New Paradigm

As of this writing, it appears that the GOP has taken Virginia. There are a lot of things that could be said, but what would be best to say here on this blog?

Only that which could be the most hopeful scenario for the future. If that holds true, then this would be a Reaganeque victory. It will have repudiated the old paradigm of left-right-middle for a new paradigm of freedom over slavery under the rule of law. For that is Reagan's dialectic.

Reagan didn't trust that ideology ( of left v right ), and he said so in his speech that launched his political career. If I may, I would say that Reagan enunciated his own dialectic, which I will call a New Paradigm. The old one is about left versus right. This new one is about freedom, and its antithesis, which is slavery. The synthesis is what Reagan called the maximum of freedom consistent with order in a civilized society. I'd call that "rule of law".

Lots of folks will claim that, but they really don't mean it. The rule of law needs the other part that Reagan mentioned, which is a civilized society. A society cannot be at peace with itself if it is missing this quality of civilized behavior. Civilized behavior as the norm is not one in which people are lacking in integrity with regards to conduct. Rule of law, which is carried out consistently througout, is the best hope towards obtaining that desired result. I don't believe that the left v right paradigm is consistent with order in a civilized society. It appears to me that the left lacks integrity. They may even sneer at it, as they do with many other good things that still remain in this country.

Consequently, it is my hope that this is what was rejected in the old paradigm, and the new one now has a chance to get re-established, as what was happening during the Reagan years.

The New Paradigm was once used in reference towards this very thing, I believe. It was during the Bush 41 presidency, in which George HW Bush positioned himself as the heir of Reagan. But the paradigm was sneered at, if memory serves. That administration marked the end of Reaganism, and the beginning of a long road down to totalitarianism that Reagan warned about. Bush ended the unity in the GOP, and also engendered the broader disunity that that old Paradigm needs to foster and grow stronger. Perhaps that mistake can be avoided this time.