perfidy

Interesting discussion on stuff going on over here. A little bit more here.

Discussions of political taxonomy are always fraught with danger. Danger in that you are starting out from a counting angels on pinheads sort of place, and then heading into the deep from there. Still and all, Aretae and the other commenters have had some interesting thoughts.

One contribution I made was to suggest this:

That's why I am somewhat dubious about Leonard's distinctions between traditionalists and conservatives. I mean sure, we see differences between self-labeled advocates of those positions on the internets - but conceptually I don't think you can suss out meaningful categorical boundaries between them. An intuitive understanding of the law of unintended circumstances is a powerful starting point. It isn't fear of change, per se. It's something closer to humility, as opposed to the radical/progressive's hubris.

The difference between this position:

France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces: or there we'll sit,
Ruling in large and ample empery
O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,

and this one:

conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits - and then Re-mold it nearer to the heart's desire!

are real. However both are active, meddling, arrogant. But, both are different in the same way from conservatism and libertarianism. The latter two passive in that they want either their world or themselves to be left alone.

You could plant a flag and say:

For more on what that might mean, go over to Aretae's.

Homer apparently has some mad skills in the rhetoric:

Homer's Figures of Speech

Though sometimes misjudged as a complete moron, Homer is actually a deft manipulator of the oxymoron: "Oh Bart, don't worry, people die all the time. In fact, you could wake up dead tomorrow." And our favorite figure of ridicule is actually quite handy with figures of speech. To explain human behavior, for instance, he relies on personification:

The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother! I call him Gamblor, and it's time to snatch your mother from his neon claws!

Chiasmus guides Homer to new levels of self-understanding:

All right, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me--so let's just do this, and I'll get back to killing you with beer.

And here, in just five words, he manages to combine apostrophe and tricolon in a heartfelt encomium: "Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover."