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 18^th and 19^th 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 20^th 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

By: R.J. Moeller

“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. And a slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”   -General George S. Patton

Humility is the rarest of all human characteristics, and pride is the most abundant.  How do I know this?  Because I am one – a pride-ridden human, that is.  As the great Christian thinker C.S. Lewis put it, we are most certain of the specific faults and flaws in others that we ourselves possess.  There is a self-identification with the pride that resides in my own heart when I see my neighbor, or, for example, a 25 year-old NBA basketball player who recently switched NBA teams to play in Miami, indulge in a public exhibition of prideful, immature showboating.

I identify with it and resent it in large part because I know deep down that I am capable of making the same type of mistake (and likely have already at some point in my life).

For those of you living abroad or under a rock with poor cable and cell reception, (arguably) the best basketball player in the world, Lebron James, held the basketball world “hostage” the past month as he deliberated over which NBA team he would play for starting in the 2010-2011 season.  James had been a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers his entire career since being drafted straight out of high school in 2003.  Last Thursday night, in what can only be described as a classless move, Lebron agreed to announce his career intentions on live television.  His decision was to leave Cleveland for the sandier pastures of Miami, FL where two other mega-stars, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, had already signed.

There are three basic reasons why so many people and sports media pundits have reacted negatively to Lebron’s antics over the past 4-6 weeks.  The first is that James did not show the respect to his former employer, the owner of the Cavs, to call and let him know that he was bolting for Miami.  Instead he, his ego, and the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) colluded to produce an hour-long special where King James would announce his intentions on live television.  The hype surrounding the announcement suddenly became more important than the integrity of anyone involved.  You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice that night that Lebron was uncomfortable with the format and execution of the televised interview – probably because it was ridiculously lame and dishonorable.

The second reason this story has generated the backlash it has is that with Bosh and Wade, Lebron James has instantly created an All Star-caliber squad that most objective observers would agree instantly has the best chance to win the NBA championship title next year.  But while Americans love a winner, we rarely enjoy a lop-sided winner.  People don’t like to see Andre the Giant wrestle Jackie Chan.  We want competition, and we love stories of home-grown talent that overcome great odds and foil old foes on their path to victory.  Say what you will, but sports do matter in this country and Americans instinctively sense the moral and ethical dilemmas and lessons inherent to athletic competition (especially on a such a prominent, national stage, as the NBA).  Teams like the Miami Heat and New York Yankees may be within their legal rights to purchase a title, but that doesn’t mean sports consumers have to applaud it.

The third and final disappointing aspect of the Lebron-to-Miami saga came the following day after his infamous press conference.  Last Friday, in a spectacle I imagine was akin to the Roman parades for returning conquerors General Patton spoke of in the quote I opened with, the Miami Heat held a sold-out welcome rally and extravaganza in their arena.

There were roofs raised, high-steps taken, fist-pumps pumped, and shimmy-shakes aplenty as James, Wade, and Bosh strutted their stuff on stage in front of thousands of rabid fans.  Fireworks exploded and confetti fell.  It was out of control, over the top, and unsettling to behold.  The “Big Three” embarrassed themselves and came off as immature and petty.

A celebration such as the one witnessed in Miami last week ought to be reserved for teams that have actually won something, like my Chicago Blackhawks did in winning the 2010 Stanley Cup in hockey.

These young men enjoyed their day in the sun after defeating four different teams in four different grueling best-of-seven series.  The Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith, the NHL’s eventual winner of the Defensive Player of the Year award, lost seven teeth early in the 3rd round of the playoffs after taking a puck to the mouth and not only played later in that same game, but played every one of the remaining eight.  That’s sacrifice and effort worthy of the 3 million Chicagoans who came out for the victory parade and rally in Grant Park.

Contrast the earned achievements and displayed class of the Chicago Blackhawks with the self-indulgent, premature, and overstated hootenanny held in Southern Florida last week.  The Miami Heat would have done well to provide Lebron, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh each with their own personal assistant who was required to walk alongside them during the festivities surrounding their arrival and whisper in their ear, “All glory is fleeting.”  But they didn’t.  And as a result, all three players, but Lebron in particular, are experiencing a less-than-positive backlash from fans, journalists, and former NBA players.

Almost overnight, “King James” has become the least popular thing associated with South Beach since Will Smith’s “Welcome to Miami (Bienvenido A Miami)” music video dropped some ten years prior.

So what is it that drove Lebron James, an otherwise controversy-free athlete, to make such a spectacle of himself?  What led to his fall from grace with millions of adoring fans and respectful peers?  And what do his recent, unfortunate actions say about modern American culture?  What does our reaction to those actions say about us?

Pride, not money, is the root of all evil.  Pride is also the root of most selfish, silly actions; especially among men.  We are competitive creatures.  In his chapter on pride in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes:

“Pride is essentially competitive - is competitive by its very nature - while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest…

Power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers.”

Throughout this entire free agency process, we have heard many times from Lebron James that he is simply “all about winning.”  He is a competitor and a tremendously gifted athlete, but I believe his pride has been hurt over the past seven years as many have criticized him for failing to win an NBA championship.  The combination of prideful ambition, in conjunction with a ceaseless chorus of naysayers regarding his value as a player if he never wins a title, compromised James’ better judgment and led him down a path that resulted in the bizarre, unpopular decisions we witnessed as of late.

It wasn’t the glamour, the women, or the tropical climate that brought him to Miami.  It wasn’t the cash-money, “dolla’, dolla’ bills ya’ll” that guided his decision to flaunt his free agent status and to force NBA teams to grovel at his feet for his considerable services.  It was pride.  It was the superior feeling he got from making others move about like toy soldiers.

But Lebron is not alone in terms of who can learn a valuable life lesson or two from the events of the past month.  The owners of the Miami Heat are largely responsible for the disgusting display of hasty, gratuitous celebration that took place at last Friday’s rally.  My problem is not with the fact that an NBA franchise is so excited about their new team that they want to gin-up some enthusiasm among the local fan-base, but that they poured out such extravagant honor for three players who have yet to complete a single practice together.  This is the same problem I had with the entire coverage of the Barack Obama presidential campaign and election (and presidency, thus far).

The man had impressive academic credentials, had an adoring base of supporters in the media, and generated large crowds around the country when he spoke.  But he hadn’t accomplished anything of note when Oprah wept, Chris Matthews swooned, and the Nobel Peace Prize committee went ga-ga for Barack after only a couple of weeks in office.  Perhaps he will accomplish something grand by the end of his one-term in office, but save the misty eyes and tingling legs for after a president displays greatness.  To do so before says much more about the desperation of one’s supporters than it does about the man himself.

Which brings me to my final thought on the matter: the Lebron James saga is really all about us.  It is about the consumers that lap up the drivel 24-hour-a-day entertainment networks like ESPN present us to sell advertising time on the air.  We buy the tabloids in the grocery store, we (myself included) tune in when Tiger Woods has a press conference to confess his infidelities, and we create the cultural environment within which young people like Lebron James grow up.  That environment is one that promotes fame and stardom over good character and sound judgment.  It is one that promotes academic knowledge and “a good job” over moral wisdom and personal contentment.  It is one that promotes financial wealth over economic stability and personal responsibility.

I can identify and recognize these societal flaws so readily because I harbor them in my own heart.  Lebron James’ mistakes are so abundantly clear to so many of us because we can spot unbridled pride from all the years we ourselves have indulged in it.  While we must never cease to call reckless or silly public behavior what it is, we do not have to write-off those who engage in it.

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” Matthew 7:1-5

And here's one of the whole group we fished with in Minnesota:

Count on daily posts from here on out the rest of the summer, as well as my weekly original columns on a wide array of topics.  If you have any suggestions for topics we should cover, please feel free to email us at rj@rjmoeller.com.

This is what I look like right now:

“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 19^th, and early 20^th, 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.)

"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 20^th 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?

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.

My father has been a pastor and marriage counselor for nearly three decades and through the years has heard countless stories that go something like this:

Woman marries (or shacks up with) Man.  Things are great for a while.  Eventually Woman comes to learn that Man has a proclivity to abuse those closest to him.  Whether we’re talking physically, verbally, emotionally – it’s all abuse.  Woman’s friends and relatives tell her to split for her safety and/or sanity.  Instead, Woman lashes out at concerned friends and relatives and insists on staying in abusive relationship.  Woman fears being alone, fears being financially independent, and fears the abuse is deserved.

We all know people trapped in varying degrees of unhealthy relationships that refuse to acknowledge that the jig is up and a change is needed.  There are always excuses that someone trapped in scenarios such as this can make to justify staying in it longer than they should.  Some of those excuses are legitimate, and some – not so much.

But the guy can be really nice…He pays for everything…Where would I find a job to support myself?...He wasn’t always like this…I can be too demanding and unappreciative of what he does for me…Other couples have problems like this too…I can make this work…We just need a fresh start.

Human beings are able to convince themselves of anything.

When you are dating someone who turns out to be abusive, you can walk away.  But after certain points in a relationship, namely marriage and having children, the ability to leave, the simplicity of just cutting all ties, becomes understandably (and appropriately) more complicated.  Divorce and custody battles are the familial revolutions a spouse escaping abuse must be willing to pursue if they (and their kids) are to have any chance at real freedom, peace, and prosperity.

But divorce and custody battles are the last option anyone wants to pursue.  Those things may in fact be necessary, but they are not desirable.  They are devastating and painful, and require a great deal of courage and emotional fortitude.  They are points of “No Return.”

If such traumatic events could have been avoided, anyone who has lived through them would have done anything to do so.

America: we have that chance right now.

The relationship between the citizen and the type of government envisioned by President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid is an abusive one.  It is an unhealthy one.  It is a disastrous one.  It is soul-destroying and economy-crippling.

Just like the abusive dating or marriage relationship, the relationship between the citizen and his or her government in a nation that controls everything from education to health care usually starts off on an attractive, positive note.  Workers are wooed with promises of better, more secure jobs.  Parents are seduced with federally-funded pre-K through graduate school education for their children.  Everyone gets cheaper, higher quality health care and costs (magically) will not rise.

Ulysses never knew such deceptively-alluring siren calls.

Who wouldn’t love to hear that their job is etched in federally-mandated stone?  What student isn’t looking to pass the buck on the staggering debt that accrues after obtaining the higher education near-necessary to “succeed” in this cut-throat world we live in?  How could someone in good conscience turn down health care that is both superior in quality and cheaper in cost?

The honeymoon a citizenry shares with socially engineered collectivism is oh so sweet.

But after all of the courting with pie-in-the-sky pledges has ended, and the emotional buzz of initial infatuation has subsided, what always ends up happening is this: the citizenry quickly realizes their federal lover not only snores loud at night and leaves wet towels in a mold-inducing ball on the bathroom floor, but that Big Brother intends to perpetually bloat in size and scope into nearly every aspect of their lives.  All of this is of course done in the name of “progress”, “compassion”, and my personal favorite, “social justice”.  (Does “social” honesty, or “social” humility, exist as well?)

The road to emotional serfdom for an abused spouse who cannot (or will not) sever ties is traveled one denial at a time.  The same is true of the citizen in a once-freer nation who begins to witness the decay of personal liberties and the erosive power of systematic corruption among the ranks of their elected leaders and refuses to recognize the encroaching enslavement for what it is.  There is always someone else to blame or something else to excuse away the actions of people in power who promised us the world, but ended up taking our souls.

They don’t really mean to takeover 1/6 of the U.S. economy via health care “reform”…All politicians conduct flagrantly unethical buy-offs of other members of congress to enact massive, transformational pieces of legislation…We deserve welfare because of what white people in the South did decades and centuries ago…I won’t be able to feed my kids breakfast without free government meals at school…The reason public schools are so bad is because greedy Republicans won’t let the kindhearted Democrats spend more of those rich peoples’ money on them…Trans-fats are bad for you anyway…Guns kill people; people don’t…George W. Bush was such a dummy and didn’t care about minorities…Barack Obama seems like such a nice man, and he promised me he’d pay for my cell phone bills if I voted for him.

When they turn out to be unhealthy to be around, or a threat to the vitality and freedom of your society and government, we don’t like to admit that the people we picked to be our significant others (or elected representatives) are in fact cruel and dangerous (or at the very least, wildly incompetent).  We’d rather suffer in silence or blame others than accept the fact that we were either swindled by someone who misrepresented themselves or were too smitten (or lazy) to notice (and investigate) the warning signs.

Nowhere is this unwillingness to appreciate how much harm your bedfellows have caused you clearer than in the half-century long relationship between the black community and liberal Democrat politicians, especially in urban areas like Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit.

It doesn’t matter that liberal Democrats have dominated the political power structure in a city like New Orleans for 50 to 60 years as jobs fled from higher taxes, more of the people they claimed to be helping ended up on the government dole, and corruption reached mafia-like levels.  It doesn’t matter that hard work, self-sacrifice, and personal responsibility are the characteristics that typify not only inner-city black kids who achieve success in life, but white kids from the suburbs as well.

What does matter is that liberal Democrats from Berkley to Boston feel good about themselves for promoting bigger and bigger government budgets and programs.  What matters is that race be injected in to every single solitary socio-political discussion to intimidate whites and keep blacks voting “D” every two and four years.

God help the black student or teacher at a public school or university who publicly espouses conservative or libertarian beliefs.  Like any scorned lover who hears in their significant other’s voice that he or she is beginning to figure out they don’t have to take the abuse anymore, committed big-government liberals launch cruel and unparalleled personal attacks on any member of a minority group that dares to question the conventional Leftist wisdom.

But I’m no heartless jerk.  I completely understand why so many people who currently depend on government assistance continue to vote the way they do.  But that doesn’t make it right, or even desirable, for those people stuck in an abusive citizen-government relationship to keep putting off confronting the reality that there is no such thing as a free lunch.  I fully appreciate that there are actually more white people on Food Stamps than blacks or Latinos, so unhealthy dependency on Big Brother is not merely a race-based phenomenon.  It’s a collectivist, socialist, Leftist, modern American liberal Democrat phenomenon.  It’s a European phenomenon.

Examples of the negative effects of injurious relationships between a citizen and their over-controlling government abound.  People living in socialist and socialist-like countries give less of their time and money to charity because their taxes are so high and the assume the government will take care of those in need.  The number one predictor of adult poverty is having been born into a single-parent home, a situation exponentially more common for someone with parents who are financially-dependent on the government themselves.  Patients under socialized medicine in countries like Canada wait longer for inferior health care, and you are nearly 20% more likely to die from cancer north of the border than in the United States.

The reason the health care debate that has been raging for the better part of a year is so incredibly important is simple: socialized medicine, the only logical conclusion of the current “reforms” being promulgated by the White House and leadership in Congress, is a threshold that once crossed can never be reversed.  It forever and unalterably changes the relationship between the free American citizen and his or her government.  It is an entitlement that, short of another depression, will never be repealed.

Panels and commissions comprised of life-long bureaucrats in Washington D.C. oversee the most intimate, personal information in your life.  The salaries and placement of doctors are set by “experts” thousands of miles away.  Surgeries and procedures are ranked in order of importance, and should you find yourself stuck with an unpopular ailment, you wait because they tell you to wait.  Rich people still get the best doctors, as they always will (a reality people need to grow up and accept), but the median quality of care diminishes as the costs (largely due to inefficiency and rampant corruption) continue to skyrocket.  Companies who have been inventing the life-saving medicines we all enjoy are punished for their “greedy” profits, and therefore have less incentive to take the risks they do.   No longer is the government a safety net and umpire; Uncle Sam becomes both umpire and entire 9-man roster on the field.

And worst of all: health care and medical issues become politicized.  People on welfare vote for politicians that promise more welfare.  This isn’t rocket science, folks.  Every politician, out of necessity, will be forced to promise more and more free lunches that they don’t know how to make and don’t have the ingredients to prepare.  As the great Alexis de Tocqueville put it nearly 200 years ago: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”

For Obamacare to work, we would have to trust ourselves to be monastically prudent in what we demand of the government agencies running health care, and trust our elected leaders to be more cost-effective, efficient, and honorable than any governing body has in human history.

As of the writing of this column, we’re still just courting the idea of handing over so much control of our lives to the federal government.  No legislative vows have been exchanged.  We still have time to walk away, and walk towards real solutions to the rising costs of health care.

I know how hard it can be to discern where an idea (or relationship) will lead you (or your country) 5, 10, or 50 years from now; but please believe me when I say that by calling and emailing your congressmen and senators to voice your opposition to the Obama health care debacle, you will be avoiding the economic and political abuse and suffering that will most certainly follow its passage.

Act now, act boldly, and find the candidates in 2010 who are serious about upholding the Constitution, who preach and practice fiscal responsibility, and who are gutsy enough to tell their Party’s leaders “No!” when presented with bribes, kick-backs, and sweetheart deals in exchange for their vote.

You don’t deserve a government that mistreats you and your hard-earned tax dollars…unless you allow it to keep perpetrating the same harms on you and your neighbors.  You can help end the madness.

Do it now, because believe when I say that you’re not going to like what it will take to beat back a suffocating government further down the road.

My favorite director is Alfred Hitchcock.  No one told a story on the silver screen quite like "old Hitch."  I especially love Vertigo, North By Northwest, and Notorious.  Hitchcock mastered the psychological thriller, loved setting his stories amidst grandiose backdrops and landscapes, always paid great attention to detail, and usually crafted tales about characters who get caught up in things beyond their control.

Martin Scorsese is a legendary director in his own right, and although I am not very fond of his obsession with making ultra-violent films, his latest effort Shutter Island, is an effective homage to the greatness of Hitchcock.

As your eyes could tell you from the trailer, Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Shutter Island and does a fantastic job.

It's 1954 (the year Hitch's classic Rear Window was released), and U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leo) has been called to investigate the disappearance of an inmate at an island mental hospital for the criminally insane called Ashecliff off the coast of Massachusetts.  Teddy's got his new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) along for the investigation, but upon arrival, it becomes apparent to the characters (and audience) that something is not quite right on Shutter Island.

The prison guards are abnormally fidgety, the Marshals are both asked to turn over their firearms (something no federal agent typically has to do), and there is absolutely no trace of the woman who allegedly escaped.  The man running things on Shutter Island is Dr. John Cawley, played exquisitely by Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley, who seems to be thoroughly disinterested in actually helping Teddy and Chuck piece the clues together.

Due to forces beyond their control (a hurricane-like storm that hits the island), the two detectives are stranded overnight and we begin to learn more about Teddy's back-story and what really brought him to the island.

Before becoming a Marshal, Teddy was a soldier in WWII and was personally there for the liberation of the concentration camp at Dachau.  He is plagued by the senseless death and destruction he witnessed in Europe.  To compound his own emotional health issues, Teddy is a grieving widower.  His wife, he claims, was killed in a fire that ravaged the apartment building the two of them had lived in back in Boston.

We learn Teddy requested the assignment to Shutter Island because he believes two key things:  First, that the man who started the fire that killed his wife is imprisoned somewhere on the island.  And second, that Nazi-like medical and psychological tests are being conducted on the criminally insane housed there.  He wants to both confront the killer of his beloved deceased, and gather evidence against the doctors he believes are torturing the patients.

Twists and turns in the story abound from there.

I don't want to give away much more about the plot of Shutter Island.  It's a compelling script with superb acting performances turned in by almost every major and minor character.  The music was disturbing and perfectly set the mood for the entire film (another Hitchcock special).  The psychological twists and turns absolutely keep you on your toes, and as soon as the credits role you will likely feel compelled to start your own group therapy session in hopes of figuring out what exactly just happened over the previous two hours and seventeen minutes.

Shutter Island is rated R for language and intense scenes of death (mostly from shots of concentration camp victims).  Do not take your grandma to this movie.

While not an "instant classic" or "must see", if you like great acting, Hitchcock-like storytelling and maintaining an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach for more than two hours, go see Shutter Island (and let me know what you thought of it if you already have).

G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kind of sin; and intellectual cruelty is the worst kind of cruelty.”

Written a century after Chesterton’s remarks, Thomas Sowell’s latest effort, Intellectuals and Society, is, broadly speaking, a 317-page cultivation of precisely those sentiments.  Combining the heady ideological exegesis of Conflict of Visions (1990) with the utterly graspable dissemination of facts and statistics in both Basic Economics and Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, Dr. Sowell offers the reader of Intellectuals and Society a part-academic lecture, part-fireside chat, and part-Greek tragedy glimpse into a world few of us would otherwise ever experience.

That world is the realm of the “Intellectual”.  It is a world where ideas, so long as they conform to the agreed upon norm, reign supreme, and consequences are rendered inconsequential by the insulation afforded to the idea-makers by things like academic tenure, a highly complicit media, and the unnecessary (and unhealthy) intimidation John and Jane Q. Taxpayer feel in the presence of intellectuals and their ideas.

Sowell’s intent in this book is to explain what an intellectual is, expose what it is an intellectual actually does, and examine what impact an intellectual’s end-product (ideas) has on the society around them.  I picked up on seven primary themes/concepts which are developed throughout the entire book.

1)    It’s not enough to know; you must be able to apply (and apply correctly).

Using the formula “Intellect < Intelligence < Wisdom”, Sowell stakes out his position on the undue levels of prestige given to those who are, as my generation would say, “book smart.”  He explains:

The capacity to grasp and manipulate complex ideas is enough to define intellect but not enough to encompass intelligence, which involves combining intellect with judgment and care in selecting relevant explanatory factors and in establishing empirical tests of any theory that emerges.  Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect.  Wisdom is the rarest quality of all – the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way to produce a coherent understanding.  Wisdom is the fulfillment of the ancient admonition, “With all your getting, get understanding.”

2)    Incentives and Constraints are universal

”Intellectuals”, as a group, are people whose professional task it is to create and cultivate ideas, as opposed to implement them.  An intellectual is a member of an occupational category, and the behavior of the members of this category can (and should) be studied to discover characteristics and patterns among them.  In Sowell’s mind, the pivotal question that is asked far too infrequently is: What incentives or constraints affect the behavior and patterns of Intellectuals?

Society as a whole suffers when people erroneously assume that the only people with incentives (i.e. money, fame, advancement of ideological beliefs, prestige amongst colleagues, etc.) are “capitalist fat-cats” in expensive suits.  Another serious error occurs when people assume that to put any constraints on an Intellectual, on a professor for example, is a horrible thing that will limit creativity or curb academic curiosity.  This is rubbish.  Without constraints of any kind you have anarchy, even in the academic world.

3)    If you ain’t Left, you ain’t right

The “realm of ideas” in which Intellectuals reside is overwhelmingly Left-of-Center in its political and economic ideology.  Sowell defines the “vision of the political left” as follows:

…Collective decision-making through government, directed toward – or at least rationalized by – the goal of reducing economic and social inequalities.

The majority of the academic world is progressive, liberal, or far-Left.  The majority of the academic world would be included in Sowell’s definition of an Intellectual.  You do the math.

4)    It’s nice to be needed

Intellectuals tend to “manufacture” a public need for their ideas.  There are three basic explanations Sowell offers for why this happens.

The first is completely understandable: intellectuals, like anyone else, want what they do to matter and have a positive impact on the world.

The second is not very flattering: ego.  From the time an intellectual is a young student in junior high or high school, they have been told they are the “smart” kid.  After attending the best universities for undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees, many intellectuals succumb to the notion that they are the “philosopher elites” envisioned by the likes of Plato and Karl Marx, destined and ordained to guide the un-enlightened masses to social utopia.

The third explanation for why intellectuals often “manufacture” a public need for their ideas (and services) is, put simply, “dolla’ dolla’s bills ya’ll.”  By manipulating the very free market principles so many of them hold in open disdain, intellectuals help to create a demand for themselves, which they are only too happy to supply.  Intellectuals need funding, and it is hard to get a grant from the federal government if your area of intellectual expertise involves the teaching of such ideas as limited government.

5)    Intellectuals have an influence on society and culture, and friends to help facilitate that influence

After creating a need for themselves, it comes as no surprise that intellectuals end up having a tremendous impact on the society and culture around them.  Intellectuals influence public opinion, which is the very air politicians (the decision-makers) breathe, even though the vast majority of Americans do not know the names and faces of the intellectuals who have influenced them.

A largely complicit media do what they can to advance the ideas of intellectuals, and thus their influence grows and grows.  In the chapter entitled “Optional Reality in the Media and Academia”, Sowell discusses the ease with which the Intelligentsia (Intellectuals + Gate-keepers of information) ignore facts that contradict their worldview, manipulate data that doesn’t corroborate their hypotheses, and in some extreme cases, lie as if their trousers were engulfed in flames.

Like the militant Muslim who has convinced himself that it is okay to lie under oath to “infidels”, the insulated, self-satisfying world intellectuals can create for themselves is a place where the truth is secondary to the “cause.”

6)    Heads in the proverbial sand

It isn’t just that intellectuals, like all fallible human beings, have been wrong about certain things, but it is that they seemingly refuse to learn from their mistakes, and the mistakes they make involve some of the most important things with the furthest-reaching ramifications.

In chapter three, “Intellectuals and Economics,” Sowell gives the example of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs enacted in 1930.  In the year following the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment topped out 10%, and by the time the federal government took its first (of many) giant Keynesian steps and signed the protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariff into law, unemployment had already dropped to just over 6%.  The stated goal of the tariffs was to reduce unemployment, and was based on the idea driven by leading intellectuals of the time that the State must act, and act big, to save an economy from crisis.  By 1931, however, unemployment was more than 15% and in 1932 it was 25.8%.

Have intellectuals learned their lesson in subsequent decades regarding the detrimental nature of government intervention into the economy?  NOT EVEN CLOSE!

See: The Obama administration, one saturated with intellectuals, and its preposterous economic antics of the previous year-plus.

7)    How are the people who won’t change their minds called “progressive”?

There are three reasons why intellectuals typically do not learn from their mistakes.

First, their presumptions about human nature and knowledge are innately flawed.  Intellectuals, on the whole, tend to believe that human beings are inherently “good”, and simply need guidance and direction from the powers on high.  This then leads to their fundamental error in how they view knowledge.   Knowledge is dispersed among the people and no one person, or oligarchy of intellectuals, can know everything.  This logically infers that it is impossible to centrally plan something as big and vast as a nation’s economy (or educational system).  A refusal to accept this truth is, as F.A. Hayek wrote, the intellectual Left’s “fatal conceit.”

Second, intellectuals tend to be removed from the results of their ideas.  There are so few external tests or criteria for an intellectual to meet.  An engineer building a bridge is judged on the soundness of the bridge.  Vince Lombardi was judged by his winning record.  Intellectuals who come up with a horrendous idea, say, for example, that paying able-bodied “poor” people not to work, and preventing them from saving or investing the money you pay them, will have no ill effects on society, suffer no real consequences for their wretched schemes.

Third, and final, they are surrounded by so many like-minded people, who hail from equally impressive intellectual backgrounds and pedigrees.  How can I be wrong when so many of my colleagues (i.e. the other “smart” kids) think the same way?  In business they call it “group-think.”  In the land of the intellectual, it’s known as “progressive thought” to walk lock-step in line with your peers.

Don’t think for a moment that Dr. Sowell isn’t aware of the fact that his is a book about the potentially dangerous influence intellectuals can have on society, written by an intellectual trying to influence society.  Sowell is open, honest, frank, and uncompromising in his assessment of the career he chose for himself.  His aim is to educate, not indoctrinate; lead a horse to water, not drown it in elitist condescension.

Thomas Sowell’s writing is an oasis of reasoned thought and discourse, and after finishing (and thoroughly enjoying) Intellectuals and Society, I can confidently say that I’ve been refreshed.

(Do yourself a favor and watch the 5-part interview with Sowell at National Review Online here.)