It strikes me that for American Evangelicals, Nature and Nature’s God and We the People are two seducers of the people who want to turn Christians away from the true King. (Even worse, I may soon have to add <i>Moroni</i> to the list.)
PostScript: Wow. Speak of the Devil!
I am reading book, written by one of my favorite political columnists, and enjoying it immensely. Naturally, I want to write a big long review and know I’ll never have time. So here are a couple of revelations that shocked and awed me.
It all goes back to Ayn Rand (or to Nietschze)
I thought I knew all about Rothbard’s problems with the Ayn Rand Cult, but there was stuff here that was new and some that was totally breathtakingly unexpected. I should have figured that Rand, through Nathaniel B-Rand-en as he renamed himself (all incorporating themselves into Her Rationality’s first typewriter brand name), had used counseling as a weapon. There would be show trials for nonconformists where all private information was used as evidence. Rothbard had been fooled into submitting to Branden’s treatment as a cure for his travel phobia. His betrayal and the resulting emotional turmoil must have been immense. But what was totally new to me is that one of the doctrines (!) that Rand accused Rothbard of believing was in free will! This was later than 1950. She became a doctrinaire preacher of free will by the time she wrote Atlas Shrugged, but before she thought that anyone who believed in free will was “insane.” The impact of Thus Spake Zaruthustra on her thinking was greater than I ever knew (or that any Randian would admit to).
Rushdoony and the Implosion of the Volcker Fund
I was surprised that Rushdonny had this kind of influence. After reading this I found it mentioned on the web:
The Volcker Fund collapse in 1972 [I think 1962 is what he meant] and destroyed a whole basis of libertarian scholarship. The president was a follower of R.J. Rushdoony, who at the time was a pre-milleniallist Calvinist, later converting to postmillenialism. He has sent me a Rushdoony book, which I blasted. Combined with other reviews, he became convinced that he was surrounded by an atheist, anarchist, pacifist conspiracy to destroy Christianity. so he closed down the Volcker Fund in early 1962. It was a great tragedy. L14S was supposed to be established with the $17 million from the Volcker Fund to be an endowed think-tank, publishing books, sponsoring students, funding research, and holding conferences.
If those two snippets of information are as fascinating to you as to me, then you have found a home on this blog.
Eventually, I will review this at my Goodreads site, and probably write more here.
I think I reached an epiphany. “Conservative” is a completely vague word. It should be no less useful than “progressive,” but it hasn’t seemed to work that way. What are we conserving?
What if we drop “conservative” for “federalist”? The issue is not between being a “Republic” or a “Democracy.” The issue is whether we are a federation or a nation-state.
Because if we are a nation-state we are a nation-state without any lawful foundation or legal history.
What this means is that we can forget about abstract eternal principles like “capitalism” v. “socialism” or whatever. The issue is narrowly American and narrowly procedural.
Contrary to public opinion, no one turning point changed us from a Federal Republic into a nation. No amendment did so. The very fact that amendments were once required reminds us of the days when we were legal–when we operated according to the Federation that we are.
(Example: think of all the stuff said about how prohibition was repealed by a second amendment to the constitution that voided the prohibition amendment. Yet we have a more extensive Drug War and network of controlled substance laws than anything under prohibition, including the torture of American citizens by Federal authority in defiance of California state law. Did we amend the Constitution to prohibit Marijuana use? No. The Federal Government just did it. It has been acting as a de facto national government, even though that is blatantly illegal.)
The turning point was the “progressive” movement, which then explains the true essence of being a progressive. Being a progressive means forgetting about all past laws and founding charters and simply getting progressives in power to do whatever they want.
That has been the operating system for “progressive” Liberals and Conservatives for decades.
So the question is: is Federalism worth conserving? If not, is there a way to create a legal nation rather than the illegal piracy that now operates?
Personally, I assume real federalism would still do a bunch of things I don’t approve of. But it would still be safer and saner than the outlaw usurper we have now–the United States as a singular noun.
I think maybe I should move my family there.
I’ve been recently asked what I think about the birth-certificate-related allegations that have been made regarding President Obama. Here’s my present take:
So I’m staying away. Frankly, it frightens me the way some “conservatives” are addressing this. The principle may be conservative but the results would be anything but. Don’t see any happy ending that can come from this.
I’ve mentioned, I think, certain cases where the “free market’s” alleged promise to reward the worthy has been lauded beyond reality. In my opinion it is a mistake to try to defend the free market against government interference (i.e. theft, fraud, kidnapping, threatening) in the name of the “fairness” of the outcomes in a free-market (which is really redundant anyway) situation.
Does this mean that it is OK for the government (or anyone else) to take from someone and give to others?
Of course, not.
Lets take a look at all the married couples who want children and divide them up between those who have children and those who don’t. Obviously, in very few cases is the difference due to a different ethical commitment. Lots of married couples have the children they want while a few others cannot get pregnant through no fault of their own (yeah I know their may be other kinds of married couples in an age of legalized abortion and dual-career families, but lets just take the case of the couples that always wanted and failed to conceive).
So we all acknowledge that those families with children are not to be credited with some greater moral effort than another group of families that are all childless.
Does this justify Obama using an executive order to draft a certain number of children from the families with the most and assigning them for adoption by the families without any children? (Of course, it would be an unconstitutional usurpation of powers, but that means nothing. At most the Supreme Court might flip a coin and decide that Congress has to approve).
Bottom line is that it doesn’t matter whether you deserve anything, whether eight children or none–the President should butt out of even addressing the situation. It is not up to him, the Congress, the army, or any number of opinion polls to settle “child-per-family-fairness.” The government can go to hell. Get away from our families.
We all know this is true and yet we act like other possessions are different. It is wrong to take babies away from families to give to childless couples, but it is OK to take the excess money some have to help families without money. Well, this won’t convince secular readers, but for God this is all the same issue:
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s (Exodus 20.17).
So we don’t need to pretend that the outcomes are the result of some infallible process (“hard work” “competition,” “survival of the fittest,” etc). It doesn’t matter (and none of that would be reliably true anyway). We don’t have to insist that anyone is more worthy than anyone else because of what he has (again, not true). We don’t have to dispute over the role of luck or inheritance or anything else (which is usually immense).
The ethics don’t depend on any of this: Hands off.
1. We need to give more attention to the biblical doctrine of the unity of the church, both spiritual and governmental. In the interest of Reformed Catholicism, we need to see the present denominational differences in the church as an aberration, an anomaly. New Testament church government makes no provision for denominations. When factional spirit begins to emerge in the early church, the New Testament identifies it as sin and describes it as worldly wisdom (1 Cor. 1:10-31, 3:1-4). The birth of new denominations is always the result of sin, either by those who leave, or those who stay, or (more likely) both. So why do we glorify our separateness from other Christians? We should be mourning it instead and seeking to reverse it.
But this will mean that we will have to look at other traditions far more positively, acknowledging and celebrating what is good in them, rather than always trying to tear them down. We must reject the pride that seeks always to make our own group look better than the others.
2. We need a clearer understanding of what theology is. Many, I think, regard theology as discovering something within the Bible, sometimes called a “system.” On this view, the challenge of theology is to see who can reproduce this system in the fullest detail. In our circles, many assume that Calvin and the Westminster Standards did it best; they got the system right. So our theology must be a reproduction of theirs. This concept of theology encourages, I think, the “golden age” view of things and the necessity of holding rigidly and in detail to past models.
Let me suggest instead that the work of theology is the work of application. It takes the Scriptures and uses them to answer our present questions and to meet present needs. This is Paul’s concept of doctrine: teaching that is sound (health-giving) (1 Tim. 1:10, 6:3, 2 Tim. 4:3, Tit. 1:9, 2:1). Thus, as Jones says, its focus is upon the present and future, not only the past. And so theology is bound to the mission of the church.
3. The PCA is a “confessional church,” as we are often told. We should, however, forthrightly ask the question whether this is a good thing. If it is, what role should a 350 year old confession have in a contemporary church? Is it plausible to suggest that we should treat the confession in effect as an infallible presentation of biblical doctrine? How then can we do justice to the immense amount of quality biblical scholarship and theological reflection that has taken place since that time? Does confessionalism itself lead to sectarianism? If not, how can a confessional church guard against sectarians who appeal to the confession as a “golden age” document? On these matters I am, for now, content to ask questions, rather than presuming to provide answers.
The cases of the Iraqi and Afghani soldiers and police who attack our soldiers – even though they are supposed to be on the same team – ought to allow us to speak openly and honestly about what an occupation is, what a puppet government is, and about the real physical, economic, moral and psychological effects of an occupation on the occupied.
Add to the mix the fact that the occupied peoples in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to be entirely disarmed. The touted “constitution” of Iraq, drafted largely in Washington and by Washington’s lackeys, has features similar to our own, but is specifically lacking any right of the people to bear arms. Similarly, Afghanistan’s 2004 constitution likewise contains no right for citizens to bear arms.
Like most laws, and like our own constitution, these too are dead letters. Iraqis and Afghans are armed – but by bearing arms they risk breaking the law, and are seen as wrongdoers rather than citizens.