Getting back to first principles
Only a united party will defeat the dems in 2008
By Alexham Posted in 2008 — Comments (15) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
In the January issue of First Things, Professor Robert P. George has an excellent piece, entitled "Law and Moral Purpose," that put things in proper perspective for me regarding the upcoming presidential election. It is not yet available online, so I thought I would share some excerpts with RedState's loyal readers:
(More below the fold)
[T]he general welfare--the common good--requires that government be limited. Government's responsibility is primary when the questions involve defending the nation from attack and subversion, protecting people from physical assaults and various other forms of depredation, and maintain public order. In other ways, however, its role is subsidiary: to support the work of families, religious communities, and other civil institutions of civil society that shoulder the primary burden of forming upright and decent citizens, caring for those in need, encouraging people to meet their responsibilities to one another while also discouraging them from harming themselves or others.
Governmental respect for individual freedom and the autonomy of nongovernmental spheres of authority is, then, a requirement of political morality. Government must not try to run people's lives or usurp the roles and responsibilities of families, religious beliefs, and other character-and-culture-forming authoritative communities. The usurpation of the just authority of families, religious communities, and other institutions is unjust in principle, often seriously so, and the record of big government in the twentieth century--even when it has not degenerated into vicious totalitarianism--shows that it does little good in the long run and frequently harms those it seeks to help.
Limited government is a key tenet of classic liberalism--the liberalism of people like Madison and Tocqueville--although today it is regarded as a conservative ideal. In any event, someone who believes in limited government need not embrace libertarianism. The strict libertarian position, it seems to me, goes much too far in depriving government of even its subsidiary role. It underestimates the importance of maintaining a reasonably healthy moral ecology, especially for the rearing of children, and it misses the legitimate role of government in supporting the nongovernmental institutions that shoulder the main burden of assisting those in need.
Still, libertarianism responds to certain truths about big government, especially in government's bureaucratic and managerial dimensions. Economic freedom cannot guarantee political liberty and the just autonomy of the institutions of civil society, but, in the absence of economic liberty, other honorable personal and institutional freedoms are rarely secure. Moreover, the concentration of economic power in the hands of the government is something every true friend of civil liberties should, by now, have learned to fear.
There is an even deeper truth--one going beyond economics--to which libertarianism responds: Law and government exist to protect human persons and secure their well being. It is not the other way round, as communist and other forms of collectivist ideology suppose. Individuals are not cogs in a social wheel. Stringent norms of political justice forbid persons to be treated as mere servants of instrumentalities of the state. These norms equally exclude the sacrificing of the dignity and rights of persons for the sake of some supposed "greater overall good" . . . .
For our commitment to limited government is itself the fruit of moral conviction--conviction ultimately founded on truths that our nation's founders proclaimed as self-evident: namely "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" . . . .
Man, is that good stuff or what? And, quite frankly, I needed to hear that. I am afraid that the dynamics of this election have pitted SoCons and FisCons against each other. This needs to stop. The truth is that SoCons and FisCons need one another as political allies, and, more importantly, we are natural allies, as Professor George so eloquently notes above.
Let us resolve anew, then, to air our differences is a charitable manner. SoCons need to realize that the institutions we cherish can only flourish within the confines of a society that embraces limited government and economic freedom. Likewise, champions of economic liberty should desire and support governmental measures that ensure the long-term viability of the traditional family unit and foster respect for the dignity of every life from conception until natural death. A society of broken families that abuses/neglects its most vulnerable members is not one that, in the long run, can sustain a thriving economy. In sum, we need each other; so let's start acting like we do, shall we?
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Getting back to first principles 15 Comments (0 topical, 15 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
There is one top tier Republican candidate who has been talking about First Principles all year, and that candidate is Fred Thompson. He's the only "big tent" candidate we have that has the conservative instincts and temperment- not merely just the right stances on issues- along with the credibility that comes with actually having a conservative voting record to back it up. Fred can reinvigorate the country's interest in and its reaffirmation of First Principles, and at the same time he can keep all of the respective coalitions within the Republican party together.
Whether there are enough adults in the party who can see the big picture remains to be seen.
If it's Rudy (which I am rooting for but don't see happening), principled SoCons will have the understandable urge to stay home. If it's Huck, for me it might as well be Hillary. While I understand and respect their views, I'm simply not a SoCon.
But the tent needs to be bigger than that -- as you point out.
Again, this is too foggy an argument for now. It will be had 1000 times after the nominee is chosen. Our job in the primaries is to pull the lever for the person who we best align with. The rest can be hashed out later.
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
And wanted to point out how incredibly wrong this comment was:
"Again, this is too foggy an argument for now. It will be had 1000 times after the nominee is chosen. Our job in the primaries is to pull the lever for the person who we best align with. The rest can be hashed out later."
Obviously, we now know that the best time to "hash out" these issues was DURING the primary process, and not after, when as so many have (correctly) asserted, we ought to support our candidate....
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Small is beautiful.
It's always good to be reminded of core principles. Robert George does an excellent job here and I look forward to reading the entire piece.
...(and I hate to use this occasion to candidate-bash), but it seems to me that Huck (your guy, not to put to fine a point on it) has lost his way with regard to these First Principles, and views government as an actor for defense and as a proactive (interfering) social force, rather than, as mentioned above, as an actor for defense and a supporter of society.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
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"I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Saint Thomas More.
Please tell me Robbie George didn't substitute the word tenant for tenet!
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"I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Saint Thomas More.
But I fear that both sides really want to pull the whole house down in order to recreate it in their image and box out the other side.
Sadly, the spectacle of The Pantsuit in the Oval Office again should be enough motivation. But it seems settling scores on our side prevails.
They that are with us are more than they that are against us.
I only hope that we all bear it in mind. Thank you for writing what you've written.
"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." --Friedrich Nietzsche
We shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that anything besides winning matters. Getting the man into office is the only principle we really DO care about. We may talk about morals and records and all that mess, but most of us will go with the guy who we think will eventually win.
I won't go back into it, but some of us remember the run-up to the 2000 election. At that time we were having these same discussions about who had the best values, blah blah. At the end of the day all that mattered to the Republican Party and to the majority of voters was electability.
Unfortunately, as a patriot, I can see that this lowest common denominator crap is ruining our great country. But, equally unfortunate, it is hard as HECK for a smart, honest man to get elected. So here we go again. The candidates will talk it out and duke it out among themselves until finally...wallah...the dumbest guy who's good at mouthing platitudes will be the candidate. And if he wins, we'll see the same say-one-thing-do another-thing that we've seen from Herr Bush and Co. (smaller government? no nation-building? what's that?). Hopefully you won't get caught backing the wrong horse in this race, but save your moral tests for Sunday morning gossip.
If you people really lived your values, you'd be volunteering to pay MORE taxes to support our troops in the anti-terrorist campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now how many of y'all have done that?
Indeed, James Madison was a Secularist in the best sense (of late that term has incorrectly been used in place of Athiest). The passage in Virginia of his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments served as the philosophical basis for the First Admendment.
A truly secular government is one that does not favor one religion over another, or belief over disbelief. Instead it recognizes the authority of churches and the self-determination of individuals. Government can only protect the Rights of individuals to practice what their belief (or disbelief) without interference. Thus individuals and private organizations have the right to bring their religion into the public square. What the government is prohibited from doing is regulating or enforcing the expression of citizens in the public square based religious preferences, or on a preference for belief or disbelief.
Madison explained why this was necessary in the Federalist Papers (#10):
To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression.
If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.
I track the Saudi-backed expansion of extremist Wahhabi Islam
http://wahaudi.blogspot.com
....this means we must unite behind a candidate that embodies BOTH social and fiscal conservatism.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”