So, with all that out of the way, do I seriously believe that today's Republicans have become pre-Enlightenment conservatives in today's fast-paced society?

Obviously Republicans are not all the same.  At the far extreme are Glenn Beck and his fans, and the ones who march in 18th Century costumes and call for a return to the Founding Fathers.  Let us make no mistake what they think they are talking about.  They regard the Constitution as a document straight from God, believe that the Founding Fathers had established the ideal and perfect social order, and that and variation from the ideal social order they had founded can only be degeneration.  In other words, society should be frozen in amber, even as technology changes, and being true to the vision of the Founders means re-creating an 18th Century society with present-day technology.  This is the very essence of pre-Enlightenment conservatism.

Admittedly, these pre-Enlightenment conservatives are willing to admit that there was trouble in paradise in the form of the little matter of slavery.  The Glenn Beck/18th Century costumes wing of movement conservatism does acknowledge that slavery was a blemish on our society at the founding, and that to be ideal it would have to change in that one regard.  But they take a decidedly modern conservative approach to ending slavery.  Active agitation against slavery just makes slave holders dig in their heels; the only acceptable way for slavery to end is for it to die out on its own.  And they regard an 18th Century society, minus slavery and with modern day technology, as the ideal society that must be held in stasis and never allowed to change (except in technology).

Of course, this crowd does not know much about what the 18th Century social order was really like.  They simply take their ideas of libertarianism and minimal government and assume that it was what existed when this country was founded.  They are wrong.  I confess I have only glanced at, not read The Radicalism of the American Revolution, and I do not know enough about the history of the era to know to what extent I should accept its thesis.  But I have seen enough to recognize that the book describes what the 18th Century social order looked like and why it was far from any sort of modern libertarianism, or, indeed, anything modern-day American, anywhere across the political spectrum would want to duplicate.  It was a society that did not truly have the concept of the state being separate from society, and certainly a social order incompatible with anything like modern industrial capitalism.  He further argues that the full transformation did not end with the Revolution, but only truly came to fruition in the early 19th Century.

All of which leads me to an inescapable conclusion.  The Beck wing of the conservative movement may say it wants a return to the Founding Era and the society and values of the 1780's.  But what they are actually seeking to create looks a lot more like the 1880's -- the Gilded Age.  Beck himself more or less gives himself away in his choice of villains.  Glenn Beck famously hates Progressivism.  His favorite villain is Woodrow Wilson, but he believes the decline really began with Teddy Roosevelt.  And who were these Progressives, Wilson and Roosevelt included?  They were the people who opposed the worst excesses of the Gilded Age.  They did not favor ending industrial capitalism by any means, but they favored curbing its abuses through anti-trust legislation, labor and consumer protection, workers' compensation, anti-trust legislation, regulation, limiting big money in politics and so forth.  If the people who sought reforms to end the Gilded Age are Beck's villains, what are we to conclude, if not that the Gilded Age is the ideal society that he favors?

As for more mainstream movement conservatives, my guess is that most of them also basically regard the Gilded Age as our golden age and would like to get back to it.  But they also understand that such a project is not politically feasible.  But if they do not openly express a desire to return to the 1780's or the 1880's, plenty of mainstream Republicans are unwilling to budge from the 1980's.  When confronted with the suggestion that things have changed since the 1980's and that perhaps they should change their program to adapt, they respond that conservatism stands for universal the timeless principles and therefore does not have to change its program.

The timeless truths embodied in their program are that we should cut taxes and gut regulations.  Pointing out that a top marginal rate of 70% and a top marginal rate or 36% may not be the same thing, or that government once regulated the route and fare of every truck, train, plane and ship in the country, makes no difference.  These are distinctions for people who accept the moral legitimacy of taxes and regulations, and believe that they are best determined by social utility.  If, on the other hand, you believe as a universal and timeless principle that all taxes and regulations are morally illegitimate, but recognize that eliminating them altogether is not practical, then it is a universal and timeless truth that taxes are always too high, regulations are always stifling, and that a crusade to cut taxes and gut regulations is always a moral imperative.

Though it gets less attention, some of the same consideration applies to monetary policy.  Conservatives often praise Paul Volcker, Ronald Reagan's chairman of the Federal Reserve for tightening monetary policy, no matter how painful.  They seem to take an almost prurient delight in the pain he inflicted -- skyrocketing interest rates, a severe recession, farmers bankrupted, Latin American thrown into economic crisis -- and urge today's Fed to do the same thing.  Why, one might ask?  Volcker was willing to inflict so much pain to break an inflationary spiral that had reached 14%. Given that we don't have an inflationary spiral right now, and that there is a severe recession going on and an international economic crisis despite the Fed's monetary expansion to soften the blow, why should we want to make things even worse?  The usual answer we get is fear of inflation.  But just how much pain do we have to inflict, not just on ourselves, but the rest of the world, in the interest of  fighting an inflation that hasn't even shown up?

It makes more sense if you don't think of monetary policy as a means of achieving an economic end, but as a sort of moral imperative.  Monetary expansion, or, as it is called, loose money, is a sign of moral laxness.  Tight money means moral rectitude.  And if you think of these as universal and timeless moral principles -- that taxation and regulation are morally illegitimate, that tight money is always a moral imperative -- then there is no need to change policies to adjust to changing circumstances.  Ronald Reagan's policy prescriptions are not just responses to certain economic circumstances, but universal and timeless truths that must always be followed.  And this really is moving in the direction of treating public policy as a branch of theology.