‘motivated at times — like many liberals and academics in general — by an almost masochistic love of “graceful surrender” (often manifesting as a natural submissiveness to the dominatrices of the left, as it were)’

too long to adopt as a personal motto, or to put up on my blog like a back-cover blurb?

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Anyway, setting myself aside, don’t confuse “actual substantive disagreement with Todd” “intellectual surrender and weakness of will.” Taylor, to take the goofiest example from your list, is many things, but a Seaveyite manque’ isn’t one of them. He is, after all, a Hegelian Catholic, and while juggling competing principles may pain him, that’s because he aims at their ultimate reconciliation. He’s got a strong and unified political-moral vision, and it isn’t mine and isn’t yours and isn’t something he surrenders on.

And Will, it seems to me, is *at least* as comfortable with rigorous argument from first principles as you are. (NB: Just *stating the names* of your first principles over and over again isn’t the same thing as rigorous argument.) I may be prone to a kind of mushy High Berlinism, but Will’s really not– you do him a silly disservce here.

Conversely, I think you give Brooks more credit than he is due…