Of "God's Standards" and Conservatism
By Rick Moran Posted in Archived — Comments (20) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Mike Huckabee has said some very strange things this campaign season - mostly to obscure his center-left record as a tax and spend populist while governor of Arkansas. But during his speech Monday night in front of his most fervent supporters in Michigan, Huckabee said something that revealed perhaps the true nature of his candidacy and what it means for America and his brand of "conservatism:"
"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
The Reverend Huckabee must be a privileged individual indeed to know the mind of God. I suppose it's all a matter of interpretation; some people might violently disagree with the good reverend about just what those "standards" of God might be. But since Reverend Huckabee has been given the grace to see the light and pronounce the one true list of standards God has set for us then I guess the debate is over and we can simply bow to his superior insights and extra special holiness.
Christian conservatives are fond of saying that their critics don't want freedom of religion but freedom from religion. In the grossest sense I suppose that's true. But those making that argument ignore the ramifications of what they are proposing when protesting that they only want to be able to practice their religion in the public square. If that's all there was too it, I doubt that too many Americans would be uneasy or even fearful. But then along comes Mike Huckabee talking about basically establishing God's kingdom here in America by amending our Constitution to reflect his idea of "God's standards" in moral behavior and even Christian evangelicals must look in askance at the Reverend's candidacy.
As a conservative, I stand on the side of tradition so that when headline seeking atheists and their buddies at the ACLU initiate some unnecessary court action to remove a creche that has been placed in front of some city hall for a hundred years or a cross that has stood atop a mountain for 80 years and has become the centerpiece of a Korean War memorial, I stand with the Christians in complete confidence that I am living up to my conservative ideals. But Huckabee's all too revealing utterance about exactly how he seeks to accomplish his idea of a "just moral order" should cause every conservative worth their stripes to denounce the candidate's words and deplore his candidacy.
The impulse that drives Huckabee and his supporters is not a conservative one. It is a statist impulse - a desire to use the power of the government to enforce arbitrary standards of moral behavior on the rest of us. It is taking the conservative dictum requiring a moral order for justice to thrive and twisting the concept to allow for one group to not only dictate morality but also impose their own, necessarily narrow view of justice.
For my lefty friends who may not be familiar with conservative philosophy, I can assure you that going all the way back to Locke and coming forward to the present, you will not find Mr. Huckabee's notion of state imposed religious standards for either personal behavior or law anywhere. It is, as Andy McCarthy of NRO puts rather mildly, anti-Democratic in the extreme:
Lisa, it's really infuriating if you've had the experience — as I have — of being portrayed at various panels as part of the "American Taliban" for defending the purportedly Islamophobic efforts to root out Muslim terrorists. Part of my usual response, as a demonstration of how nuts this accusation is, focuses on the Taliban, their imposition of sharia (i.e., God's law), and the marked contrast to our system's bedrock guarantee of freedom of conscience.
Huckabee is made to order for the Left: his rhetoric embodies their heretofore lunatic indictment that we're no better that what we're fighting against. Let's "amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards"? Who needs to spin when the script speaks for itself? Where has Huck been for the last seven years? Does he not get that our enemies — the people who want to end our way of life — believe they are simply imposing God's standards?
McCarthy's reference to a "bedrock guarantee of freedom of conscience" is, in fact, the essence of conservatism. Huckabee apparently rejects this basic freedom as not being up to "God's standards" and seeks to substitute a capricious slavishness to a single, dominant, narrow moral criterion that brooks no questions because it establishes itself from God.
As McCarthy points out, this is exactly the same thing our enemies wish to impose upon us and the rest of the world. Who cares if it comes from a devout Christian or a devout Muslim. The effect is the same.
The friction between genuine conservatives (even genuine social conservatives) and Huckabee and his acolytes is the story of this election. The Huckabites feel they are being put upon for their religious beliefs. Not hardly. In fact, most Christian conservatives are not supporting Mr. Huckabee. Where the fracture is occurring is in the Huckabites contention that their narrow, warped view of conservatism should dominate and rule the Republican party, that their issues should be given superior weight to other conservative issues.
Giving in to them would betray everything most of the conservative movement stands for. And giving them the leadership of the party would be a catastrophe for conservatism and for the country.
I would suggest those conservatives who prior to this had been taken in by Mr. Huckabee's easy smile and winning personality to think twice before voting for this charlatan.
What I want is freedom from Huckabee.
I'm amazed that his most fervent supporters refuse to see that he will set the SoCon cause back 35 years. You are absolutely right when you note that he is made to order for the left. Just wait until they manage to get their hands on tapes of his sermons and out-of-context statements start flying.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
On this issue Rev. Huckabee could truly unite the country. Every part of the political spectrum can find a reason to disagree with him.
The genius of those who wrote our Constitution was proven long ago, and continues to be proven as events unfold that the founders had no way to even comprehend during their time. In matters of government their standards are fine by me.
of Huckabee's statements and the beliefs of religious people, generally. It also displays a stunning ignorance of what "conservative" means. It makes me want to vote for Huckabee more. I'd respond to it in depth, but I have productive things to do tonight, which precludes spending my time responding to someone who is clearly beyond persuasion.
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The Red Sox Republican: Burkeanism, Baseball, and Sundries.
certainly I agree with McCarthy's point that a presidential candidate making a statement like this is just playing into the hands of all sorts of domestic adversaries and foreign enemies. It was a stupid thing to say.
That said, first of all, basically everyone in politics tries to conform the law to one extent or another to their vision of right and wrong. That doesn't mean that the federal government has to legislate individual freedom to do "wrong" out of existence, but it does mean that our decisions about individual rights and the common good are based on our embedded notions of right and wrong. Some people dress this up with talk of "fundamental rights" or "international standards" or "the general welfare" or "social justice" or whatnot, but it still comes down to saying this is right and that is wrong and we choose to side with what is right. Goes for all sorts of decisions: war/peace, social safety net, death penalty, abortion, child labor laws, workplace safety, slavery, discrimination, yada yada yada.
Everybody who makes those decisions has to rely at the end of things, after digesting all the relevant information, on their individual informed conscience. And religious people are naturally going to rest that conscience in significant part on what they believe to be the standards of right and wrong that come from the revealed Word of God.
Does Huck know the mind of the Lord? No. But he knows what he believes to be the Word of the Lord, and as a Christian has an obligation to try to conform his behavior and his conscience to that Word. For a Christian it's no answer to say "I don't really know what 'Thou shalt not kill' was intended to mean in all situations so I will declare myself too humble to apply it in any situation." The obligation is there to figure it out as best we fallible humans can. And, in government, to apply that informed conscience to the myriad moral decisions that anyone in a position of public authority faces.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
See yourself in there, did ya? I was actually giving Huckabee the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't some kind of power hungry megalomaniac.
Those who would use the government to stuff their own concept of morality down everyone else's throat by advocating a constitutional amendment on anything are not conservatives. Read Hayek. Try Russell Kirk. Or Shapiro. Even Weaver's southern traditionalism is more tolerant than Huckabee's brand of conservatism.
But most of all, read Locke's letters on religious tolerance.
But hey! Don't ask me. I don't know anything about conservatism.
I say this because I know and respect your work around here enough to know you know better:
1. "Reply to this" if you are responding to someone in particular.
2. "I hit a nerve" is a failure to respond to criticisms, not a response.
3. Do not assume that your critics are uninformed or have not previously considered your points.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
If you read Kirk or Hayek to suggest that it's unconservative for religion to inform a person's political preferences, then I daresay you know little about reading, either.
You're correct that you hit a nerve, but it's actually because I'm tired of the modern insurgency of intellectual peasants who are fond of claiming (as you do) that disdain for the religious and their beliefs is a "conservative" impulse. My religious beliefs will prevent me from answering you in the fashion I should like, and I suppose it's best for all concerned that I live in a manner that summarily ignores the tenets you have espoused in this ludicrous post.
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The Red Sox Republican: Burkeanism, Baseball, and Sundries.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
www.fred08.com
I believe can definitely know God's mind on many issues -- it's in the Bible.
Huckabee favors amendments to the Constitution that would (1) establish in law the inviolability of unborn life and (2) establish in law the heterosexual character of marriage. He used an admittedly unfortunately turn of phrase to make this argument, but even the MSNBC write-up took pains to emphasize the context for his remarks, a courtesy you fail to extend here.
Instead, we are treated to a hysterical and asinine polemic accusing Huckabee of a desire to overthrow the freedom of conscience and (the old chestnut) impose his morality on the rest of us. More than that, he stands under indictment for aiming at "exactly the same thing our enemies wish to impose upon us and the rest of the world. Who cares if it comes from a devout Christian or a devout Muslim. The effect is the same."
As Dan notes above you cannot escape the "imposition" of morality in politics. Even the principle of liberty of conscience is an emphatically moral principle, which we have "imposed" through law. Indeed, what follows "we hold these truths" in the Declaration of Independence is one of the more eloquent statements of what comprise "God's standards" in the history of political theory. And they are not even argued, but rather declared self-evident. Jefferson (America's foremost student of Locke) did indeed make a claim to know some aspect of the mind of the Creator. Most Christian philosophy holds that, given a properly-formed conscience, reason may certainly grant men some knowledge of the mind of God.
Whatever the "essence of conservatism" is, it is not Liberal theory of strict, pristine religious and moral neutrality in the formation of positive law. Nor is there any tradition in American Conservatism of confusing freedom of conscience with established agnosticism. On the contrary, there is a rich literature arguing that freedom of conscience can only be understood in light of the Christian tradition; that, in short, the individual conscience must be free from imposition precisely because it is an aspect of the individual immortal soul of a human being, endowed by the Creator with inalienable dignity.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
When people use the language of the left to take down Republican candidates, you really have to question the source of the comment.
Of course, Huckabee and McCain are the Republicans must likely to use the language of the left to criticize Republicans.
I am by no means a Huckabee supporter, and this does not change that one bit. However, comparing Huckabee to a dictator or totalitarian ruler is totally irrational and inaccurate. The very fact that he wants a Constitutional amendment shows that. He is willing to follow the appropriate legal and Constitutional procedures that we all support. If his position is that unpopular, it will not become law.
Huckabee and those listening to him, if they have graduated high school, know what is required for Constitutional amendments. He plays no role whatsoever in a Constitutional amendment. It's not as though he is trying to impose his own views on anyone because his proposal would require a deep and wide consensus. Do people not understand that? If he were promising an executive order or something he could do unilaterally, it would be a different story. In my opinion, it is no different from his saying he would like to be able to defy gravity and fly or build a time machine.
The need for the government to protect human life is not, nor should it be, linked to religion or faith. It never has made sense to me why it so often is. I cannot see why atheists, and agnostics, and people of other faiths who want murder of the born illegal cannot be equally supportive of the position. It simply makes no sense when biology clearly and unarguably defines the beginning of human life, and it is very plain to see. Any arguments for protection of that life at a later point would have to be based on religious or arbitrarily made-up ideas; they would also be inconsistent and illogical. It would seem to me that the pro-life position should actually be more popular among nonbelievers who claim to value "science" than among believers who seek to use the concept of a "soul" or "spirit." Then again, when you've got the same people using "science" to ban light bulbs and flush toilets to "save the planet" (and what really is only potential life), "science" takes on a whole new meaning.
I do not like that Huckabee has made this seem religious, and I think that could hurt the pro-life cause. The logical and biological arguments should not merely be seen as afterthoughts or "covers" for a religious position.
But the people did not. Obviously though, it becomes a different matter when someone attempts to lie and cheat their way into making such changes. If you believe that is what Huckabee would do, then I think dishonesty (or a fear of some national revolution) should be your focus of opposition; and you should have a basis to think he would subvert the system like that besides wanting a Constitutional amendment most people would oppose.
If you read Kirk or Hayek to suggest that it's unconservative for religion to inform a person's political preferences, then I daresay you know little about reading, either.
Individual political preferences are not mentioned in the post. I could care less what any one person believes. But Huckabee is explicitly invoking his brand of Christianity and is attempting to graft it on to the Constitution.
If you can's see the difference, then you are blinded by your own prejudice.
This is not a question of personal religious beliefs animating one's politics. Please quote the post where I say that. You can't because it's not there. It is one group trying to impose moral sanctions on the rest of us - period.
It is one group trying to impose moral sanctions on the rest of us - period.
Way to describe democracy. Hell, any system of all that includes any criminal or civil punishment whatsoever. One group imposes moral sanctions on me if I kill or steal, or (depending on your society) if I pollute the environment, or whatever. It's telling that you only have this kind of hysterical response when the basis for political motivation is religious belief - as opposed to, say, belief in the free market. So while I can't find anywhere that you say those words exactly, that's the point of your whole post.
But Huckabee is explicitly invoking his brand of Christianity and is attempting to graft it on to the Constitution.
If you can's see the difference, then you are blinded by your own prejudice.
If you can't see that this is the normal operation of politics in a democratic society, you are blinded by your prejudice against the deeply religious.
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The Red Sox Republican: Burkeanism, Baseball, and Sundries.
How is he "attempting" to put ANYTHING in the Constitution? By merely wishing it were so? And as I said above, the amendments he specifies are not an invocation of Christianity.
And as mentioned above, every law we have is one group trying to impose moral sanctions on the rest of us.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
www.fred08.com
....however, Huckabee saying things like he "wants to amend the constitution to fit God's law" is NOT the way to advance the pro-life & pro-family cause. That will not win any converts over to our side and it will only rally the opposition against us.
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