On April 5, 2024, at St. Paul’s, St. Peter’s Church, in Ottawa an audience of over seventy people came out to hear first hand a spirited debate over virtue vs. freedom. Dr. David Haskell advocated for a virtuous government to lead the country back to a traditional view of “conservative.”
Haskell noted in his opening statement,
Thus, liberty is a core characteristic of the conservatism I’m describing. And while conservatives in the Anglo-speaking countries are fierce defenders of freedom, they are guided by their religious tradition to balance their love of personal liberty with duty to family and duty to their nation.
So with all this in mind, I’ll wrap up my definition of conservatism as a political philosophy. A government that leads according to conservative ideals will focus on the promotion of freedom, but it will be tempered by
traditions of faith, protection of family, and the success of the nation.
And this needs to be said.
A conservative does not need to be religious, though many are, but they must support the virtues of the Judeo-Christian tradition because they recognize that they lead to the greatest societal success.
Law Professor Bruce Pardy took the position of the “Classical Liberal” – noting that
David Haskell is one of the best human beings that I know. He has made himself a servant of God, of his family, of his community, of this country. But Dave is also a conservative. And many conservatives carry
something dark inside their hearts. And that is this. The conviction that everyone must live like them.
We agree, the two of us, about a great many things. But we don’t agree about this. And as Dave suggested, this may be the thing upon which the fight turns. Because there are these two forces working together to try and resist the woke, to try to resist the dissolving of Western Civilization. If you give somebody control, they have control over what happens. And that’s the way government works. If government is going to foster a virtuous society, it’s going to foster a virtuous society that it thinks is virtuous. And that’s what it has been doing.
As Thomas Sowell said, the most basic question is not what shall be done, But who decides what shall be done? Dave’s answer is the government. And my answer is you. You shall decide what happens in your life and how you choose to behave.