“The welfare state that is built upon this conception seems to prove precisely away from the conservative conception of authoritative and personal government, towards a labyrinthine privilege sodden structure of anonymous power, structuring a citizenship that is increasingly reluctant to answer for itself, increasingly parasitic on the dispensations of a bureaucracy towards which it can feel no gratitude.”

Uh... what did you say??????????????????

Senor Reek, long time no see, welcome back (-; need a lot more info to rate this one ;-)

....until the parasites kill the host. Five stars for an intellectual who actually gets it. Doctor Scruton does love pretty words.

This quote must be in context-surely there is a lot more to read around it, but it describes large and expansive government.

No need to feel "gratitude" since everything is now a RIGHT and the government OWES it to me.

I like 'a labyrinthine privilege-sodden structure of anonymous power' -- that is what a welfare states creates -- in short, a corporate monster that takes on a life of its own (with our money).

I would have given it more stars if there were some insight to the present political atmosphere. The whole thing has gone full circle here in North America. The conservative are operating a welfare state for multi-national corporations. Some of the largest corporations in the world get government grants, loan guarauntees and (now recently) bailouts. The Conservatives are not conservative. They are destructive spendthrifts who would steal the gold out of their dead grandmother's teeth then ask the funeral home to validate their parking. Accountability is out the window with the Bloomberg machines printing money for these bastards. And with George W in the Whitehouse, no one even batted an eye.

Sounds exactly like the good ole united States of America today.

Can we get off GWB now? So much more damage has taken place since his departure...much faster and getting worse. This corporatism is going to kill this country. Let us please move forward, retake our country at the polls, turn the ship around...we can do this and must do this and it must start today with your help! We can sit here and chat on this site, or we can actually go out into the community and speak with real people who will be voting...those people don't know what to do...they are in distress about their liberty; their sovereignty. We think we have answers, let us not keep them on this narrow little page, but rather share them with ever widening audiences. We must tell people not to vote for that person they see smiling on tv every 15 minutes when there are real Constitutionalists running, who will be on ballots, and have no money for television ads...but rather good will for the country. We need to do this and start TODAY!

There is a much simpler way to say it: Facism.

I prefer to owe my gratitude to a system of law and agreed upon rules and regulations even if it be labryinthine than to a personal authoritative conservative government such as Dr Scruton would seem to enjoy. The USA was founded on just such a principal of government by us rather than by a personal authoritative tyrannt. Dave obviously does not know what facism really is!