Man is Born Free and Virtuous but Enslaved by Lessons Learned from Antiquity

I was thinking about the recent Speech by El Dimbo, the Dear AM Radio Leader Rush Limbaugh, in which El Dimbo pronounces in effect, That Man is Born Free and Virtuous, Only to Become Bound in Chains by classical liberalism.  "The Speech" as it was framed by Hugh Hewitt, drew rave reviews amoung the nuttier varieties of Wingnut-Americans.  Not only were the reveiws rave, it was proclaimed by Hewitt , who by all accounts is intellent and thoughtful in addition to being a certifiable loon, that "The Speech" would be talked about for decades. 

Well let's go and re-examine the central premise of "The Speech."

In what is a 180 degree shift from the Bush-Cheney Era and it reliance on the One Percent Doctrine, El Dimbo rejected the teachings of Thomas Hobbes so favored by the former administration outright in favor of a Right-Wing Interpretation of Jean Jacques Rousseau's General Will.  In effect El Dimbo declared, Man is Born Good but only becomes Corrupted by the Government.  If not for the Government, Man would know True Freedom and Thus Liberty.  However, unfortunately for El Dimbo, western civilization has created insidious governmental institutions through the trial of the ages, which among other functions, protect the rights of the minority from the momentary passions of the Majority by ensuring Free Speech, Free Assembly, a Free Press, a Freedom to practice the religion of one's choice, Freedom to bear Arms, and Due Process of Law among other rights.

In place of all of Liberal Constitution Democracy and these so-called rights, El Dimbo would substitute the General Conservative Will, the supposedly infallible will of the majority.  Since man is born pure and virtuous, the institutions of the Government, its rules are but an artifice and only serve to perpetuate the interest of the Government to the exclusion of the interests of the governed.

According to El Dimbo, when the conservative will of the governed becomes the Law, a State will need few Laws as only that which are needed are felt by the many and thus passage ascertained in such modesty in proportion to their want.

Does it follow from all of this that the general conservative will is exterminated or corrupted? Not at all accordingly to El Dimbo: conservatism is always constant, unalterable and pure; it is what it is, but it cannot be subordinated to other wills which encroach upon its sphere. Each man, in detaching his interest from the common interest, sees clearly that he cannot entirely separate them from conservatism because it is eternal. And as such, this will, The Conservative General Will, brings Justice and order.  It is formless like water, its justice flows and can only be restrainted by the chains of Constitutional Liberal Democracy which turns the virtuous born freeman into Bondsman in chains suboordinated to Classical Liberalism.

Thus "The Speech" will be revered for decades, or perhaps ridiculed, because man is not born virtuous and pure. Man needs the restaints gleaned from lessons learned by our forefathers back through antiquity.  Man should learn the lessons of the past rather than rely on will of the moment as El Dimbo urges.  But for El Dimbo, urges are everything, as he elucidates that The Conservative General Will is the rule of the passions. 

Thus to Authoritarian Wingnut Ideologues the passion of the moment and the maxim "if it feels good, do it" rules all. So to it are the Right Wing Rousseauists sometimes known as fascists.