It has been said that “only Nixon could have gone to China.”
In the spirit of that axiom: since I am a conservative who is also a Christian
(or a Christian who is also a conservative, depending on which perspective
raises your blood pressure more), I feel I might possess the credibility to
critique my brothers on the Right. And a critique is, I fear, necessary.
At first glance, you and I seem to be the same: we believe
in Jesus, we affirm the authority of the Bible, and we don’t trust Democrats
under any circumstance. And yet, every time you feel the need to express
yourself politically in the public sphere, I find your observations
cringeworthy. Why is this? Is it because I am a spineless RINO who doesn’t love
his country? Is it because I’m a closet atheist who finds your faith
distasteful? Not at all, friend. I am an unapologetic conservative who is not
afraid to proclaim the gospel of Christ with every breath I take. Rather, I
argue that you are not conservative—nor, for that matter, particularly
Christian. When you say idiotic things on social media like “we need a King
David” or “when will our country turn back to Jesus” or “vote for Mike
Huckabee,” you reveal an ignorance about the history of the United States that
is commensurate with the morons who lapped up the pro-Obama Kool-Aid that the
media was doling out in 2008 and 2012. Before you burn the Wheels-Off
Theologian in effigy, allow me to do something you NEVER do: walk you
rationally through my reasoning.
Reason #1: YOU ARE NOT CONSERVATIVE. The definition of the
term “conservative” is not up for subjective debate; in the general discourse
about political theory, it is the tendency to preserve the status quo of First
Principles. If you believe in preserving the status quo of First Principles,
you are a conservative. If you believe that those were wrong and should be
changed, you are a modern liberal. You and I both agree that the Democrat Party
(post-1972, anyhow) has largely bought into the fallacious and demonstrably
false narrative that America is a terrible place of institutionalized racism,
selfishness, greed, and genocide. This hysteria doesn’t deserve to be taken
seriously, although many in the media and on Facebook appear to believe that it
does. You and I, however, both know that America is an exceptional place that
was designed to be different from all others—and indeed is. But in what ways?
This is where you have bought into an equally false
historical narrative: that this was originally a Christian nation. Read my
lips, Dobsonite: this country was NOT set up to be a Christian nation. In fact,
the signers of the Declaration of Independence were largely Deist (which is
heretical—for those of you in Oklahoma, that means “not Christian”). Rather,
the Framers of our nation were intimately familiar with the dangers of a
governmental system built on one faction’s definition of “Christian;” that’s why
their ancestors fled to these shores to begin with. You might have to dig
deeper than your church’s voting guide, but if you do you’ll learn pretty
quickly that this was set up to be a pluralistic nation. That is, our system is
designed to guarantee the safety of any citizen, regardless of belief. That’s
why Americans are comfortable voting for a teetotaling agnostic racist like
Woodrow Wilson, or a (Protestant) Christian like Ronald Reagan, or a (Catholic)
Christian like John F. Kennedy, or a non-Christian like Mitt Romney. If this is
a “Christian” nation run by ANYONE other than Jesus Christ Himself, then we’re
all in trouble….because, as all Christians confess, we are fallen and broken,
and cannot fix ourselves. Ergo, we cannot be trusted with power. It is the
“progressive” who believes that we are basically ok and can be trusted to
figure it all out with a better bureaucracy. When you wish for a country whose
government mandates your faith, you are occupying the exact same asinine
position that progressives do—they just have a different religion.
The conservative understands this and doesn’t trust an
individual with much political power; First Principles dictate that power is
disbursed from the central to the disparate; our Framers didn’t want a strong central
government; that’s why they hamstrung this one with the 10th
Amendment (any power not specifically given to the feds goes AUTOMATICALLY to
the states—you know, like the privilege of issuing licenses of any sort). When
you pine for a “King David,” you demonstrate either ignorance of this First
Principle, or outright rejection of it. We don’t need a “King” ANYTHING. We
don’t believe in kings. We are the governing authority in a Republic; not some
Dude. If you’ll recall, this is what’s wrong with the Obama Administration: the
belief that it is above the law and can issue edicts (overturning Prop 8,
ignoring Arizona immigration law, weighing in on racially tinged news stories
before they have made their rounds through the legal system, leaning on the Supreme
Court to usurp legislative power). The only King Who will do a good job is the
King of Kings, when He returns to reign. Until then, utopianism of any hue only
results in tyranny—and the murder of the innocents.
If you were a conservative, you would argue forcefully and
consistently for a pluralistic society in which a Christian (and everyone else)
is free to exercise his choice of faith without political consequence. Like
you, I am uncomfortable seeing Kim Davis in jail (as opposed to being fired or
suspended)—but that’s not because she shares my religion. It’s because I am
conservative. The Framers would have been horrified to see this sorry episode,
because the notion of religious liberty exceptions has been codified into the
rule of law in this country since the very beginning. Leave it to Orwellian
“progressives” to re-cast such exception as “proselytizing” instead of
“exception.” Don’t line up with them.
And what of the issue of gay marriage? Like you, I am
opposed to the Supreme Court decision—but, again, not because of my religious
faith. Rather, I oppose it because I affirm First Principles—the right of the
people to be governed by the rule of law, which always has its genesis in the
legislative branch of the government. It’s the liberals who love the tyranny of
the judiciary (until you remind them that Dred Scott was also a majority
opinion—that got overturned by the people in an Amendment). I don’t like the
idea of 5 people in robes writing law for the rest of us. If their edict had
somehow been friendly to Christians, I would be just as vehemently opposed to
it. Where there is tyranny, life is devalued. And as a Christian, I must place
the highest possible value on human life. The Framers envisioned a country in
which the states could make such laws for themselves; if you are a
conservative, learn this and live by it.
Your failure to understand First Principles and vote
according to them is what makes you NOT conservative. In fact, you are more
accurately described as a “theocratic populist.” That’s worked out really well
for Iran, by the way. Stop taking the title “conservative” in vain…..until you
learn what one is.
REASON #2: IT IS POSSIBLE THAT YOU ARE NOT EVEN CHRISTIAN.
No, I’m not talking about the nebulous “concern for the poor”—only a moron
would fail to recognize that government paternalism hasn’t helped the poor, but
has further harmed it, stripped the poor of dignity, devalued their lives and
contributions, and been a cynical ploy to buy votes. If anyone really cared
about the poor, the FIRST thing they’d do is stop voting for Democrats. But the
ignorant cannot be swayed by evidence—mountains of which are readily available
to any interested party.
No sir, I’m referring to your poor anthropology. You
actually TRUST a Santorum or Huckabee to be different from the others? You
REALLY think that a believer in Christ can be trusted with political power more
than another? One of the oldest orthodox understandings of Christian
anthropology is the affirmation that man is born totally depraved and totally
unable to do anything about it (Augustine). Remember, it’s the
drum-circle-attending Commies who think we’re “born right the first time.” Why
do you suddenly change your mind when it comes to your political candidates?
When you are voting for your congressional candidates, do you imagine them
wielding great power for the cause of Christ? Or do you just roll into the
Presidential elections every four years and hope that a wave of Jesus-y feeling
sweeps the elections and we can be returned to greatness?
There is no doubt that God blessed our great nation. But one
thing that made our nation great was our Framers’ understanding that because
man CAN’T be trusted with centralized political power, any just government must
seek to mitigate the resulting damages caused by the wielding of power. That’s
why the over-arching value of our country was never “equality” (see: “French
Revolution” for how that turned out) but “liberty.” Our Constitution guarantees
the God-given liberties of individual citizens (or used to before the Supreme
Court changed its mind on that). The Christian understands that.
He also understands that “rights” aren’t defined as “stuff I
want.” Remember: that’s how Democrats think. Despite the careful, 12-year-long
process of our Founders to deliberately elucidate the specific rights of its
citizens, liberals are constantly feeling that anything they want this week
should be a “right.” This has led to a slippery slope in which the murder of
innocents is a “right” (Roe v. Wade, 1973), or the tenuous belief that a person
has a “right” to an education. Liberals didn’t learn the lessons of high school
civics class, but that’s no reason for Christians to join them in the Dunce
Corner.
If you are Christian, you should have a healthy mistrust of
humans holding political power. You should mistrust your government. You should
never EVER see it as your Provider or your Husband or Father or Helper. And you CERTAINLY shouldn't want to trust the government to be the visible hand in the arena of trade, which always results in instability and eventually tyranny (I'm looking at you, Huckabee). You
should see it as a necessary evil that has one job: to protect individuals from
each other. Stop claiming to be Christian while trusting some guy with too much
power. A real Christian is a real citizen….voting in off-year elections, caucusing,
being a good citizen. The definition is NOT “showing up every 4 years to post a
bunch of ignorant Facebook memes that fail to affirm proper Christian
anthropology.” Your "hero" is not a candidate but the Messiah. Conflating the two is what Democrats do (see: Election of 2008).
REASON #3: YOU ARE IGNORANT OF OUR SYSTEM. This goes
especially for you geniuses who pitch a big fit when your pet candidate doesn’t
get nominated in the primary—and you respond by staying home. As all election
observers and compilers of data now know, this is the primary reason President
Obama is not now “One-Term President Obama.” The conventional media wisdom is
that the country is now liberal—until they are faced with polling data that
shows that Americans are still overwhelmingly Center-Right (and not even in
close numbers). When the uber-squish Romney was nominated, many so-called
“Christian conservatives” just stayed home. Romney won the coveted
“independent” vote by a mile…..his statistical numbers of “conservative” voters
simply never materialized. There were less of them in 2012 than there were in
2008….despite the continued polling that suggests that they exist and are
angry. I’ll spell this out for those of you in Oklahoma: when “Christian” “Conservatives”
threw their little rebellion fit against the GOP in 2012, they became just as
responsible for unconstitutional executive orders, the continued funding of
Planned Parenthood, the sophomoric foreign policy that promises to get all of
us killed sooner or later, and the excesses of the Supreme Court. Don’t forget,
also, the current spectre of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell practically
wetting themselves over the possibility of presenting the currently lame-duck
President with any meaningful legislation…..if you had just showed up in 2012,
how would it all be different right now? Heck, if you’d showed up in 2008, our
housing values might have made a comeback by now. Your ignorance of our system
hurt us all—every bit as the whims of the anti-GMO-whining, Vespa-driving
Barack-tards.
Allow me to re-educate you on the system designed by our
Framers: you get two chances to make your voice heard—once in the primary with
your favorite candidate, and once more in the general election with the lesser
of two evils. This is how it’s DESIGNED, people. You don’t really change that
by staying home and pouting. All you really do is hurt your countrymen. There
are more of us than there are of the “progressives;” you hand them even more
power when you remain silent as a majority.
I know this is a lot to read, “Christian” “Conservatives.”
But a good citizen must be well-read (not like liberals). Thanks for plowing
through this. Now, remember: If you are a Christian and a conservative, you
must affirm the rule of law. We are governed not by the whims of the majority,
or the flavor-of-the-week issue that the media whips everyone into a frenzy
about. We are governed by the rule of law, people. And stuff that erodes that
is NOT conservative.
I don’t hold out much hope for my “progressive” friends to
understand much of this. It would require a complete rejection of the
ridiculous history revisionism they love (such as Zinn), as well as a challenge
to their belief that man is basically good and decent and just needs a little
more political power to rule intelligently. But I have hope for you, “Christian”
“Conservative.” You have a sense, however vague and ill-defined, that those
folks are wrong and are hurting our country. You’re absolutely right; they are.
But until you put down your Pat Robertson action figures and pick up a copy of
the Constitution and Federalist Papers and the Declaration, your theocratic
populism is ALSO hurting our country.
It’s liberals who base a political stance on their own utopian
view of the world, coupled with their over-weening confidence that man is
capable of achieving it. It’s liberals who formulate political opinions based on
emotions and a vague sense of “fairness,” as though we’re all in kindergarten
(which is where most of their history understanding originated). Conservatives
don’t do this…..so when YOU do, you need to understand that you’re not being “conservative.”
A good citizen needs to read these documents and learn from them and affirm
these First Principles in order to be a conservative. And a Christian SHOULD be
a good citizen.
Back away from that view of politics that seeks a savior in
a candidate. Back away from that knee-jerk reflex that only someone who shares
every aspect of your faith is adequate as a candidate. Back away from that
theocratic/populist view that a Jesus-y candidate will turn us all into a
Jesus-y nation. When you invest that much trust in a human being, and fail to
affirm First Principles, you betray true Christianity—AND conservatism.
Stop it.
