Wilhoit's Razor (Conservatism)

Frank Wilhoit (2018)

There is a quote from a few years ago that adds political framing I find useful. I propose using it as a test or razor (à la Occam) when evaluating political actions and legislation: Who does this action or law bind? Who does it protect?

The best answer is the people who are bound are also protected. That would be a sign of that the action or law is a good one.

The worst answer is the people who are bound are not protected. This almost always means the action or law is a bad one.

As with all politics and compromise there are shades of grey, but this rule of thumb can help find the better action or law.

Here's the quote…

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time."

— Frank Wilhoit 03/22/18 There is No Such Thing as Liberalism

The original was an obscure blog post by Frank Wilhoit the composer, not the political writer Francis Wilhoit.

The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

A good mnemonic is Rules [Taxes, Laws, etc.] for Thee, but not for Me.

Since the original source is so hard to find I've reproduced it here without modification for the convenience of my readers.

Comment on The Travesty of Liberalism by Henry Farrell on crookedtimber.org…

Frank Wilhoit 03.22.18 at 12:09 am

There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.

There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.

There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.

So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whateverthefuckkindofstupidnoise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.

No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:

The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.