To return to my original point - whether you agree with the sketch of a critique of capitalism or not - I think it's important to distinguish a liberal critique of "illiberal" liberalism from a full-blown external critique of liberalism and capitalism. Issues about wiretapping and international interventionism are important, but these are issues on which a lot of liberals of the broadly pro-capitalist and anti-communitarian variety agree with critics of liberalism and capitalism. The real meat of the critique lies elsewhere than Iran-Contra, elsewhere than terror detainees.

Oh, ok. cool, then. though it appears we disagree quite fundamentally about economic justice, at least we agree about the relative purchase of various arguments by analogy.

Say what you will about Pol Pot, but at least he was trying to return his people to an authentic Rousseauian existence where they wouldn’t be alienated from the fruits of their own labor.

Yes, to critique a human institution is equivalent to endorsing every evil act performed by those who also critique that institution.

Or, I think the same critique that condemns the market for stripping away human dignity would nonetheless be incapacitated by the need to condemn mass murder. How can a Christian condemn murder? It's a mystery!

In terms of Fraser’s critique–tyranny–I think the communitarian response to the tyranny critique would be simply to throw back in the face of the accuser and question whether it isn’t the dominant form of market-driven liberalism that isn ‘t in its ways tyrannical (see the anti-terror statues passed in Britain under the New Labour banner). Or the extension of drone attacks by the US Democratic President deeper and deeper into Pakistan clearly against the democratic will of that country, given the old wink-wink nudge nudge by a government the US basically installed in that country. Or say the Torture Memos. Liberalism, de-tyrannize thyself maybe is the proper retort.

I think you're badly underselling the radicality of the Red Tory critique - or, at least, its radicality when articulated in the way I'd like to see it articulated.

Your last sentence is on point, your examples are off point, I think. "Liberalism, de-tyrranize yourself" shouldn't refer to warrantless wiretapping - or, at least, warrantless wiretapping should be a minor form of tyranny found in liberal states. Rather, the tyranny is precisely the world of the free market, which strips us of basic humanity and sends us out into the world objectified and alienated, working not as a person with full dignity, but as a quantified bit of matter in a larger machine with a particular value produced in and only in exchange. There are values beyond exchange value, and the inherent value of the human person created in the image of God is being slowly stripped away by the working of the market.

This is, of course, clearest along class lines - it is the poor and working class who are oppressed and stripped of their human dignity in the most severe ways by the working of the market.

Now, you may disagree with this as a critique of capitalism - and I don't know if I articulated it that well, I'm not actually radical orthodox, I'm just trying to ventriloquize here - but I think that it's very important to see that the critique of liberalism and capitalism in Red Toryism runs all the way down. It's not about certain contradictions in liberalism, even constitutive contradictions, but about the basic unjust and ungodly nature of capitalism.

Homosapiens sapiens is hardwired for superstitionalism, and for religious behavior, and the hardwiring was laid down in the EEA (environment of evolutionary advantage).

I think the funniest thing about the anti-pluralist atheists is the way that they are willing to believe any damn-fool thing, so long as it's dressed up with the slightest patina of science.

The willingness of anti-pluralist atheists to take EvPsych just-so stories - none of which have any scientific backing in the strong sense - and IQ quasi-racist bullshit as examples of the hard-won rational truths that the religious can't accept is, well, it's funny to me.

There's always been a strong whiff of neo-conservatism to the anti-pluralist atheist movement, and not merely because two of the three most popular books of the movement were written by neocon scumbags. (Sam Harris is the other one - See Sam Warblog".) It's the belief that rationality and truth have been so fully achieved by my particular culture that our norms and ideals no longer require critique and the most important task is to go out and convert the Other. Liberal anti-pluralist atheists tend gloss over the fact that their movement is quite specifically historically and culturally situated, and that their constant statements of superiority and ridicule attack not only Christian Fundamentalists, but also pretty much everyone who lives in India. I think when you find yourself arguing that practically everyone who doesn't live in a small portion of the world is irrational and deserving of ridicule, it's time to step back and question the norms and ideals that brought you to that point.

I'll also add, in response to Freddie's point above about why he critiques atheists, that I think there's a big difference between external and internal critique. I am an atheist, and it matters to me a lot that people who share my beliefs act in ways that I think will be politically and socially productive. I think the anti-pluralist atheists and being non-productive, even destructive, and I'm arguing with them to change.