What I Learned In The Rose Garden
By: R.J. Moeller
President Obama held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden on July 19th for the purposes of pressing congress to extend unemployment benefits past the 26 weeks the law currently allows for.
The president focused like a laser beam on the emotional aspect of the economic worries that millions of Americans have right now. His brief statements that day tell us three important things about the psyche and ideology of modern progressive-liberal Democrats.
After offering the boiler-plate “I feel your pain” commiserations with struggling American families, the president said:
“I know the only thing that will entirely free them of those worries, the only thing that will fully lift that sense of uncertainty is the security of a new job. To that end, we all have to continue our efforts to do everything in our power to spur growth and hiring. And I hope the Senate acts this week on a package of tax cuts and expanded lending for small businesses, where most of America's jobs are created.”
The first important conclusion to draw from the president’s remarks is that the Left thoroughly misunderstand economics. With Leftists running the legislative and executive branches of our federal government, this is a significant problem, to say the least.
President Obama is right to say that job-creation could solve many problems in our economy, and he is also right to acknowledge the benefits of a “package of tax cuts and expanded lending for small businesses,” but other than lip-service, he thus far has proven to be unwilling to pay the political price with his own party it would require to actually enact the policies needed for true, sustained economic growth. Policies like across-the-board tax cuts, a prolific slashing of the federal budget, and a freeze on entitlements and handouts (like the one he called the press conference to ask congress to extend).
Jobs are important, and when people become desperate for work they are willing to take nearly anything, but you cannot create one out of thin air. There are, in fact, jobs that hurt the economy and prolong recessions (or lay the groundwork for yet another one). For example, when the government hires employees it doesn’t need, with money it doesn’t have. The only sector of the economy currently seeing job growth is not “small businesses,” where most people are employed, but in the size and scale of the workforce of the federal government.
We absolutely need a certain amount of civil servants, including state and federal employees. This is not in dispute. But whether the nation is in an economic downturn or not, the Left’s “solution” to unemployment is always to put more people on “we the people’s” payroll. Do you want to take a guess which political party most of those newly-minted government workers vote for come election time?
The unavoidable reality is this: governments do not create wealth; they only forcibly collect and arbitrarily re-distribute it. For President Obama to sing the praises of tax-cuts for small businesses and then continue to tax-and-spend at break-neck speeds is like simultaneously urging your neighbors to water and fertilize the trees in whose branches they are sitting while you cut those same branches off from under them.
The cash to provide unemployment benefits comes from the businesses (and owners of those businesses) that end up having to fire people because tax rates and regulation have made it un-profitable (or impossible) to hire more employees and/or grow their business (and our economy in the process). This is the tragic irony, and fatal flaw, of modern liberal economic thinking. Eventually you will run out of other peoples’ money.
Jobs are created (and people are removed from unemployment or welfare) when the private sector is growing, not the public sector.
This does not mesh with the Left’s collectivist, anti-capitalist ideology. It also does not sell well on the campaign trail. Promising free stuff that greedy “rich people” have allegedly held back from you sounds much better at a union-backed rally than does promoting personal responsibility, cuts in government spending, lower taxes for the people and companies that create jobs, and the need to rely on your friends, families, and houses of worship in times of economic duress.
“But even as we work to jump-start job growth in the private sector, even as we work to get businesses hiring again, we also have another responsibility: to offer emergency assistance to people who desperately need it, to Americans who've been laid off in this recession. We've got a responsibility to help them make ends meet and support their families, even as they are looking for another job…
We need to pass (increased unemployment benefits) for women like Leslie Mako (ph), who lost her job in a fitness center last year and has been looking for work ever since. Because she's eligible for only a few more weeks of unemployment, she's doing what she never thought she'd have to do -- not at this point, anyway -- she's turning to her father for financial support.”
The second telling point to emanate from the president’s press conference is the progressive Left’s fervent belief that dependency on “the State” is a noble, moral good. To their (and our) detriment, liberals never ask the all-important question, “How did we become prosperous enough as a nation that we are able to provide any benefits at all for those in need?” Gone are the pretenses that Big Brother should merely serve as a “safety net” for those ravaged by natural disasters; here to stay is the notion that the government has the primary “responsibility” to pay your bills should the economy turn south or you, for whatever reason, lose your job.
The woman the president referenced above, Leslie Mako, in fact did not "lose her job" in the traditional sense. She was convicted of drug fraud and politely asked never to come back to work again. Setting aside (for now) the gross incompetence of the White House in putting a woman like Ms. Mako on television next to the president without doing a thorough background check, we hear in the president’s own words his disdain at the thought of Americans having to turn to their families for help in tough economic times.
Progressives, liberals, collectivists, socialists, and Marxists have certain core ideological characteristics and beliefs that they generally all share in common. They believe in centralized power in the hands of the few. They believe that free market enterprise (and the private sector of any economy) is less trustworthy, less productive and more selfish than the benevolent public sector. They believe in “equitable” re-distribution of wealth, conveniently adjudicated by the same centralized government they humbly offer to run for us. They believe that “the family” is an antiquated concept that has been replaced with what Hillary Clinton would call the “It takes a village” mentality. Collective responsibility, in the mind of a Leftist like President Obama, trumps individual and familial responsibility.
The government gets no glory and Democrats get no votes when relatives are helping relatives that would otherwise end up dependent on the government for their livelihood and sustenance. The same goes for local churches and synagogues. The fact that Ms. Mako would actually have to seek financial help from her father, instead of being taken care of by compassionate legislation enacted by compassionate liberal politicians, is objectionable to President Obama and a central argument in his case to the country as to why more funds should be spent on federal entitlements and handouts.
“Over the past few weeks, a majority of senators have tried, not once, not twice, but three times to extend emergency relief on a temporary basis. Each time a partisan minority in the Senate has used parliamentary maneuvers to block a vote, denying millions of people who are out of work much-needed relief.
These leaders in the Senate who are advancing a misguided notion that emergency relief somehow discourages people from looking for a job should talk to these folks….It's time to stop holding workers laid off in this recession hostage to Washington politics. It's time to do what's right, not for the next election, but for the middle class.”
The third and final revealing thing President Obama’s press conference brought to light is the stark and vivid differences between the two prevailing political ideologies in this country. Some 40% of Americans describe themselves as being “conservative,” while around 20% are “liberal.” Among the remaining 40% of “independents,” the majority support what are essentially conservative and/or libertarian positions on the most important issues of our time. This is a Center-Right country, plain and simple.
No responsible parent raises his or her child to practice what liberals preach. Spending money you don’t have and sending the bill to someone else (including future generations) is reckless and immoral. Giving someone a job because of the color of their skin and not their qualifications is silly and wrong. Teaching young people that their government owes them health care, bailouts, and welfare entitlements is de-habilitating and unsustainable. It would be impossible to live out these types of values and have any degree of success in your own life.
But it just might work for the government of 300 million people, right?
Certainly there are sizeable blocks of pro-choice, pro-gay marriage liberal voters, but when it comes to economic and foreign policy matters, very few Americans practically embrace Leftist principles on a day-to-day basis (where it matters most).
President Obama sees every disagreement with his policies as nothing more than petty, partisan bickering. This is to the detriment of his presidency and the nation’s well-being. How could someone who believed in limited government and fiscal responsibility keep quiet while Democrats pass 2,000-page bill after 2,000-page bill? How could someone who desperately wants the federal government to take seriously its constitutional duty to secure the borders and maintain the integrity of American citizenship look the other way as the administration makes states like Arizona the villain instead of those breaking our laws?
How could someone who believes deeply in the institution of the family, and in the integral role the local church ought to play in the lives of “the least among us” in its community, sit idly by as our own president undermines both and actively seeks to put the secular government in their places?
Come November, regardless of which party they may hail from, we must rid ourselves of any and all politicians what think like this. I mean it: if there are Republicans who are promoting a progressive agenda, or have participated in advancing one in the past, kick ‘em to the curb. Make your allegiance to your family, to your values, and to the truth. Real change is coming to this country, in one direction or another.
Choose liberty. Choose prosperity. Choose to live in a country where family members freely and voluntarily helping other family members in dire economic straits receives the same kind of praise modern liberals lavish on government handouts.
Dostoevsky Was Right, And I Hate Socialism
By: R.J. Moeller
In the opening pages of his masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky gives a description of the key players the reader is to meet in his epic tale of generational sins and familial redemption. The third and virtuous Karamazov brother Alyosha is commended by the narrator not only for his devout and fervent faith in God, but the methodic patience and due diligence he exhibits in his pursuit of moral truth and wisdom. In contrast to the rudder-less passion that so many young people of that generation (1860's Russia) had for new and constantly-changing "causes," Alyosha is described as follows:
"The path he chose was a path going in the opposite direction of many his age, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously on it, he was convinced and convicted of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul, and at once he instinctively said to himself: 'I want to live for immortality with Him and I will accept no compromise.'
In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and socialist. For socialism is not merely the labor question, but it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism today. It is the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to Heaven from earth but to set up Heaven on earth."
I couldn’t have said it better had I blogged it myself.
As much as I would love to write an entire column on the subtle genius of Dostoevsky’s analysis of the human condition in Brothers, let me focus like a laser-beam on the profound insight he made some 150 years ago regarding the “question” of socialism. Socialism, the economic and political theory that advocates for the state to control the means of production and oversee the distribution of resources, was relatively new back in Old Fyodor’s day and the assumption among intellectuals from Moscow to Mexico was that it would inevitably become the way all countries ran their government, society, and economy.
Now, with the winds of a century-and-a-half of unflattering evidence at our back, it ought to be much easier to identify the failings and false assumptions of countries that adopted Leftist (i.e. collectivist, Marxist, and socialist) creeds for the management of their nation. I say “ought to be easier” because it seems that each new generation in Western nations thinks that it will be the one to find that elusive utopian pot-of-gold at the end of their artificially-created, progressive rainbow. These dreamers have it set in their minds that the problems with socialist thought are all superficial ones.
If we only had the right leader. If people just knew the good intentions we have in trying to help them. If the citizenry could just be educated properly. If the right piece of legislation were to be passed. If bothersome things like the traditional family structure and local church were to disappear.
Equally frustrating are the responses (or lack thereof) from Americans who don’t believe in top-down socialism, yet remain unconvinced that those who do believe in it are supporting something that is a potential threat to their way of life.
We’re not going to turn into Cuba tomorrow, so why all the fuss? Progressive liberals aren’t really advocating socialism. The American system is too strong to be disrupted by a few rabble-rousers at Harvard and in the media. The Bible doesn’t say that much about “politics” so I don’t think we should even worry too much about it. Ever heard of “separation of church and state”, bro?
What the naïve on both sides of the political aisle in this country are missing is this: the problem with socialism is not simply this or that policy, this or that leader, this or that educational improvement. The problem with socialism (and any ideology using socialism as its proverbial North Star) is an inherent rejection of a Higher Power, mankind’s fallen state, and the immortality of the human soul.
Of course not every liberal, progressive, leftist, or out-right socialist is irreligious, but the ideas that have fueled the ideological Left’s engine for two centuries (about the same amount of time America’s Judeo-Christian, free-market value system has been in place) come from the minds of irreligious men and have almost exclusively produced irreligious results.
This matters, or should matter, to anyone who claims to believe in God. Almost any recent study puts that number at about 90% of Americans.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, thinkers such as Robert Owen, Henri de Saint-Simon, and Friedrich Engels (pictured right) began to lay the intellectual groundwork for socialism’ move from a fringe idea to the most dominant socio-political force of the 20th century. They rejected private property. They loathed the excesses and exploits of industrialization. They believed in the supremacy of science and the ability of the enlightened human mind to coordinate the activities of millions of less-enlightened human beings.
Above all else they denied the existence of a personal, rational God and any moral code for living He might have.
This aversion to the divine wasn’t some peripheral, incidental motivation for the founders of modern socialism: it was as foundational to their ethos as “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” is to the American one. Committed socialists have always been either adamantly anti-religious, or at the very least, unrelenting critics of religion.
Belief in a Higher Power carries with it certain realities for our day-to-day lives, and even for the way we construct a society and government. For example, it requires humility to acknowledge “there is a God, and I’m not Him.” Such humility is a precursor for the acceptance that mankind is not inherently good, but actually inherently flawed (and in need of redemption). If I’m flawed, then we’re all flawed. If we’re all flawed, then the idea that we can centralize power in the hands of a few and trust their good will and judgment to organize the lives of 300 million people living in the most technologically-advanced, complex civilization in human history becomes untenable (and literally impossible).
Social engineering, an irreplaceable plank in the socialist platform, never works because of the complexities of even the simplest societies and so the socialist committed to science and logic is left floating in the wind with an idea that doesn’t produce the results their theories promised it would.
It is here that the secular collectivist and socialist, realizing that no matter how hard they try they can never fully eradicate man’s primal desire for higher truths and objective standards, begins to invoke language that is soaked in moral, religious connotations. Words like “justice”, “compassion”, and “fairness” are bandied about on the Left by everyone from Karl Marx to Bill Maher. To compound the confusing, contradictory positions they take, socialists seek out religious leaders sympathetic to their anti-capitalist, anti-establishment message.
As I wrote about last summer, Barack Obama moved to Chicago 25 years ago for this very reason. An atheist until his late 20’s, then Barry Obama responded to an ad in The New York Times looking for a young, articulate minority activist to come work in the South-side neighborhoods of the Windy City to help advance the secular-socialist dream of fundamentally changing America as envisioned by the grand puba of community organizing: Saul Alinsky. The people that recruited Obama were, like Alinsky before them, white secular socialists who thought that their inability to capture the hearts and minds of the black and Latino neighborhoods had to do more with the color of their own skin than their revolutionary message. What Barack Obama found out from a local pastor named Jeremiah Wright was that to be taken seriously in these predominantly religious communities, young Obama would have to be in church on Sundays.
Dostoevsky had something to say about this wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing tactic the secular-Left constantly employs as well. During a conversation later in Book One of Brothers Karamazov, a minor character named Peter Miusov recalls the words of a French police inspector put in charge of squashing the 1848 socialist uprising in France.
“We are not particularly afraid of all these socialists, anarchists, atheists, and revolutionists; we keep watch on them and follow all of their doings. But there are a few peculiar men among them who believe in God and are Christians, but are at the same time socialists. Those are the people we are most afraid of…The Christian who is a socialist is to be dreaded far more than the socialist who is an atheist.”
This unholy union between church and big-State proponents is as ironic as it is prevalent throughout the history of the last two centuries. While I can never know the heart or real motivation of someone who claims to believe in both the God of the bible and the tenets of socialism, I can know (and judge) their actions and the results of the things they publicly promote.
I want to be as clear as I possibly can: I hate socialism, in all its various forms and guises. I hate it like I hate the habitual, willful sins in my life that I struggle with on a daily basis. I hate it like I hate the thought of someone who has access to clean water refusing to drink it in favor of contaminated pond-water just because they dislike the person offering them the bottle of Aquifina.
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the political, economic, or historical aspects of socialism: it all stinks (and to high heavens).
Rejecting socialism and the notion that the centralization of power and redistribution of income are compatible with liberty and prosperity does not mean that one must instantly become a Ronald Reagan-loving capitalist. It also doesn’t mean that every opponent of socialism has to sign their name to a theologically uniform document, or even be a religious person themselves.
My concern today is two-fold: First that those of you reading this that do hold Judeo-Christian convictions would at least recognize the fundamental rejection of God that lay at the very heart of socialist (Leftist) thought. And second, whether you are a believer or not, that you would have had your intellect intrigued enough to set out to find out if I’m accurate in my appraisal (or at least my agreement with Dostoevsky’s appraisal) of socialism.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” -Winston Churchill
The Problems and Pitfalls of “Cradle To Grave”
Milton Friedman's Free to Choose is one of the most influential books written in the past 50 years. In it, Nobel prize-winning Dr. Friedman explains the intricate link between economic, political, and religious freedom. One of the most important chapters in his book, "Cradle to Grave," dissects the problem with the welfare state that progressive liberals promote. Thankfully for those of us with shorter attention spans, PBS actually allowed a 10-week miniseries on Free to Choose to air back in 1980. Here's the beginning segment from the "Cradle to Grave" episode. Watch it!
The Flaws of the Left: Part II
By: R.J. Moeller
Previously, on rjmoeller.com….
I began a discussion of “The Left’s Fundamental Flaws” by addressing one of the broader, more existential reasons I so vehemently disagree with progressive liberals in this country: namely, the excessive emphasis that Left-of-Center political (and cultural) leaders put on “change at all costs.” I traced the Left’s ideological thought back to the largely misguided notion of philosophers like Locke and Helvetius that human beings are born “Tabula Rasa” (“a blank slate”). Therefore, as Helvetius in particular wrote, all that is needed for “perfect” people is the “perfect” environment – engineered by “elites” (translation: “people who went to Ivy League universities”), via legislation and education.
A good litmus test for whether or not you are on the Left yourself is if you agree with the conclusion that the government’s role is, chiefly, to create better, more perfect people.
This distinction in thought is typically where traditional Judeo-Christian religious beliefs and Leftism justifiably tend to part ways, and why the overwhelming majority of self-described religious Americans tend to be on the Right when it comes to politics.
God makes “new” men and women, not Uncle Sam, Big Brother, or even Mother Earth.
As I stated last time, religious people can be on the Left; but anti-religious people, people who denied their Creator and mankind’s fallen, sinful state, invented the Left.
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Today, we bring you Part II of “The Left's Fundamental Flaws”:
In my last column, I attacked the Left’s obsession with “change” and “progress” and noted that such words, as broadly appealing as they may indeed be, still imply a specific direction. This week I want to explain why the direction the Left has consistently picked since (at least) Karl Marx is the wrong one. I want to continue my treatment of the flaws of the Left with a description and analysis of some of the specific ideas, movements, and people that I believe paved the way for modern American progressive-liberalism. Once again, I will be drawing from the wealth of wisdom and insight in Dr. Richard Pipes’ A Concise History of the Russian Revolution to take a look at when and where the type of ideological thought and policy-making we see on the Left today first emerged and took root in other nations, at other times.
In his opening chapter and introduction, Dr. Pipes astutely points out that a common denominator in any nation that eventually adopts Leftist, collectivist, or socialist doctrine for the running of their government and society is the existence of a specific class of radicalized professors, thinkers, writers, and social agitators. The name he gives this group is “Intelligentsia.” There are Intellectuals, “those who passively contemplate and analyze life,” and then there is the Intelligentsia, “activists who are determined to reshape it.”
“Intelligentsia” describes intellectuals who want power in order to change the world.
But who cares, right? If a group of busy-bodies on college campuses and in the newsrooms of media outlets want to get involved and promote their progressive agenda, what’s the big deal?
Well, let me finish fleshing out what it is the Left has traditionally believed before you make any judgments on how benign their current attempts to “fundamentally transform” might be. Change, in and of itself, is not a moral or immoral thing. It’s what you are changing in to, and how you plan on changing that matters.
According to Pipes, there are two societal conditions that must be met for an Intelligentsia to emerge as a powerful, and ultimately destructive, force in a nation. The first is a prevalent “materialistic ideology that regards human beings not as unique creatures endowed an immortal soul but as exclusively physical entities shaped wholly by their environment.” In other words, the pre-conditions necessary for a radical-Left intelligentsia to take influential prominence in a country are that the nation in question either must be becoming increasingly irreligious, or the religious teaching of that nation must be infused with secular, humanistic, Leftist concepts and beliefs.
Or both, in our nation’s current case.
Materialism in this sense is not the obsession with owning things, also sometimes called “consumerism,” but is the belief that the material world (i.e. matter) is all that there is. This ideology, whether in its purest, atheistic form, or even when diluted to appease religious liberals, makes it possible to argue that “a rational re-ordering of man’s environment can produce a new breed of perfectly virtuous creatures. This belief elevates members of the Intelligentsia to the status of social engineers and justifies their political ambitions.”
To paraphrase my favorite writer G.K. Chesterton: “When a nation abandons belief in the Creator, people do not begin to believe in nothing. They begin to believe in anything.”
The second societal condition to be met for the Intelligentsia to dominate political and economic thought in a country is “economic opportunities to secure independence.” Basically, the peddlers of radical ideology on the Left need to be financially able to spend their time writing papers, going to conferences, appearing on television and radio shows, and schmoozing with Hollyweird elites instead of having to churn their own butter or start their own business to make ends meet. Without the worry of having to find sustenance, and with the protections that freedom of speech and assembly offer, the Intelligentsia is enabled to “secure a hold on public opinion, its principal means of political leverage.”
I’ve personally often pondered why it is that people on the secular Left, who believe that they themselves are nothing more than randomly gathered and mutated protoplasm, would work so hard at gaining the fleeting socio-political power and influence they so intently seek. So frequently did secular-Left thinkers in Europe and Russia such as Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky use what could only be qualified as “religious” rhetoric in detailing their God-less, atheistic visions for utopian life on earth that one is led to believe deep down those men either knew they were rejecting a Higher Power (and purpose) that is real, or they at least understood that the terminology of religious teachings has a powerful and positive effect on most humans throughout history.
Here is Trotsky, one of the key leaders of one of the most significant (and evil) revolutions in human history, describing the ultimate goal of the Bolshevik’s takeover of Russia in 1917:
Man will, at last, begin to harmonize himself in earnest…He will want to master first the semi-conscious and then the unconscious process of his own organism: breathing, the circulation of blog, digestion, reproduction, and, within the necessary limits, subordinate them to the control of reason and will…Man will make it his goal to master his own emotions, to elevate his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent…to create a higher socio-biological type, a superman…Man will become incomparably stronger, wiser, subtler. His body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more melodious. The forms of life will acquire a dynamic theatricality. The average human type will rise to the heights of Aristotle, Goethe, Marx. And beyond this ridge, other peaks will emerge.
Trotsky’s devotion to his secular ideology and worldview sounds “religious”, wouldn’t you say?
But I thought only Sarah Palin and the saps in Red-State, fly-over country talked in such dramatic tones about their faith and convictions regarding mankind’s destiny?
As Pipes puts it, “The (Leftists) in Russia aimed at nothing less than reenacting the sixth day of creation in order to perfect its flawed product: man’s mission was nothing less than remaking himself.”
He continues:
The Russian Intelligentsia constituted a closed caste system, admission to which required commitment to materialism, socialism, and utilitarianism (the belief that the morality of human actions is determined by the extent of pain and pleasure they produce, and that the test of good government is its ability to assure the greatest happiness of the greatest number). No one who believed in God and the immortality of the soul, in the limits to human reason and the advantages of principled compromise, in the value of traditions and love of one’s country, no matter how otherwise enlightened, could aspire to membership in the Intelligentsia or gain access to its publications.
The Leftist Intelligentsia in Russia during the early part of the 20th century believed that political and social change came as a result of fundamental changes in the economic relations between the “working class” and the “wealthy.” Economics has been at the heart of everything the Left, since Marx, wants to do for (and to) a civilization. In Russia, they wanted the re-distribution of wealth from the arbitrarily-defined “rich” to the loosely-defined “poor.” They believed that the raw materials needed for industrial production ought to belong entirely to the State, thereby annexing private enterprise under the State’s control. They believed that the entire concept of “property rights” (the ability to own something to the exclusivity of others) was evil, and the root cause for much of society’s ills and class warfare. They believed that the government could take back any land they deemed integrally important to the “collective.”
This way of thinking only makes sense if man is not born with certain inalienable rights. If we are all here on this rock by accident and random chance, then our “rights” are illusionary and open for the interpretation of whichever political party or movement happens to be in charge at any given time. If mankind has no divine purpose, if history is not headed anywhere, if we are not fallen creatures, if the only (social) justice in the universe is whatever we can grab for ourselves (by taking from others), then the Left’s plan for social engineering through legislation and education is not only correct, it is ingenious.
But, however, if, like our Founders believed, mankind is endowed by its Creator with rights that are then freely lent to representatives in a well-defined, but limited governmental setting, then the Left is not only wrong, but dangerously wrong. If each individual has the image of that Creator in them, then everything from eugenics to abortion to euthanasia is not only wrong, it is wickedly wrong. If mankind is born morally broken and flawed, then the notion that education and legislation can “fix” (or even “perfect”) us is not only wrong, it is inherently wrong.
My disagreement with, and refutation of, Leftist ideology goes deeper than simple political partisanship. As I said last week, my devotion is to my God, the truth, and to conservative ideals, ideals, and values – not the GOP or the people who represent it. Leftist thought originated with men like Marx, but even today in a lesser form, in the rhetoric and policy initiatives of men like Barack Obama, and women like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, I hear many of the same troublesome themes and intellectual undercurrents. I cannot reconcile my faith and understanding of the world with the secular, humanist, materialist rationale that guided those who pioneered what we now call today “the Left” (including liberalism, socialism, collectivism, and communism).
For all his good intentions, President Obama not only uses the language of a Leftist, but has worked tirelessly to enact pieces of legislation which typify a Leftist interpretation of the world. Despite the acknowledged nuances that exist in our political and cultural debates today, either my interpretation of things is right, or his is.
The reason I don’t mind using labels such as Right and Left is precisely because they are directional in nature. They correctly identify that on any path, to any destination, one must choose a direction to aim at.
You certainly can be closer to the middle of two points, but you can’t face both ways at the same time.
Liberalism has been degraded into liberality. Men have turned ‘revolutionize’ from a transitive to an intransitive verb…The new liberal rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no real loyalty; therefore he can never really be a revolutionist…As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is a waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself.
The man of this school of thought goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that poor people and native tribesmen in Africa are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men.
Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything. –G.K. Chesterton
The Left’s Fundamental Flaws
By: R.J. Moeller
“The Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” -Karl Marx
I understand the skepticism and cynicism many Americans have toward the motives of the typical modern conservative’s opposition to progressive liberalism and its public figure-heads, such as President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It can often feel as if the Right in this country only know how to say “No” to any and every policy proposal liberal Democrats put forth. Combine this perceived mindless antagonism with such labels as “The Moral Majority” or “Religious Right”, and you have a recipe for a public relations disaster of the first degree for conservatives, and by extension, Republicans.
Being a Republican is your political affiliation. Being a conservative is your association with a set of ideas, ideals, and values. Just as being a Baptist or Lutheran is your denomination, while being a Christ-follower (aka “a Christian”) is what you are. What you believe about God then leads to the selection of a denomination.
This is analogous to how I feel about the relationship of my conservative beliefs to my decision to support (thus far in life) the Republican Party come election time.
Fundamentally, I don’t oppose nearly everything Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi want to legislatively and economically do to this country because I am a Republican; I oppose them because I am a conservative (and they are progressive liberals). It is their ideas I loathe, not them. There are so many Republicans currently in public office that I think are utter buffoons. There are many self-described conservatives in the public’s eye that embarrass, frustrate, and disappoint me on a daily basis. But then again, I am constantly frustrated and disappointed with my own selfish or short-sighted actions.
It seems to me that while we cannot dismiss or ignore the mistakes we ourselves make, or the mistakes like-minded people in our church or political party make, what must come first (and foremost) is an assessment of the ideas, ideals, and values the groups we associate with (or oppose) claim to advance.
Although many other factors have contributed to the rampant ideological confusion and political mischaracterization that exists today in America, it is my opinion that one of the root causes of the political divide in this country is this: a pervasive lack of a basic comprehension of what the “other side” believes. To compound the matter, many do not fully (or even partially) grasp what the labels they ascribe to themselves, and the ideas behind them, encompass. It’s one kind of problem to be unable to articulate your opponent’s views; it’s an entirely different, and larger, problem if you can’t articulate your own.
I’ve already written a series of essays under the title “Mere Conservatism”, and plan on mining the concepts and principles I spelled out in them much more in the coming weeks and months, but I feel compelled to spend the rest of this column (and one more next week) giving you a brief glimpse into the mind of one conservative who has decided, “as for me and my house, we will not serve the Left.”
I came to the realization years ago that the three most important intellectual prisms one ought to use to analyze his life, and the world around him, are Theology, History, and Economics. The interaction and overlap between these three areas of thought and study seemed too obvious and significant to disregard. So let me, starting from a bit of History, explain to you why I believe the liberal, progressive, Leftist views of the world are inherently and fundamentally flawed.
Ideas have consequences, and they also have babies. Ideas come together with other ideas and give birth to movements. It is impossible to pin all of the good things that come from one man’s ideas on him alone, just as you cannot lay the full blame for all the negative things that transpire as a result of his ideas. This is precisely why History is so vitally important to any diagnosis of competing value systems. One needs to know the fuller cultural, political, and economic context of a society or nation before he can pronounce any semblance of an informed judgment on the consequences of specific ideas.
In A Concise History of the Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes, Dr. Pipes traces some of the ideological, intellectual, and philosophical strains that led to a bloody, violent communist revolution (and 70-year totalitarian state) in Russia back to their original sources. Each society is unique and different, but History has shown us that the ideas which spawned the Bolshevik Revolution have much in common with those that spawned revolutions in Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba, and, in a more recent, somewhat diluted form, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. These ideas have cousins on the American Left today and are therefore exceedingly relevant to the discussion of my disapproval of it.
Dr. Pipes recounts how the leading intellectuals in Russia in the late 19th, and early 20th, century were heavily influenced by Western European secular thinkers and what became known as the “empirical method” of inquiry and research. Due to the progresses in science at this time, many believed that mankind’s potential to master the world around him was limitless. This included a mastery of the human condition, of man’s soul itself. Because the empirical method states that the only things which exist are those that can be observed and measured, religion, morality, and metaphysics necessarily took a back-seat to science.
In France, in 1758, the philosopher Claude Helvetius wrote On Mind, a further development of British thinker John Locke’s “Tabula Rasa” theory of knowledge. Locke, who had wonderful and important things to say about private property and natural rights, (incorrectly) believed that human beings are born without “free will” and are entirely defined by their experiences (i.e. their environment).
Pipes writes:
Helvetius drew on Locke’s epistemology to argue that insofar as man is totally molded by his environment, a perfect environment will inevitably produce perfect human beings. The means toward this end are education and legislation. The task of the political and social order, therefore, is not to create optimal conditions in which mankind can realize its potential but rather to render mankind “virtuous.” Good government not only ensures “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” (a formula attributed to Helvetius) but literally refashions man. This unprecedented proposition constitutes the premise of both liberal and radical (Leftist) ideologies of modern times. It justifies the government’s far-reaching intervention in the lives of its citizens.
Now the reasons why someone in modern-day America supports the increases of government intrusion in our lives are many and varied. The reason your neighbor or relative is a committed liberal today might have absolutely nothing to do with Helvetius and John Locke. Chances are they’ve never even heard of the first, and probably think you’re talking about a character on ABC’s LOST in reference to the second. The reasons they arrived at their Leftist conclusion are seemingly endless.
They might interpret their sacred religious texts as promoting some form of egalitarian socialism. They might have had a bad experience with a mega-company like Wal-Mart displacing the mom-and-pop stores of their local small town, and consequently blame “capitalism” or the “free market.” They might be an ethnic minority and have felt the painful sting of racism or bigotry from someone who presented themselves as being a conservative Republican in favor of “limited government” and “state’s rights.”
I’m not telling you why every American on the political Left is there; I’m telling you how the founding fathers of Leftist ideologies, such as liberalism, progressivism, collectivism, socialism, Marxism, and communism, came to their conclusions about political, cultural, and economic issues. Again, it is the ideas of the Left I despise, not the people (with individual stories and experiences) who adhere to them.
Dr. Pipes continues:
To members of the (Leftist) party, politics was not simply a matter of better or worse, to be tested by experience, but of good and bad, to be decided on principle. Public issues became highly personalized, and the holder of opinions judged incorrect was not merely wrong but, because the truth was self-evident and could be ignored only from bad will, also evil…The theory and practice of socialism, and its off-shoot, communism, postulate that all the existing ways of humanity are irrational and that it is the mission of those in the know to make out of them something radically different: mankind’s entire past is but a long detour on the road to its true collectivist destiny.
A religious conservative and free-market advocate on the Right like me instantly disagrees with the political Left’s stance on most topics. Our “ends” are largely different. But so are our “means.” We have different, and competing, ideas about what American does, could, and should look like. When I speak with other conservatives, libertarians, and moderates on the Center-Right of American politics, we will sometimes disagree about the “means,” but only because we care so much about how to best accomplish our largely agreed upon “ends.”
I know to some the talk of "competing ideas" will sound needlessly divisive, but the longer we continue to pretend that people who think (and legislate) like Barack Obama are really after “the same thing” as are people who think (and vote) like me, the wider the gap between the two sides will grow.
Man isn’t a “Tabula Rasa”; he is a physical and spiritual creature with intrinsic value, worth, and moral competency. Education and legislation aren’t the things that will make “perfect” human beings, if for no other reason than that “perfection” is an unobtainable goal for any person.
But, to acknowledge and accept the fact that mankind isn’t perfectible would require such thinkers and political activists to acknowledge and accept that mankind is inherently flawed (or fallen). In such a world, the last thing we would need is to put more and more power in fewer and fewer (equally fallen) hands.
These are, in large part, spiritual, even theological, statements and therefore out of bounds for Leftists committed to “science”, the empirical method, and the dream of supplanting religion with allegiance to, and worship of, the “State.” The fact that many self-described religious people, whose theology might legitimately conflict with Leftist political dogma, end up promoting Leftist teachings and values only makes their partnership with the Left all the more dangerous (and tragic).
Religious people can be on the Left. Anti-religious people invented the Left.
I used the quote from Karl Marx to begin this column not to directly link everyone who supports higher taxes, social justice, government-run education, and the Democrat Party to the intellectual father of socialism and communism, but to highlight the fact that the vocal and visible leaders of Leftist ideology (since Marx) have all wanted the same thing: radical changes to their nation’s society, government, family structure, church-state relationship and economy.
Conservatism, the brand I subscribe to, seeks change, but also the preservation (and improvement) of the things that have proven to work. When it comes to real change, conservatives believe that we already have the means to amend injustice and improve already-fruitful endeavors or institutions. Those three things are: our faith, our liberty and our Constitution. Our faith gives our minds the moral clarity to decipher what needs to go and what should stay. Our liberty allows us to freely and actively participate in the self-governing system our Founders providentially put in to place more than 200 years ago. For example, it affords to us the ability to boycott a private bus company if it will not fairly transport all law-abiding customers. Our Constitution puts in place a legislative buffer against tyranny: a republican, representative gauntlet through which all significant changes must safely pass.
When I hear rhetoric and policy proposals, from either side of the aisle, that seek to supplant or over-ride those three change-agents, I object with my voice and with my vote. It just so happens that when I use the empirical method to observe and record the number of times I am against what liberal Democrats suggest, it is always more than Republicans.
I suppose Marx is right when he alludes to the fact that the point of analyzing the world and gaining knowledge and wisdom about it is ultimately, in one way or another, to change (or improve) it. However, it all comes down to what you want people to change to, and how you intend on changing them.
On these two critically important and pivotal points, Right and Left fundamentally deviate.
(Tune in next week for the conclusion of my explanation of why I oppose the Left.)
Tragedy in Poland
On their way to commemorate the Katyn Massacre, a horrific slaughtering of some 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals at the hands of Stalin and the Soviets, some of the most important modern Polish leaders, including their president and his wife, died in a plane crash yesterday.
This is a tragedy, and we ought to pray for our Polish brothers and sisters this weekend, but just as important in my mind is the historical lesson we ought to learn from the event these foreign leaders were headed to. The memorial for the Katyn Massacre is a stark reminder of the evil that exists in the world. Stalin's communist state did not appear out of nowhere. The intellectual, moral, and even spiritual depravity that laid the framework for a nation to be capable of such atrocities is worth taking note of.
Ideas, ideals, and values matter. Everyone has them, and some are better than others. The freedom Poland sought from the Marxist Russians, the kind we've enjoyed for hundreds of years, is one centered around the idea that man, that the individual, is made in God's image and therefore has certain rights that the State are subsurvient to. As soon as a nation cedes those rights to any Higher Power other than God, it opens itself up to tyranny, totalitarianism, and, eventually, the kind of leaders who are capable of mass murder and genocide.
We think it can't happen here? Why, because we're so different from the Germans or Russians? One thing our friends on the Left who tout multiculturalism and cultural relativism forget is that if we're all really just the same, then the American is just as susceptible to going along with the ideologies (i.e. secular humanism, socialism, eugenics, etc.) that bred the horrors the world saw in the 20th century.
People are all basically the same. Ideas and belief systems are not.
The Drama Of Our Time
By: R.J. Moeller
"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance." –G.K. Chesterton The Speaker, 12/15/00
Wisdom and insight can come from the strangest of places. A line in a movie, a lyric in a song, or a voice from the car-seat in the back of a minivan can open the eyes of your mind to new, profound truths and realizations about life, love, and faith. These revelations are occasionally delivered most clearly from people who disagree most vehemently with you and your worldview.
But you have to be listening, you need to be cultivating a reflective and vibrant inner thought life, to hear the wisdom that is lurking all around you; wisdom that wants to be set free from the chains of ignorance we’ve placed on it (or on each other).
Joseph Martin McCabe was born in Macclesfield, England 143 years ago. As a younger man he entered the priesthood, but six years later, and after a “loss of faith”, McCabe became an ardent critic of religion, a “devout” atheist, and prolific secular author in the first half of the 20th century. He became a defender and promoter of nearly everything a religious conservative like me disagrees with.
But what McCabe offered in his writing, what attracted the attention (and garnered the respect) of the legendary British Christian writer G.K. Chesterton, was an ability to see the seriousness of the debate between people of faith and secular materialists, and a willingness to acknowledge and discuss the implications of both side’s worldview to society and civilization.
Chesterton, in his classic work Heretics (1905), quotes a lengthy passage from an essay McCabe had written earlier that same year entitled “Christianity and Rationalism on Trial.” Chesterton had been attacked for being too humorous and light-hearted in his writings on “serious” topics, but being the Happy Warrior he was, Chesterton used the opportunity of a chapter in his own book not to personally attack McCabe, but to in large part highlight (and applaud) the refreshing clarity an atheist like McCabe had to offer to even those of us in the “God-fearing” camp.
Here is what Joseph McCabe wrote:
But before I follow Mr. Chesterton in some detail I would make a general observation about his method. He is as serious as I am in his ultimate purpose, and I respect him for that. He knows, as I do, that humanity stands at a solemn parting of the ways. Towards some unknown goal it presses through the ages, driven by an overmastering desire of happiness. Today it might hesitate, lightheartedly enough, but every serious thinker knows how momentous the decision may be. Western civilization is, apparently, deserting the path of religion and entering upon the path of secularism.
Will it lose itself in quagmires of sensuality down this new path, and suffer through years of civic and economic anarchy, only to learn it had lost the road, and must return to religion?
Or will it find that at last it is leaving the mists and quagmires behind it; that it is ascending the slope of the hill so long dimly discerned ahead, and making straight for the long-sought Utopia?
This is the drama of our time, and every man and woman should understand it
Wow.
I feel as Chesterton presumably did more than 100 years ago when he first read those same words: Where is that type of candid, honest, call-to-intellectual-and-moral-arms among believers in the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible today? Where do we hear and read this brand of candid, sober, exceptional reflection among religious conservatives (of any faith) in modern discourse?
Answer: basically, we don’t. We can count on one hand the public figures in recent memory who, regardless of your opinion of their views, clearly, accurately, and fairly described the parameters of the various cultural battles that impact us all.
Watch one such example here:
Last week I wrote about the need Center-Right Americans have to re-engage the political, legal, and economic realms we’ve abandoned for far too long (and to re-engage in the right, thoughtful way). I stand by those words and intend on doing my small part in helping to facilitate a conservative renaissance in my sphere of influence. But a dear friend of mine reminded me this past weekend that the way to help a group of land-locked people to see they need to build a boat isn’t simply to hand out lists of instructions and schematics. Certainly technical knowledge, pertinent facts, and a helping heaping of elbow grease are required for any endeavor to succeed, but the trickle will turn into a flood of interest in ship-building when those land-lubbers have instilled in them an unquenchable thirst for the open sea.
The penetrating words of Joseph McCabe above could not be more applicable still today as they were in 1905 (in England, no less). Applied to the United States of 2010, we are confronted with divergent worldviews at nearly every turn of life.
For the religious American: you have highly motivated and well-funded entities intent on eradicating God from the public square. For the conservative and libertarian proponents of limited-government and fiscal discipline: you have unfettered and unprecedented increases is the size, scope, and waste of the federal government at the behest of agents of both Parties (although unquestionably more so among Democrats). For defenders of the sanctity of life: you have more than 50 million murdered babies since 1974. For those who recognize the fundamental importance of traditional marriage and the family: you have activist courts and their cohorts in the media and academia doing everything they can to shame your perspective into silence, and are willing to circumvent the law if necessary to achieve their society-altering goals.
How, if any of these issues matter to you in the least, can you not be moved to action? How can you continue to look the other way as your kids are indoctrinated by people with ideas that conflict with what you hold to be most dear? What will it take to convince you to begin reading, to being educating yourself, to begin entering the voting booth every other November equipped with something more than “a hunch about this candidate”?
I’m not talking about uniformed unity on every issue. I’m not suggesting that there needs to be one spokesman or one plan to fix all of society’s ills. But there are certain core values and principles and beliefs that, when under attack, rightly rouse in us the desire to defend them. They ought to rouse us.
To our own detriment, we have attributed to our ideological opponents the same benign intentions the average law-abiding, tax-paying citizen have: To be left alone to raise their family, conduct their business, and worship their God in peace. We mistakenly think that Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich basically want the same end-goals for America, but just disagree with each other on the means (and that disagreement is based almost entirely in petty politics). This is wrong.
Liberty and freedom are not compatible with top-down government control and social engineering. The enslaving of people onto the welfare plantation, regardless of the intentions of the parties responsible, is not compatible with real justice and compassion. Equality of Opportunity is not compatible with an unobtainable, stubborn, and arbitrary insistence upon Equality of Outcome.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself. One thing at a time. Here at A Voice in the Wilderness I will continue to highlight particular, specific issues and stories with the intent to expose their connection to some of the bigger concepts and principles that “Mere Conservatism” embodies. The devil is in the details, as they say.
But from time to time, and perhaps for the first time, people need to catch a glimpse of what we’re fighting for, who we’re fighting, and why remaining in the shadows of indifference and ignorance is really no option at all.
Two men, Chesterton and McCabe, with wholly different worldviews and belief-systems, were able to pin-point the crux of the culture war that rages still today and come away with a healthy respect for one another. They grasped the seriousness of their disagreement and found ways to hate the other side’s ideas without hating the individuals on the other side. We can do the same with the political, religious, and secular Left in 2010.
Only if we’re all honest about the stakes involved, that is.
Are you getting thirsty, yet?
November 2010: Country/Back
By: R.J. Moeller
While in the car on the way to grocery store the other day I was "treated" to Justin Timberlake performing a lovely live rendition of his profound, insightful ditty "Sexy/Back." As I listened to the trite refrains, lyrics of my own began to formulate... 
I’m takin’ country back (Yeah!)
Them Dem’s and Lib’s don’t know how to act (Yeah!)
We need another Newt’s Contract (Yeah!)
It’s time we all pick up the slack (Yeah!)
(Take ‘em to the mid-terms)
Okay, so Justin Timberlake likely won’t be placing a “Featuring: R.J. ‘Moeller Bear’ Moeller” label on one of his hot tracks anytime soon – but maybe he should. I have a seemingly inexhaustible storehouse of ideas for witty political parodies set to the tune of popular songs in my noggin. I see myself sort of like a conservative version of Weird Al.
If Weird Al actually did comedy, that is.
Truth be told, in times like these, when the world around you has apparently gone something more desperate than “mad”, you have to be able to laugh at the seriousness of the trouble we’re in. They say that laughter is the best medicine, which I tend to agree with, but don’t miss the subtext of that cliché: it implies something is making you sick. I’m more than willing to look for the silver lining in our current politically (and culturally) dark clouds, but only if I know that the rest of you who share my general worldview and values are willing to help huff and puff and blow those cumulonimbuses clouds of “change” back from whence they came.
We’re flooded in debt, deficits, and rampant corruption, and the Left’s plan seems to center around the busting up of the last cultural, economic, and moral dams keeping the flood-waters of national depression at bay.
To all Conservatives, Libertarians, Republicans, and sensible moderates: STOP participating in the collectivist-inspired “Rain Dance” that liberals, Leftists, and progressives promise you has nothing to do with their insatiable ideological desire for growing the size, scope, power, and influence of the federal government! It’s not merely “all about the children” to Nancy Pelosi and President Obama. They believe true compassion is best facilitated via the IRS.
The problem throughout human history has not been that that bad people will do bad things, or that dumb people will do dumb things, but that good people, wise people, will sit idly by while Rome burns. You can count on the enemies of the truth to fight for their side, but with almost the same degree of certainty you can count on those who are in fact on the side of truth to fail to appreciate the gravity of the truth they have graciously been given access to.
Such is the case of the modern Center-Right coalition of otherwise God-fearing, tax-paying, neighbor-waving Americans.
For at least two consecutive generations in this country, the would-be defenders of liberty, limited government, the republican (small “r”) synthesis of personal responsibility with civic duty, and Judeo-Christian values have ceded the historical, economic, and theological solid ground that is rightly theirs to stand on. While activists on the Left read Saul Alinsky, made in-roads with inner city minorities, passed society-changing legislation, motivated young people to vote, and infiltrated every level of the media, entertainment industry, and education system, conservatives (especially religious ones) spent their time convincing themselves that their only duties were to make a good living, keep to themselves, and send their kids to Sunday School (unless Sunday School conflicted with soccer games, of course).
The time for such short-sighted, “stage one” thinking has come to an end…or the American “experiment” in republican democracy will.
It is inexpressibly praiseworthy to be a hardworking conservative who provides for his or her family. And there is nothing I want more for Americans than for them to seek God out and attend weekly religious services. But it is not enough. Not if you care about the fate of your country. Not if you care about the lives (and souls) being crushed by their enslavement to welfare entitlements. Not if the taking of 50 million lives due to abortion matters to your conscience. Not if you believe, as I do, that the health or sickness of a society rests squarely on the shoulders of the institution of marriage (and the subsequent family it logically produces). Not if staggering, crushing debt left to your children’s children is as morally objectionable a thought to you as it is to me.
Not if the truth matters.
It is a frustratingly interesting thing to watch from the perspective of a white, suburban-living male in his 20’s as all of the parents and business owners and pastors and teachers and soccer moms around me talk about being “conservative” or believing in “traditional moral values” and then don’t even take the time to vote, or read one Wall Street Journal article per week, or investigate the ideology of political candidates, or peruse even small excerpts from massive pieces of legislation that will impact their lives forever if not repealed.
Again, I have nothing but the utmost respect for the dad and mom whose primary focus is appropriately centered on providing for their kids and doing unto others as they would have done to them. I see men and women in my church, in my neighborhood, at the grocery store and bank who I would give anything to be like in terms of their character, ethics, and integrity. But a depressing percentage of those same honorable Americans are almost entirely checked out from the cultural battles being won every day by people and ideologies that contradict nearly everything they say they believe in.
The reasons for this are plentiful. For some, they have convinced themselves that they are simply too busy and stressed to cross that threshold from an oblivious to an informed citizen. Others are lazy, and so the thought of showing up to a town hall meeting to engage their elected representative on a boring topic like the fate of 300 million peoples’ health care is not even on their radar. Still others have capitulated to their emotions (at the expense of their intellect and the facts) and have accepted what their liberal sociology professor said freshmen year of college about “Republicans hating change” and “Democrats loving poor people and the earth.” This type of person knows they have conservative leanings in the areas of abortion and traditional marriage, but have not heard (or sought out) any fellow conservatives or conservative organizations that encompass a pro-life, pro-free markets stance with a serious passion for thoughtful environmental stewardship and for helping “the least among us.”
I believe that the main reason conservatives, a bloc of voters and taxpayers that is double the size of self-described liberal progressives (40 to 21%), have so many in their ranks who are disengaged and apathetic when it comes to social, political, and cultural issues is a pervasive lack of knowledge. Simply put: people don’t know what is going on.
No one but God has all the answers, and there are no perfect candidates, and even a person who holds the right position on an issue can do the wrong thing in advancing their side’s cause, but none of those realities condone apathy, indifference, intellectual laziness, and the shirking of the duties a free citizen has had bestowed upon them by the countless millions who died to give them that freedom and opportunity.
November of 2010 can be the beginning of a new day for you personally, and the dawn of a new age of inquiry, debate, discourse, and participation for America and her blessed people. You don’t have to lurk in the shadows of confusion and hearsay when it comes to the issues that matter to you any longer. You don’t have to concede the moral debates that underpin those issues to liberals and progressives who win them for no other reason than that they have no one seriously opposing them on the Right.
You can put down the remote and pick up a Kindle. You can trade your People subscription for a National Review one. You can take your kids to a history museum instead of Lego Land. You can send your nephew or granddaughter Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny instead of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps. On your way to and from work, you can cruise the dial to hear thoughtful, creative dissemination of conservative values and principles from the likes of Michael Medved and Dennis Prager on the Salem Radio Network affiliate in your area instead of hunkering down on a Top 40 station for mindless lyrics set to sampled beats.
If you are a college or graduate student, come discover the booming world of conservative intellectual thought that is being led by groups like American Enterprise Institute, The Discovery Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and my personal favorite, The Acton Institute. Acton has conferences and events throughout the year intentionally aimed at helping conservatives under the age of 30 interact with the intersection of faith, economics, politics, and the culture.
If you are an adult with a job and family who is unsure as to how best to get involved, the place to start is by equipping yourself with the information needed to make the case for your values. Get a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. On a weekly, if not daily, basis monitor sites like Drudereport.com, Townhall.com, Heritage.org, and Realclearpolitics.com. Watch Charles Krauthammer and the Fox News All-Stars break down the top stories of the day each evening from 5:40-6:00pm (Central time). Find out when the next town hall or school board meeting is taking place in your area and read up on the topic being discussed so you can participate. If you are so inclined, attend a Tea Party rally this spring and summer. Call your local elected officials and voice your opinion. Pray for your country.
The Theology, History, and Economics of Mere Conservatism is a good place to start.
I realize that some will react to what I’ve said here today with a skeptical attitude. They’ll think that what I’m proposing is that everyone should just read conservative blogs and listen to conservative talk radio and then everything will be fine. They’ll tell themselves that it is people like R.J. Moeller who ratchet up the heated level of back-and-forth, partisan political bickering in this country. They’ll attempt to reassure themselves that the best route is moderation (and by “moderation” they mean “doing nothing, but claiming to know the answers to everything come election time or political discussion around the Thanksgiving table”).
I close with my two rebuttals to such concerns.
First, while filling your mind with only one side of anything is never the best policy in life, who among you would argue that you’re unsure about what liberal Democrats think of things like the environment, abortion, welfare, or bigger government in general? We’ve learned liberalism from liberals, but we’ve also learned conservatism from liberals. The balance of the time you spend learning more about economics, politics, and cultural topics will need to be slightly shifted towards the Right (at least initially) to catch up on a lifetime of liberal indoctrination and persistent misrepresentations of what conservatives actually believe.
Second, we need people to know what they are talking about before we can have a serious dialogue about the direction of our ideology (conservatism) and our nation (America). You can’t prescribe a remedy when you aren’t sure of the medicinal options out there, or perhaps even of the sickness afflicting you, your ideology, or your nation. We need to recognize where we agree (and why we agree on those things) before we can establish where we differ. I want skeptics who generally agree with me to be welcomed into the conservative, Center-Right coalition for it will be their ideas, activism and instruction to their children that will either sink or save the United States.
The mid-term elections in November are roughly seven months away. This summer could be your “Road to Damascus” moment when the veils of apathy, indifference, and misinformation are finally lifted from your mind and heart’s eyes. Elections don’t fix America; Americans fix America.
But while elections cannot fix America, they absolutely can lead to the erosion of it.
Putting people into the highest reaches of power who have as a core tenet of their worldview the growth of their own power is contrary to the historical, legal, and philosophical underpinnings of the nation we love and cherish. We do need to take our country back, but not for the GOP or Democrats or even Ralph Nader. We need to take our country back for the ideas, ideals, and values it represents and the overwhelming majority of us believe in.
Who you vote for is the last step in a journey that begins with a realization that freedom isn’t free; that you cannot divorce what you love about your city, state, and country from your duty to them.
Go get involved. You know you want to, and the rest of us need you to.
The Economics of Mere Conservatism: Part II
by: R.J. Moeller
Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised. In addition, by dispersing power, the free market provides an offset to whatever concentration of political power may arise. The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.
–Milton Friedman, Free To Choose
Let’s not kid ourselves: Everyone has an opinion on the matters that matter most. Despite the pervasive lack of understanding in this country about even the most basic economic terms and concepts, I’d love for someone to try and convince me that economic matters – your job, income, investments, personal property, charitable donations, and taxes – don’t matter a great deal to every Tom, Dick, Harry and Sally in your neighborhood.
Of course they matter. They matter more than almost anything else.
Contrary to the caricature perpetrated, it’s not only “greedy” conservatives and Republicans who are interested in how goods, services, and taxes are saved, spent, regulated and collected. In fact, the exact opposite is true: modern American liberals and progressives fervently believe that economic issues are the most important factors to consider in nearly every single political, cultural, and moral decision a country makes.
But where the Left relies upon flawed ideology and fickle emotional pleas to make their case for top-down socialism and the systematic re-distribution of wealth, those of us who champion personal liberty, free enterprise and property rights stand on the firm ground of quantifiable facts, recorded history, Judeo-Christian teachings, and common sense. There is, of course, an emotional aspect to the “case for free market conservatism”, but it is a thin layer of topsoil above deep bedrock of truth, wisdom, and experience.
If you haven’t already, you should be asking yourself, “How is it then that liberalism, and progressive economic policies, so dominate the national consciousness?”
Dr. Thomas Sowell of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution believes the answer is fairly simple: because the Left believes so deeply in having the government “fix” things, their solutions are always political and political solutions are much more glamorous and get much more attention from a complicit media (and academia). The Right believes in personal responsibility, free market competition, and limited government. Not very sexy.
You won’t see George Clooney starring in an Oscar contending film about a hard-working, God-fearing businessman who just wants to live within his family’s budget and appreciates the freedoms his forefathers procured for him.
As Sowell puts it in his book Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One: Politics offers attractive solutions but economics can offer only trade-offs…Economics cannot answer all of your questions. It can only make you aware of the need to ask them.
Well, fortunately for us, mankind has been asking economic questions for millennia, and those interested enough to seek for answers (and wise enough to discern them) have found many unavoidable truths. The United States of America, blessedly, has applied some of the best of those answers and truths in its on-going attempt to “form a more perfect union.” Last week in The Economics of Mere Conservatism: Part 1, I teased six of the most important answers (scarcity, property rights, division of labor, competition, rule of law, and a need for religion and morality among the citizenry). We have succeeded where others have failed because of these things.
Today we move from the birds-eye view of Economics in Part I and descend to the on-the-ground facts that ground free enterprise in reality instead of just theory; truth instead of emotion.
What follows are brief descriptions of the six things you must know, and be able to explain, should you hope to identify yourself as a proponent of the free market system that has enabled the United States of America to become the freest, most prosperous civilization in the history of the planet.
1. Scarcity- We live in a finite world. There is only so much of everything. This doesn’t simply pertain to oil or diamonds or beach-front property or even Kanye West’s talents. There are only so many hours in the days, people who can drive a 3-wood (and Cadillac SUV) like Tiger Woods, and jobs you can work at the same time. There are only so many people born to rich families who waste their un-deserved good luck, just as not everyone born into poverty overcomes great odds to play a piano like Ray Charles.
The miraculous nature of the human mind is such that we can apply our Creator-endowed talents to natural resources in order to produce many things that we would otherwise be lacking. But even to what we produce or engineer there is a limit to the amount of money we have to use to buy all of those equally limited goods or services.
Because scarcity is a reality, the world we live in is a world of trade-offs. This means decision-making abilities are paramount, and experience, although not infallible, becomes a prized asset. We all have to make value judgments every day about which products we want/need to buy, how much we will work, where we will live, and whom we will give charity to.
Some Left-of-Center ideologies would prefer to make most of your decisions for you, but then a society quickly learns how scarce things like freedom and liberty are in this world.
2. Private Property (Property Rights)- The term “private property” can conjure up images of a foreboding “No Trespassing” sign in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. In a sense, this is completely fair and accurate, for “private property” essentially means that an individual owns something to the exclusivity of others. Or in other words, it’s yours and no one else has claim to it unless you say so. (So stay out, you meddling kids.) The alternative to being able to (legally) own something that someone else cannot take or use without your consent is tyranny. It is collectivism, socialism, and communism.
Despite admittedly boiling down centuries of meaningful thought and discourse on the matter, so much of the modern disagreement over the importance of “private property” can be explained by the differences in worldview between two particular people: the Brit John Locke (17th century) and the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau (18th century).
The constitutional and cultural fascination with personal freedom and liberty that is uniquely American comes from the school of Locke. Building upon the Judeo-Christian belief that man is created “in God’s image”, Locke maintained that while we all enter the world with the same “natural rights”, the individual could (and should) claim ownership over something as simple as a piece of fruit they themselves climbed a tree to pick.
In his Second Treatise on Government, Locke states:
God gave the world to men in common; but since he gave it them for their benefit, and the greatest conveniences of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed He meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational, and labor was to be his title to it.
This is a very basic and simple concept: If a man works, he should be compensated. If he buys, he should own. If he owns, then someone else cannot take.
But some are not happy with that kind of set-up. Jean-Jaques Rousseau did not care for the accent mark of mankind’s history to be put over the individual and his or her rights. Rousseau believed that in order for a society to truly progress, individuals needed to forfeit their claims to natural rights, individual liberty, and the entire concept of private property. He taught that man derived his purpose from the collective.
From this type of thinking we get socialism, Marxism, and leaders like Hugo Chavez.
Private property, and the property rights that logically spring forth from it, is the basis of economic, political, and religious freedom. It gives the individual a vested interest, a meaningful stake, in the world, nation, state, town, and neighborhood around him. It creates incentives to work harder, save more, and spend wisely. To deny that human beings are hard-wired to respond to incentives is counter-intuitive and a key reason for why Left-of-Center thinking is inherently flawed.
3. Division of Labor- In the past, a farmer and his family would have to produce for themselves nearly everything they needed to survive. Other than the occasional 4-mile horseback ride to borrow a cup of sugar from the neighboring farm to make those Johnny Cakes your brother Zebedee loved so very much, families relied on what they could make or grow, and the lack of technology, transportation, and communication prevented Americans from effectively maximizing their time, resources and talents.
Whereas Joe, Jim, and Jack used to have to each grow their own corn, milk their own cows, and raise their own hogs for bacon, it became more sensible (and cost effective) for Joe (who lived for tilling the fields) to grow corn, and Jim (who raved about his cows) to focus on dairy-related products, and Jack (who never met a BLT he didn’t love) to raise himself some pigs. That is “Division of Labor”, or "specialization", in a nutshell.
I think it is fairly obvious how much more effective and productive this way of doing things is as compared to the “self-sufficient” farms of centuries past, or the centrally-controlled planning systems of Soviet Russia, but I’m not sure most people appreciate just how important Division of Labor is to their own lives. Although not everyone gets the job of their dreams (see: scarcity), the fact that human beings can even theoretically pursue the career they want is a direct result of the fact that you do not have to churn your own I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter or extract the Guava for your herbal shampoo. Think about it. I barely tolerate having to dress myself in the morning. I cherish Division of Labor.
4. Competition- When you combine scarcity with property rights and division of labor you eventually arrive at “Competition.” When a man decides to become a dentist, he has chosen a profession that will require him to be reliant upon other people to produce his food, clothes, and shelter (Division of Labor). The dentist is able to purchase the goods and services he wants and needs because the fruits of his labor (i.e. clean teeth, root canals, etc.) were rewarded with compensation from his patients and he has exclusive claim to said compensation (Property Rights). His patients came to him because there are only so many people who choose to be dentists (Scarcity).
But while there are many dentists listed in the Yellow Pages, his patients chose his office because he was either better or cheaper than the dentist down the street. This is Competition. It is as natural as fish in water or syringes in Mark McGwire’s back-side. Competition breeds invention and innovation. Competition, in its proper legal and moral context (more on this in a second), is necessary for human beings to achieve their full potential in the marketplace of goods, services, and ideas. Please understand that I’m not advocating the “Gordon Gekko” cut-throat, self-indulgent caricature of competition that unfortunately exists in any system that offers personal freedom.
Competition is what makes sports worth watching. It’s what spurs bio-chemists to create a life-saving medicine quicker than the “other guy.” It’s what keeps people on their toes and from growing complacent and indifferent in their work (a hallmark of communist societies). If everyone won, if the entire world was run like a grade school’s Field Day Awards Ceremony, you can rest assured you wouldn’t be reading this essay on your iPhone right now.
But there is an even more important benefit of competition to consider: de-centralization of power. People hate monopolies in business, but often don’t know why. The reason monopolies are almost always a bad thing is because they leave the consumer with no options or recourse if they are unsatisfied with the good or service the monopoly provides. The same idea rings true in terms of how powerful a government becomes. When everyone is an employee of the “State”, when a federal government knows the people have to come to them for everything, freedom disintegrates.
5. Rule of Law- Without law and order, economics, like most everything else in a society, is chaos. If I cannot trust that the local government will do what it can to protect me from burglars, my habits will change (or my address will). If I cannot trust the state government to enforce the laws the legislature has voted into law, I have no way to gauge the impact zoning laws will have on my business. If the federal government cannot be trusted to protect me from foreign invaders, I will spend less time working and more time at a target practice range.
Private property is meaningless if it cannot be protected and legally enforced and recognized. If I produce pencils in my factory, but I cannot rely on the government to enforce a broken contract between me and my lumber supplier, I will not keep the factory open and all my employees lose their job. If I invest my money in an institution that is, unbeknownst to me, buying bad loans that are subsidized by the federal government (via Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae), I lose my shirt and never trust the market again. No one wins.
Everything is dependent upon the rule of law. Our “law”, at a very basic, foundational level, is the Constitution. The Founders envisioned a republican democracy (as opposed to a straight democracy and “mob rule”), with a limited and de-centralized government. It should come as no surprise to any of us that as both political parties have wandered off the Constitution’s reservation; we’ve seen the economy grow more and more volatile. A significant reason for this is that Americans involved in the private sector cannot rely upon the public sector (our government) to abide by the same “rules” year-to-year.
Economist Milton Friedman explained it as follows:
Just after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, I used to be asked a lot: "What do these ex-communist states have to do in order to become market economies?" And I used to say: "You can describe that in three words: privatize, privatize, privatize." But, I was wrong. That wasn't enough. The example of Russia shows that. Russia privatized but in a way that created private monopolies-private centralized economic controls that replaced government's centralized controls. It turns out that the rule of law is probably more basic than privatization. Privatization is meaningless if you don't have the rule of law. What does it mean to privatize if you do not have security of property, if you can't use your property as you want to?
For the college student returning from a semester abroad in a poorer country than their own, the reason your adopted homeland isn’t better off usually has little to do with the price of Italian beef in Chicago and everything to do with the rampant, unfettered corruption at every level of that country’s government. Will every country have the advantages and wealth that the United States has? Of course not. But does Costa Rica or Ghana or a former member of the Eastern Bloc have to remain a slave to 3rd world-like conditions? Absolutely not. The rule of law, and the protection our military affords us, is the thing that enables prosperity to flourish. Throwing money at the problems other nations will only exacerbate the problem if it is not coordinated with the implementation of stable governments.
But, you ask, what about human nature and the fact that people, even in free, safe America, will always look for ways to circumvent the law?
I’m so glad you brought that up.
6. Morality and Religion- It is in this sixth and final category where Mere Conservatism parts with the secular-progressive thought of modern liberal Democrats in the media and academia, and stands with the Founding Fathers (and their innumerable influences). Many people would be thrilled to support the first five concepts I’ve described already, but stop short when discussions of morality and religion enter the equation. The problem with stopping short is that you end up denying the one thing that really can be proven about religious, Judeo-Christian teachings: sin and the fallen state of mankind.
As I explained in the Theology of Mere Conservatism, the often unpleasant realities of this world mandate we impose constraints on ourselves, and when necessary and appropriate, on one another. In a relatively free society such as our own, unless the citizens are accountable to something higher than their government, you will end up with either anarchy or tyranny. Too little constraint will bring anarchy; too much, tyranny. The Founding Fathers, even those only nominally religious, understood that an immoral and irreligious country was a doomed country.
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” –John Adams
"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests." -Alexander Hamilton
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God?” -Thomas Jefferson
“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” -James Madison
If such quotes come as a shock to you, relax: you’re a normal American and likely a product of the public school system where the entirety of the history you learned consisted of Hiroshima, Jim Crowe, and the economic salvation FDR offered to a beleaguered nation that had been abused by capitalism.
My purpose, and the quotes I’ve used to help supplement it, is not to castigate the non-religious among us, but simply to clarify what values underpin our national identity. That identity is one of political, religious, and economic freedom. You cannot separate the three, and you cannot truly experience any of them without a citizenry predominantly comprised of moral and religious people. Values matter, and you’ve got to be able to define and explain those values if you hope to maintain them for future generations. It is my opinion that “You are a collection of randomly-gathered protoplasm” doesn’t have the same effect as “You are fearfully and wonderfully made by a Creator” when attempting to explain to a young person why they should care about the rule of law or property rights.
And so we come to the end of my description of what "The Economics of Mere Conservatism" entails. If you’ve read this far, you at the very least recognize the importance of engaging ideas and thinking through what it is you believe, and why you believe it. There is more to learn, more specifics to grasp, and I would suggest as a jumping off point from here that you familiarize yourself with the “Invisible Hand” theory 18th century philosopher-economist Adam Smith developed in his classic Wealth of Nations.
Economics is an exciting, multi-faceted topic, with endless sub-sets of concepts and ideas, but what I hope you take away from this piece is the general outline of what one means when they use the term “free market conservative” to describe themselves.
If Americans don’t begin to think more seriously and substantively about economic matters, others will do our thinking for us. Are you comfortable any longer with that set-up; with trusting politicians and bureaucrats to make decisions in your best interest? Does anyone really believe that the economic crisis we find ourselves in is the result of George W. Bush’s “dumb” accent and Dick Cheney’s sullen demeanor? Or equally as silly a notion that Barack “How Organized Was My Community” Obama and “Fighting” Joe Biden have “fixed” thing by spending more in one year than their predecessors’ previous four?
Develop a set of criteria by which you can judge everything from an economic policy touted by a politician to a seemingly attractive loan offered by a bank. If you aren’t reading contemporary economists such as Thomas Sowell (Stanford’s Hoover Institution) Arthur Brooks (American Enterprise Institute) and Walter E. Williams (George Mason University), if you aren’t even loosely familiar with the prolific ideas espoused in Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose and F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, you are less wise than you might otherwise be. There are great minds and articulate thinkers out there, providing intellectual ammunition for the cultural battle currently (and perpetually) being fought over the type of economy and government we will have over the next 100 years.
Read. Study. Pay attention. Teach yourself so you can teach your kids.
Freedom and liberty, the kinds Americans have generally enjoyed for more than two centuries, are at stake.
Mere Conservatism: History
by: R.J. Moeller
“I am not urging a lop-sided idolatry of the past; I am protesting against a lop-sided idolatry of the present!” -G.K. Chesterton
“The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.” --Paul Johnson
In the introductory essay to "Mere Conservatism" a few weeks back I referenced the famed British author C.S. Lewis and his devastatingly effective explanations of the core tenets of the Christian creed. In the first chapter of Book Four in Mere Christianity, titled “Beyond Personality: Or First Steps In The Doctrine Of The Trinity”, Lewis affirms his confidence in the intellectual curiosity and capacity of his reader by letting us know that despite warnings to the contrary from editors and colleagues, he is going to talk about heady, existential ideas regarding a complex topic. In his case, he meant talking about some of the theological basics of the Christian faith.
Today I am going to be talking about History and the importance of integrating the wisdom of the ages in both our private lives and the public square.
In that same chapter of Mere Christianity Lewis astutely identifies the skepticism (and apprehension) most people have toward any attempt to codify or verbalize big ideas and concepts. Many look at, for example, Christianity and see "a bunch of rules and regulations" written well before iPhones and Toyota hybrids that seem to have few practical implications on their modern life. Similarly, in the case of studying our past, our History, many are either bored or insulted by the notion that, for example, what men in powdered wigs said and wrote 200 years ago about government, economics, culture, and the law has any real relevance to our day and age.
Mr. Lewis references a comment that a Royal Air Force (R.A.F.) fighter pilot made to him after hearing one of C.S.’s lectures on the existence of God and the importance of studying theology and doctrine. The candid officer told Lewis that while he certainly believed in the existence of a Higher Power, and had “experienced God” while flying in the cockpit of his plane at night in the desert where he had been stationed, he simply could not bring himself to adhere to a list of “dogmas and formulas” that supposedly described who that Higher Power was and what His prescriptions for living as happy, fulfilling a life as is possible were.
Lewis was in total agreement with the general premise of this soldier’s statement. The real thing, in this instance a real encounter with God, will always be more intense and real than reading about it later.
Now think of this in terms of History. The things we experience every day, the emotions we feel, the gut-wrenching pain and suffering we see, the unexplainable compassion and kindness we witness, all seem to matter so much more than anything that happened last month, let alone in Napoleon’s France, Hitler’s Germany, or even Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
And to a large extent, this is true. We have our immediate needs and responsibilities to look after, and our day-to-day experiences deserve the bulk of our attention and emotions. But there is a bigger picture to consider.
C.S. Lewis points out that the pilot’s first problem was that he held a wrong understanding of what theology even really is. The man was thinking of purely scholastic and theoretical study. Yes, looking at the ocean and then at a map is a different experience, but who would say that because they’ve seen the ocean a couple times they would now need no map to navigate its murky and tumultuous waters if they wanted to travel upon them?
“The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real ocean. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary.”
History is a map.
Living history, making history with every breath you take (and, as my boy Sting would remind you, “move you make”), is abundantly more “real” and exhilarating. No one disagrees with this. History, because it is the story of mankind as re-told and recorded by mankind, is similar to the children’s game Telephone: it is susceptible to misrepresentations and misinterpretations. This is another unavoidable reality.
But think of the people you know who only live moment-by-moment with no thought or care of the future, and no interest in learning from past mistakes (or even successes). Are they really all that enviable? Is it really possible to live this way and maintain a job, friendships, or family? I would propose that it is not possible, at least not for long. It would rightly be understood as childish, immature and irresponsible to live in such a manner.
Now think of the times in life where you’ve relied upon past experiences, or the past experiences of others, to make a decision and it turned out to be the wrong one. Would any sane person gather from that incident that they should never again trust their own past, or the past of others, to help guide them in making a future decision? Everyone has had a bad meal before, but no one decides that as a result of your aunt’s questionable meatloaf you won’t be eating any food again.
History matters because it involves the creators of it: us. There are names and dates and places to learn, but learning History should be seen as the pre-requisite to the prized end-goal: understanding History. Wisdom comes from a healthy comprehension and appreciation of facts and realities that have occurred in the past. There is no area of study, no academic discipline, no political or ideological movement that is not completely reliant upon information collected from the past.
So why then is there generally such a divergent view between conservatives and liberals as to what role History ought to play in making personal and collective decisions? Why is it that no matter if we are talking about History in a theological, political, or economic sense, liberals tend to downplay the credence we should pay to the wisdom of the ages, and conservatives usually call for an embrace of it? Why is one side so enamored with sweeping “change” and perpetual “progress” and the other so much more focused on maintaining and modifying what has been proven to work?
I believe the ideological divide comes down to one word: authority.
The strand of progressive-liberalism produced by the cultural revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s that typifies the thinking and values of our media, academia, and current president recognizes, I believe, no real authority save itself (and themselves).
The Constitution does not allow for the type of all-encompassing change the Left’s good intentions compel them to push for, so the “living, breathing document” myth and a rabidly activist judiciary are foisted upon a misinformed and/or disinterested America. The Bible does not condone the bulk of the Left’s secular-progressive social values, so it is either rejected outright, marginalized, or annexed into the government’s control (see: Europe). History confirms the Left’s penchant for centralized power and a government-run economy to be (at best) a fool’s errand, so the History of the Christian West, especially the History of the United States, is re-cast as a harrowing tale of how benevolent, science-minded collectivists founded and developed the freest, most prosperous civilization in human history despite the racists, sexists, homophobic, bible-thumping xenophobes who believed in things like free markets, personal liberty, personal responsibility, and a Creator whose authority supersedes the whims of a corruptible, power-craved State.
The reason I put Theology first in the “Theology-History-Economics” triumvirate that most clearly defines Mere Conservatism is because I believe that when first things are first, everything else will fall in place. As soon as the Theology I outlined last week is in place, as soon as you acknowledge a Creator (who bestows purpose and grants rights) and the reality of mankind’s fallen state (e.g. sin), History’s relevance and importance becomes self-evident.
History is important because our Creator thought it worth the time to create and put us in it. History is relevant because it is the collection of all that the things that have worked and failed as long as we’ve been on the earth.
History is an imperfect source, but matters a great deal because there is a great deal more of it than anything else. How does one study the present? The future? We go to our grandpa or grandma for wisdom not because they know how to Tweet, but, in large part, because they’ve been around since before the inventor of Twitter was born.
The Left confuses the need for a “trust but verify” attitude towards the authority of History with a regrettable disdain for, and flat out rejection of, it. Shortsighted axioms such as “Don’t trust anyone over 30” were ingrained into American culture and society when they should have been saying to one another, “Don’t listen to anyone who isn’t intimately familiar with what happened in their own country beginning 30 years ago and working backward to its founding.”
Or how about, “Don’t trust anyone who hasn’t read a book published at least 30 years ago”?
I realize that for some, this talk of History and authority will either blow over their head, or anger them. To those liberals offended, I mean no personal 
disrespect. Conservatives are not perfect; we simply ascribe to better ideas and truer values. And to those who see little point in this whole discussion, I apologize for not mentioning my thoughts on who you should start in Fantasy Football, Kanye West, or even just one of People’s “50 Sexiest People Alive” in this essay.
For the rest of you, to those interested in accepting the call to confront the socio-political challenges of our time, please understand that the writer of Ecclesiastes was right when he said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
Anything and everything we don’t like about what is happening to our country and culture, and in our churches and synagogues, is a direct result not of unforeseen occurrences or unpredictable challenges but unpreparedness and a pervasive inability to reinforce those same weak links in our spiritual, intellectual and moral armor that consistently allow us to be struck where the most damage can be inflicted.
Not knowing, and more importantly, not understanding, our past is helping to cripple America. Mere Conservatism seeks to help change that.
“In other words, [History] is practical: especially now. In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about [History]. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not [spend time investigating History], that will not mean that you have no ideas about [History]. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones – bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.
For a great many of the ideas about [History] which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real [Historians, Theologians, and Economists] tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular view of [History] in modern [America] is retrogression – like believing the earth is flat.”
What is “Mere Conservatism”?
The basic ideas, ideals, and values that generally define and characterize the central tenets of what today might be termed "modern conservative thought."
We believe that a proper understanding of history, economics, and theology leads to certain conclusions. Many of these are the same conclusions our Founding Fathers arrived at in constructing a "more perfect union."
All ideas and opinions are welcome; not all are correct.
Mere Conservatism Links:
Econ Part I | Econ Part II
Intro | Theology | History
RJ Speaking at Acton 2010
Rudy the Dog barks at "change"
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