Steven LaTulippe accurately presents the intellectual content of the Presidential debates:

Moderator: What will you do about problem X?

Candidate: Problem X is one of the most important issues of our time. Since I’ve been in government, I’ve passed 693 bills concerning problem X. Over the past ten years, I’ve increased spending on problem X by 4.3 trillion dollars and have created 28 new government agencies to address the issue. My opponent, on the other hand, could care less about problem X. He’s been ignoring it for his entire career, and probably wants problem X to get worse, since his friends and cronies benefit from problem X. Vote for me, and problem X is as good as solved. I have a wonderful new plan to deal with it. Just go to my website and read all about it!

Pat Buchanan endorses Bush:

If Bush loses, his conversion to neoconservatism, the Arian heresy of the American Right, will have killed his presidency. Yet, in the contest between Bush and Kerry, I am compelled to endorse the president of the United States. Why? Because, while Bush and Kerry are both wrong on Iraq, Sharon, NAFTA, the WTO, open borders, affirmative action, amnesty, free trade, foreign aid, and Big Government, Bush is right on taxes, judges, sovereignty, and values. Kerry is right on nothing.

In the 16 October Spectator, Roger Scruton tells us that the new claim-based rights are in danger of depriving Britons of their old procedural-based rights as enunciated in the 1689 Bill of Rights.  In fact, perhaps the word ‘procedure’ is more important than the word ‘right’ here.  According to Scruton: “Although the Bill of Rights declared some of the rights of the British subject, it was, in doing so, merely rehearsing established procedures of the common law, and re-affirming them against recent abuses.”

From gypsy squatter parks to the right to a proper education, Scruton sees examples of the new style of rights leading to irresoluble conflicts and a murky system of law where the courts have no choice but to decide matters as they see fit.  The new rights are not so much rights as claims – claims that must be enforced on everybody else.

If we compare the history of modern Britain under the common law with that of Europe under the civilian and Napoleonic jurisdictions that have prevailed there, we will surely be impressed by the fact that the jurisdiction which has so persistently refused to define our rights has also been the most assiduous in upholding them. This is because it recognises that rights define the limits of power, and that these limits must be enforced by the citizen himself, through the procedures of justice, rather than by the state, through some all-comprehending and in the event all-authorising doctrine.

The rights that have historically protected the citizens of liberal democracies are, in general, negotiated restraints on state power.  A right that must be enforced by the exercise of state power is something else entirely.

So here we are, online.  After four months of planning we have arrived at that precipitate moment.  The first post.  The one that should welcome, introduce, explicate, commend … and get the blog rolling.  The one that, like a best man’s speech, doesn’t need to say too much and doesn’t need to go on too long.  Just so that it leaves the reader with a crank-handle sense of something vital and positive having begun.

A tall order, then.

Well, maybe.  Maybe not.  I’ve looked into a few of these first post offerings lately.  They are by no means all successful.  Simplicity seems to be the safest if, perhaps, most unadventurous option.  You know … just a few spare but elegant phrases that go to the heart of what it means to blog on politics and what, in addition, it will mean to blog here.  That ought not to be too challenging.

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