Lessons in Liberalism
I was being a little facetious to say that there are no good, strict constructionist judges out there, and I certainly do not think that GWB conducted a good search. I think he "looked into her eyes," "saw into her soul," and decided she would be his pick. That's how Bush governs, by instinct, not by wonk.
With that explanation, however, I do believe that the rigors of reality, on the court and in government, necessarily "liberalize" otherwise theoretical convservatives. As JA notes in his post, this conservative president has delivered an astonishing array of liberal actions. I don't blame him, though. Acknowledging history and endless examples, as we progress as a nation we increasingly face issues and problems of incredible scope and complexity. Against these problems, in the current state of our life, the federal government is the only entity or organization with the capacity to address them well. (Oh, how I wish the Church lived up to its calling to aid the poor and weak as we should. As it stands we do not and cannot in any way comparable to our civic government.) FEMA has blown post-Katrina response, but these states (MY states by the way) are incompetent to do any more. I'm a realist, and reality demands the "liberalizing" of government and judges. The GOP is a party of ideas, but the ideas don't translate to actual government and judicial decisions. "Conservatism" has not been successfully realized by those that promote it, because real government and rigorous courts can't apply the ideas justly or well.
Like a good lawyer and adequate teacher, let me define my terms. I use "conservative" as it commonly refers to the idea that the national government should be "small," strictly limited in scope and jurisdiction, that the states should be the preeminent government and that governing authority should be decentralized and only as involved as is necessary to provide basic services. I do not mean, for now, the contemporary ideas of conservatism affecting personal morality and sex. I use "liberal" as the competing idea that government is capable of great good and should be empowered increasingly to address and affect many more aspects of life and society, that governmental power should be centralized and that the national government should be preeminent over the states.
My favorite president, at the moment, is Theodore Roosevelt. TR was McKinley's Republican VP but became president shortly when McKinley was assassinated. TR was "re-elected" overwhelmingly and declined to run again (for the moment) despite a near assurance that he would be re-elected. TR came to office with the support of corporate America, the robber barons, no less, who sought to preserve exceptionally limited government so that they could continue to manipulate and dominate the free market. TR became more and more troubled by the inherent abuse and immoral effect of unchecked corporate activity, and his policies reflected it. Eventually, he was the great "trust buster," greatly expanded federal power, imposed national parks on the states (and against the wishes of his base), and became a pure progressive. TR was a remarkable optimist and hoped that the federal government could effect singular good in the nation and that the nation could effect singular good throughout the world. He was a "nation builder" and aggressive in American and federal assertions. FDR learned his lessons and led the nation out of depression and through the cataclysm of World War II.
TR's example reflects the slow course of American history, away from vehement colonial/states rights and power under the Articles of Confederation to ever-increasing, inevitably expanding federal government to work greater good than anyone else can.
(These are continuing thoughts from my previous posts on the Separation of Kingdom and State, Part I and Part II. I have long sought critical comments on these posts and have not received them. Is my truth just irrefutable?)
With that explanation, however, I do believe that the rigors of reality, on the court and in government, necessarily "liberalize" otherwise theoretical convservatives. As JA notes in his post, this conservative president has delivered an astonishing array of liberal actions. I don't blame him, though. Acknowledging history and endless examples, as we progress as a nation we increasingly face issues and problems of incredible scope and complexity. Against these problems, in the current state of our life, the federal government is the only entity or organization with the capacity to address them well. (Oh, how I wish the Church lived up to its calling to aid the poor and weak as we should. As it stands we do not and cannot in any way comparable to our civic government.) FEMA has blown post-Katrina response, but these states (MY states by the way) are incompetent to do any more. I'm a realist, and reality demands the "liberalizing" of government and judges. The GOP is a party of ideas, but the ideas don't translate to actual government and judicial decisions. "Conservatism" has not been successfully realized by those that promote it, because real government and rigorous courts can't apply the ideas justly or well.
Like a good lawyer and adequate teacher, let me define my terms. I use "conservative" as it commonly refers to the idea that the national government should be "small," strictly limited in scope and jurisdiction, that the states should be the preeminent government and that governing authority should be decentralized and only as involved as is necessary to provide basic services. I do not mean, for now, the contemporary ideas of conservatism affecting personal morality and sex. I use "liberal" as the competing idea that government is capable of great good and should be empowered increasingly to address and affect many more aspects of life and society, that governmental power should be centralized and that the national government should be preeminent over the states.
My favorite president, at the moment, is Theodore Roosevelt. TR was McKinley's Republican VP but became president shortly when McKinley was assassinated. TR was "re-elected" overwhelmingly and declined to run again (for the moment) despite a near assurance that he would be re-elected. TR came to office with the support of corporate America, the robber barons, no less, who sought to preserve exceptionally limited government so that they could continue to manipulate and dominate the free market. TR became more and more troubled by the inherent abuse and immoral effect of unchecked corporate activity, and his policies reflected it. Eventually, he was the great "trust buster," greatly expanded federal power, imposed national parks on the states (and against the wishes of his base), and became a pure progressive. TR was a remarkable optimist and hoped that the federal government could effect singular good in the nation and that the nation could effect singular good throughout the world. He was a "nation builder" and aggressive in American and federal assertions. FDR learned his lessons and led the nation out of depression and through the cataclysm of World War II.
TR's example reflects the slow course of American history, away from vehement colonial/states rights and power under the Articles of Confederation to ever-increasing, inevitably expanding federal government to work greater good than anyone else can.
(These are continuing thoughts from my previous posts on the Separation of Kingdom and State, Part I and Part II. I have long sought critical comments on these posts and have not received them. Is my truth just irrefutable?)
posted by JRB at 1:36 PM
16 Comments:
Your truth is beautiful- and I am of like mind.
Enjoying your thoughts, and trying to come up with some of my own- Will let you know.
Other than the assertion that TR led the country through the cataclysm of WWII, your thoughts are pretty much irrefutable. One more outburst like this, counselor, and you will be held in contempt (of the RNC, anyway).
p.s. i wish my wife adored me like jduck adores you.
Thanks for checking in, Don, and do please double check to see if I did not write that Cousin Franklin didn't lead us through WWII.
She is awfully sweet isn't she?
yes, indeed, you did. you are now, officially, TOTALLY irrefutable.
I went back and re-read your part one due to your mention of it. Truly a wonderful piece of thought-provoking fodder for discussion. I plan on commenting on it when I have time, probably tomorrow. My wife is on her way to pick me up at this moment, and then off to soccer/choral concerts/garage sale preparation, and other stuff you have to look forward to when YOUR five kids get to be school-aged.
For now, I will give this brief aside: it has always amazed me to see the positions staked out by the parties, which seem to come full circle in the manner of Conservative to Liberal to Libertarian to Conservative again. Start at any point along the circle, it doesn't matter, it seems to come back around. Add to this the inconsistency on many items (for instance the desire to prohibit abortion in the name of "life" while at the same time being firmly in favor of the death penatly) by members of each party, and the labels get downright confusing. I think in most cases, politics comes down to the quest for power, whether individually or corporately, (just like church splits), and many times has not much to do with conviction.
The question you raise is deeper: how should we involve ourselves in that process, and what should we expect from it? Good question.
don
two thoughts on these pieces: the first has to do with part one (neat, huh?), and the second with part two.
1) in our quest to create a Christian nation, it is best to remember that Christianity is an individual pursuit, followed with like minded individuals for support, but individual, nonetheless. There will never be a Christian nation, IMO, because we will be judged individually. I know there are references to nations being judged in the Bible, but I believe these are to temporal judgement, exercised during this dispensation and only during it. I don't think our eternal reward nor our relationship with God is dependent on earthly citizenship, so our attempt to create the Kingdom through earthly pursuits is going to fall short. That point is obvious to everyone, I know, but some act as if it can be done, and it cannot.
2)your second post lists 12 items that sound like they should be included in scripture somewhere, they are so good! you da man!
additionally on part 2, the last paragraph sums up your point that we should vote like Jesus would. This still leaves it unclear in a couple of ways: 1) do you concentrate on individual morality or corporate morality, as stated in your first post, and 2) there is genuine disagreement on just how to help the underclass, the disenfranchised. Is this best accomplished through outright handouts, or through policies that encourage individual thrift, work ethic, etc. I believe that in the immediate, one method is preferred, but long term leads to disastrous habits formed for the subsequent generations, so which is better? This used to be the line of division between the two major parties, not so much anymore. However, it still does not say that someone voting for a candidate that chooses either direction is voting as Jesus would.
Arrrgh! I am frustrated. I wanted you to tell me how to vote.
don
Don -
Thanks for the thoughts. To begin again, you have pointed out some tensions in the system (that is, political life) that are eternal, and I'm growing more and more comfortable with the inability to draw bright lines, especially among moral, spiritual and political means and ends.
1) I don't know if the ideas you express are self-evident, although I agree that we are neither saved nor condemned by civic, collective citizenship. Perhaps this is a relatively new notion, though, considering that God seems to have treated Israel and her competitors collectively by affiliation. Still, I believe salvation and sanctification come individually through personal relationships with Jesus. He's pretty clearly interested in individual, personal relationships in the Word, not the redemption of institutions, like nation-states. So, yes, setting out to create a "Christian Nation" is not only the wrong game, it's bound to fail. Creating a nation of Christians, however, is a noble aspiration, but the tools and capacity lie in the unquantifiable (and uncomfortable and very difficult) economy of grace, love and reconcilation flowing from heart to heart, not Gallup polls and the electoral college.
2) Here's some more tension, though, because we also are called to live collectively in fellowship, with our congregations and our neighbors. Thus, even though we should live as individually moral, godly people, will that not necessarily translate into collective action, or at least collective motivation?
2a). Reasonable and faithful people will disagree. The journey, the motivation and the love of collective and individual behavior is more important to Jesus than actually creating the perfect policy. An individual's seeking heart, rightly motivated by love, may come up with another reason to vote in opposition to someone equally well motivated.
Yep. Leave it to the Lord to be complicated and unresolved.
2 (again and more):
Here perhaps is the most revolutionary thing we could say do a republican democracy. We should vote out of love for our neighbors. We should die to ourselves in all things, and our attitude should be like that of our Lord. Voting out of love for others, however, very likely and very often will mean voting against our own best interests, politically and economically.
Voting against our own interests will throw the system out of whack. Voting against our own interests is a supremely difficult discipline, especially since we do it virtually anonymously.
I do not mean that we should not vote in an effort to try to create the world as it should be. I do mean that we should consider voting with others in mind, especially those without our resources, power and comfort.
You talked about entitlement. Suppose a program was at issue that provided short term financial assistance, training and small business loans to inner city mothers, including day care for their children and grant funding to pay bills while they completed a technical training course, but suppose the program required a .5% increase on all property taxes in your neighborhood and a 100% increase in the cost of your license tag. In that bright line fable, what is the moral vote? How would Christ have us vote?
Jeff, here is another situation which is real, and which involves some real thought to come up with the way you should vote: affirmative action programs. Did God require Israel to treat the underpriveleged and the sojourner with special hospitality? Yes, He did. Have we, as a nation, had a history of mistreating a certain class of our own citizens based solely on genetics? Yes we have. Do we owe it to them to try to genuinely level the playing field by giving a disadvantage to the remainder of the population, those who have not historically been the brunt of the bigotry? I think we do.
I am in the minority of those who generally vote as I do when it comes to affirmative action programs. I have no problem with them, but feel they should have some terminus to the program, either in time or by objective achieved, but I don't have the foggiest as to what those ends should be.
I have heard this argued from many angles, including guilt of the fathers not being passed down to the sons (although those who like this argument rarely mention the EFFECTS of the actions of the fathers definitely still being felt!), the fact that not all blacks are even descendants of slaves, and the fact that two wrongs don't make a right, and from philosophical arguments made even by prominent black thinkers that the long-term effects are harmful to the very class they are set up to help.
Each of these viewpoints has some truth to it, but the practical effect of basing your decision on these is to continue the disadvantage suffered by those who are part of the aggrieved class, and do nothing to try to right the situation. This is an example, in my mind, at least, of an imperfect solution which is really the least harmful of all the possible options. The most harmful is to simply do nothing, and at least this is an attempt to correct the injustice.
Have I suffered from it? I don't know. I don't think so, but I don't know. More importantly, I don't care. If that's what it takes to try to love those who have been harmed by government's prior actions, then let's do it. I think this is how Jesus would vote, and what you have been saying as far as putting others ahead of your own interest, and I am proud that we have at least come up with something to attempt a fix.
I call myself a conservative, and in many ways I am, but I am finding more and more as I get older that no label really fits, or at least comfortably. I'm also finding more and more that I'm losing the interest I once had in politics in general, and it is being supplanted by more of a kingdom focus every day. For that, I am thankful.
JRB, I noticed on Elrod's blog you said you were from North Alabama. I am from Florence.....where pray tell are thou from? :)
DU
DU -
I was born in Huntsville and reared for short time in Madison. I consider myself a Mississippian, having lived here for the vast majority of my life. My parents and much of my extended family live in Athens, and my grandparents now live Hartselle. Athens is the family hometown, though. My mother went to UNA when it was Florence State, and my grandfather when to Heritage when it was IBC.
Good connections. I see now that you're in Searcy. Are in development with my friend Don Eu?
Your reliance on the "ever-increasing, inevitably expanding federal government to work greater good than anyone else can" is downright frightning and would be alien to Roosevelt himself. Concentration of power in the hands of the few(er) should give all thinking men pause. Federalism exists as a valuable check on this concentration of power.
If we measure success as "consistently and dramatically increasing every measure of standard of living," the most successful institution is not the U.S. Government, but the U.S. economy. The U.S. economy has been a greater good for the average American than all federal programs combined. Roosevelt (and the federal government in general) deserve credit where their policies helped preserve free markets and entreupenerial incentives. I agree that increasing globalization of markets has undoubtedly put more responsibility on the federal government to set and enforce rules in the realm of economics, and this arguably weakens federalism. However, I vehmently disagree that the federal government (or any government) is the ultimate vehicle for public good. Such a belief is socialist in character and dangerous despite its good intentions.
Neil -
Thanks for checking in. First, I'm not opposed to federalism and did not say I was. I'm also not necessarily opposed to socialism, and I don't think that they are mutually exclusive.
I also did not say that federalism is the "ultimate vehicle for public good." Aspirationally, that would be the Church and churches, if we were to live up to the vision of the One who charged us with changing the world.
As it stands now, institutionally, the federal government does have the capacity for great good, but it doesn't live up to its own promise. It has dramatically greater capacity for public good than the states, and always has. The states historically get in the way of right public progress and public well being. I do not trust or worship the federal government, but in a question of capacity, it wins over the flailing, floundering states.
I believe strongly and seriously in checks, balances, separation of power and even federalism, strictly understood. That is not the "federalism" of the Federalist Society, but more in line with the Federalists of the Federalist Papers who were more nationalist than federalist and had this very same debate in the '80s in Philly.
2L year was much nicer than 1L year, but nothing compares, nothing compares, nothing compares to living the 3L life, the calm before the career.
Don-
Affirmative Action is a great real-life example of this premise. I agree with all of the sentiments you express. One more thing, though, I do not believe that the successful Civil Rights Movement has given us a pass, and I don't believe that we're dealing here only with the "sins of our fathers." Equal protection under the law does not equate to equal protection in society for those who are minority, poor and underrepresented. We do not "owe" anyone anthing, but we are bound to make amends for injustice and inequality. Affirmative Action is not panacea for racism, but it must do, at least until the majority in power, economically, socially and politically, are filled with love and convicted for justice.
Go see Neil's interesting comments at the Separation of Kingdom and State Part II.
Dear JRB,
I have read your two part series and I am left with a deep respect for your erudition, your prose, and your tone. It is a pleasure to read the work of such a thoughtful, reflective mind.
I am wondering if it is indeed true that capitalism is inherently self-interested. I don't think it HAS to be; it is not necessarily so. Similarly, I don't think altruism is always self-less. Does that make sense?
When I buy a $6,000 shower curtain, I may feed quite a few children, or pay quite a few bills, in the homes and families of those who produced that shower curtain. In fact, I could, for instance, choose to work as a photographer, earn lots of cash selling images of doorknobs on fire, solely so I may purchase things, knowing full well that those purchases benefit countless people struggling to make ends meet. My sole enterprise might indeed be a "self-less self-interest", namely to help others succeed. But such self-interest is not necessarily what philosophers mean when they describe capitalism as inherently self-interested.
I realize, and I believe many Christians realize this, that ownership of a business is a form of social justice and ministry: it produces wealth and jobs for those who are hired. Supporting private business ownership through the consumption of goods has tremendous social benefits. I may oppose Halloween, for example, and I may choose not to spend money for candy, thinking I am helping reduce gratuitous consumption. But my choosing not to buy candy in order to be consistent with my conscience may result in someone losing his or her job or Christmas bonus. And as a business owner, I know the impact a dip in my market share has on my ability to pay more employees, to help them with mortgages and schooling and property taxes. I know what a loss of jobs does to the offering plate and tithing boxes in churches where unemployment is epidemic.
When Democrats in February called for a "Not One Dime Day", or whatever it was (you know, it was a protest of President Bush's $40 million inauguration party wherein no one was to spend any money all day), their protest might have sent a nice warm feeling through their consciences; but their self-imposed austerity hurt the earning power, and the charitable giving (and taxability) of countless people. Moreover, the President, spending $40 million (privately raised) in Washington, DC, surely helped the maids, doormen, taxi drivers, restauranteurs and myriad other folk who benefitted from that investment. Can you imagine the decline in revenue and services in DC had Bush NOT spent $40 million?
My point in all this is that capitalism need not be driven by self-interest. That it is driven by self-interest by many is true; just as socialism can be self-interestedly driven to appease the guilty consciences of those who support income redistribution. In fact, it might be accurate to say that self-interest is more endemic to socialism than capitalism. After all, was it not Marx who said "Each according to his ability, each according to his need?" Is that not a perfect platform for self-interest?
I know that your piece is far more than just a commentary on economics. I am in whole-hearted agreement that God is not in the business of creating a Christian nation, nor do I think it is necessarily in the interest of Christians to build one for themselves. After all, a successful Christian nation would immediately become an idol. But I can't see what option there is for a Christian when it comes to building a governmental structure of any kind. What, pray tell, is a Christian to do other than to glorify Christ in whatever he or she does, whether it be building a better shoe or a better judiciary? Is a Christian to only think about building a "Christian" kingdom of God, and a separate government for the earth, a sort of neutered version of the kingdom?
Of course, you speak to this sort of problem.
Just some hastily offered thoughts. You asked for comments, so it behooves me to give to those who ask. Of course, sometimes comments offered are a complete waste of time. I apologize if I have not been helpful. It is hard to know these things.
Peace to you,
BG
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