“In America the Right has splintered between neo-conservative ideologues and paleo-conservative nativists. The common factor in these disparate currents is that conservatism has ceased to be a coherent political project. The links it requires with the past have been severed. Any attempt to revive them can only be atavistic, and when conservative parties resist the temptation of reaction they become vehicles for a progressive agenda that easily degenerates into utopianism.”
▪ John N. Gray, Black Mass (Farrar Sraus Giroux, 2007) extract from page 82.
The ratchet only moves leftward.
Indeed it does; just as the hamster-wheel only spins in one direction:
Incidentally, if anyone can shed some light on why the above-quoted post has been removed from The Right Stuff blog, that would be appreciated.