Bill Whittle: character and virtue matters

**Posted by Phineas

Happy end of the Thanksgiving weekend, folks. I’m sure we’re all excited to go back to work, now. 

Since this is my first post in a few days, I thought “What better way to ease back into the blogging groove than Bill Whittle’s most recent episode of Afterburner?”

Glad you agree.

It’s an interesting discussion of virtue and discipline as components of character and their role in our founding, the assumption that private virtue and self-regulating discipline made our system of self-government possible. And that their decline (which really began after the passing of the Revolutionary generation and the growth of popular democracy in the age of Jackson) lead to the growth of the State and the efforts to impose virtue and regulate behavior from above, via legislation.

And that brings to mind a pertinent quote from Cicero:

“The more laws, the less justice.”

And, perhaps, the less virtue.

I’m not sure I agree 100-percent with Bill’s arguments and examples, but that would be more in the way of a quibble, rather than substantial disagreement.

Regardless, his points are worth thinking about.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)