyalties make him the perfect model of a modern libertarian. Unlike conservatives, Long sees individuals as atomized, self-guided, autonomous beings free to do what they want. While conservatives see society as the individual's source of meaning, identity, and guidance, libertarians such as Roderick Long refuse to even acknowledge that society exists. Only the individual is real.

Check out Vox Day's post, and the post that set him off. Tell us what you think who's the conservative, and who's the libertarian.