Mechanical Brideshead Revisited

I.

Conservatives are just liberals driving at the speed limit. Mind you, it’s good to drive at the speed limit so there are fewer accidents and atrocities on the road; every motor vehicle being, lest we forget, a mechanical Jacobin. Drivers simply can’t avoid driving Jacobins along; Jacobins simply can’t avoid driving drivers up the wall. Liberals and conservatives shift about in a gearbox electrified by conscience and concupiscence.