To Reform Government, Reform the Culture First
The statement angered liberals and embarrassed some conservatives, but CNN’s 2008 exit poll does show that 74% of unmarried women with children, and 69% of unmarried women without children, voted for Obama. In fairness, however, 68% of unmarried men with children also voted for Obama. And 56% of unmarried men without children voted for Obama; compare that to the 53% of married men who voted for McCain.
The poll also showed those who attended religious services at least weekly voted for McCain, while those who attended less frequently or not at all voted for Obama. A more religious, more marriage-minded America would have voted quite differently.
In the end, the majority of the world has little in common with the libertarian archetypes of Howard Roark or John Galt. We will either have strong families, strong houses of worship, and strong communities, or we will have strong government to take the place of all three.
This isn’t to say government must or can solve our culture’s problems. However, those on the right who think conservative goals for limited government can be achieved through passing economic legislation are spitting in the wind. We will never have a limited government until we have a culture that allows for one.
To change our culture, we must take a more holistic approach to the issues America faces. Even more than conservative candidates and activists, we have a great need for conservative writers, artists, schoolteachers, Boy Scout and American Heritage Girls troop leaders, ministers, and volunteers in organizations that seek to strengthen marriages.
The public policy side of addressing cultural issues should center around removing harmful barriers, such as unnecessary regulations that discourage charitable organizations, and eliminating and reforming programs that encourage illegitimacy and dependency. There should also be strong opposition to the efforts of many school boards to use the public schools to undermine parental authority and values.
Benjamin Franklin provides a good model for irreligious conservatives and libertarians who don’t think too much of cultural conservative concerns. Himself a deist and great individualist, Benjamin Franklin urged the author of an anti-religious screed to not publish his work, writing, “think how great a Proportion of Mankind … have need of the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice, to support their Virtue. … If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it?”
Franklin understood what might work for him wouldn’t work for society. We desperately need this mature understanding in the age of New Atheism. At a minimum, those concerned with liberty should not undermine efforts to renew culture. The future of American culture will determine the future of American liberty.
Separation of Church and State is a lie. The First Amendment basically says that the government has to stay out of church business. It does not say the church has to stay out of government business. How can you have good government if you do not have good IN government?
I agree in part but I think you missed the bull’s eye. You can have good people who are not relgeous just as you have bad people who are. While I would prefer to see people who opperate under a moral code that tancends the relitivistic set up available in secularism it can be done…its just not as common. The implications of religion scare people away from it. I don’t know why, possibly they ignore the other side of the coin. I agree that a person guided by (and thus limited by) many of the religious or faith system available would prove a better govenor because they remain accountable to something or some one; a deist or athiest can more eaily consider themselves unaccountable, just as emperors or pharoh embodied gods and were only accountable to themselvs (or their ambitious family members).
No, the Constitution says that the Federal Government has to stay out of church business. States could get involved, or even establish a state church (and did). Although there could be no religious test for holding Federal offices, States could and did have religious tests both for office-holders and for voters. Although the Second and Fourteenth Amendments have been lied about for many years, Church/State separation is the single biggest lie in American history. As the author points out, it might also be the most serious.
I wish thinkers of today would cease equating Social Security and Medicare with the programs of Big Brother such as welfare, Medicaid and food stamps. Social Security and Medicare were paid for by deductions from our pay checks every week we worked — in my case for over 50 years. They are not “give aways” or handouts of the government — which has no money to begin with other than what is taken from us. Social Security was a promise of government beginning with FDR, that when we retire or are unable to work, money will be there to help sustain us. Welfare and food stamps and Medicaid are given to those who can’t or won’t work for which no funds were ever available, and in most cases to buy votes for the awarding party.
And old Ben had it right, didn’t he, in saying: “If men are so wicked as we now are with Religion, what would they be without?”
Not any more – Social Security has long ago run through the money you contributed, and is now burning the money taken from – and intended for – younger contributors.
Politicians looking for lollipops to hand out to voters kept sweetening the deal, without caring about how those additional “entitlements” would be covered. In addition, nobody planned for the demographic changes that have shifted the relationship between monies paid in and benefits taken out.
Social Security has become a Ponzi scheme – as will any “entitlement” administered by politicians.
SocSec has always been a pay-as-you-go system, where today’s “contributions” pay for tomorrow’s benefits. There is now no trust-fund, and never has been. That “locked box” contains accounting slips (IOU’s) and nothing more.
That the account has been mismanaged is beside the point. Pat is right. He has paid in and has a right to expect that money back.
Pat Pierce and Abu Nudnik:
From a recent Walter Williams column: “Until recent years, Social Security recipients received more, often far more, than the value of the Social Security taxes they paid. … For example, for workers who earned average wages and retired in 1980 at age 65, it took 2.8 years to recover the value of the retirement portion of the combined employee and employer shares of their Social Security taxes plus interest. For their counterparts who retired at age 65 in 2002, it will take 16.9 years. For those retiring in 2020, it will take 20.9 years.” My question is: How can anyone who draws out every penny he’s put into Social Security in a few years say that he’s not living at the expense of another?
Here is the entire article:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/security-263452-social-taxes.html
Mr. Graham asserts, among other things, that “In the end, the majority of the world has little in common with the libertarian archetypes of Howard Roark or John Galt. We will either have strong families, strong houses of worship, and strong communities, or we will have strong government to take the place of all three.”
This triumvirate of cultural requisites for the survival of America is false. I’m sure there are countless liberals, leftists, and welfare statists (the legislator and beneficiary kinds) who have “strong families,” attend “strong houses of worship,” and live in like-minded “strong communities.” The world may not now have little in common with the figures of Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark and John Galt, but its survival depends on how soon men recognize their value as individuals not beholden to God or society. They stand in stark contrast to what Mr. Graham claims are the fountainheads of moral strength. He does not dwell on why families, churches, and “communities” establish “moral strength.”
How does having or growing up in a “strong family” imbue one with the value of limited government? No answer. How does regularly worshipping a supernatural being instill the value of limited government”? No answer. How does living in a “community” move one to advocate limited government? No answer. In Rand’s novels, Howard Roark was always at odds with the architectural “community” of his time, while John Galt walked out on one that sought to condemn him to a lifetime of servitude to it. .
To be sure, Mr. Graham is correct in saying that “We cannot effect a permanent reduction in the size and scope of government, or meaningful government reform, unless we change our culture’s demand for the government to provide our every need.” Conservative politicians, both the religious and middling kind, share with the collectivists the same altruist morality that is responsible for “big government.” Because they do not or will not challenge the morality of selflessness and self-sacrifice, all they have been able to do is simply endorse the more “radical” programs proposed and enacted by the more blatant collectivists, and merely criticize the size and cost of those programs.
I have always questioned the fearful reluctance of conservatives to champion the likes of Howard Roark and John Galt, or to acknowledge that they are the fundamental models of what this culture needs more of, because I have always suspected that these heroes represent a morality as much a perilous a nemesis to conservatives as they represent to the Obamas and Pelosis of the world. Roark and Galt are deemed “too extreme” examples of individualism. But in the final analysis, their “extremism” is precisely what makes innovation and progress possible, and their freedom to live and act for their own reasons are primary requisites, not families, churches, or society. No productive individual honestly acts out of a sense of family, church, or society. If he claims he does, he is deceiving himself and perpetuating a fraud.
Actually, the culture needs more thinkers like Rand. When there are, the culture will experience a sea change for the better.
“How does regularly worshipping a supernatural being instill the value of limited government?”
Regularly worshipping a supernatural being does not instill the value of limited government. Worshipping the Christian God of the Old and New Testament does. Scripture teaches about the dangers of big government – always personified in Scripture as ferocious beasts that consume the people. Scripture teaches that governments are accountable to God and that they are not the final authority on earth. Jesus taught that government had limits to what they could demand from the populace.
I suggest you pick up a Bible and put down the Rand fantasy.
Kipling: Again, I encounter those overrated conservative manners and skewed notion of civility. I make a statement, a God-fearing, Bible-thumping retrobate replies with a sneer. Yes, Kipling, I picked up a Bible many years ago and found it rich with Monty Python comedy material. “Rand fantasy”? Is or is not the world following the playbook of Atlas Shrugged? No answer? Just raspberries. Why do you bother reading?
Perhaps the reason we are going down Ayn Rand’s path is because we removed God from the center in the first place. That is the inherent contradiction in Ayn Rand’s belief: if you leave man to his own devices he will think of ways in which to inflict harm on other men. It is inherent even in her own writing if you bother to stop and think about it. That is not to say I don’t agree with her message: men should be left alone so that they are free to contribute positively to society in their own manner. Nor is this a call to unending regulation by a overpowering state. It simply to make mention that within even Ayn Rand’s philosophy the need for a “superman” is prevalent. Here is a pretty good take on Ayn Rand and “Atlas Shrugged”:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244497/ayn-rand-and-whittaker-chambers-jason-lee-steorts
I haven’t read “The Fountainhead”, but I think this article does a pretty good summary about Ayn Rand’s philosophy.
I believe that Benjamin Franklin gets it best. If men are wicked even with the knowledge of God, what chance is there for a man when God is removed? Indeed, that question answers itself: see any nation that has practiced Communism.
Chris Bolt: You write: “Perhaps the reason we are going down Ayn Rand’s path is because we removed God from the center in the first place. That is the inherent contradiction in Ayn Rand’s belief: if you leave man to his own devices he will think of ways in which to inflict harm on other men.”
First, no one, not even Rand, removed God from the center. And, the “center” of what? You don’t specify. I suspect that, like “Kipling” and a few other commentators here, you subscribe consciously or unconsciously to the notion of Original Sin, which is one of the most heinous religious concepts ever foisted on men in the name of morality — that men are born evil (without having ever committed a crime or a “sin”) and must be constrained by morality, whether Christian or not. But man is born tabula rasa, ignorant of the world and ignorant of what are good and evil. He learns. He has volition and can choose his own path, and take responsibility for his actions and values. Reason is his only guide, not an arbitrary set of nonsensical rules designed to make him work against himself, which is what altruism and the code of sacrifice compel him to do.
You cite the National Review as having “a pretty good summary about Ayn Rand’s philosophy.” Do you not know that that the National Review has borne Rand a vicious, smearing animus ever since the Whittaker Chambers “review” of Atlas Shrugged in 1957, a periodically recurring animus trotted out by William F. Buckley when he was alive and now by his successors at the NR? Buckley never refuted Rand or ever came close to it. He couldn’t. He settled for sarcasm and ad hominem, disguised in the thick frosting of his snarky vocabulary and vituperative style. You should read “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” and not take the National Review’s word for it.
As for Benjamin Franklin’s advice to the author of the anti-religious screed not to publish it: I know about this incident, and Franklin was merely cautioning the author, not necessarily disagreeing with him. He knew the temper of his times. While Franklin was a great man in many respects, he is probably the least admirable of the Founders. He was something of a political pragmatist all his life, and a hedonist, to boot. He was not above cooperating with the British Crown if he thought he could benefit from it.
The Rand playbook that you refer to is simply every man or woman doing what he or she thinks is right without regard to higher authority. The playbook predates Rand and is actually the story of man from the beginning. The Rand fantasy is that it will turn out okay.
Talk about contradicting yourself, Sparrow. First you say this:
“First, no one, not even Rand, removed God from the center.”
And then you say this:
“You don’t specify. I suspect that, like “Kipling” and a few other commentators here, you subscribe consciously or unconsciously to the notion of Original Sin, which is one of the most heinous religious concepts ever foisted on men in the name of morality — that men are born evil (without having ever committed a crime or a “sin”) and must be constrained by morality, whether Christian or not.”
If you bothered to study the John Galt speech, you would see that Ayn Rand was specifically asking men to remove “God” from their lives because the belief in an “original sin” is not only a flawed concept, but a heinous as well (your words). In its place of “original sin” Ayn Rand wants to place man at the center. As I stated before, we all know what happens when man is placed at the center and what the end result entails. It is surprising that instead of responding to that point you go into a diatribe where you try extrapolate my views on religion, even though I never mentioned what my views were. However,
I will agree with Benjamin Franklin’s point (which you also don’t refute). If man is not constrained by some morality, then man is free to do what his heart contends. This is not based on whether man has “original sin” or not: it is a fundamental fact of life that a man does have precepts about what is good or what is bad. If this were not the case, then why did Ayn Rand write two huge tomes extolling the virtues of free enterprise and how money is the “root of all good”? How exactly did she learn these things? If she bothered to learn history properly, she would’ve known that free enterprise and the virtues of personal responsibility and thrift were distinct Christian concepts and the hell-hole she left was the logical extension of placing man at the center.
If you must know, I do not practice any religion, but I do believe in a God, though that is purely because I do not believe in man. If man is not constrained by some form of morality, then anything can be defined as “moral” by man. Indeed, has not the government deemed outright theft of one man’s earnings to be “moral” if it redistributes it to another person? Has not the government deemed it moral that in the name of “fairness” people who belong to specific groups are to be given preferential treatment to make up for past grievances? The purpose of putting “God” above all else is to specifically state that there is a fundamental limitation to what man can or cannot do. If there is no limitation then man can do anything as long as man justifies it as “moral”. God as inhibitor, as I am wont to say.
By the way, I did read “Atlas Shrugged”, but not “The Fountainhead”. Even though I agreed with the underlying premise that Ayn Rand laid out, I do not agree with her on her rank atheism or her concept of “supermen” and that “love” and “joy” is abstract that one alone should be able to enjoy and define. Reading “Atlas Shrugged” as a archetype for what is going on in today’s society is one thing; reading “Atlas Shrugged” as a solution to what is going on in today’s society is an entirely different subject.
You should read Whittaker Chambers’ critique of “Atlas Shrugged”, which can be found here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/flashback?page=1
While you’re at it, you should probably also read the anarcholibertarian (new word I invented) Murray N. Rothbard’s critique of the “Ayn Rand Cult” during the 70s:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html
I have a feeling you didn’t read my first article and jumped right into ripping William F. Buckley a new one (talk about using ad hominem). However, if a fellow libertarian traveler can recognize the inanity of the Rand cult, you should be able to as well.
I liked “Atlas Shrugged”, but it is not a tome with which to try to live one’s life by.
Chris asserted:
If she bothered to learn history properly, she would’ve known that free enterprise and the virtues of personal responsibility and thrift were distinct Christian concepts and the hell-hole she left was the logical extension of placing man at the center.
This is false on two points.
First, “free enterprise” is most definitely NOT a “Christian concept”. Christianity dominated the world politically for centuries — and not a single Christian-ruled nation practiced “free enterprise” the basic economic/social system. Not one — in hundreds of years of Christian rule over dozens of nations.
The Industrial Revolution and the free enterprise system it made possible were both born during the Age of Enlightenment when reason finally set the human mind free from the shackles of religion.
Second, it is false to claim that communism failed because it placed “man at the center”. Communism failed because it systematically destroyed all individual rights — especially the individual’s right to property and the right to work in the pursuit of one’s own selfish happiness by means of one’s own honest effort.
Communism turned an entire population into right-less slaves doomed to labor per the dictates of an all-powerful Party that allegedly represented the “proletariat“. This system of slaves working under total state control couldn’t even produce enough to feed itself — and as a result, millions starved to death. In no shape, form or fashion could such a system be deemed to be an example of putting “man at the center”.
“Kipling
“How does regularly worshipping a supernatural being instill the value of limited government?”
Regularly worshipping a supernatural being does not instill the value of limited government. Worshipping the Christian God of the Old and New Testament does. Scripture teaches about the dangers of big government – always personified in Scripture as ferocious beasts that consume the people. Scripture teaches that governments are accountable to God and that they are not the final authority on earth. Jesus taught that government had limits to what they could demand from the populace.
I suggest you pick up a Bible and put down the Rand fantasy.”
Amen. Satan is a supernatural being; one which injects his venom into the hearts of those who refuse to worship the One TRUE God. When America (as a nation) recognized that the God of Scripture was in fact God, America prospered by His grace. Now America is veering from that path and following Gog-Satan, who still spews the same lie from the beginning: You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. The most insidious part of the whole thing? Those falling for the lie do not recognize its originator. They don’t perceive the lie as coming from him because they do not believe he exists, even as he whispers it in their ear day after day after day. Christianity has fallen into apostasy, permitting everything under the sun in the name of love, and that is what is allowing this permeation of evil. The salt is no longer preserving. It is now too late. The cobra has struck and the world is dying. Magog is on the march, surrounding the Holy City (the people of God) and the Believers don’t even realize it. They’re still trying to project 70 AD into the future.
“Sparrowhawk
Kipling: Again, I encounter those overrated conservative manners and skewed notion of civility. I make a statement, a God-fearing, Bible-thumping retrobate replies with a sneer. Yes, Kipling, I picked up a Bible many years ago and found it rich with Monty Python comedy material. “Rand fantasy”? Is or is not the world following the playbook of Atlas Shrugged? No answer? Just raspberries. Why do you bother reading?”
Is the world following the Ayn Rand playbook? No. It’s following the Humanist Manifesto II. As for your foolish comments about Scripture, God will deal with you later. You have to die. And that means you will face Him. Scoff now. Enjoy your mockery. In the end, you will pay the price.
Robert Winthrop, an early Speaker of the House of Representatives: “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or a power without them. Either by the Word of God or the strong arm of man, either by the Bible or the bayonet.”
The idea that our Founding Fathers were libertarians is a humanist lie.
From a letter that John Adams wrote his wife Abigail on the day they approved the Declaration of Independence: “I am apt to believe that [this day] will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the ‘Day of Deliverance’ by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty!” Libertarian my eye. The man is a Christian.
Patrick Henry: “Whether this [new government] will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation [Proverbs 14:34]. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this, and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself and encourage it in others.” Again, not the words of a libertarian, but a Christian.
Washington’s First Inaugural address stated in part: “It would be improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplication to that Almighty Being…. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than people of the United States…. We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.” The words of a Christian.
Washington’s Farewell address stated in part: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars . . .Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. . . .Where is the security for life, for reputation, for property if the sense for religious obligation desert?”
Which religion? Looking back at his Inaugural: CHRISTIANITY.
So then, conservatism without the God of Scripture is simply one more ‘ism’. As evidence, I give you the Republican homosexual group GOProud which is sponsoring Homocon, a conservative convention for Sodomites. Is this the conservatism America needs? Hardly. As it is written: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” (Mt 7:15)
Which will it be, Bible or Bayonet? I hate to say it, but I think America will soon receive the bayonet, as she has refused the Bible.
There seems to be a general misunderstanding of what it takes to create the future rather than simply consuming a rapidly disappearing past.
Howard Roark refused to bend his will to those who had no will but other. John Galt refused to be enslaved to those who demanded to be slaves. They both stood as individuals taking full responsibility for their existence, their knowledge, and their character. They did not yield to those who’s character was little more than a shadow of a reflection of recursive reflections.
To live, one must act. To act, one must know how to act. To know, one must be free to acquire one’s own knowledge and to act upon that knowledge. Voluntarily accepting full responsibility for your thoughts and actions builds the character that is necessary to be worthy of being alive and knowing that you are worthy.
Violate the freedom to know, to act, and to take full responsibility for self and you have violated life itself. You have made life as a human impossible. All that will be left is a dying of shifting shadows being reflected by a mad hall of mirrors. The shifting shadows know they are not worthy and thus strive to destroy those who are. It is not life they are after. They are seeking death.
Continue in this direction and the Howard Roark’s and John Galt’s among us will have no choice but to “Go John Galt”. The remainder will be left to do the best they can with the fading past.
Sparrow-you want to know why theres a religious component? its called the excesses of Libertarianism. The foundingfathers of this country were libertarian conservatives, who counted on societies religious underpinnings to prevent say,abortion from getting out of control. Or groups like the ACLU,who use the Constitution to serve there own purposes. Religion and morals are a practical reason for why the free enterprise system succeeds, mainly because dealing directly is the best way to runa business,solve a problem, et al. Youve no doubt heard the phrase “you cant fight city hall”. And why is that? dealing with govt bureacracies is costly and unproductive. Until America gets rid of its PC afliction(particualry in regard to violent,hateful Islam) , we will be stuck in the mud.
This culture is in a death spiral tail spin. Just wait until the populace reacts to the austerity measures the pubbie congress is forced to enact, the many state pension bankruptces/defaults kick in, and the REAL depression sets in.
The Rats will strike with vampire fangs bared, the people will swing back to them amidst complete societal chaos and nothing short of a military coup will restore order.
There’s a chicken-or-egg-first puzzle buried in the ascent of Big Government this century past: was the culture corrupted first, to provide the entry point for an Omnipotent State? Or did the political class gradually accustom Americans to having first their risks, then their futures, and ultimately their day-to-day necessities underwritten by the State?
I rather think it was more the latter than the former. Gradualism has always been a potent weapon in the hands of the would-be tyrants of the world. Of course, as previous gradualist incursions upon freedom and responsibility take hold, they induce zones of corruption in the culture, which facilitate further incursions. So in that sense, the chicken and the egg cannot be separated.
In any case, reversing course will be among the most difficult — and the most painful — tasks our nation has ever confronted. We will need God’s help. Don’t be too proud, or too ashamed of yourself, to ask Him for it.
To illustrate the obvious intelligence and giftedness of our current ivy league educated president, see this photo:
http://www.conservativeedge.com/He-cant-do-anything-right-one-photo-captures-the-O
This dolt should have the keys to the White House taken away simply because he probably doesn’t know how to use them.
AND THIS IS THE LEADER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!
YIKES
Great post!
I have always been amazed that libertarians define a limited government as a government that can slaughter the unborn, kill off the elderly, and redefine the oldest institution known to man (marriage).
Yes, how dare a woman to refuse to host a parasitic organism, or require someone to become a parasite to those they love, or interfere with the transfer of property from a father to a husband.
This article was crap. The closest thing to an actual argument was an appeal to authority based on one quote from John Adams. The Founding Fathers weren’t omniscient, they knew they would make mistakes which is why they included several mechanisms to allow the government they created to adjust. They also knew the terror that could result from the power of the state being used to seek out “heresy”.
The most fundamental right is to our own minds. That is what the First Amendment is about. You can believe in whatever gods you choose and think me a foolish heathen while I deny the existence of god and think you’re a weak-willed nincompoop. What cannot happen is for either of us to use the power of the state to compel behavior. Because when the state starts looking for heretics it will find them, and nobody is completely orthodox.
The very term you use – “parastic” – makes my point
No one said anything about using the state to find heretics. Nor did you address the central issue about the government being able to kill in the name of necessity or redefining institutions that predate Rand.
“Jeff Gauch
Yes, how dare a woman to refuse to host a parasitic organism, or require someone to become a parasite to those they love, or interfere with the transfer of property from a father to a husband.
This article was crap. The closest thing to an actual argument was an appeal to authority based on one quote from John Adams. The Founding Fathers weren’t omniscient, they knew they would make mistakes which is why they included several mechanisms to allow the government they created to adjust. They also knew the terror that could result from the power of the state being used to seek out “heresy”.
The most fundamental right is to our own minds. That is what the First Amendment is about. You can believe in whatever gods you choose and think me a foolish heathen while I deny the existence of god and think you’re a weak-willed nincompoop. What cannot happen is for either of us to use the power of the state to compel behavior. Because when the state starts looking for heretics it will find them, and nobody is completely orthodox.”
Well Jeff, we know YOU aren’t completely orthodox. In the very first line of your statement, you have managed to give a look into government you support. Babies are parasitic. Old people are parasitic. Not sure about that interfering with the transfer of property from father to husband thing, but it leaves me uneasy anyway in the light of the remainder. Your mind is darkened sir. You choose not to retain God in your knowledge, you profess yourself to be wise and have in turn become a fool. You’ve bought the Lie and you will pay the price for it.
And there it is. Any victory by conservatives this fall, however sweeping it ends up being, will be only temporary, because the government-dependent mindset and attitudes–even among those likely to turn out for Republicans this coming November–is so entrenched.
This is why I believe Sparrowhawk @ #3 is incorrect, and why I believe Mr. Graham and Ben Franklin are right: People who will not govern themselves–taking a firm and virtuous control of their finances, their private and public behavior, their own education and that of their children, and, it has to be said, their duty to God and to each other–will look to some other entity vast and strong enough to do it for them.
A perfectly self-sufficient John Galt simply does not exist anywhere in the real world. Man can do incredible things, bending Nature itself (at least temporarily) to his will through his intelligence and ingenuity. The Randian/Nietzschean notion that man can, through an exercise of that same will, bend himself into shape, that he can become a Superman, “like God,” a Master of the Universe, however, wants to partake of that same apple that has been stuck in our throats since the beginning of man’s existence. Men can no more become gods as individuals than they can regain Eden through collective effort, which is the Left’s ultimate program.
We cannot create our reality. Virtue is Virtue and Sin is Sin and, whether we care to admit it or not, we know the difference. That’s the easy part. The difficult part is rejecting Sin and cultivating Virtue, because, admit it or not, we simply can’t do it on our own. We can’t do it at all. Only God’s Grace can. And for that, we have to bend a knee and pray.
Right thinking on fiscal and monetary policy will certainly help. (In fact, in an interesting expansion on Francis W. Porretto’s chicken-or-egg puzzle, I would say that right-thinking economic policy ultimately stems from a right understanding of man’s relationship to God and to other men.) But it will not suffice for a society where we all have become accustomed, through long conditioning, to government providing a safety net for our needs, and is in fact currently in the process of providing a safety net for our idle pleasures. A real reversal will entail pain. And with pain will come a backlash and yet another reversal.
Unless we pray, and pray hard, and pray without ceasing. There is no other way at this point.
Communism/Marxism has infected many aspects of culture. It happened because it was MEANT TO. The left may utilize the strategies of Saul Alinsky, but they employ the theories of Antonio Gramsci. We are instructed, forced, and compelled to embrace such “cultural norms” as gay marriage, an idea which, just a few short years ago, would have been considered too bizarre to even contemplate seriously. Take a serious look at the platform of the Communist Party USA. There is not plank on that platform that has not been accomplished or is in the process of being inflicted on society. There was a reason for the cultural revolution. A society which organized individuals around a set of cultural beliefs and norms had to be upended in order to effectuate its opposite. A society whose limited government was a NATURAL outcome of the culture which produced it had to be transformed in order to produce the disdain and eventual dismantling of that form of government. We do get the government we deserve if we continue to destroy the moral, ethical, intellectual, and religious foundations of this country. The individual has to be “disappeared” and swallowed whole in the service of the state. Americans have to realize that the ideas that have been foisted upon them were deliberately chosen to destroy them. The language, the phony “front groups”, the parameters of the limited debate, the influence of all centers of cultural dissemination, all have been utilized to cement a lasting Marxist revolution in America.
Good points, well expressed. However, I think you’re getting the cart before the horse. Culture is a natural outgrowth of the interactions of a unified people, a people sharing a common language, history, and values.
That foundation enables representative government to function. As professor Ghia Nodia of the University of Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, has observed:
“Democracy has always emerged in distinct communities; there is no record anywhere of free, unconnected, and calculating individuals coming together spontaneously to form a democratic social contract ex nihilo. Whether we like it or not, nationalism is the historical force that has provided the political units for democratic government. ‘Nation’ is another name for ‘we the people’.”
Founding Father John Jay famously observed the same dynamic between government by consent and cultural unity.
Our problem is that we have an overgrown, interventionist central government that is at war with its traditional culture. From subsidizing illegitimacy to promoting Third-World migration, DC seeks to weaken the people’s natural sense of order — their capacity for self-government — in order to boost its own power.
Before our wounded culture can heal itself, we have to remove the poison dart that’s still speading sepsis. The government must be downsized or fired.
And what this have to do with the United States, seeing as how we are a REPUBLIC and have never BEEN a democracy?
Frederich Nietzche, an atheist, also understood the perils to society if Christian values are removed. From “Twilight of the Idols”, part 4:
“Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. One knows, indeed, what their ways bring: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic — every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization.”
Thinking a little further … ‘reform’ is not possible. You can’t reform a a critically ill and possible on its deathbed thing. Resuscitation on a level closer to resurrection is required. I think this is what Beck understands and is trying to do.
Not enough of us left alive and in possession of americanism to bring about the revolution however. We might be able to make a stand however if we’d all move to Texas and secede. Personally I’d rather die free and making history than going on much further with the statist boot on my neck.
It takes less than 10% of a population to mount a successful revolution. However, it has to be the right 10% and they cannot expect the revolution to be easy nor accomplished quickly without casualties.
A culture follows the ideas it generally holds to be true (mostly held unconsciously). Voting against those ideas can at best only slow the rate of the following. What must be done is to do the work necessary to change those ideas. Unless and until that is accomplished, political action can only delay but not stop the current rapid progression toward the abyss.
The work is mostly on the fundamentals: ideas, metaphors, and symbols. It is the writing and publishing of explanation after explanation in clear and common language. It is the patient instruction of the next generation. It is the taking over of the critical institutions from the ground up. It is the removal of support from anything that undercuts reaching the goal. It takes focus, effort, and, most importantly, getting your own act together and living internally as if the goal has been achieved.
This is how the left took over. We were too busy living our own lives and said “whatever” at each small increment of intrusion into our lives. The time has come that we cannot ignore what has happened and pretend that all we need to do is work just a little harder. It is no longer sufficient to just get by. It’s what we choose to work on both smarter AND harder that will count toward creating the future in which we wish to live. Choose wisely and start working before you have no freedom to choose.
I disagree with the premise of this article. The forces that grow Statism are largely independent of the culture. The very basic nature of organisms to survive, grow and displace competition also applies to human social groups like corporations and, unfortunately, the governing class in this country. The founders did everything they could to build in checks and balances to avoid this – but the barriers have been breached.
Growth in government is from within and since beyond some minimal overhead functions, it produces nothing that sustains life, it must parasitically attach itself to the host private sector. It takes Mother Nature quite a long time to evolve stable symbiotic relationships, and many hosts have been killed off by their parasitic would-be partners. So both must die off (see USSR) and then another pairing gets to try again until successful.
This is the core of the Conservative dilemma and the hope of the Progressive Socialists.
Two of the core principles of Conservatives is limited government and personal responsibility, principles embraced by an ever diminishing percentage of the American electorate. Progressives on the other hand are all about expanding the governments role by expanding entitlements, making government largess available to an ever increasing percentage of the electorate and paid for by the aforementioned “diminishing percentage” and imposing government involvement and control over an ever expanding public sector; replacing personal with government responsibility. The rationale is or should be, obvious and deceptively simple; create an electorate overwhelmingly in the Progressive political camp; add amnesty to entitlement expansion, the holy Grail of the Left that in one fell swoop creates the one party system.
This is why some Conservative pundits are hoping that election 2010 will not result in the Republicans taking control. They fear that, if in the majority of both Houses, any success in reversing the massive expansion of government and any meaningful reductions in government spending, while pleasing their ever diminishing base will inevitably result in a massive political backlash in 2012 from that growing segment of the voting public, now irreversibly dependent on entitlements, that will necessarily be targets for significant revisions all directed at what will be described as Draconian cuts in “essential” programs and services.
The Left has successfully executed this strategy over a decades long engagement in class warfare that has dragged both Democrats and Republicans increasingly towards the left as they brazenly pandered to inherent human weakness. It might be said that America is now reaping the rewards of it’s self imposed cultural decline.
This is the core of the Conservative dilemma and the hope of the Progressive Socialists.
Two of the core principles of Conservatives is limited government and personal responsibility, principles embraced by an ever diminishing percentage of the American electorate. Progressives on the other hand are all about expanding the governments role by expanding entitlements, making government largess available to an ever increasing percentage of the electorate and paid for by the aforementioned “diminishing percentage” and imposing government involvement and control over an ever expanding public sector; replacing personal with government responsibility. The rationale is or should be, obvious and deceptively simple; create an electorate overwhelmingly in the Progressive political camp; add amnesty to entitlement expansion, the holy Grail of the Left that in one fell swoop creates the one party system.
This is why some Conservative pundits are hoping that election 2010 will not result in the Republicans taking control. They fear that, if in the majority of both Houses, any success in reversing the massive expansion of government and any meaningful reductions in government spending, while pleasing their ever diminishing base will inevitably result in a massive political backlash in 2012 from that growing segment of the voting public, now irreversibly dependent on entitlements, that will necessarily be targets for significant revisions all directed at what will be described as Draconian cuts in “essential” programs and services.
The Left has successfully executed this strategy over a decades long engagement in class warfare that has dragged both Democrats and Republicans increasingly towards the left as they brazenly pandered to inherent human weakness. It might be said that America is now reaping the rewards of it’s self imposed cultural decline.
Tonight on TV Glenn Beck said that we are in a third awakening. I hope he is right. We can see from our history that awakenings are very powerful in their influence on the population. One way of looking at awakenings is to see them as cultural events that went viral. Another piece of history to keep in mind is what happened as a result of the first two awakenings.
Will it happen again?
“Social Justice” is ruining America. ‘Special Interest Groups’ are ruining America. ‘Unions run amuck’ are ruining America.! – Think its time to bring “Equal Justice” back into the picture? – No one ever said “Life was Fair” – The ‘concept’ in America that everyone is “Owed” something is a ‘concept’ of the ‘Left/Progressives/libs’.
‘Resentment’ like a ‘cancer’ festers and eats one from the inside out. This is not a modern day dilemma. But, it does plant the seed for every ‘Social Justice’ cause. And of course our Government ‘buys’ into it. ‘Resentment’ can’t be ‘cured’ by ‘throwing money at it’, or doing ‘special favors’ for it.
There is a wonderful prayer if some would learn from it, it could set them free in their own lives and ‘move on’; God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.
One many not be able to change the world, the past, past slights, or people but you can change things in your own life and that is where the Wisdom of it comes into play. You need to ‘let go and let God’ and put it in his hands.
Every philosophical book ever written cannot replace the Truth.
God is Truth. The alpha and the omega. The beginning and the end…
With the exception of some, many of us know right from wrong.
“I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.” (Albert Camus)
It always amuses me when ‘prisoners’ once they are convicted and locked up ‘find God’. Why is that? Why did they ‘lose God’ at all? Did they never believe in God in the first place? OR (as I have come to believe) is it ‘easier’ to do the wrong thing, than do the right thing (Morals/Character).
Who or What keeps us on the right (moral) path? Only “one book” I know of can.
“Liberals/FarLefties/Progressives of America act as though having ethics, morals, personal responsibility and enjoying freedom and liberty – in short -’personal values’ is some kind of ‘Character Defect’ Why is that? What is the alternative?
The essence of Conservatism, expressed in an abstract way, is the self organizing system. It is the ability of people, at all levels of social size, to “assemble” themselves into a more complex, functioning whole. This can only happen organically among moral people, in conditions of trust, and altruism.
If everyone is looking out for themselves alone, then sooner or later order needs to be imposed. This is the fascist argument: that you need autocracy to “get things done”. Among awful people, this is true. Democracy does not work for immoral people.
I have said this often, but the freedom which we have been granted is not the freedom for mindless hedonism. Such hedonism can only end in our collapse, one way or another. The freedom we have been given is that of pursuing our own conception of virtue, of Goodness.
When Jefferson wrote “pursuit of happiness”, he was not thinking of hippies “going to California with a flower in their hair”. He had in mind Aristotle’s “Eudaemonia”, which is a complex concept, but is best expressed as the pleasure to be had in self improvement and voluntary challenge. It equates well with “flow”, too, with an added moral dimension.
We used to be smart. We used to be highly moral and very erudite. We can return to that condition. Rather, we can reacquire that aim and do better in the future than we have ever done. Perfection is not achievable, but movement in that direction is.
I agree with the premise of the article. People must change. They can not continue to call on government (their neighbors by force)to bail them out with no personal responsibility for it. That is why I am skeptical about the November election. Will the conservative have the guts and charisma to win the argumnt to sunset all the entitlement programs? Will they have the guts to defund the Depts. of Energy, Education and Agriculture and the agencies such as the EPA, FCC and the like? Will they have the guts to pull the plug on all subsidies- energy, farm, etc.etc.
Without that type of mental fortitude, there is no way to avoid the impending failure of the US.
The federal government revenue is $2T. Their expense can not exceed it, no matter what. Will the conservatives make that stick? Republicns and the Democrats won’t. Our biggest problem is party polarization that has no relevance to the founding principles.
A sobering article. I’m a classic liberal artist who is really in the minority in socialist artistic circles. I think I’ll start reading your blog. btw: if the economic policies of Obama continue there will be more having to do with less than our spoiled children are used to. I’m afraid that’s what will happen. Education in the school of hard knocks is the only way people will change.
Obama has taken a Christian parable, the Good Samaritan, and is trying to make the government the Good Samaritan. Classic liberal theology is just as bad as classic liberal economics. The founders understood natural law and the moral implication that moral law requires a moral law giver that was and is totally other. The Judeo/Christian ten commandments gave us a foundation for law and an understanding of the moral perfection of God by revealing His nature in the law and what the cost of transgressing it implied. Our secular system has created a world view that has reduced man to a quirk of nature. Everything is relative. Darwin is even more powerful in the market place than he is in science. Survival of the fittest only. Darwinian theology controls the liberal church, science, marketplace, education, the workplace, athletics and on an on. Man is a cipher in an accidental universe with no meaning, no purpose. Man as the beginning and end. We need to have everybody read the Lord of the Flies it give a great picture of where we are heading. Republicans, conservatives, libertarians cannot stop this. Until man recognizes that our dignity and meaning and worth come from a Holy God who loves the crown of His creation enough to die for it can we stop the slide.
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