My Political Views, Part Three
This is a continuation of what started here and wandered some more over here. This post is just a few odd items I didn’t work in somewhere down below.
While doing my usual Saturday morning idle surfing of the Web, I ran across this explanation of American Classical Liberalism, by Lew Rockwell. It says a lot that I said down below, but in far more elegant language and better composed thoughts. Lew is a lot farther along the spectrum than I am in his belief in limited government, and his article tellingly makes no mention of police and courts, but its still good stuff. Maybe I am a Classical Liberal? We’ll see….
I really believe the most important struggle going on in America today is the misunderstanding of what government and society mean to each other. As I note below, government must be founded in the individual; society must be founded in the family. Many of our problems are in the disconnect between these two fundamentals. A society based on individuals is lost. It cannot transmit its values nor properly educate and train its young. Government cannot fill that gap, as it must continue to teach the primacy of the one. You get Big Brother, where the government is the society. Nor can government be based, as it once was in this country, on the family. You subordinate the females and adult children to the head of the household. This is anti-democratic.
But finding the balance is tough. This is where the Democratic Party is destroying America. In allowing itself to be dominated by identity-politics groups, which worship the individual, it is moving further and further into government as family, into replacing lost institutions and mechanisms of the family with government substitutes. This cannot work. We see this every day in modern America. Put brutally, no one can be paid or compelled to care as much about your family and children as you will.
Next, I guess the best label for me would be conservative, traditionalist libertarian. I’m conservative in the broad, root sense of the word, one who views change skeptically. I believe change must be for a reason, it must be an improvement you must show me the benefit of. Obviously, I would support ending segregation and gender discrmination, because they enable more Americans to exercise their fullest freedom and liberty. But I’m skeptical of government funded day care — it serves to undermine the need for family, it supports bad decisions. I’m not convinced of the social good of it.
I’m traditionalist in that I don’t see anything wrong with doing things the way they’ve always been done. This comes through the conservatism above, recognising that change can be good and needed. But I recognise the importance of ritual and formality. They are the structures which deepen and make more meaningful the rites of passage in our lives. Look at marriage. It used to be an enormous family and community ritual. The incredible fuss and formality made going through it something that was deeply impressed on you. You were standing before family, friends, community, church, priest and GOD swearing to something. It became hard to ignore later on when the luster wore off. Today, marriage is something you can knock off one day, something you can get out of very easily, and so something that means little. Look what it’s bought us. Tradition brings depth and meaning to our lives; a connectedness to what has come before that transmits through us to the future.
Libertarianism is the political philosophy I’m most close to. Combined with the above, it can often be confusing. I am frequently called a conservative Republican by those who think with their prejudices. I’m not. Democrats have sold their soul to a philosophy that will destroy our culture and society. Republicans have shown they can be just as mercenary as the stereotype, but also be hypocritical enough to do it with the government’s money — my money. I reject the arguments of Republicans and Democrats that voting Libertarian hands a “victory” to the other party. They are one and the same today. I vote for whom I want, not against whom I fear.
So, there you go. More, I’m sure, to come.
May 31st, 2005 at 12:54 pm
I like the way you start out, noting how government and society have different bases. But I’m no so sure I’d agree that “identity-politics groups…worship the individual.” Wouldn’t the exact opposite be true? That group politics causes government to view individuals not as individuals, but as members of a group, and even worse, ignores the rights of individuals in order to advance the cause of a given group?
I need to think on this some more. Good stuff.
May 31st, 2005 at 12:59 pm
You make a good point, Thibodeaux. I’ll also have to think on it.
June 1st, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Your take on marriage puzzles me. It seems as though you look at marriage how it “used to be” through some pretty seriously rose-colored glasses. What you saw on Leave It To Beaver never really existed. My alcoholic grandfather beating the crap out of my grandmother and her having no real way out, that’s how it used to be. But hey, that’s “tradition,” it’s the way we’ve always done it, so that must be good, right?
June 1st, 2005 at 6:36 pm
Unless, of course, you care deeply about issues such as the environment, abortion, church/state separation, education, “decency,” gun rights, taxation, etc.
To be blunt, saying Democrats and Republicans are “the same” is one of the most oft-repeated bits of asininity I hear these days, but I’ve not seen any evidence to support it. Unless, of course, you just mean the ultra-superficial “corrupted by money and power.” But the practical difference between Corrupt Politician A and Corrupt Politician B is dramatic. Unless you seriously think the country would be pretty much the same under President Gore or President Kerry as it is today.