A philosophical streetfight is raging in American conservatism right now, pitting aging partisans of William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan’s Cold War/libertarianism/social conservative ‘fusionism’ against younger ‘post-liberal’ upstarts with little interest in any of that. A curious affair, the debate represents efforts to answer anew some of the oldest and most basic question in Western political philosophy, questions like what is prior, the state or the individual? and are there universal moral values to which governments can be held accountable?, and what are the conditions of the legitimate use of state power? It also represents an unsettling development in contemporary politics. Keep reading…