Now that my biography of M. Stanton Evans is out, time to go back and take in Stan in his own words in podcast form. A previous podcast featured several of Stan’s greatest comedy chops, so this one highlights some of his serious work.
I decided to highlight here just four aspects of many that draw chiefly from one of his enduring books that everyone should have on their shelf of indispensable books: The Theme Is Freedom.
In the first segment here from a speech in the 1980s, Stan lays out his critique of the “standard liberal history” of Western Civilization which he thinks too many conservatives (especially neoconservatives) have bought into.
In the second segment, I draw out an excerpt of his emphasis on the importance of the common law in England in the Middle Ages, which became a key part of his book. In the third segment, drawn from a speech in 1977, he presciently notes the potential of reaching out to the working class in ways that anticipate Trump’s appeal in 2016, but with a warning about mistakes to avoid, and he also measures up the rising neoconservatives, though concluding that while “Kristol is great, but Friedman is greater.”
Finally, an excerpt from a speech in 1984 that describes what everyone today knows as “the administrative state” (Evans calls it “the alternative government,” but it is clear he means the same thing), and the challenge of returning control of the government to the people, where it belongs.
You know what to do now: listen here, or boogie on over to the jukebox at Ricochet (as Stan might have said).
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