On the need for a strong state and the role of religion therein

Fukuyama’s Recipe for Political Order

Dig a bit. You'll find it.

Oddly, conservatives don't seem to see this as a argument for the need to keep down inequality, break up concentrated wealth and too-big corporations, and limit the power of money to control the political discussion or the political agenda.

We in America are on the wrong track as regards all three and the power of big money over our politics and even the state is far too great.

Conservatives are not on the side of mixed government effectively putting the arrogance and selfishness of the rich in check.

They are defenders of that arrogance and that selfishness.

But, truth to tell, we see the rich buying off the liberals and the Democrats, the "party of the people," more and more, shifting their agenda over the decades from strong defense and advancement of the interests of working Americans to shafting labor behind a propaganda onslaught on the white working class and advancing a sociolib agenda that generally costs billionaires nothing, though it often costs ordinary people a very great deal.

And by the way.

FF sees the role of religion in sponsoring the idea of a law binding on all but, anyway as seen in this review, he doesn't take it far enough.

It is not just a question of the gods endorsement of the laws shoring up the power of the state.

Why, after all, should that work to limit the selfishness of the rich and their desire at every opportunity to reduce everybody else to being their slaves, making all wealth but the barest minimum their own?

The answer is that it is not they who speak for the gods, defining and promulgating their will.

And those who do are sufficiently independent to be able to serve an agenda that conflicts with the worldly, all too worldly interests and aims of the great and powerful.

All the more so as those who speak for the gods are a larger, better organized, and more coherent force, themselves.

Ask Nietzsche about how Christianity differed from ancient paganism in this regard.

For a longer view, ask Spinoza about Moses.

PS

Note how this rightist denigrates and rejects popular sovereignty and the foundation of legitimacy in consent.

The right would be abundantly willing as a matter of principle to replace the constitution with one making the plutocracy more powerful, without necessarily bothering to seek popular ratification even in the take it or leave it manner usual today.