From a longtime reader:

I just watched you and Douthat reminisce on Bloggingheads and then read his post. Two points seem in order. First, Douthat (yes, I know he is still young) to me epitomizes the extent to which the practical politics of European Christian Democracy has permeated the psyches of leading conservative intellectuals in America. Their concept of a “conservative” program is nothing much more than “me too” regulatory/welfare statism led by a political elite which is more adept at communications than Dubya–sort of a Habermasian in “communicative action,” as well as perhaps a bit luckier in foreign policy and bit more parsimonious with the public purse. Second, the real tragedy of Dubya resides in his neglect of the futurity of the GOP. To what may we point with pride as Dubya’s contribution to the Party and its destiny? Conservatives, or simply regular Republicans, who think that Washington, under the yoke of Progressivism and whipped by Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, won’t be all that bad, surely neglect the lessons history teaches us about power unrestrained by constitutionalism. It will not be 1933 again; the balance on the Supreme Court tilts the wrong way today. It will be far, far more devasting. Associate Justice Kennedy is just another Christian Democrat at root. To use Burke’s terminology from his 1780 address on Economical Reform, this Progressive reformation will be a “hot reformation” in which the reformers intend to “make clear work,” and the Supreme Court will prove no deterrent to them.
History, one may presume to say, affords no example of any nation, country or people long free, who did not take some care of themselves; and endeavour to guard and secure their own liberties. Power is of a grasping, encroaching nature, in all beings, except in him, to whom it emphatically “belongeth”; and who is the only King that, in a religious or moral sense, “can do no wrong.” Power aims at extending itself, and operating according to mere will, where-ever it meets with no ballance, check, controul or opposition of any kind. For which reason it will always be necessary, as was said before, for those who would preserve and perpetuate their liberties, to guard them with a wakeful attention; and in all righteous, just and prudent ways, to oppose the first encroachments on them. “Obsta principiis.” After a while it will be too late. For in the states and kingdoms of this world, it happens as it does in the field or church, according to the well-known parable, to this purpose; That while men sleep, then the enemy cometh and soweth tares, which cannot be rooted out again till the end of the world, without rooting out the wheat with them. [Jonathan Mayhew, “The Snare Broken. A Thanksgiving Discourse Preached at the Desire of the West Church in Boston, N. E. Friday May 23, 1766. Occasioned by the Repeal of the Stamp-Act.” In Political Sermons of the American Founding Era 1730-1805, (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1990), p. 258]

May God preserve America!