Blog
Pro-life Statists
May 19, 2010
I posted this yesterday at RedState:
From the diaries by Erick
A paragraph in today’s Politico article detailing Mark Souder’s resignation over his affair struck me as odd:
“A hard-line conservative, Souder recently survived a tough GOP primary in the Hoosier State, edging two opponents who held him under 50 percent. Souder’s Republican rivals criticized Souder over his support for the Troubled Asset Relief Program and Cash for Clunkers programs.”
I take exception to that description: no real conservative would have voted for TARP or Cash for Clunkers. The mistake made is the assumption that because someone is pro-life means he or she is a conservative. Someone who is pro-life, but votes to expand the state and state spending, is in fact not a conservative, but a pro-life statist.
As someone who is deeply pro-life, and became even more so when my daughter was born four months premature, I absolutely believe in the sanctity of life. But I have a problem with many elected officials who call themselves social conservatives, as though that were all that mattered, and then go and vote for more government and more government spending.
The bigger government becomes, the more invasive it becomes, the more it becomes the enemy of life and freedom. So these pro-life statists show a deep ignorance of government and freedom: the greatest freedom is economic freedom. I say that because if you are an economic ward of the state, you can neither be politically or religiously free. Exhibit A: China. The invasive state dictates how many children you may have, the free flow of information, and political freedom is not even worth really discussing.
I believe one of the reasons that we have gotten to this stage as a country, with the massive growth of government, is because some have thought only one or two social issues are all that matter, and willingly give a pass on pretty much everything else. To those people I would say enough, stop living under an illusion. You must become more comprehensive in your conservatism.
But just in case libertarians, or the “I’m only a fiscal conservative” crowd think they’re off the hook, think again. Our free society rests upon certain beliefs, like, “All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” To quote Clinton Rossiter, “. . . American democracy rests squarely on the assumption of a pious, honest, self-disciplined, moral people. For all its faults and falterings. . . American democracy has been and remains a highly moral adventure.”
Man has dignity because he is created in the image of God. Thus government should be limited in size and scope so that each man and woman can fulfill his or her potential. True limited government is based on self-government and self-discipline, which leads to self-actualization, all of which are ultimately based on higher law.
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Ned,
I believe you and I see the same problem. There is not one type of conservative, but I have identify 3 types. Each type has their own strength and weaknesses, and the must balance each other if we are to move forward. Social Conservatives while they are the heart of the Conservative movement and needed because of that, they are also the easiest led astray to supporting a Statists platform. I wrote about this issue a few days ago here. https://citizensroundtable.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-type-of-conservative-are-you-and.html
Ned,
Oh, where do I begin? Well, to start with, I’d like to say that, as a recent attendee of your (and Drew’s) Post Party Summits (in Charlotte), I am thrilled – let me say that again: THRILLED – that the Constitutional/TEA party movement is gaining such traction and support from people across the nation. The PPS venture was a superb endeavor, and I’d like to thank both of you, and everyone else involved who gave so freely of their time and resources, for that rewarding and valuable opportunity to learn the savvy techniques of modern political activism.
As to your post, I am impressed. You make a very astute observation about the nuances that separate actual conservatives from those who are so in name alone. Statists of all stripes be damned; there is no more free lunch for those who would leach off the hard-working people of this country, and being pro-life does not make one a true conservative by a long shot. You are right on when you say that we must begin to take a broader outlook, a more inclusive scope of what matters in the political arena today. So many things slip under the radar of so many people who are concerned about one or two issues at the expense of all others. The problem, in my opinion, is the absence of a coherent core philosophy that would, if it were attended to, guide us in these value judgments and choices.
And that brings me to my final point, which is this: what should constitute that core philosophy, and by what standards should we judge the many (and often mutually exclusive) contenders for that cherished title?
I detect – and forgive me if I make incorrect assumptions here about you personally but you spoke of your personal feelings in your post, so I feel like I am entitled to comment on those points as well as others – I detect that you come to the questions of government from a more or less traditional, Christian ethic that is deeply entwined with a strong entrepreneurial/capitalist/free market economic sentiment, and it is from these two personal wellsprings of conviction that all of your other conclusions, beliefs and assumptions follow. This would account for your deeply-held pro-life views, your Libertarian/Conservative notions about small government, fiscal responsibility, and civil liberties, your aversion to any part of the socialist welfare state, and I’m sure the list goes on.
I am not here to rattle sabers about faith; I have the deepest respect for all who wish to worship in their own way. Nor do I proselytize my own views in the hopes of winning converts or followers to my own spiritual intuitions. However, let us speak plainly here – respectfully, if you will – with the sole intent of getting closer to Truth.
You stated above that “Man has dignity because he is created in the image of God.” Let me say at the outset, so that you might not harbor any grossly inaccurate illusions about me, that I am not an atheist, nor agnostic even, in the usual sense; however, neither am I a Christian – in the usual sense. I have created a name for what I “believe” in regard to spiritual matters: I call myself a student of the Spinozian (after Baruch Spinoza) Pantheistic-Deist Church of Rational Uncertainty, and if you are baffled by the meaning of those terms I will be happy to elucidate at a later time. For now let it suffice to say, I believe in “God,” but not the Christian/Hebrew God (Yahweh); I also believe Jesus of Nazareth was a real living man – an extraordinarily great man, possessed of an unsurpassed moral compass, and a radical revolutionary in his own place and time, no less – but I do not hold that he was any more divine or supernatural than you or me. I arrived at these notions through many years of study in philosophy and theology (my major in college), history, and the sciences, and they have all been – and continue to be – tested against reason and evidence.
At this point, I’m sure I seem far removed from yourself in this light, but consider this fact: though I hail from this postmodern ‘nether-world’ of philosophical entanglements and heretical religious sentiment, and you are a native of that more traditional world of age-old Christian (I assume Protestant) theology and Modern period (17th-19th centuries), Enlightenment social & political philosophy… miraculously, we have arrived at nearly the same point of view on almost all of the most important matters of our contemporary situation, and moreover, we fight for the same cause: the restoration of our Constitutional Republic, economic freedom, and individual liberty. How could two men, from such divergent worlds, have come to stand as brothers-in-arms for the same cause? It’s a wonder to me, but a most wonderful wonder, no doubt, so I simply accept it with a gracious heart.
Why, then did I venture to write all of this to you? It has, very simply, to do with that line of yours I quoted above, about the source of human dignity. Fundamental to your entire belief structure is the notion that human dignity is bestowed at birth by God; hence our equal station vis-a-vis one another, and all that follows from that. I find it magnificent that our end-point could be so similar given that I believe something about the source of our dignity that is so vastly different from the view you hold. I have studied much philosophy in my years, and to the question of dignity I hold with Nietzsche, who, like myself, was profoundly influenced by Darwin’s theory of natural selection: man is not born with dignity; rather, he is born as all other animals are born: ignoble and base in his relationships with others. Unlike other animals, though, man is born with the capacity to attain dignity; his only means of doing so is to act upon his conscientious imperatives throughout his lifetime. Nietzsche, of course, declared the death of the Christian God, but in doing so he did not intend for nothing to replace it; what he hoped would transplant the Hebrew God and the Christian Trinity was man’s moral conscience, born up to an equal level of reverence and respect by the dawning realization that man’s own mind – and not religion – could be the only true savior of our species. His highest hope was that mankind would ‘evolve,’ if you will, into what he called the ‘Ubermenschen’ – a species that had discovered and cultivated chiefly, among other things, the capacity to synthesize moral contemplation and courageous action. Some people only think about what would be the right course of action, as armchair philosophers and academicians are wont to do, but lacking the courage to act upon the dictates of conscience, they do nothing; many others possess the brute courage to act (think Nazi Brownshirts), but their guidance in how and toward what ends they direct their action is not their own – they follow others and do the bidding of self-made masters. The Ubermensch, in contrast, is the self-possessed man whose action is courageous and bold, but, also, self-directed by the dictates of his own conscience and moral compass. Jesus, in my opinion, was such a man, as were Socrates and the Buddha, but in any age there have been precious few among us. Nietzsche himself declared that none had ever lived. All the same, it is, in my opinion, an ideal worth aspiring toward, and it is that aspiration that has brought me back to true Conservatism and this fight in which we find ourselves now engaged. Differences we shall no doubt have, but our common ground is our strength and our salvation.